Leader of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution: Who is Imre Nagy?

He was a leader who opposed the existence of communism in Hungary and the policies imposed by the Soviets. His brief leadership was bloodily suppressed by the Soviet army.

By Stephen McWright Published on 7 Aralık 2023 : 20:47.
Leader of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution: Who is Imre Nagy?

Hungarian statesman. He served as prime minister between 1953 and 1955 and for a short time after the 1956 uprising.

He was born on June 7, 1896, in Kaposvâr, and died on June 16, 1958, in Budapest. Some sources give the date of death as 28-29 January 1957. He is the child of a peasant family. While a prisoner of war in Russia during World War I, he joined the revolutionaries and fought in the Red Army. He took part in the government that was established under the leadership of Bela Kun in 1919 and declared the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Nagy, who went to the USSR after the collapse of the Republic in the same year, stayed in Moscow until 1944 as a member of the Institute of Agricultural Sciences. After the Soviet troops entered Hungary, he returned to his country and served as minister of agriculture from 1944 to 1945 and minister of interior from 1945 to 1946 in the governments established after the war. He became president of the National Assembly in 1947. He was expelled from the Hungarian Workers' Party in 1949 due to his views on agricultural policies but was reinstated after a while.

Imre Nagy (7 June 1896 – 16 June 1958) was a Hungarian communist politician who served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers (de facto Prime Minister) of the Hungarian People's Republic from 1953 to 1955. In 1956 Nagy became leader of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against the Soviet-backed government, for which he was sentenced to death and executed two years later. He was not related to previous agrarianist Prime Minister Ferenc Nagy.

After Stalin's death, Nagy, who replaced Râkosi as prime minister in July 1953, claimed that serious mistakes were made regarding collectivization in agriculture during the Râkosi period and that peasants would not be forced to enter collective farms, the pressures for the development of heavy industry would be ended, the production of consumer goods would be increased and He announced that an amnesty would be granted for political prisoners.

Due to the measures he took in this direction, his duty in the government was terminated in April 1955 and he was removed from the party's central committee. Râkosi, who was replaced as prime minister, was soon stripped of all his powers and had to leave his place to Gerö. Social unrest could not be resolved during this period, and a demonstration organized by students in Budapest on October 23, 1956, quickly spread and turned into an uprising.

Nagy, who was appointed head of a coalition government consisting of political representatives of small landowners and peasants and social democrats and externally supported by the Catholic League, announced on November 1 that Hungary had withdrawn from the Warsaw Pact and the United Nations declared Hungary a neutral country. He wanted him to be recognized.

Thereupon, on the night of November 3, 1956, Soviet troops, who had withdrawn from Hungary a while ago, entered Budapest and took control. Nagy first took refuge in the Yugoslavian embassy, then was caught and sentenced to death along with other leaders of the uprising. Kâdâr, who was suspended from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and his position in the party during the Râkosi period and was arrested, was appointed as the head of the "revolutionary worker-peasant government" formed after Nagy's overthrow.