György Marosán ( 1908-1992)
Marosán was born in Hosszúpályi, Hajdú-Bihar County, where his father was a Greek Catholic schoolmaster and choirmaster. However, he arrived in the Debrecen Orphanage in 1917. In the autumn of 1919, the Romanian occupation authorities sent him to Nagyvárad (Oradea) because he was of Romanian origin. There he became a baker's apprentice. In 1922, he joined the Labourers and Bakery Industry Trade Union, and in 1926, he moved to Budapest. In 1939, he became general secretary of the National Association of Food Workers, and in 1943, its president. He joined the Budapest leadership of the Hungarian Social Democratic Party in 1941. In 1942, he was among the founders of the Attila József Memorial Committee. He was arrested that summer but released in the autumn. In 1943, he became provincial organizing secretary of the Hungarian Social Democratic Party. Arrested again during the German occupation, Marosán was interned in Nagykanizsa. In August 1945, he became national secretary of the Social Democratic Party, later that year its leading secretary, and in February 1947, its deputy general secretary. He also headed the party's provincial department from 1945. Meanwhile he began a member of the Provisional National Assembly on April 2, 1945 and remained a member of Parliament until 1963. Marosán was one of the main instigators of the merger between the Hungarian Communist Party and the Social Democrats. On March 10, 1948, he became deputy chairman of the joint Political Committee and the joint Steering Committee. At the beginning of 1948, he received a decoration from Tito, which was later held against him in his trial. At the merging congress of the two left-wing parties, Marosán was elected third secretary and made a member of the Central Committee, the Political Committee, the Steering Committee and the Secretariat. From August 18, 1948 to July 1, 1949, Marosán was also first secretary of the Budapest HWP Committee, and from June 11, 1949 to August 4, 1950, minister of light industry. He was appointed a member of the Economic Council in 1949. At the Central Committee meeting in May 1950, he was put in charge of the Administrative Department. However, he was arrested at the beginning of July 1950 and sentenced to death, although the sentence was then altered, without a hearing, to life imprisonment. Marosán was freed on March 29, 1956 and rehabilitated three months later. The Central Committee meeting of July 18-21, 1956 elected him onto the Political Committee. He was a deputy prime minister from July 30, 1956 to October 27. At the meeting of the HWP Political Committee on October 23, 1956, Marosán had pressed for an order to fire to be given, citing a danger of counterrevolution. On October 28, he was dropped from the inner circle of the leadership, and on October 31, arrested by the Széna ter group of insurgents for a short while. On November 2, Marosán went to the Soviet military headquarters at Tököl. He became a member of the Revolutionary Worker-Peasant Government <Kádár government> and on November 7, a member of the HSWP Provisional Executive Committee. At the February 1957 meeting of the HSWP Central Committee, he was elected administrative Central Committee secretary and deputy to János Kádár. Marosán was also state minister from February 28, 1957 and January 15, 1960. On April 30, 1957, he became chairman of the Provisional Executive Committee of the Budapest HSWP Committee and then secretary of the latter. In 1962, Marosán expressed a dissenting, 'ultra-left' opinion on a draft party resolution on quashing illegal trials of labour-movement members prosecuted in the early 1950s. This brought him into conflict with Kádár. Marosán addressed a letter to the Central Committee of the HSWP, which responded at its meeting on October 11- 12, 1962 by recalling him from membership of the Political Committee, relieving him of his position as a Central Committee secretary and excluding him from Central Committee membership. In November 1964, he took part in the festive procession as a simple party member, after which there were attacks on him from within the party. He resigned from the HSWP in 1965 but rejoined in 1972. In 1989, he opposed the dissolution of the HSWP and formation of the social democratic Hungarian Socialist Party, took part in the formation of a new communist HSWP instead.
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