András Hegedűs

András Hegedüs
András Hegedüs in 1956
Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary
In office 18 April 1955 – 24 October 1956
Preceded by	Imre Nagy
Succeeded by	Imre Nagy
Personal details
Born	(1922-10-31)31 October 1922 Szilsárkány, Hungary
Died	23 October 1999(1999-10-23) (aged 76) Budapest, Hungary
Nationality	Hungarian
Political party	Hungarian Communist Party, Hungarian Working People's Party, Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party

András Hegedüs (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈɒndraːʃ ˈhɛɡɛdyʃ]; 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, but returned in 1958 and taught sociology.

Coming from a poor family, he finished high school in Sopron at the Evangelical Academy. Hegedüs 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.

In 1947 he married Zsuzsanna Hölzel; they had six children. From 1948 onwards Hegedüs became involved with the Hungarian Working People'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.

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 hardliners such as Ernő Gerő. 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.

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 Economics University 1968–73: Industry Studies