Losonczy, Géza (1917–1957)
Journalist and communist politician. Losonczy became a member of the March Front while a university student and made contact with the illegal communist party. He joined the staff of the communist paper Szabad Nép in 1945, then a state secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office in December 1948, and political state secretary at the Ministry of People’s Education in 1949–51. He was arrested in 1951 on fabricated charges and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. He was freed in the summer of 1954, but seriously ill, he spent a year in hospital and sanatorium. In April 1955, he was rehabilitated. After his recovery, he became a senior staff member at the newspaper Magyar Nemzet and a leading figure in the party opposition surrounding Imre Nagy. On the night of October 23–4, 1956, he was coopted into the party leadership as an alternate member of the Hungarian Workers’ Party (MDP) Political Committee. He became state minister in the Nagy government on October 30 and one of the seven-member Executive of the new Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party. On November 4, he took refuge in the Yugoslav Embassy, where he and other members of the Nagy group were detained and sent to Romania on November 22. He was arrested in Snagov on April 11, 1957 and later became second defendant in the Imre Nagy trial. While he was on remand, the lung disease he had contracted in prison earlier broke out again. After a hunger strike and disturbances to his nervous system, he died on December 21, 1957.
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