János Kádár

János Kádár (1912-1989), Hungarian Communist Party leader. Born in a Hungarian village (then in Austria-Hungary), he originally was named János Csermanck and was educated in the village school. In 1931 he joined the outlawed Hungarian Communist Party and was arrested several times during the 1930s for illegal political activities. In 1946 he was elected a deputy secretary general of the Hungarian Communist Party, and in 1949 he became minister of the interior and head of the secret police. He was arrested in 1951 by Mátyás Rákosi, Hungarian premier, and charged with treason. After his release in 1953, he quickly rose to influence again and was instrumental in forcing Rákosi to resign in 1956. Later that year he became first secretary of the Hungarian Workers' Party and deputy premier in the government formed by Imre Nagy.

After Nagy's downfall, following the suppression of the Hungarian revolution by the Soviet army in November 1956, Kádár immediately formed a new government, and he exercised supreme power in Hungary until his health failed in the late 1980s. He held the premiership from 1956 to 1958 and again from 1961 to 1965. In 1988 he was relegated to the largely ceremonial post of party president.