He was a deputy minister from 1958 to 1967, later, as one of the leaders of the Party's Central Committee (Hu: Központi Bizottság) the most influential figure in socialist culture politics.

In the beginning, he acted in the company stagione of Nándor Alapi, he performed in several minor roles in Budapest, but he also played in Győr, Pécs and Balassagyarmat.

In January 1939 he had his own declamation of poems of Endre Ady, Ferenc Kölcsey, Gyula Illyés, Mihály Babits, Dezső Kosztolányi and Lőrinc Szabó.

During the German occupation of Hungary and the Arrow Cross Party's seizure of power in 1944, he was baptized as a Roman Catholic for the sake of the Jews who were being hidden by him or through him.

He was re-elected in the May 1949 elections, but only two months later, on 6 July, he was arrested and sentenced to a life imprisonment in one of the show trials of László Rajk.

As a result, Ilku was sarcastically named as the First Superior Minister of Culture, as Aczél functioned as the de facto head of the ministry.

Due to his extensive personal relationships and his friendship with János Kádár, the powerful leader of the country and the state party MSZMP, he has had a much greater influence on cultural policy and day-to-day practice.

He was in a close contact with important personalities of literary-intellectual life, like Zoltán Kodály, Gyula Illyés and György Lukács.

He was forced to leave the post under the pressure of the hardline leftist party faction opposing the 1968 economic-social reforms, but as "consolation" he was elected the vice-president of the Council of Ministers (i.e. Deputy Prime Minister) the following day, on 21 March, as well as the chairman of the State Committee for the Kossuth Prize, and in 1980 the chairman of the National Council for Public Education.

When the MSZMP was officially abolished on 7 October 1989, Aczél retired from politics and began writing his memoirs, but he could not finish it: he died on 6 December 1991.