Reform communist journalist executed alongside Imre Nagy
In the inaugural issue of Magyar Szabadság he wrote: 'Only this way can we build a free, independent, democratic Hungary.'
A Hungarian journalist of Jewish background, born in Budapest, who joined the illegal communist movement during the war and after 1945 became a writer for the party daily Szabad Nép, initially a loyal polemicist for the Rákosi regime. Shaken by the Slánský trial and the doctors' plot in Moscow, he broke with the party line, demanding László Rajk's rehabilitation in 1955 and was expelled. During the 1956 Revolution he was the most radical figure in Imre Nagy's inner circle, founding the newspaper Magyar Szabadság; after the Soviet intervention he refused to accept the Kádár government, led an underground press and the Hungarian Democratic Independence Movement, and was arrested, tried as third defendant in the Nagy trial, and hanged with Nagy and Pál Maléter on 16 June 1958. Rehabilitated in 1989, he was solemnly reburied alongside his fellow martyrs.
Career Timeline
- 1942Joined illegal communist movement; called up for labor service
- 1944Escaped labor service, joined Yugoslav partisans
- 1945–1954Journalist, Szabad Nép
- 1954Correspondent in Zurich, Vienna, Paris
- 1955Expelled from MDP for demanding Rajk's rehabilitation; translator at Corvina
- 1956 summerReadmitted to MDP; joined Nagy's inner circle
- Oct–Nov 1956Founded and edited Magyar Szabadság
- Nov–Dec 1956Founded Hungarian Democratic Independence Movement, underground paper; arrested 5 Dec