Ferenc Erdei

Ferenc Erdei (24 December 1910 – 11 May 1971) was a Hungarian politician and sociologist. Initially a member of the National Peasant Party (NPP), he supported the party's merging into the Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP) and held a number of ministerial positions after World War II and in the Hungarian People's Republic.

Biography Born into a smallholder's family, Erdei completed elementary and secondary school in his hometown of Makó. Between 1929 and 1934 he studied at the Faculty of Law and Political Science at Franz Joseph University in Szeged, where he graduated with a degree in sociology; while at university, Erdei was introduced to Marxist ideas. After graduation, he traveled to the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland in 1935, where he studied cooperative economic systems. Upon his return to Hungary, Erdei worked as a manager at a cooperative of onion farmers in Makó. At this point a member of the National Independence Kossuth Party (OFKP), he was among the initiators and leaders of the March Front, a progressive political and intellectual movement founded in the spring of 1937.

In October 1937, Erdei moved to Budapest in order to finish a study on the Hungarian peasantry. He participated in the founding of the National Peasant Party (NPP) in the summer of 1939, and was elected to the party's executive committee. From the late 1930s and during World War II, Erdei devoted most of his time to sociological studies, and also wrote for the social democratic newspaper Népszava. In June 1953, Erdei was appointed Minister of Justice in the cabinet of Imre Nagy; he held this position until October 1954, when he returned to the post of Minister of Agriculture.