András Hegedüs

Infobox_President | name= András Hegedüs


nationality=Hungarian
order=Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary
term_start=18 April 1955
term_end=24 October 1956
predecessor=Imre Nagy
successor=Imre Nagy
order2 =
primeminister2 =
term_start2 =
term_end2 =
predecessor2 =
successor2 =
primeminister3 =
term_start3 =
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birth_date=Birth date|1922|10|31|df=yes
birth_place=Szilsárkány, Hungary
death_date=Death date and age|1999|10|23|1922|10|31|df=yes
death_place=Budapest, Hungary
spouse=
party=Hungarian Communist Party,
Hungarian Workers' Party,
Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party
profession=

Early years

Coming from a poor family, he finished high school in Sopron at the Evangelical Academy. Hegedus first became involved in the underground communist movement during his university years when he studied railway engineering at Budapest 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; they had six children. From 1948 onwards Hegedus became involved with the Hungarian Worker's Party eventually taking on leading roles. From the early 1950s he took on numerous ministerial portfolios and served as Prime Minister from 18 April 1955 to 24 October 1956.

* 1956 Revolution and its aftermath

After signing the document asking Soviet troops for assistance during the revolution on 24 October, the government and people overwhelmingly supported him handing power to Imre Nagy. He became the most hated man in Hungary and was advised to flee by Soviet ambassador Yuri Andropov to the Soviet Union along with other Hungarian hard liners such as Erno Gero. 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 shut him out of the party but by September 1958 he was able to return home.

* Academic career following return

From the late 1950s he held numerous academic posts and worked in various research institutes:1958-61: Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) Economic Institute1961-63: Central Statistics Institute1963-68: Founded and led the HAS Sociology Research Institute1966: Karl Marx Economics University1968-73: Industry Studies

* Dismissal

In 1968 he objected to the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring. He was dismissed from his position at the Sociology Research Institute and later in 1973 was shut out of 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, Hegedus 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.

Parts translated from Wikipedia Hungary.

elected Publications

Essays

* with Maria Markus. [http://journal.telospress.com/"Modernization and the Alternatives of Social Progress"] . "TELOS" 17 (Fall 1973). New York: [http://www.telospress.com Telos Press]

Further reading

*cite book
last = Sebestyen
first = Victor
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
publisher = Pantheon
date = 2006
location = New York
url =
pages = pp. xix
id = ISBN 0-375-42458-X