People of the Revolution and the USSR

Hungary state institutions Communism 1873–1943 ○ Natural causes

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.

Hungary state institutions Communism 1879–1947 ○ Natural causes

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.

Party of Communists in Hungary (KMP) Communism 1886–1938 ✕ Executed

133 days of the second Soviet state in Europe, and the execution cellar 19 years later

“The Hungarian proletariat betrayed not their leaders but itself.” — last speech before the Republic's fall, 1 August 1919

A Transylvanian-born Jewish journalist turned revolutionary, Béla Kun founded and led the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919, Europe's second proletarian dictatorship. In 133 days he nationalised industry, but his refusal to distribute confiscated land to peasants, turning estates into state farms, lost the countryside; Entente-backed armies crushed the Republic. In Soviet exile he became a key Comintern figure, ECCI Presidium member and head of Agitprop, backing the ultra-left "Third Period" and resisting the 1935 Popular Front turn, clashing with Dimitrov. Swept up in the Great Purge in 1937, tortured, shot in 1938, and posthumously rehabilitated in 1955.

Hungary state institutions Communism 1886–1967 ○ Died

Hungarian communist who backed Soviet intervention with Kádár in 1956 and became prime minister after the revolution was crushed

Born into a German Catholic family in Seregélyes, he studied law and was taken prisoner on the Eastern Front in 1915 and sent to Tomsk. There he joined the Bolsheviks and commanded an international POW unit; back in Hungary in 1918 he helped found the Hungarian Communist Party and was war commissar of the Slovak Soviet Republic. He lived in the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1936 and, under the name Otto Flatter, commanded the XI International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. After the war he was Budapest’s chief of police and then a diplomat. In the 1956 revolution he was interior minister under Imre Nagy, but in November he went to Moscow with János Kádár and openly backed Soviet armed intervention. As minister of the armed forces and public security in Kádár’s government he helped organise the security regiments and the Workers’ Militia, and he was prime minister from 1958 to 1961.

Party of Communists in Hungary (KMP) Communism 1892–1971 ○ Died

Architect of Hungary's Sovietization who built one-party rule through 'salami tactics'

Released on 30 October 1940 and reaching Moscow on 6 November, Rákosi stood beside Stalin atop Lenin's Mausoleum the next day as the October Revolution Day parade crossed Red Square.

General secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party (1945–1948) and then general secretary, later first secretary, of the Hungarian Working People's Party (1948–1956), he ruled Hungary as its de facto leader from 1948 to 1956. Arrested in 1925, he received an 8.5-year sentence in 1926 and a life term in 1935, serving over fifteen years in prison before reaching Moscow in November 1940. After returning in 1945 he dismantled the democratic parties through 'salami tactics' and forced the Social Democrats into a merger to build one-party rule, bearing responsibility for mass imprisonment, forced-labour camps and the Rajk show trial. He handed the premiership to Imre Nagy in 1953 yet obstructed reform as first secretary, was removed on 18 July 1956, expelled from the party in 1962, and died in Gorky on 5 February 1971 after deportation to Krasnodar, Tokmak and Arzamas.

Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP) Communism 1898–1959 ○ Heart disease

Overseer of culture in the Rákosi era

In June 1953, Soviet leaders criticized Rákosi’s concentration of power and discussed a reorganization of Hungary’s leadership. Révai was not invited to the Moscow talks and was dropped from the party Political Committee that month.

Born into a Jewish middle-class family, he was a founder of the Hungarian Communist Party in 1918, lived in the Soviet Union in 1934–44 and edited the party daily Szabad Nép in 1945–50. From 1948 to 1953 he controlled all aspects of Hungarian cultural life, and from 1949 he was also minister of culture. Pushed into the background by Rákosi from 1952, he was not invited to the Kremlin talks of June 1953, where Molotov mocked him as "everything rolled into one" in ideology. He left the Political Committee in 1953 and briefly returned in 1956.

Hungary state institutions Communism 1898–1968 ○ Natural causes

Smallholder turned titular head of state

In June 1953, Soviet leaders included Dobi, who held little real power, in Hungary’s delegation. János Rainer suggests the invitation may have reflected a misunderstanding of his office or Smallholder past, or a wish to give the talks an official, interstate character.

Born to a poor peasant family in Szőny, he finished only six years of primary school and worked as a day labourer. He supported the 1919 Soviet Republic and was active in the agricultural workers' movement. A left-wing Smallholder leader who sided with the communists, he was prime minister in 1948–52 and, as chairman of the Presidential Council in 1952–67, titular head of state. He was invited to the Kremlin talks of June 1953, which Rainer attributes to a Soviet misreading of his real power or his standing among the peasantry. When Molotov raised the dissolution of forcibly organized cooperatives, Dobi objected.

Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP) Communism 1898–1980 ○ Natural causes

Hungary's last Stalinist First Secretary; his three months in power ignited the revolution

On the night of October 23, 1956, Gerő took to the radio and denounced the student demonstration: 'We condemn those who seek to instil in our youth the poison of chauvinism.'

A central figure of Hungarian communism, he joined the party at its founding in 1918 and served in the 1919 Soviet Republic. As a Comintern operative and NKVD agent, he worked across Europe in France, Belgium, and Scandinavia, and during the Spanish Civil War he directed the purge of Trotskyists, earning the epithet 'the Butcher of Barcelona.' After WWII he became Rákosi's right hand, driving the Stalinization of Hungary's economy through crash industrialization and collectivization. Appointed First Secretary in July 1956 after Rákosi's forced resignation, he refused reform; on the evening of October 23 his radio broadcast denouncing student demonstrators as 'fascists' and 'chauvinists' detonated the Hungarian Revolution, and within forty-eight hours he was replaced by János Kádár and fled to the Soviet Union.

Hungary state institutions Communism 1904–1965 ○ Natural causes

Defence minister in Rákosi's ruling foursome

Amid Hungary's 1953 leadership change, Soviet leaders criticized him and he was dropped from the new Political Committee. Expelled from the party and convicted in 1956, he remained imprisoned until 1961.

Born to Jewish parents in Abaújszántó, he became a communist in the 1920s, fought in the Spanish Civil War and lived in the Soviet Union before returning in late 1944; from 1945 he sat on the Hungarian Communist Party's Political Committee and Secretariat. As defence minister in 1948–53 he formed the ruling "four" with Rákosi, Gerő and Révai. In June 1953 the Soviet leaders did not invite him to Moscow, and Bulganin criticized him for trying to make himself out to be a great army commander. Dropped from the new Political Committee, he was expelled from the party and convicted in 1956, released in 1961, and worked as an editor and publisher.

Hungary state institutions Communism 1909–1949 ✕ Executed

Interior minister who built the ÁVH secret police, then fell as the first major victim of Stalinist show trials in Eastern Europe

At his show trial, responding to the prosecutor's demand for the death penalty: 'I fully agree with your statements, Mr. Prosecutor, and want to state in advance that I will consider the verdict of the court justified' (September 1949)

A Hungarian Communist politician who served as Minister of Interior (1946–1948), founding the ÁVH secret police and directing the early purges that built the Rákosi regime. He had fought in the Spanish Civil War as political commissar of the Hungarian battalion of the International Brigades and organized the underground resistance during World War II. Seen by Rákosi as a rival, he was demoted to Foreign Minister and then arrested in 1949 on fabricated charges of Titoism, becoming the first major victim of the Stalinist show trials in Eastern Europe. His rehabilitation and reburial on 6 October 1956 before 100,000 mourners became a demonstration against the regime and a key precursor to the Hungarian Revolution three weeks later.

Hungary state institutions Communism 1912–1989 ○ Natural causes (illness; cause disputed)

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.