László Piros (10 May 1917 – 13 January 2006) 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, a ...

politician and military officer, who served as

Interior Minister An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergenc ...

between 1954 and 1956.

Career

Piros was born in to an impoverished peasant family. He fought in 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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, but he was captured by the

Soviet 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 national ...

s at

Voronezh Voronezh ( rus, links=no, Воро́неж, p=vɐˈronʲɪʂ}) is a city and the administrative centre of Voronezh Oblast in southwestern Russia straddling the Voronezh River, located from where it flows into the Don River. The city sits on ...

(January 1943). After that he took part in the antifascist movements. Piros worked as a partisan during the end of the war. He was a member of the Provisional National Assembly. Following the arrest of Gábor Péter, Piros led

State Protection Authority 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 ...

(ÁVH) from 1953. As Interior Minister he reexamined the previous years' show trials. 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 Hung ...

he left the country along with Ernő Gerő and András Hegedüs for the

Soviet Union 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, ...

on 28 October, but returned to the country on 3 November. On 10 November, at the request of Hungarian dictator

János Kádár János József Kádár (; ; 26 May 1912 – 6 July 1989), born János József Czermanik, was a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, a position he held for 32 years. Declining health l ...

, he was sent back to the Soviet Union, and he was stripped of his parliamentary mandate on 9 May 1957. He was allowed to return again to Hungary in August 1958. From September 1958 he was chief engineer and from 1969 the director of the Pick Szeged salami factory. After his retirement in 1977 Piros served as chairman of the Csongrád County Council of Trade Unions for many years.

References

Az 1956-os Magyar Forradalom Történetének Dokumentációs és Kutatóintézete Közalapítvány
1917 births 2006 deaths People from Újkígyós People from the Kingdom of Hungary Hungarian Communist Party politicians Members of the Hungarian Working People's Party Members of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party Hungarian Interior Ministers Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (1945–1947) Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (1947–1949) Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (1949–1953) Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (1953–1958) {{Hungary-politician-stub Hungarian trade unionists