János Kádár

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János József Kádár (/ˈkɑːdɑːr/; Hungarian: [ˈjaːnoʃ ˈkaːdaːr]; 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 led to his retirement in 1988, and he died in 1989 after being hospitalized for pneumonia. Kádár was born in Fiume in poverty to a single mother. After living in the countryside for some years, Kádár and his mother moved to Budapest. He joined the Party of Communists in Hungary's youth organization, KIMSZ, and went on to become a prominent figure in the pre-1939 Communist Party, eventually becoming First Secretary. As a leader, he would dissolve the party and reorganize it as the Peace Party, but the new party failed to win much popular support. After World War II, with Soviet support, the Communist Party took power in Hungary. Kádár rose through the Party ranks, serving as Interior Minister from 1948 to 1950. In 1951 he was imprisoned by the government of Mátyás Rákosi but was released in 1954 by reformist Prime Minister Imre Nagy. On 25 October 1956, during the Hungarian Revolution, Kádár replaced Ernő Gerő as General Secretary of the Party, taking part in Nagy's revolutionary government. However, a week later he would break with Nagy over his decision to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact. After the Soviet intervention, Kádár was selected to lead the country. He presided throughout repression, ordering the execution of many revolutionaries (including Nagy and his close associates) and the imprisonment of many others. He would gradually moderate, releasing the remaining prisoners of this period in 1963. As leader of Hungary, Kádár attempted to liberalize the Hungarian economy with a greater focus on consumer goods, in what would become known as Goulash Communism. As a result of the relatively high standard of living, fewer human rights abuses, and more relaxed travel restrictions than those present in other Eastern Bloc countries, Hungary was generally considered the most livable country in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. Kádár was succeeded by Károly Grósz as General Secretary on 22 May 1988. Grósz would only serve a year in this post due to the fall of communism in Europe in 1989. While at the head of Hungary, Kádár pushed for an improvement in standards of living. Kádár increased international trade with non-communist countries, in particular those of Western Europe. Kádár's policies differed from those of other communist leaders such as Nicolae Ceaușescu, Enver Hoxha, and Wojciech Jaruzelski, all of whom favored more orthodox interpretations of Marxism-Leninism. Kádár's reformist policies would in turn be viewed with distrust by the conservative leadership of Leonid Brezhnev in the Soviet Union. Kádár's legacy remains disputed, however, nostalgia for the Kádár era remains widespread in Hungary. A 2020 poll carried out by policy solutions found that 54 percent of people believe that most had a better life under Kádár, as opposed to 31 percent who disagree with that assertion. (Source: DBPedia)