András Hegedüs

It was a rather unusual occurence in the history of the eastern European communist movement. András Hegedüs, who has died aged 76, through relentless ambition and a coincidence of circumstances, got to the very top and became prime minister of Hungary. Then he lost the post, and in time sided with those who demanded democracy, refused to accept any more government appointments and chose instead to be an academic.

The 1956 Hungarian revolution ejected Hegedüs from his premiership, and fearing for their safety, the Soviets whisked him and party boss Ernö Gerö to Moscow, where they stayed for two years. Meanwhile, back home, János Kádar arranged the process of "normalisation", arresting and executing hundreds of people.

Walking in a Moscow park, Gerö, a shady character of the communist movement, asked Hegedüs what plans he had for after their return to Budapest. "I'm sick and tired of politics," he replied, "I would like to work as a sociologist." "I warn you comrade," remarked Gerö, "sociology is a bourgeois pseudo-science."

Nonetheless, Hegedüs did become a sociologist, with the Hungarian Academy research group. But airing his liberal views brought down the wrath of his bosses and in 1973 he was kicked out both from his job and the Hungarian Socialist Workers' party (the communists).

Hegedüs was born in the west Hungarian village of Szilsárkany, the son of a poor agricultural worker who married a farmer's daughter. The Lutheran priest of the village advised the by then widowed mother to send her talented boy to Sopron, which she did, hoping that the Lutheran lycee there would prepare him for the priesthood. Instead, in 1942, as an engineering student in Budapest, young Hegedüs joined the banned Communist party, was arrested by the police, badly beaten and given a two-year suspended sentence.

After the Soviet occupation of Hungary in 1945, the new regime was faced with a desperate shortage of reliable communist anti-Nazi resistance veterans. Thus was the 23-year-old Hegedüs appointed to be a member of parliament and secretary of the youth movement. He took part in the carving-up of big estates and in the distribution of land to the agricultural proletariat. When the new, small landowners were forced into cooperatives, the party central committee entrusted Hegedüs with the job of overseeing the process. In 1951 he became a political committee member and deputy agriculture minister. At 31, he took full charge of the department, and became deputy prime minister.

In 1953, the Hungarian communist leadership was ordered to report to Moscow immediately; the economy was in a shambles and the masses were unhappy. Hegedüs was surprised to join the trip, together with party chiefs Rákosi, Gerö and Imre Nagy. Moscow had its eyes on that sharp-featured, wiry little man who was always so diplomatic. In 1955 - instead of Imre Nagy, whom he never liked - party leader Rákosi appointed Hegedüs to lead the government.

The following autumn, arriving back in Budapest from Yugoslavia, where he had led a delegation to ask President Tito's forgiveness for his bad treatment by the Soviet bloc, Hegedüs found himself facing a full-scale revolution. In a panic, political committee members telephoned the Soviet ambassador Yuri Andropov to arrange for a squadron of Russian tanks to be deployed in the city to get "hotheads" off the street. For many years the question remained unanswered: who was responsible for a call which began a bloodbath?

In April 1978, the Hungarian authorities gave permission to Hegedüs - disgraced for opposing the 1968 intervention in Czechoslovakia by Soviet-led forces, and by now judged harmless and unimportant - to give a lecture at the London School of Economics. He talked, in atrocious English, about the need for Hungarian parliamentary reform and the introduction of some Yugoslav-style self-government.

Afterwards, in the George pub round the corner from the LSE, I asked Hegedüs who had called in the tanks on that first day of the 1956 uprising? It was a collective decision, he replied. But later he confessed during an interview that Andropov, being a pedantic bureaucrat - qualities which helped him become first secretary of the Soviet Communist party - had demanded a written request for armed intervention. Since Nagy, himself by then premier, refused to sign, Hegedüs volunteered to do it.

In some countries politicians are put on trial for such a crime against the nation, when their dictatorship comes to an end. But in Hungary, as in Spain, the changeover was velvety smooth. And, after all, András Hegedüs matured to be a champion of good causes. For example, he bravely demanded the release of Václav Havel and his friends after their arrest.

He died on the day that Hungary remembered the 43rd anniversary of the uprising against communist rule. His six children survive him.

Matyas Sarkozi

András Hegedüs, politician and sociologist, born October 31 1922; died October 23 1999

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