László Orbán (politician)

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László Orbán (born August 2, 1912 in Nógrádverőce , Pest county , † November 18, 1978 in Budapest ) was a Hungarian politician of the Party of the Hungarian Working People MDP (Magyar Dolgozók Pártja) and finally the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party MSZMP (Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt) , who was minister of education between 1974 and 1976.

Life

Lawyer, youth functionary and World War II

Orbán came from a middle-class family and was the son of a timber merchant who moved with his family to Budapest in 1922, where he attended the Mátyás Gimnázium . He then began studying law at the University of Vienna , but shortly afterwards switched to the University of Miskolc and then to the University of Sciences in Szeged , before studying at the Royal Hungarian Kaiser Franz Joseph University in Kolozsvár (Kolozsvári Magyar Királyi Ferenc József Tudományegyetem) graduated. He then completed a six-month course at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he came into contact with the Communist Party of Great Britain ( CPGB ) and dealt with the theory of Marxism for the first time .

After his return to Hungary he took up a practice as a lawyer and in 1937 he joined a group of the labor movement led by Endre Ságvári . He also became a member of the Hungarian Social Democratic Party MSZDP (Magyarországi Szociáldemokrata Párt) and worked in their youth group in the fifth district of Belváros-Lipótváros in Budapest . Shortly afterwards he was elected a member of the National Youth Committee of the MSZDP, where he was responsible for education and propaganda.

In autumn 1938 Orbán joined the illegal Communist Party KMP (Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja) and, due to his experience in youth work and his writing skills, he was first a columnist and then editor-in-chief of the youth supplement in the social democratic daily Népszava in 1939 . In addition, he was employed in the advertising department of the newspapers of the Popular Front and, since Christmas 1941, together with Endre Ságvári, wrote articles on the party's youth work.

In May 1942 he began to organize underground activities on the Left Front and took on increasing responsibility for youth and education policy within the party, before he became secretary of the KMP city administration in Budapest in autumn 1942. In 1943 he became a member of the Central Committee (ZK) of the KMP and in 1944 took an active part in combat measures on the Hungarian front.

Party official, MP and ministerial official

In January 1945 Orbán first became an employee and then from December 1945 to April 1950 head of the Central Committee's department for agitation and propaganda.

In the meantime, on April 2, 1945, he was elected a member of the Provisional National Assembly (Ideiglenes Nemzetgyűlés) and on November 4, 1945 as a member of Parliament (Országgyűlés) . There he represented after his re-elections on August 31, 1947 and May 15, 1949 the Communist Party on the common list of the Hungarian Popular Front (Magyar Nemzeti Függetlenségi Front) for Csongrád County . In addition, he was from October 2, 1946 to March 1, 1951 a member of the Central Committee of the MDP and the resulting party of the Hungarian working people MDP (Magyar Dolgozók Pártja) .

In 1950 he became section head in the Ministry of Religion and National Education and then between 1951 and 1953 in the Ministry of Education. Afterwards he was secretary of the Council for Higher Education and in this body also head of the department for Marxism-Leninism .

Subsequently, he held from January 10, 1955 to January 20, 1956 Vice Minister for Education, before he was again an employee of the party headquarters of the MDP and there in February 1956 took over the position of deputy head of the Central Committee of Science. In this capacity, on October 6, 1956, he was part of a group of speakers who paid tribute to the rehabilitation and political achievements of László Rajk , who was executed as a victim of a show trial during the Stalinist purges in 1949.

Central Committee Head of Department and Minister of Education

On June 29, 1957 Orbán became a member of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party MSZMP (Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt), which had emerged from the MDP, and was a member of this leadership body of the party until his death. In July 1957 he became head of the Central Committee Department for Science and Culture and held this position until December 5, 1959.

After he was not a member of parliament between 1953 and 1958, Orbán was re-elected as a member of parliament on November 16, 1958, where he initially represented the list of the Patriotic Popular Front (Hazafias Népfront) in Budapest . constituency of Budapest, and last from 15 June 1975 until his death 28 Budapest constituency.

On December 5, 1959, he took over the position of head of the Central Committee's department for agitation and propaganda and remained in this position until April 12, 1967, before becoming first vice minister for education on April 18, 1967. At the same time he acted as State Secretary in the Ministry of Education between August 3, 1973 and June 21, 1974. From 1962 until his death he was also a member of the MSZMP Commission on Propaganda and Agitation.

After a reshuffle of the government of Prime Minister Jenő Fock he took over on June 21, 1974, the separate within the competence of the Minister of Education Office of the Minister of Education (Kulturális Miniszter) and has held this in the government of Prime Minister György Lázár until his replacement by Imre Pozsgay at 22 July 1976. During this time he was Vice-President of the National Council of Culture (Országos Közművelődési Tanács) between 1974 and 1976 and, most recently, its President in 1976 for some time.

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personal data
SURNAME Orbán, László
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian communist politician, member of parliament
DATE OF BIRTH August 2, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Nógrádverőce , Pest county
DATE OF DEATH November 18, 1978
Place of death Budapest