Blackwell Reference Online

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Imre Nagy was prime minister during the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 . He favored the “New Course” calling for gradual reforms to Communist Hungary, which put him in confrontation with the leadership of the Soviet Union and led to his execution. Nagy was born in Kaposvar, Hungary on June 7, 1896 into a poor peasant family. During his teenage years he was a locksmith's apprentice, later becoming a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian Army. Nagy was captured in 1915 by the Bolsheviks and became a prisoner of war in Siberia. He then fought in the Soviet Union's Red Army and became a communist. He studied agriculture at the Moscow Institute. After World War I he returned to Hungary and briefly served in Bela Kun's government. In 1929 he returned to the Soviet Union where he worked in the Hungarian agricultural research section of the Comintern. He also became a secret agent for the Soviets. Nagy returned to Hungary in 1944 and stopped security work shortly thereafter. He became minister of agriculture and excelled in his work on peasants. Due to the strong influence of Soviet deputy premier Matyas Rakosi, Nagy was prime minister from 1953 to 1955. Nagy favored a New Course, a more liberal type of communism that would reform Hungary. He slowed Hungary's fast-paced industrialization, decreased police powers, allowed public control over the media, encouraged open discussion on state issues, ... log in or subscribe to read full text