With the end of World War II and the collapse of the Nazi regime in Germany, Hungary fell under the influence of the Soviet Union, which tended to establish a communist regime in the hope of annexing it to the eastern camp. In addition, Moscow chose communist Mátyás Rákosi to take charge of Hungary. From the beginning, the latter tended to imitate the Stalinist regime in his homeland by establishing a totalitarian dictatorship and establishing an intelligence service similar to the KGB.
With the death of Stalin in 1953 and the beginning of de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, He appointed Communist politician Imre Nagy as Prime Minister of Hungary. During the next three years, the latter began to put an end to Stalinism in his country, before gradually losing the confidence of Moscow and finding himself in 1958 at the gallows.
Portrait of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
Imre Nagy was born on June 7, 1896, in Kaposvár, to a poor farming family. In his youth, he worked as a locksmith before being forced to join the Austrian army at the same time With the outbreak of World War I. During this conflict, Nagy was captured by the Russian army before joining the Communists and the Red Army in the Russian Civil War.
In 1929, Nagy moved to Moscow, where he became a member of the Institute of Agricultural Sciences and maintained this position until 1944 before returning to Hungary to help establish the new order in the country that fell under Soviet influence, coinciding with the expulsion of the Germans.
Photo by Emre Nagy
And between 1944 and 1948, Naghi held many ministerial positions before he was expelled from the government and the Communist Party in 1949 because of his great support for farmers. After publicly retracting this support, Nagy returned to the Hungarian government following an official amnesty.
Between 1953 and 1955, this Hungarian politician obtained the position of Prime Minister before being relieved of it, at the request of Moscow, because of his positions that were classified as independent and far from the policy of the Communist Party.
During the October 1956 revolution, opponents of the Soviet Union rallied around Imre Nagy, who became a symbol of opposition to Moscow’s influence in Hungary. As the revolution failed, Nagy demanded that the West intervene to prevent Soviet forces from entering Hungarian soil.
After taking shelter in the Yugoslav embassy, Imre Nagy was deported to Romania. With the intervention of the Soviet Union, the latter was returned to Hungary, which began to try him secretly on charges of attempting to overthrow the regime and treason. During his imprisonment, Naghi was subjected to various types of torture and forced to accept all charges once morest him.
Subsequently, the court issued a sentence of death by hanging on Naghi, which was carried out during the month of June 1958. According to several experts, The death sentence was issued for this politician The Hungarian leader from Moscow, where the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev supported the idea of hanging Nagy as an example to the leaders of the countries of the eastern camp. After the execution, the Hungarian authorities did not hesitate to reveal some details of his trial and hanging.
A portrait of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev
Initially, Nagy was buried in the prison yard where he was executed, before his remains were later transferred to a Budapest cemetery. According to a number of those present at the exhumation, Naghi’s body was handcuffed with an iron wire.
In 1989, the Hungarian authorities rehabilitated Nagy and acquitted him of the charges once morest him. During the same year, a state funeral was held for his body, attended by regarding 200,000 people.
A picture of a memorial to Emre Nagy
