Antal Gyenes, 1920–1996
Born in Mezőtúr (Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County), Gyenes entered the Budapest Technical and Economic University in 1939, where he studied economics, sociology and social anthropology. He joined the Hungarian Communist Party in 1941 and was imprisoned for a short period. He took part in the anti-fascist resistance. At the end of 1944, Gyenes became general secretary of Kisz, the Communist Youth League, and in 1945 he was elected to the Provisional National Assembly. He played an active role in implementing the land reform. In 1945, Gyenes founded the weekly paper Szabad Föld (Free Land), which he edited. A year later, he became president and then general secretary of Nékosz, the National Association of People’s Colleges. For a short time, he was a department counsellor at the Ministry of Religion and Public Education. When Nékosz was disbanded in 1949, Gyenes went to work as a miller at the Láng Engineering Factory for almost two years. However, he became a lecturer in the Agricultural Economics Faculty at the Gödöllő Agricultural University in 1951, and a column editor of the journal Társadalmi Szemle (Social Review) in 1954. From October 27 to November 3, 1956, he was the procurement minister in Imre Nagy’s national government. He issued a ministerial statement on October 31, abolishing the system of compulsory deliveries and abolishing the ministry. From November 10, 1956 until June 22, 1957, Gyenes was a member of the Provisional Central Committee of the Kádárite HSWP. On the latter date, he was stripped of his membership, for having recommended at Central Committee sessions towards the end of 1956 that there should be political agreement with Imre Nagy and for opposing the deportation of the Nagy group to Romania. In 1957, he became a researcher at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Economic Research Institute, and in 1962, he obtained a candidacy degree in economics. From 1968 until his retirement, he was director of the Cooperative Research Institute.
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