RezsÅ' Nyers [ˈrÉ›Ê'Ã¸Ë É²É›rʃ] (born 21 March 1923) is a former Hungarian politician, who served as Minister of Finance between 1960 and 1962. For a few months in 1989, he was the country's last Communist leader.
Political career
Until 1944 he worked as a printer. He joined to the Social Democratic Party in 1940. After the unification of the SZDP and the MDP he served as substitute member of the party's Central Leadership. He became representative of the National Assembly of Hungary in 1948 (until 1953). He was appointed head of a department of the Ministry of Domestic Commerce. In this same year he started his studies at the Karl Marx University of Economic Sciences, beside this he was a student at the Kossuth Academy from 1954.
In 1954 he was elected member of the Central Leadership. During the András Hegedüs cabinet he served as Minister of Food Industry for a short time. He was member of the MSZMP's Central Committee from 1957 to 1989 and of the National Assembly from 1958 to 1989. Nyers drew up the contemporary economic reform package, the New Economic Mechanism with Prime Minister JenÅ' Fock. After the failure of the reforms (because of the orthodox marxists' strengthening), he largely went into eclipse.
Nyers was appointed to the directorial post of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' Economical Institute in 1974. As a result he resigned from all of his political positions (excluding the MSZMP Central Committee). He became chairman of the Közgazdasági Szemle's Editorial Committee in 1976. Reform movements gained ground inside the party, thus Nyers returned to prominence as part of a younger leadership. He served as chairman of the National Assembly's Reform Committee from 1987. In 1987 he became a member of the government as Minister of State. By this time, he had become one of the leaders of the MSZMP's radical reform wing, who favoured establishing a full-fledged market economy. On 26 June 1989, he was appointed as chairman of a four-member collective presidency of the MSZMP. In this position, Nyers outranked General Secretary Károly Grószâ€"thus effectively making him the leader of Hungary.
At its final congress on 7 October 1989, the MSZMP disbanded, and was reformed as the Hungarian Socialist Party, with Nyers as its first chairman. He was elected to parliament in the 1990 Hungarian parliamentary election, in which the newly-minted Socialists were severely defeated, winning only 33 seats. Nyers stepped down as chairman shortly afterward, succeeded by Gyula Horn. He remained in parliament until his retirement from politics in 1998.
Personal life
A widower, Nyers' wife died in 1988. Nyers has one child, RezsÅ' Nyers Jr., who served as managing director of the Hungarian National Bank.
Publications
- Szövetkezetek a magyar népi demokráciában (1959)
- A műszaki fejlesztés szerepe gazdaságpolitikánkban (1964)
- Gazdaságpolitikánk és a gazdasági mechanizmus reformja (1968)
- 25 kérdés és válasz gazdaságpolitikai kérdésekrÅ'l (1969)
- A szocialista gazdasági integráció elvi és gyakorlati kérdései (1969)
- A jövedelmezÅ'ség és a jövedelemelosztás problémái hazánkban (1970)
- Szövetkezetpolitikánk kérdései (1970)
- Népgazdaságunk a szocializmus épÃtésének útján (1970)
- Útkeresés â€" reformok (1988)
- Beszélgetések (with Tibor Huszár, 2004)
References
- MTI Ki Kicsoda 2006, Magyar Távirati Iroda, Budapest, 2005, 1273â€"1274. old.
- Nyers 1996-os országgyűlési életrajza
- Életrajz az MTI 1956-os emlékoldalán