Rákosi, Mátyás [key], 1892–1971, Hungarian Communist politician. An associate of Bela Kun and later a disciple of Joseph Stalin, Rákosi was one of the chief engineers of post–World War II Communist Hungary. He became premier in 1952, but was removed in 1953 as a Stalinist. His successor, Imre Nagy, was ousted in 1955 for Titoism, and Rákosi regained the premiership. In Aug., 1956, shortly before the anti-Soviet rebellion, Rákosi was again forced by anti-Stalinists to resign, and he fled to the Soviet Union. He was expelled from the Communist party in 1962 and was erroneously reported to have died in the Soviet Union in 1963.
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