[2] After finishing elementary and secondary studies in Enying and Fertőd, respectively, he joined the Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP) in 1950 which had established a Communist one-party system by then.

Imre Nagy was characterized by Pozsgay as an "unprincipled" person who became Prime Minister "in the days of the raging White Terror".

In 1982, his calls for reform (which he describes in his book Turning Point and Reform) led to a falling-out with the party's leader János Kádár which in turn moved Pozsgay to become Secretary-General of the party's mass organization, the Patriotic People's Front (HNF) under President Gyula Kállai.

On 28 January 1989, Pozsgay, as the first from ruling party, stunned the Communist establishment by labelling the 1956 Hungarian revolution not a counterrevolution but a "popular uprising".

The ruling communist party began discussions with the opposition groups within the framework of the so-called Round Table Talks.

Jointly with Otto von Habsburg, Imre Pozsgay was the sponsor of the Pan-European Picnic of 19 August 1989, where hundreds of East Germans who were visiting Hungary were able to cross the previously impenetrable Iron Curtain into Austria.

Richard Sousa, director of the Institution, estimated that Pozsgay will be recognized by history as a leader who helped the transition to democracy in his country.

The NDSZ, which had a third way ideology and advocated a varying synthesis of right-wing economic and left-wing social policies, have failed to win any seats in the 1994 parliamentary election, receiving only 0.52 percent of the vote.

Pozsgay became an adviser to the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) in 1997, he was also the party's candidate in the 1998 parliamentary election but did not gain a mandate.

He returned to the political sphere in 2005, when he became a member of the National Consultation Body led by Viktor Orbán, the President of Fidesz.

Pozsgay became a member of the board advising Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on the conceptual foundations of the new fundamental law.

[1] In a statement, the Fidesz–KDNP government sent its condolences to his family, and noted Pozsgay's "inevitable" role in the transition process to democracy.