Rudolf Földvári

Rudolf Földvári (born Frank; 20 May 1921 – 20 April 2024) was a Hungarian communist politician and revolutionary. He was a Member of Parliament from 1953 to 1957. Because of his participation in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he was arrested and imprisoned.

Early life Földvári was born into a labour family in Kispest (today a borough of Budapest) on 20 May 1921, as the son of carpenter Rudolf Frank and iron factory worker Margit Molnár. He spent a few years, from 1925 to 1927, in Turkey as a child, where his carpenter father got a job. Returning Hungary, Földvári completed four-grade primary school in 1935, then he studied as a locksmith at the Hofherr-Schrantz-Clayton-Shuttleworth Machine Factory Works (HSCS), having obtained a technical certificate there in 1940. He worked as a locksmith and assistant foreman from 1940. He was a member of the trade union of iron and metal workers.

Party career Földvári joined the Kispest branch of the Hungarian Communist Party (MKP) in September 1945. He became a propagandist of the local branch by the next year. He was appointed head of the propaganda department of the National Council of Trade Unions (SZOT) in 1948. Simultaneously, he was a member of the Council of Budapest and the party's Central Leadership and Political Committee (PB) from June 1953. He was a Member of Parliament from 1953 to 1957.

Revolution and aftermath Days before the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Földvári wrote to the PB on behalf of the county party committee on 16 October 1956, in which he urged personnel changes and the convening of an extraordinary party congress demanded, the critical statement was also published in the newspaper Északmagyarország on the day of the revolution broke out on 23 October.