Editor of the Social Democratic Népszava who was murdered by an officer detachment in 1920 for exposing the White Terror
A former schoolteacher, he wrote for Népszava from 1903, led the organisation of teachers, and in 1906 became president of the Free Association of Hungarian Teachers. He was state secretary for education in Mihály Károlyi’s coalition government, but during the Soviet Republic declined any role on grounds of principle and criticised the dictatorship of the proletariat in the National Assembly of Councils. In September 1919 he became responsible editor of Népszava and wrote articles exposing the White Terror. On 17 February 1920 officers of the Ostenburg detachment abducted and murdered him together with his colleague Béla Bacsó and threw the bodies into the Danube. Horthy’s amnesty of 1921 ensured the killers were never punished.
Career timeline
- 1897–1898Editor of Népszava
- 1906President of the Free Association of Hungarian Teachers
- 1918–1919State secretary for education under Károlyi
- 1919Responsible editor of Népszava
- 1920Murdered by officers of the Ostenburg detachment
Christian Socialist politician who, as minister of religion and education, prepared and tabled the numerus clausus bill of 1920
Born in Mezőpetri, he left the Szatmár seminary after four years to become a journalist, edited the Christian Socialist Igaz Szó and the daily Új Lap, and was general secretary of the Catholic People’s Association from 1908 to 1918. After the fall of the Soviet Republic he was minister of propaganda in the Friedrich government and then, from November 1919 to December 1920, minister of religion and education. He prepared and tabled the numerus clausus bill, often seen as the first anti-Jewish act of twentieth-century Europe. He became chairman of the Christian National Union Party in 1920 but soon lost his seat, and by the time of his arrest in 1945 he was a textile merchant.
Career timeline
- 1905–1909Edits Igaz Szó and Új Lap
- 1908–1918General secretary of the Catholic People’s Association
- 1919Minister of propaganda in the Friedrich government
- 1919–1920Minister of religion and education
- 1920Tables the numerus clausus bill
- 1945Arrested
Socialist writer and Népszava journalist murdered with Béla Somogyi in 1920 for writing against the White Terror
Born in Kassa (Košice), he began as a journalist on the local Kassai Napló and published the novel A Sefcsik ház in 1918. In 1919 he joined Népszava, writing about proletarians, the peasants’ hunger for land and migration, and against the White Terror associated with the names of Iván Héjjas, Pál Prónay and Gyula Ostenburg-Moravek. For this the Ostenburg detachment abducted him and his editor Béla Somogyi on 17 February 1920 and shot them, throwing the bodies into the Danube.
Career timeline
- 1918Novel A Sefcsik ház
- 1919Joins Népszava
- 1920Murdered by the Ostenburg detachment
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.
Career timeline
- 1917Joined the staff of the anti-war left-wing journals Tett and its successor Ma.
- 1918Took part in founding the Hungarian Communist Party and joined the staff of its paper, Vörös Újság.
- 1930–1934Arrested in 1930 and sentenced in 1931 to three and a half years in prison. After release in 1934, he went to Moscow via Prague.
- 1944–1945Returned to Hungary in 1944, helped establish the party Central Committee, and became its propaganda and press chief in 1945.
- 1945–1950Served as editor-in-chief of the party’s central daily, Szabad Nép.
- 1949–1953Served as minister of public education.
- 1953–1958Served as deputy president of the Presidential Council.
- 1956Returned to the Political Committee at the party Central Committee meeting in July, but was taken to Moscow during the Hungarian Revolution in October.
- 1957Returned as an adviser to the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party’s Provisional Executive Committee and was elected to its Central Committee. After losing the June party debate, he accepted the majority view.
Communist who was the first editor of the underground Szabad Nép and died in custody after his arrest in 1942
Born in Budapest, he studied civil engineering in Karlsruhe and Dresden, where he led the socialist students’ association and wrote warnings against the Nazis. Back in Hungary in 1931, he was drawn by his brother Richárd into the underground Communist movement and in 1935 joined the leadership of the Communist Youth League. From 1938 he built Communist cells inside the Social Democratic Party and the trade unions, and after June 1941 he went underground as a leader of the “independence movement”. Editor-in-chief of Szabad Nép from February 1942, he was arrested on 1 June and died two weeks later in unclear circumstances.
Career timeline
- 1920sStudied in Karlsruhe and Dresden; led the socialist students’ association
- 1932Joined the Hungarian Communist Party
- 1935Leadership of the Communist Youth League
- 1938–1941Built Communist cells in the Social Democratic Party and unions
- 1942Editor of Szabad Nép; died in custody after arrest
Zionist lawyer who negotiated with Eichmann to send 1,684 Jews to Switzerland on what became known as the Kasztner train
Born into the Jewish community of Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca), he became a Zionist at fifteen and worked as a journalist for the Jewish paper Új Kelet and as a lawyer. Moving to Budapest in 1941, he became a leader of the Budapest Aid and Rescue Committee, which smuggled Jewish refugees into Hungary. In the summer of 1944 he negotiated with Eichmann to let 1,684 Jews leave for Switzerland instead of Auschwitz on what became known as the Kasztner train, in exchange for money, gold and diamonds. Diverted to Bergen-Belsen, the passengers reached Switzerland in two groups in August and December 1944. After the war he moved to Israel and became a government spokesman, but a 1955 ruling in a trial over charges that he had collaborated with the Nazis said he had “sold his soul to the devil”; he was shot in March 1957 and died of his wounds. In 1958 the Supreme Court overturned two of the charges.
Career timeline
- 1921Joined a Zionist youth group
- 1930sJournalist for Új Kelet; lawyer
- 1941Moved to Budapest
- 1944Negotiations with Eichmann; the Kasztner train
- 1952Spokesman, Israeli Ministry of Trade and Industry
- 1955Ruling in the Gruenwald libel trial
- 1957Shot and died of his wounds
A reform communist journalist
On 4 November 1956, as Soviet forces attacked, he took refuge with his family in the Yugoslav Embassy.
Géza Losonczy was a Hungarian journalist and politician who emerged from the communist movement while challenging its repression and dogmatism. Alongside Imre Nagy’s reform circle, he became involved in the upheaval over popular mobilization and the limits of one-party rule, serving as a minister of state in the revolutionary government of 1956. Arrested after the Soviet intervention, he died in prison while on hunger strike awaiting trial, his death forming part of the state repression directed at the Imre Nagy group.
Career timeline
- 1935–1936Editor of the student journal Tovább
- 1939–1941Joined the Hungarian Communist Party and worked for Népszava
- 1945–1949Head of domestic politics at Szabad Nép
- 1949–1951State secretary under culture minister József Révai
- 1951–1954Imprisoned after a political show trial
- 1954–1956Journalist at Magyar Nemzet and organizer of the Petőfi Circle
- 1956.10–11Minister of state in Imre Nagy’s second and third governments
- 1957Scheduled defendant in the Imre Nagy trial; died in prison during a hunger strike
The reformist Politburo member who called 1956 a 'popular uprising' and dismantled his own party's orthodoxy
In West Berlin he said the East German 'anti-fascist protective rampart' was a 'disgrace' that had to come down.
A reformist member of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSZMP) Politburo and the ideological patron of the reformers. On 28 January 1989 he told radio listeners that the 1956 Hungarian Revolution was a 'popular uprising,' demolishing the party's foundational lie; in May that year, in West Berlin, he called the Berlin Wall a 'disgrace.' Together with Otto von Habsburg he sponsored the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989, opening the first crack in the Iron Curtain, and later stood as the Socialist Party's presidential candidate but was defeated.
Career timeline
- 1950Joined the Hungarian Working People's Party
- 1957–1969Agitprop head and secretary, Bács-Kiskun County committee
- 1976–1980Minister of Culture
- 1980–1982Minister of Education
- 1982–1988Secretary-General, Patriotic People's Front
- 1988–1989MSZMP Politburo member and Minister of State
- 1989.01Declared the 1956 Revolution a 'popular uprising'
- 1990MSZP Deputy President and presidential candidate; defeated
