Lajos Dinnyés (16 April 1901 – 3 May 1961) was a Hungarian politician of the Smallholders Party who served as the last pre-communist
Prime Minister of Hungary
The prime minister of Hungary ( hu, Magyarország miniszterelnöke) is the head of government of Hungary. The prime minister and the Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Parliament, to their political party ...
from 1947 to 1948.
Biography
He came from a well to do titled family and finished high school 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 ...
Reformed Gimnazium. He finished studies at
Keszthely
Keszthely (; also known by other alternative names) is a Hungarian city of 20,895 inhabitants located on the western shore of Lake Balaton. It is the second largest city by the lake and one of the more important cultural, educational and economi ...
Academy, earning a degree in agriculture. Following his father's death he looked after the family property in 1930.
He became a member of the Agrarian Party in 1929, subsequently representing the Smallholders Party after their merger in 1930. Between 1931 and 1938, he served as a Member of Parliament representing Alsódabas.
He married in 1941, held a civil post and served for a short term in the army. He returned to public life in 1945 when the Smallholders Party was reformed.
In March 1947, he became Minister of Defence in the government of
Ferenc Nagy
Ferenc Nagy (; 8 October 1903 – 12 June 1979) was a Hungarian politician of the Smallholders Party who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1946 until his forced resignation in 1947. He was also a Speaker of the National Assembly of Hung ...
, the leader of the Smallholders Party. When Soviet-backed communists forced the Prime Minister into exile on 30 May 1947, Dinnyés was appointed as successor. In the so-called "Blue Papers Election" on 31 August 1947, the Smallholders Party came in second surpassed by the Communists. Dinnyés remained in office as Prime Minister until 1948, but merely served as an obedient puppet in the hands of the deputy premier, Communist Party boss
Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi (; born Mátyás Rosenfeld; 9 March 1892 – 5 February 1971) was a Hungarian . While Dinnyés nominally headed the government, Rákosi laid the foundations of the communist dictatorship by nationalizing factories, banks and denominational schools. In December 1948, the Communists used the emigration of the treasurer Miklós Nyárádi as an excuse to push out Dinnyés altogether and replace him with the
fellow traveller
The term ''fellow traveller'' (also ''fellow traveler'') identifies a person who is intellectually sympathetic to the ideology of a political organization, and who co-operates in the organization's politics, without being a formal member of that o ...
István Dobi
István Dobi (; 31 December 1898 – 24 November 1968) was a Hungarian politician who was Prime Minister of Hungary from 1948 to 1952 and Chairman of the Presidential Council of the Hungarian People's Republic from 1952 to 1967.
Early life
Dob ...
.
He later became the director of the National Library of Agriculture and vice president of Parliament. During 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 ...