Senior politician of János Kádár’s one-time communist regime dies

János Berecz, a senior politician of János Kádár’s one-time communist regime, has died at the age of 91, his son, János Gábor Berecz, said on Facebook on Thursday.

Berecz pursued university studies in Debrecen and Budapest, attended the Academy of Social Sciences of the Soviet Communist Party, and obtained a candidate’s degree in historical studies. His dissertation entitled 1956 Counter-Revolution in Hungary: Words and Weapons was published in 1969, as an apology of the suppression of the 1956 revolution and freedom fight and the subsequent reprisals.

Berecz filled senior posts in the Communist Youth Union. From 1974 he headed the foreign affairs committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (MSZMP).

In 1982 he was appointed editor-in-chief of Népszabadság, the party’s central paper.

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In the 1980s he became one of the most influential politicians of the party and was considered a close confidante of Kádár. As a hardline member of the party’s innermost decision-making body, the Political Committee, he tried to block the road to Hungary becoming a multi-party system.