Károly Grósz

Károly Grósz [ˈkaːroj ˈɡroːs] (1 August 1930 – 7 January 1996) was a Hungarian communist politician, who served as the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party from 1988 to 1989.

Early career

Grósz was born in

As the country was facing economic troubles and growing discontent, the aging party leader János Kádár decided to resign, although originally he had planned to remain in office until 1990. In May 1988 a party conference was convened, which elected Grósz as general secretary of the party at Kádár's recommendation on 22 May 1988. He advocated moderate and measured changes in the political and economic spheres. As he put it, this would result in a careful reform of the Communist system without touching the latter's foundations. He liked to call this a "model change" (i.e. reforms and refinements within the Communist framework), as opposed to the total "system change", i.e. the replacement of Communism by a Western-style system, advocated by a growing faction of radical reformers in the party.

Leader of Hungary

Grósz remained prime minister until 24 November 1988, when he was succeeded by Miklós Németh, a representative of the radical reformer faction.

As 1989 wore on, Grósz was increasingly sidelined by the radical reformers within the party, including Németh, Rezső Nyers, Gyula Horn and Imre Pozsgay. He tried to slow down, stop or reverse the radical changes advocated by his adversaries that were aimed at establishing a liberal political system and market economy in Hungary. He opposed the rehabilitation of the executed Imre Nagy, Prime Minister during the 1956 revolution. In order to prevent Nagy's political rehabilitation, Grósz gave a speech before the Central Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party on 1 September 1989, where he provided some information on the former prime minister's alleged NKVD ties, however the committee decided not to publish the charges.^[1]

Grósz's fate was sealed when he agreed to meet with Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu to discuss what to do with a large number of ethnic Hungarians who had fled Romania. Many of Grósz' party colleagues thought he trusted Ceaușescu too much. He lost a good deal of authority as a result, and his standing never really recovered.^[2]

On 26 June 1989, he became a member of a four-man collective presidency of the MSZMP, chaired by Nyers. Although Grósz retained his post as general secretary, Nyers now outranked him–and thus replaced him as the de facto leader of Hungary. However, he opposed the radical reformers' drive to reorganize the party as a social democratic party. He remained general secretary until 7 October, when the party reorganized itself as the Hungarian Socialist Party.^[3]

Later life

The communist ("hardline") faction, led by Grósz, was defeated at the congress and broke away in December 1989 as a new

On 7 January 1996, he died of kidney cancer at age 65 in Gödöllő, Hungary.^[5]

Notes