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Imre Nagy (; 7 June 1896 – 16 June 1958) was a Hungarian
communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...
politician who served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers (''
de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with '' de jure'' ("by l ...
''
Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
) of the
Hungarian People's Republic The Hungarian People's Republic ( hu, Magyar Népköztársaság) was a one-party state, one-party socialist state from 20 August 1949 to 23 October 1989. It was governed by the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, which was under the influence ...
from 1953 to 1955. In 1956 Nagy became leader of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against the
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
-backed government, for which he was sentenced to death and executed two years later. Nagy was a committed communist from soon after the Russian Revolution, and through the 1920s he engaged in underground party activity in Hungary. Living in the Soviet Union from 1930, he served the Soviet
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...
secret police as an informer from 1933 to 1941, denouncing over 200 colleagues, who were then purged and arrested and 15 of whom were executed. Nagy returned to Hungary shortly before the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, and served in various offices as the Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP) took control of Hungary in the late 1940s and the country entered the
Soviet sphere of influence ''Soviet Empire'' is a political term which is used in Sovietology to describe the actions and power of the Soviet Union, with an emphasis on its dominant role in other countries. In the wider sense, the term refers to the country's foreign p ...
. He served as Interior Minister of Hungary from 1945 to 1946. Nagy became prime minister in 1953 and attempted to relax some of the harshest aspects of Mátyás Rákosi's Stalinist regime, but was subverted and eventually forced out of the government in 1955 by Rákosi's continuing influence as General Secretary of the MDP. Nagy remained popular with writers, intellectuals, and the common people, who saw him as an icon of reform against the hard-line elements in the Soviet-backed regime. The outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution on 23 October 1956 saw Nagy elevated to the position of Prime Minister on 24 October as a central demand of the revolutionaries and common people. Nagy's reformist faction gained full control of the government, admitted non-communist politicians, dissolved the
ÁVH The State Protection Authority ( hu, Államvédelmi Hatóság, ÁVH) was the secret police of the People's Republic of Hungary from 1945 to 1956. The ÁVH was conceived as an external appendage of the Soviet Union's KGB in Hungary responsible ...
secret police, promised democratic reforms, and unilaterally withdrew Hungary from the
Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republi ...
on 1 November. The Soviet Union launched a massive military invasion of Hungary on 4 November, forcibly deposing Nagy, who fled to the Embassy of Yugoslavia in
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population o ...
. Nagy was lured out of the embassy under false promises on 22 November, but was arrested and deported to
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
. On 16 June 1958, Nagy was tried and executed for treason alongside his closest allies, and his body was buried in an unmarked grave. In June 1989, Nagy and other prominent figures of the 1956 Revolution were rehabilitated and reburied with full honours, an event that played a key role in the
collapse Collapse or its variants may refer to: Concepts * Collapse (structural) * Collapse (topology), a mathematical concept * Collapsing manifold * Collapse, the action of collapsing or telescoping objects * Collapsing user interface elements ** ...
of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party regime.


Early life and World War I

Imre Nagy was born prematurely on 7 June 1896 in the town of
Kaposvár Kaposvár (; also known by other alternative names) is a city with county rights in the southwestern part of Hungary, south of Lake Balaton. It is one of the leading cities of Transdanubia, the capital of Somogy County, and the seat of the Kapo ...
in the
Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coronation of the Hungarian monarch, c ...
,
Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
, to a small-town family of
peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasa ...
origin. His father, József Nagy (1869–1929), was a
Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched ...
and a carriage driver for the lieutenant-general of
Somogy county Somogy ( hu, Somogy megye, ; hr, Šomođska županija; sl, Šomodska županija, german: Komitat Schomodei) is an administrative county (comitatus or ''megye'') in present Hungary, and also in the former Kingdom of Hungary. Somogy County lies ...
. His mother, Rozália Szabó (1877–1969), served as a maid for the lieutenant-general's wife. They both had left the countryside in their youth to work in Kaposvár. Nagy and Szabó married in January 1896. In 1902, József became a postal worker and began building a house for the family in 1907 but lost his job in 1911 and had to sell the house. He was an unskilled worker for the rest of his life. In 1904 Nagy's family moved to Pécs before returning to Kaposvár the following year. Nagy attended a gymnasium in Kaposvár from 1907 to 1912, performing poorly. The gymnasium cancelled his tuition due to his lack of accomplishment and funding. He apprenticed as a locksmith in a small metalworking firm in Kaposvár, before moving to a factory for agricultural machinery in Losonc in northern Hungary in 1912. He returned to Kaposvár in 1913 and was given a journeyman's certificate as a metal fitter in 1914. He abandoned the job in the summer of 1914 and became a clerk at a lawyer's office, while simultaneously attending a commercial high school in Kaposvár, where his student performance was good. After the outbreak of the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
in July 1914, Nagy was called up for military service in the Austro-Hungarian Army in December 1914 and found fit for service. He reported for duty at the 17th Royal Hungarian Honvéd Infantry Regiment in May 1915, after the end of the school year and before he had graduated. After three months of basic training in
Székesfehérvár Székesfehérvár (; german: Stuhlweißenburg ), known colloquially as Fehérvár ("white castle"), is a city in central Hungary, and the country's ninth-largest city. It is the regional capital of Central Transdanubia, and the centre of Fej� ...
, his unit was sent to the Italian Front in August 1915, where he was wounded in his leg at the Third Battle of the Isonzo. After convalescing in a
field hospital A field hospital is a temporary hospital or mobile medical unit that takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent facilities. This term was initially used in military medicine (such as the Mobile Ar ...
, he was trained as a machine gunner in the 19th Machine Gun Battalion, promoted to corporal and sent to the Eastern Front in the summer of 1916. Nagy was wounded in the leg by shrapnel and taken prisoner by the
Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Ar ...
during the Brusilov Offensive in
Galicia Galicia may refer to: Geographic regions * Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain ** Gallaecia, a Roman province ** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia ** The medieval King ...
on 29 July 1916. After healing his leg wound in a field hospital, he was taken first to Darnitsa, then to Ryazan and finally on a train transport to
Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part ...
.


Early political career

In captivity in Camp Berezovka near Lake Baikal in Siberia he participated in a
Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...
discussion group until 1917. In 1918, he joined the Communist (Social Democratic) Party of the Foreign Workers of Siberia, a sub-group of the Russian
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...
. He fought in the ranks of the
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...
from February to September 1918 during the
Russian Civil War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Russian Civil War , partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I , image = , caption = Clockwise from top left: {{flatlist, *Soldiers ...
. Some sources, including the so-called "Yurovsky Document" allege Nagy and his unit were tasked with guarding the former Russian Imperial Family in
Yekaterinburg Yekaterinburg ( ; rus, Екатеринбург, p=jɪkətʲɪrʲɪnˈburk), alternatively romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk ( rus, Свердло́вск, , svʲɪrˈdlofsk, 1924–1991), is a city and the administra ...
. Though some historians have speculated Nagy himself was among the men in the firing squad that executed the Romanovs, Ivan Plotnikov, history professor at the
Ural State University The Ural State University (russian: Урáльский госудáрственный университéт и́мени А.М. Гóрького, , often shortened to USU, УрГУ) is a public university located in the city of Yekaterinburg, Sv ...
, stated per his research that the executioners were
Yakov Yurovsky Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky (; Unless otherwise noted, all dates used in this article are of the Gregorian Calendar, as opposed to the Julian Calendar which was used in Russia prior to . – 2 August 1938) was a Russian Old Bolshevik, ...
, Grigory Nikulin, Mikhail Medvedev (Kudrin),
Peter Ermakov Pyotr Zakharovich Ermakov (; – 22 May 1952) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, notable as one of several men responsible for the execution of the Romanov family, including the deposed Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, their children, and t ...
, Stepan Vaganov, Alexey Kabanov, Pavel Medvedev, V. N. Netrebin, and Y. M. Tselms. The White Army investigator Nikolai Sokolov claimed that the executions of the Imperial Family was carried out by a group of "
Latvians Latvians ( lv, latvieši) are a Baltic ethnic group and nation native to Latvia and the immediate geographical region, the Baltics. They are occasionally also referred to as Letts, especially in older bibliography. Latvians share a common L ...
led by a Jew". However, in light of Plotnikov's research, the group that carried out the execution consisted almost entirely of
ethnic Russians , native_name_lang = ru , image = , caption = , population = , popplace = 118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 ''Winkler Prins'' estimate) , region1 = , pop1 ...
(Nikulin, Kudrin, Ermakov, Vaganov, Kabanov, Medvedev and Netrebin) with the participation of one Jew (Yurovsky) and possibly, one Latvian (Tselms). Allegations of Nagy's presence at the Ipatiev House remains a controversial matter among biographers, and has contributed to his divisive legacy in modern Hungary. Nagy and his unit were later encircled and he was ultimately taken prisoner by the Czechoslovak Legion in early September 1918. He escaped captivity and spent the period until February 1920 holding odd jobs in
White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White ...
-controlled territory near Lake Baikal. The Red Army reached Irkutsk on 7 February 1920, ending Nagy's participation in the Civil War. On 12 February 1920 he became a candidate member of the Russian Communist Party and a full-time member on 10 May. He served the rest of 1920 as a clerk for the communist Cheka secret police on matters related to prisoners of war. After a month of training by the Cheka in subversive activities, the Hungarian Communist Party (KMP) sent Nagy along with 277 other Hungarian communists to
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...
in April 1921 to build up an underground conspiratorial network in a country where the Communist Party had been banned since 1919. Nagy reached Kaposvár in late May 1921. Upon arrival, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Hungary (MSZDP). After working temporary jobs in the rest of 1921 and early 1922, he joined the First Hungarian Insurance Company and became an office worker in Kaposvár. He became severely overweight around this time. He helped to build up the socialist movement in his hometown, to his parents' disapproval. He became secretary of the MSZDP's local branch in 1924. He was expelled from the party for advocating revolution and was placed under police surveillance. He married Mária Égető on 28 November 1925. In January 1926, Nagy and István Sinkovics established the Kaposvár office of the Socialist Workers’ Party of Hungary (MSZMP), a semi-communist left-wing splinter group from the MSZDP. Nagy was successful in gaining 700 voters for the MSZMP Kaposvár parliamentary candidate, one of the party's few successes in the countryside west of
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population o ...
. By this time Nagy had begun to prioritize his interest in agriculture over political leadership and rejected an offer from communist cadres from Vienna to build up the illegal KMP in western Hungary. The MSZMP in Kaposvár was prohibited and Nagy was fired from his insurance job in February 1927 and arrested on 27 February. He was released after two months in prison. While under police surveillance, Nagy found a job as an agent for the Phoenix Insurance Company. He was arrested again in December 1927 for three days and was called to
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
by the KMP, arriving in March 1928. He became head of the KMP's agrarian section and was sent back to Hungary in September 1928 under a false identity to build up underground communist networks. His efforts were largely a failure, his largest successes being the publishing of three issues of a small journal and his avoidance of arrest. His advocacy of legal political activity over the party's preference for largely impotent clandestine work in villages was dismissed as "right-deviancy" by the ultra-left KMP leadership.


Years in Moscow

In December 1929, he traveled to the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
, arriving in Moscow in February 1930 to participate in the KMP's second congress. He rejoined the Communist Party, also becoming a Soviet citizen. He was engaged in agricultural research at the International Agrarian Institute for six years, but also worked in the Hungarian section of the Comintern. He was expelled from the party on 8 January 1936 and worked for the Soviet Statistical Service from the summer of 1936 onward. Under the codename "Volodia", Nagy served the
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...
secret police as an informer from 1933 to 1941, giving up the names of over 200 comrades, mostly from the Agrarian Institute, who were then arrested and in at least 15 cases executed by the secret police.Gati, Charles (2006). Failed Illusions: Moscow, Washington, Budapest and the 1956 Hungarian Revolt, p. 42. Stanford University Press. . The NKVD praised him as a "qualified agent, who shows great initiative and an ability to approach people". The support that Nagy received from the Soviet leadership after the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
was to some extent a result of his loyal service as a foreigner and denouncer to the NKVD.


Minister in Communist Hungary

After the Second World War, Nagy returned to
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...
. He was the Minister of Agriculture in the government of Béla Miklós de Dálnok, delegated by the Hungarian Communist Party. He distributed land among the peasant population. In the next government, led by Tildy, he was the Minister of Interior. At this period he played an active role in the expulsion of the Hungarian Germans. In the communist government, he served as Minister of Agriculture and in other posts. He was also Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary from 1947 to 1949, a largely ceremonial position. In 1951, he signed, with the rest of the Politburo, the note ordering János Kádár's arrest, resulting in Kádár's torture and sentencing to life in prison after a show trial. After two years as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Hungarian People's Republic (1953–1955), during which he promoted his "New Course" in Socialism, Nagy fell out of favour with the Soviet Politburo. He was deprived of his Hungarian Central Committee, Politburo, and all other Party functions and, on 18 April 1955, he was sacked as Chairman of the Council of Ministers.


1956 Revolution

Following
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
's " Secret Speech" denouncing the crimes of Stalin on 25 February 1956, dissent began to grow in Eastern Bloc against the ruling Stalinist-era party leaders. In Hungary, Mátyás Rákosi—who self-styled as "Stalin's greatest disciple"—came under increasingly intense criticism for his policies from both the Party and general populace, with more and more prominent voices calling for his resignation. This public criticism often took the form of the Petőfi Circle—a debating club established by the DISZ student youth union to discuss Communist policy—which soon became one of the foremost outlets of dissent against the regime. While Nagy himself never attended a Petőfi Circle meeting, he was kept well informed of events by his close associates Miklós Vásárhelyi and Géza Losonczy, who informed him of the vast popular support expressed for him at the meetings and the widespread desire for his restoration to the leadership. In the face of widespread public pressure on Rákosi, the Soviets forced the unpopular leader to resign from power on 18 July 1956 and leave for the Soviet Union. However, they replaced him with his equally hard-line second in command Ernő Gerő, a change which did little to mollify public dissent. Nagy was a prominent guest at the 6 October reburial of former secret police chief László Rajk, who had been purged by the Rákosi regime and later rehabilitated. He was readmitted to the Party on 13 October in the midst of growing revolutionary fervor. On 22 October, students from the Technical University in Budapest compiled a list of sixteen national policy demands, the third of which was Nagy's restoration to the premiership. In the afternoon of 23 October, students and workers gathered in Budapest for a massive opposition demonstration arranged by the Technical University students, chanting—among other things—slogans of support for Imre Nagy. While the ex-premier sympathized with their reformist demands, he was hesitant to support the movement, believing it to be too radical in its demands. While he was in favor of changes to the system, he preferred those to be made within the framework of his "New Course" of 1953–55 and not a revolutionary upheaval. He also feared that the demonstration was a provocation by Gerő and Hegedüs to frame him as inciting rebellion and to crack down on the opposition. His associates ultimately convinced him to travel to the Parliament Building and give a speech to the demonstrators to calm the unrest. While no accurate record of this speech exists, it did not have its intended effect; Nagy essentially told the protesters to go home and let the Party handle things. The demonstrations soon escalated into a full-scale revolt as
ÁVH The State Protection Authority ( hu, Államvédelmi Hatóság, ÁVH) was the secret police of the People's Republic of Hungary from 1945 to 1956. The ÁVH was conceived as an external appendage of the Soviet Union's KGB in Hungary responsible ...
secret policemen opened fire on the protesting citizens. Hungarian soldiers sent to crush the demonstrators instead sided with them, and Gerő soon called in Soviet intervention. Early in the morning of 24 October, Nagy was renamed as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Hungarian People's Republic again, in an attempt to appease the populace. However, he was initially isolated within the government, and powerless to stop the Soviet invasion of the capital that day. The decision to call in Soviet forces had already been made by Gerő and outgoing Prime Minister
András Hegedüs András Hegedüs (; 31 October 1922 – 23 October 1999) was a Hungarian Communist politician who served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1955 to 1956. He fled to the Soviet Union on 28 October, the fifth day of the Hungarian Rev ...
the previous night, but many suspected that Nagy had signed the order. This perception was not helped by the fact that Nagy declared martial law on that same day and offered an "amnesty" to all rebels who laid down their arms, weakening the public's trust in him. The next day (25 October) he announced he would begin negotiations on the withdrawal of Soviet troops after order was restored. On 26 October, he began to meet with delegations from the Writers' Union and student groups, as well as from the Borsod Workers' Council in Miskolc. On 27 October, Nagy announced a major reformation of his government, to include several non-communist politicians including former president Zoltán Tildy as a
Minister of State Minister of State is a title borne by politicians in certain countries governed under a parliamentary system. In some countries a Minister of State is a Junior Minister of government, who is assigned to assist a specific Cabinet Minister. I ...
. At negotiations with Soviet representatives Anastas Mikoyan and Mikhail Suslov, Nagy and the Hungarian government delegation pushed for a ceasefire and political solution. In the morning of 28 October, Nagy successfully prevented a massive attack on the main rebel strongholds at the Corvin Cinema and Kilián Barracks by Soviet troops and pro-regime Hungarian units. He negotiated a ceasefire with the Soviets, which came into effect at 12:15 and fighting began to die down across the city and country. Later that day, he gave a speech on the radio assessing the events as a "national democratic movement," proclaiming his full support of the Revolution and agreeing to fulfill some of the public's demands. He announced the dissolution of the ÁVH and his intention to negotiate the full withdrawal of Soviet troops from the city. Nagy also supported the creation of a National Guard, a force of combined soldiers and armed civilians to maintain order amidst the chaos of the Revolution. On 29 October, as fighting died down across Budapest and Soviet troops began to withdraw, Nagy moved his office from the Party headquarters to the Parliament Building. He also began to meet and negotiated with several representatives of the armed groups that day, as well as the representatives of the workers' councils that had been formed over the course of the previous week. By 30 October, Nagy's reformist faction had gained full control of the Hungarian government. Ernő Gerő and the other Stalinist hard-liners had left for the Soviet Union, and Nagy's government announced its intent to restore a multi-party system based on the coalition parties from 1945. Throughout this period, Nagy remained steadfastly committed to Marxism; but his conception of Marxism was as "a science that cannot remain static", and he railed against the "rigid dogmatism" of "the Stalinist monopoly". He did not intend a full return to multi-party liberal democracy but a limited one within a socialist framework, and was willing to allow the function of the pre-1948 coalition parties. Nagy was appointed to the temporary leadership committee of the newly formed Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, which replaced the disintegrated Hungarian Working People's Party on 31 October. This was originally intended as a "national-communist" party that would preserve the gains of the Revolution. However, at a meeting of the Soviet Politburo that day, the Kremlin leaders decided that the Revolution had gone too far and needed to be crushed. On the night of 31 October – 1 November, Soviet troops began crossing back into Hungary, contrary to their declaration of 30 October expressing willingness to withdraw from the country entirely. Nagy protested this action to Soviet Ambassador
Yuri Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the ...
; the latter replied that the new troops were only there to cover the full withdrawal and protect Soviet citizens living in Hungary. This likely prompted Nagy to make his most controversial decision. In response to a major demand of the revolutionaries, he announced Hungary's withdrawal from the
Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republi ...
and appealed through the UN for the great powers, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, to recognise Hungary's status as a neutral state. Late that night, General Secretary János Kádár went to the Soviet embassy, and the next day he was taken to Moscow. Between 1–3 November, Nikita Khrushchev traveled to various
Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republi ...
countries as well as to Yugoslavia to inform them of his plans to attack Hungary. On the advice of Yugoslav leader
Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (; sh-Cyrl, Тито, links=no, ), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various positions from 1943 until his death ...
, he selected the then-Party General Secretary János Kádár as the country's new leader on 2 November, and was willing to let Nagy remain in the government if he cooperated. On 3 November, Nagy formed a new government, this time with a Communist minority. It included members of the Communists, Independent Smallholders' Party, Peasants' Party, and Social Democrats. However, it would only be in office for less than a day. In the early morning hours of 4 November, the USSR launched "Operation Whirlwind," a massive military attack on Budapest and on rebel strongholds throughout the country. Nagy made a dramatic announcement to the country and the world about this operation. However, to minimize damage he ordered the Hungarian Army not to resist the invaders. Soon after, he fled to the Yugoslav Embassy, where he and many of his followers were given sanctuary. In spite of a written safe conduct of free passage by János Kádár, on 22 November, Nagy was arrested by the Soviet forces as he was leaving the Yugoslav Embassy and taken to Snagov,
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
.


Secret trial and execution

Subsequently, the Soviets returned Nagy to Hungary, where he was secretly charged with organizing the overthrow of the Hungarian People's Republic and with treason. In prison, Nagy was object of continuous tortures of part of officials. Nagy was secretly tried, found guilty, sentenced to death and executed by hanging in June 1958. His trial and execution were made public only after the sentence had been carried out. According to Fedor Burlatsky, a Kremlin insider,
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
had Nagy executed, "as a lesson to all other leaders in socialist countries". American journalist John Gunther described the events leading to Nagy's death as "an episode of unparalleled infamy". Nagy was buried, along with his co-defendants, in the prison yard where the executions were carried out and years later was removed to a distant corner (section 301) of the
New Public Cemetery, Budapest New Public Cemetery (Hungarian: ''Új köztemető'' or ''Rákoskeresztúri sírkert'') is the largest cemetery in Budapest and one of the largest in Europe with an area of about 2.07 km² and 3 million burials since its opening in 1886. It is ...
, face-down, and with his hands and feet tied with barbed wire. Next to his grave stands a memorial bell inscribed in
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
, Hungarian, German and English. The Latin reads: "Vivos voco / Mortuos plango / Fulgura frango", which is translated as: "I call the living, I mourn the dead, I break the thunderbolts".


Memorials and political rehabilitation

During the time when the Stalinist leadership of Hungary would not permit his death to be commemorated, or permit access to his burial place, a cenotaph in his honour was erected in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris on 16 June 1988. In 1989, Imre Nagy was rehabilitated and his remains reburied on the 31st anniversary of his execution in the same plot after a funeral organised in part by the democratic opposition to the country's Stalinist regime. Over 200,000 people are estimated to have attended Nagy's reinterment. The occasion of Nagy's funeral was an important factor in the end of the communist government in Hungary. On 28 December 2018, a popular statue of Nagy inaugurated in 1996 was removed from central Budapest to a less central location, in order to make way to a reconstructed memorial to the victims of the 1919 Red Terror that originally stood in the same place from 1934 to 1945, during the Miklós Horthy's pro-Nazi
regime In politics, a regime (also "régime") is the form of government or the set of rules, cultural or social norms, etc. that regulate the operation of a government or institution and its interactions with society. According to Yale professor Juan Jo ...
. Opposition parties, mainly liberal, socialist and the remaining communists accused Viktor Orbán's right-wing government of historical revisionism, his supporters however, argued that the initiative was taken as an attempt to restore the city landscape to its pre–World War Two form and to "erase the traces of the communist era".


Writings

The collected writings of Nagy, most of which he wrote after his dismissal as Chairman of the Council of Ministers in April 1955, were smuggled out of Hungary and published in the West under the title ''Imre Nagy on Communism''.


Family

Nagy was married to Mária Égető. The couple had one daughter, Erzsébet Nagy (1927–2008), a Hungarian writer and translator. Erzsébet Nagy married Ferenc Jánosi. Imre Nagy did not object to his daughter's romance and eventual marriage to a Protestant minister, attending their religious wedding ceremony in 1946 without Politburo permission. In 1982, Erzsébet Nagy married János Vészi.


Nagy in film and the arts

In 2003 and 2004, the Hungarian director
Márta Mészáros Márta Mészáros (born 19 September 1931) is a Hungarian screenwriter and film director. The daughter of László Mészáros, a sculptor, Mészáros began her career working in documentary film, having made 25 documentary shorts over the span ...
produced a film based on Nagy's life after the revolution, entitled '' A temetetlen halott'' (English: The Unburied Body) (IMDb entry). Nagy is mentioned and seen in the 2006 movie '' Children of Glory''. The rehabilitation of Nagy after 40 years condemnation is referred to by a character in the 1991
Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...
film Sandhesam as part of an anti-communist rhetoric.


See also

* Hungarian Revolution of 1956 * Governments of Imre Nagy * End of Communism in Hungary


Citations


Bibliography

* *


Further reading

* Gyula Háy (Julius Hay). ''Born 1900: memoirs.'' Hutchinson: 1974. * Johanna Granville
"Imre Nagy aka 'Volodya' – A Dent in the Martyr's Halo?"
"Cold War International History Project Bulletin", no. 5 ( Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Washington, D.C.), Spring, 1995, pp. 28, and 34–37. ** Johanna Granville, trans.
"Soviet Archival Documents on the Hungarian Revolution, 24 October – 4 November 1956"
'' Cold War International History Project Bulletin'', no. 5 (Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Washington, D.C.), Spring, 1995, pp. 22–23, 29–34. * Johanna Granville
''The First Domino: International Decision Making During the Hungarian Crisis of 1956"
Texas A & M University Press, 2004. * KGB Chief
Vladimir Kryuchkov Vladimir Alexandrovich Kryuchkov (russian: Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович Крючко́в, link=no; 29 February 1924 – 23 November 2007) was a Soviet lawyer, diplomat, and head of the KGB, member of the Politburo of the ...
to CC CPSU, 16 June 1989 (trans. Johanna Granville). ''Cold War International History Project Bulletin'' 5 (1995): 36 rom:_TsKhSD,_F._89,_Per._45,_Dok._82..html" ;"title="TsKhSD.html" ;"title="rom: TsKhSD">rom: TsKhSD, F. 89, Per. 45, Dok. 82.">TsKhSD.html" ;"title="rom: TsKhSD">rom: TsKhSD, F. 89, Per. 45, Dok. 82.* Alajos Dornbach, ''The Secret Trial of Imre Nagy'', Greenwood Press, 1995. * Peter Unwin, ''Voice in the Wilderness: Imre Nagy and the Hungarian Revolution'', Little, Brown, 1991. * Karl Benziger, ''Imre Nagy, Martyr of the Nation: Contested History, Legitimacy, and Popular Memory in Hungary.'' Lexington Books, 2008.


External links

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