Pál Lőcsei ( b. 1922)
Born into a lower middle-class family in Békéscsaba, Lőcsei broke off his secondary-school studies in 1939 to train as a fitter and worked as a fitter's mate from 1940 to 1944. During 1944, he took part in the armed resistance. From 1945 to 1947, he was a journalist on the paper Viharsarok (Stormy Corner) and then an editor on Magyar Alföld (Hungarian Great Plain). In 1947, he moved to the central communist daily paper, Szabad Nép. In October 1954, Lőcsei dared to criticize the editors of the paper and the policy of the party leadership at a rebellious meeting of the party organization at Szabad Nép. This led to his dismissal from the paper in December. In May 1955, he joined the party opposition centred on Imre Nagy. From 1954 to 1956, Lőcsei taught at the Lenin Institute. He spoke in the economic-policy debate of the Petőfi Circle in September 1956. On October 23, 1956, he was present at the extraordinary meeting of party members at Szabad Nép, where he was elected onto the deputation sent to the HWP Political Committee. There he addressed the party leaders-Ernő Gerő, János Kádár, József Révai and György Marosán-speaking against the ban on the demonstration and any possible use of weapons by the special forces. On October 27, he was a member of the so-called Angyalföld delegation received by Imre Nagy, arguing that the government and the party should acknowledge the national, democratic nature of the revolution. On October 30, 1956, he joined Miklós Gimes and Péter Kende in editing the paper Magyar Szabadság (Hungarian Freedom). After November 4, he made preparations for the appearance a coalition paper in Sopron. Lőcsei was arrested on January 20, 1957. He was sentenced by the Supreme Court to eight years' imprisonment on May 14, 1958 and freed in 1962. In 1965, he joined the staff of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' Sociological Research Institute, where he concerned himself mainly with the sociology of the family. Samizdat publications of his began to appear in the paper Demokrata (Democrat) in the mid-1980s, on the ideas and purpose of 1956. Lőcsei was among the speakers at the reburial of Imre Nagy and the other martyrs on June 16, 1989. Since 1988, he has published political commentaries, studies of local history and memoirs in the daily and weekly papers. He was a founder member of the Committee for Historical Justice (TIB).
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