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 Revolution of 1956 The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hunga ...

, but returned in 1958 and taught sociology.

Early years

Coming from a poor family, he finished high school in

Sopron Sopron (; german: Ödenburg, ; sl, Šopron) is a city in Hungary on the Austrian border, near Lake Neusiedl/Lake Fertő. History Ancient times-13th century When the area that is today Western Hungary was a province of the Roman Empire, a ...

at the Evangelical Academy. Hegedüs first became involved in the underground communist movement during his university years and became a member of illegal

Hungarian Communist Party The Hungarian Communist Party ( hu, Magyar Kommunista Párt, abbr. MKP), known earlier as the Party of Communists in Hungary ( hu, Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja, abbr. KMP), was a communist party in Hungary that existed during the interwar ...

when he studied railway engineering at

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 ...

Technical University in 1942. He was not able to finish his studies and was put under house arrest in the August 1944 for two years but managed to escape at the end of November. He became part of the interim government on 24 June 1945.

1945–1990

In 1947 he married Zsuzsanna Hölzel (1922-1998); they had six children. From 1948 onwards Hegedüs became involved with the

Hungarian Working People's Party The Hungarian Working People's Party (, abbr. MDP) was the ruling communist party of Hungary from 1948 to 1956. It was formed by a merger of the Hungarian Communist Party (MKP) and the Social Democratic Party of Hungary (MSZDP).Neubauer, John, ...

eventually taking on leading roles. From the early 1950s he took on numerous ministerial portfolios. This culminated on 18 April 1955, when he was named Prime Minister after party leader

Mátyás Rákosi Mátyás Rákosi (; born Mátyás Rosenfeld; 9 March 1892
– 5 February 1971) was a Hungarian communis ...

forced out

Imre Nagy 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 ...

. When the Kremlin frowned on Rákosi returning to the premiership he'd held from 1952 to 1953, Hegedüs took the post. Aged 32 at the time of his appointment, he was the youngest Prime Minister in Hungarian history. After signing the document asking Soviet troops for assistance during the revolution on 24 October, the government and people overwhelmingly supported him handing power back to Nagy. He became the most hated man in

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 ...

and was advised to flee by 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 ...

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 ...

along with other Hungarian hardliners such as

Ernő Gerő Ernő Gerő (; born Ernő Singer; 8 July 1898 – 12 March 1980) was a Hungarian Communist leader in the period after World War II and briefly in 1956 the most powerful man in Hungary as the second secretary of its ruling communist party. Ear ...

. In Moscow, he worked as part of the philosophy department at the Soviet Academy of Sciences between 1957 and 1958. In the November 1956 the interim committee of the Communist Party expelled him, but by September 1958 he was able to return home. From the late 1950s he held numerous academic posts and worked in various research institutes: 1958–61: Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) Economic Institute 1961–63: Central Statistics Institute 1963–68: Founded and led the HAS Sociology Research Institute 1966:

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

Economics University 1968–73: Industry Studies In 1968 he objected to 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 ...

invasion of

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

during the

Prague Spring The Prague Spring ( cs, Pražské jaro, sk, Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First ...

. He was dismissed from his position at the Sociology Research Institute and later in 1973 was expelled from the Communist Party for his differing political and ideological views. He became a pensioner from 1975 to 1982 when he was allowed to teach at the Economics University.

Post-communism

Following the collapse of Communism in 1990, Hegedüs founded the Worker's Academy. He was often interviewed about the events of 1956 by local and foreign news teams, as he was one of the few survivors from the government of that time. He died on the anniversary of the start of the Hungarian revolution.

Selected publications

Books

* ''Socialism and Bureaucracy'' (Motive series), London: Allison & Busby, 1976. * ''The Structure of Socialist Society'' (Sociology and Social Welfare series), London: Constable, 1977. * Hegedüs András. ''Élet egy eszme árnyékában'' ("Life in the shadow of an ideology"). Bethlen Gábor Publishing House. 1989. Budapest (A slightly modified version of this book was published in 1985 in English.)

Essays