Mátyás Rákosi (9 March 1892 – 5 February 1971) was a Hungarian communist politician who was the de facto leader of Hungary from 1947 to 1956. He served first as General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party (1945–48) and later holding the same post with the Hungarian Working People's Party (1948–56). Description above from the Wikipedia article Mátyás Rákosi, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.