Imre Nagy (1896-1958), Hungarian politician, served as prime minister of Hungary between 1953 and 1955, then again in 1956 during the revolution. He was tried and executed in 1958.

Imre Nagy was born into a peasant family at Kaposvar on July 6, 1896. As a young man he was an engineering apprentice, then a worker in Budapest. He was sent to the Russian front during World War I. Taken prisoner, he joined the Red Army in 1917 and the Bolshevik Party in 1918. He returned to Hungary in the early 1920s and joined the then illegal Communist Party. He organized the peasants in a movement calling for agrarian reform. He was in charge of Communist Party work in the countryside, concentrating on agrarian questions. Politically very active, he was tried and sentenced several times by the Hungarian government.

In 1928 Nagy left the country and settled in Vienna. In March 1930 he joined the staff of the International...