Defender of the Dual Monarchy who was Hungary’s wartime prime minister and was killed by soldiers on the day of the Aster Revolution
The son of Kálmán Tisza, prime minister from 1875 to 1890, he grew up in a Calvinist family of untitled lower nobility and studied in Budapest, Heidelberg and Berlin. He entered parliament for the Liberal Party in 1886, was prime minister of Hungary twice, in 1903–1905 and 1913–1917, and Speaker of the House in 1912–1913. The most zealous adherent of the Dual Monarchy with Austria, he opposed universal suffrage and the break-up of the great estates. In July 1914 he alone at first opposed war with Serbia, but in the end supported it. Asked to resign by the reforming King Charles, he stepped down in May 1917. On 31 October 1918, during the Aster Revolution, he was killed by soldiers who broke into his home in Budapest.
Career timeline
- 1886Liberal Party member of parliament
- 1903–1905Prime minister of Hungary
- 1910Founded the National Party of Work
- 1912–1913Speaker of the House of Representatives
- 1913–1917Prime minister of Hungary
Last prime minister of the Hungarian People’s Republic, who resigned with his cabinet over the Vix note
A lawyer from a Calvinist family in Komárom County, he headed the international department of the Ministry of Justice until 1918 and was a founding member of the social-science review Huszadik Század. After the Aster Revolution he was justice minister in the Károlyi government from November 1918 and became prime minister in January 1919. When the French Lieutenant Colonel Fernand Vix handed him the Entente note on 20 March, he resigned with his cabinet rather than accept terms that violated the country’s territorial integrity, opening the way to the Soviet Republic. He then withdrew from politics, worked as a lawyer from 1920 and published studies in international, criminal and private law. He died of a heart attack in Budapest in 1944.
Career timeline
- –1918Head of the international department of the Ministry of Justice
- 1918–1919Justice minister in the Károlyi government
- 1919Prime minister of Hungary
- 1920–Lawyer
Conservative aristocrat who set up the counter-revolutionary government in Szeged in 1919 and was prime minister of Hungary in 1931–1932
Born into an old aristocratic family in Nyírbakta, he was a first cousin of Mihály Károlyi. He entered the House of Magnates and was ispán of Arad County from 1906 to 1910. In May 1919 he formed a counter-revolutionary government against the Soviet Republic in Arad but was interned by the Romanians; after his release he reorganised it on 30 May in French-occupied Szeged, asking Miklós Horthy to set up the National Army as war minister, and the two became lifelong friends. After serving as foreign minister in Bethlen’s government in 1930–1931 he became prime minister in August 1931, and after the Biatorbágy viaduct bombing he imposed martial law and imprisoned Communists. He resigned in September 1932, and in 1939 he gave up all his posts in protest against the second Jewish law. He died in Budapest in 1947.
Career timeline
- 1906–1910Ispán of Arad County
- 1919Prime minister of the counter-revolutionary government in Arad and Szeged
- 1930–1931Foreign minister in the Bethlen government
- 1931–1932Prime minister of Hungary
Printer and Social Democratic leader who headed the six-day “trade-union government” after the fall of the Soviet Republic
Born in Ravazd in Győr County, the son of a butcher, he became a typesetter, led the printers’ union and the consumer co-operative movement, and joined the Social Democratic leadership in 1909. He was labour and welfare minister in the Berinkey government in 1919 and resigned his party posts in opposition to the merger with the Communists and the proclamation of the dictatorship of the proletariat. When the council government resigned on 1 August 1919 he became prime minister, abolished the Soviet Republic and revoked its decrees, but on 6 August he was ousted by István Friedrich with Romanian backing. He then helped rebuild the Social Democratic Party and sat in parliament from 1922 to 1931.
Career timeline
- 1900–1918Editor of the printers’ weekly Typographia
- 1909Social Democratic Party leadership
- 1919Labour and welfare minister in the Berinkey government
- 1919Prime minister of the “trade-union government”
- 1922–1931Member of parliament
Liberal aristocrat who came to power in the Aster Revolution and was president of the First Hungarian Republic
Born into an extremely wealthy Catholic aristocratic family, he led the small anti-war faction in parliament that demanded an immediate peace during the First World War. The Aster Revolution of October 1918 made him prime minister; when the People’s Republic was proclaimed on 16 November he also became provisional head of state, and in January 1919 he was recognised as president. As an example for land reform he gave his family estates to his tenants. After his government fell over the Vix note in March 1919 the Soviet Republic was proclaimed, and in July he went into exile. He returned in 1946 and was ambassador to France from 1947 to 1949, resigning in protest at the Rajk trial, and died in Vence, France, in 1955.
Career timeline
- 1910Member of parliament for the Party of Independence
- 1918Formed the Hungarian National Council; prime minister after the Aster Revolution
- 1918–1919Provisional head of state and president of the People’s Republic
- 1919–1946Exile in France and Britain
- 1947–1949Hungarian ambassador to France
Bricklayer turned Social Democrat who chaired the Revolutionary Governing Council of the Hungarian Soviet Republic
Raised in a Protestant family in Kiskunhalas, he worked as a bricklayer, joined the labour movement and in 1901 the Social Democratic Party, and led the building workers’ union and the Workers’ Insurance Fund. He backed the merger of the Social Democrats and Communists on 21 March 1919 and, as chairman of the Revolutionary Governing Council, became the Soviet Republic’s formal head of state and prime minister, though real power lay with Béla Kun. After the fall he was education minister in the Peidl government; captured by the Romanian army, he escaped from Cluj and lived in exile in Bratislava, Vienna and Paris. Refused permission to return after the war, he died in Paris in 1947.
Career timeline
- 1901Joined the Social Democratic Party
- 1903Chairman of the National Federation of Building Workers
- 1908Chairman of the Workers’ Insurance Fund
- 1919Chairman of the Revolutionary Governing Council
- 1919Education minister in the Peidl government
- 1920–1947Exile in Bratislava, Vienna and Paris
Factory owner who was prime minister of Hungary for three months after the August 1919 coup against the Peidl government
Born into a pharmacist’s family of German origin in Malacka (now Malacky, Slovakia), he studied engineering, worked for AEG in Berlin and then ran his own machinery works outside Budapest. He joined Mihály Károlyi’s Independence Party in 1912 and became one of his closest friends; after the Aster Revolution he was state secretary for war, but he drifted to the right and was dismissed in February 1919. Arrested under the Soviet Republic and sentenced to death, he had the sentence commuted and escaped. In August 1919 he joined the right-wing White House Comrades’ Association in ousting the Peidl government; on 7 August he was named prime minister, with Archduke Joseph August as regent, and held office until 24 November. Arrested by Rákosi’s regime in 1951 and sentenced to fifteen years, he died the same year; he was rehabilitated in 1990.
Career timeline
- 1904Played for the Hungarian national football team
- 1912Joined the Independence Party
- 1918–1919State secretary for war in the Károlyi government
- 1919Prime minister of Hungary
- 1919–1920Minister of defence
- 1920–1939Member of parliament
Arrow Cross leader installed by Germany as 'Leader of the Nation' in 1944
Born a soldier's son in Kassa (now Košice), he served as an officer in the First World War and joined the General Staff in 1925. In the early 1930s he turned to politics as a prophet of 'Hungarism' and the restoration of pre-Trianon borders, left the army in 1935 and founded the Hungarian National Socialist Party in 1937. While imprisoned in 1938 he was proclaimed leader of the Arrow Cross Party, which won 30 seats in the 1939 election. When Germany removed Horthy in October 1944 he became head of state, restarted the deportation of Jews that Horthy had halted, and his militias massacred Jews in Budapest. Captured by American troops in Austria in May 1945, he was sentenced to death by the People's Tribunal and hanged in March 1946.
Career timeline
- 1915–1918Austro-Hungarian Army officer in the First World War
- 1925–1935Hungarian General Staff officer
- 1937Founded the Hungarian National Socialist Party
- 1938–1940Imprisoned; proclaimed Arrow Cross leader; amnestied 1940
- 1944–1945'Leader of the Nation', head of the Government of National Unity
- 1946Sentenced to death by the People's Tribunal and executed
Architect of 'goulash communism', enforcer of the 1956 reprisals
"Whoever is not against us is with us" (1961)
Born illegitimate in Fiume (now Rijeka), registered in Italian as Giovanni Giuseppe Czermanek, and took his mother Borbála Csermanek's surname. He began a typewriter-mechanic apprenticeship in 1927 and qualified as a journeyman in 1929. Joining the illegal KIMSZ and party in 1931, he did underground work and served prison terms. As Interior Minister (1948–50) he backed the Stalinist line and was involved in László Rajk's purge; arrested in 1951, sentenced to life in 1952 and released in 1954. First Secretary from 25 October 1956, he crossed to the Soviet side on 1 November, accepted the intervention, proclaimed a new government at Szolnok on the 4th and approved Imre Nagy's execution; hundreds were executed and tens of thousands imprisoned. In 1961 he launched 'whoever is not against us is with us', opening amnesty and reform. He resigned in 1988 and died in Budapest in 1989.
Career timeline
- 1931Joined illegal KPV and Communist youth league; underground work
- 1933–1934Arrested, two-year term; met Rákosi in Szeged maximum-security prison
- 1942–1944KPV CC member and secretary; co-founded antifascist Hungarian Front
- 1948–1950Interior Minister — involved in Rajk's arrest; later demoted
- 1951–1954Arrested as 'Titoist,' life sentence; freed July 1954
- 1956.10–11Minister in Nagy cabinet → negotiated with USSR, formed new government
- 1956–1988MSZMP General Secretary — de facto leader of Hungary for 32 years
- 1956–1958Prime Minister
- 1961–1965Prime Minister — reform, amnesty, 'goulash communism'
A party leader who pushed market reform within socialism
In the 1989 Moscow talks, he defined the party’s aim as “democratic socialism, self-government, parliamentary democracy, and economic democracy.”
Rezső Nyers was a Hungarian economist and socialist-bloc reform politician who sought to combine social control with greater efficiency by reshaping the planned economy. After leading the 1968 New Economic Mechanism, he lost influence as orthodox forces halted the reforms, but returned to the center of politics during the transition of 1989. Elected chairman of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party in June 1989, he led its four-member collective presidency and became the founding chairman of the Hungarian Socialist Party in October. His career captures the tension of trying to democratize socialism and introduce market mechanisms as the ruling party dissolved into a multiparty order.
Career timeline
- 1940Joined the Social Democratic Party of Hungary
- 1956Minister of Food Industry
- 1960–1962Minister of Finance
- 1968Architect of the New Economic Mechanism reform
- 1974–1981Director and later scientific adviser, Institute of Economics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
- 1987–1988Chairman of the parliamentary Reform Committee; Minister of State
- 1989Chairman of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party; founding chairman of the Hungarian Socialist Party
