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Károly Grósz (August 1 1930 - January 7 1996) was a Hungarian communist politician.

Grósz was born in Miskolc, Hungary. He joined the Communist Party in 1945 at the age of 14. Soon the Communists had established a regime in Hungary, and Grósz rose through the party ranks, becoming an important party leader in his native region. In 1974 he was appointed head of the Department of Agitation and Propaganda of the governing Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party.

In 1979 Grósz was elected first secretary of the party committee of his home county. In 1984 he returned to national prominence as the head of the party committee in Budapest. At the next Party Congress in 1985, he became a member of the Politburo. In 1987, he was appointed Prime Minister to succeed Gyorgy Lazar, who had filled the post for more than eleven years. The appointment of the much younger and energetic Grosz was acclaimed both at home and abroad. As the country was facing economic troubles and growing discontent, the aging party leader Janos Kadar decided to resign, although originally he had planned to remain in office until 1990. In 1988 a party conference was convened, which elected Karoly Grosz as general secretary of the party at Kadar's recommendation. Grosz remained Prime Minister until later that year, and general secretary until 1989. He was unable and - out of pricipal convictions - unwilling to keep abreast of the dramatic changes the country was undergoing. He tried to slow down, stop and partly reverse reforms advocated by his adversaries that were aimed at establishing a Western-type parliamentary democracy and market economy in Hungary. He opposed the rehabilitation of the unlawfully executed Imre Nagy, Prime Minister during the 1956 revolution. In October 1989, the reformers within the party, including Gyula Horn, Miklos Nemeth and Imre Pozsgay, decided to reorganize the party along the concept of Western European Social Democracy and change its name to Hungarian Socialist Party. The hardline faction, led by Karoly Grósz, was defeated and refounded itself in December 1989 as a new Hugarian Socialist Workers' Party. He died in Gödöllő, Hungary.

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