On 25 October 1956, during the Hungarian Revolution, Kádár replaced Ernő Gerő as General Secretary of the Party, taking part in Nagy's revolutionary government.

[citation needed] His leadership was characterized by unrelenting Realpolitik; for a long time, he successfully maneuvered between Moscow's wishes, local interests and the expectations of the Western world.

Kádár's policies differed from those of other Communist leaders, such as Nicolae Ceaușescu, Enver Hoxha, and Wojciech Jaruzelski, all of whom favored more orthodox interpretations of Marxism–Leninism.

Kádár's reformist policies and the increasing commercial ties to the Western World would in turn worsen relations with Leonid Brezhnev in the Soviet Union.

After he was turned down as a car mechanic, he started work as an apprentice of Sándor Izsák, chief Hungarian representative of Torpedo Typewriter Company in the autumn of 1927.

Kádár cracked because of police brutality, when he later confronted his fellow arrested Communists, he realized he had made a mistake and denied and retracted all his confessions.

Within the party, Kádár and his associates made no secret of their Marxist views, frequently talking about the struggles of the working class and their gaze, which was directed towards the Soviet Union.

As early as May 1942, Kádár became a member of the newly formed Central Committee of the Communist party, mostly due to the lack of personnel, seeing that the majority of them had been sent to prison.

During Kádár's first tenure as leader of the party, he faced many problems, the most important being that the Communists were becoming increasingly irrelevant in a fast-changing situation, mostly because of the Hungarian government's continuing interference.

[35] After failing to secure a majority in Parliament after the 1945 Hungarian parliamentary election, the Communist leadership started the divide and conquer strategy known as salami tactics.

[41] As Interior Minister, Kádár did not have real power as the most important organizations of internal state security operated under the direct control of Rákosi and his closest associates.

In retrospect, it is clear that Kádár was appointed Minister of the Interior with the deliberate aim to involve him in the "show trial" of Laszlo Rajk, although the investigations and proceedings were handled by the State Security Agency with the active participation of the Soviet Secret Police.

[46] Rákosi told Kádár, in late August 1950, that former Social Democratic party leader Árpád Szakasits had confessed to being a spy for the capitalistic countries.

Szakasits' imprisonment would be the start of a long purge against former social democrats, trade union officials, and high-standing Communist party members.

Ernő Gerő's ambition to make Hungary a land made out of "steel and iron" led to a decline in the national standards of living.

He eventually gave up and in one letter Kádár even admitted to his faults; claiming that he was still "politically backward" and "ideologically untrained" when he headed the prewar Communist Party as First Secretary.

During Kádár's interrogation, the ÁVH reportedly beat him, smeared him with mercury to prevent his skin pores from breathing, and had his questioner urinate into his pried-open mouth.

It is thought by some that the stories of brutality were intended to portray him as a victim of Stalinist torture in order to counter his image at home and abroad as a Soviet stooge.

Nagy began a process of liberalization, removing state controls over the press, releasing many political prisoners, and expressing wishes to withdraw Hungary from the Warsaw Pact.

Though influenced strongly by the Soviet Union, Kádár enacted a policy slightly contrary to that of Moscow, for example, allowing considerably large private plots for farmers of collective farms.

The secret police, the Ministry of Internal Affairs III, while operating with somewhat more restraint than their counterparts in other Eastern Bloc countries (such as the AVH), was nonetheless a feared tool of government control.

He also attempted to establish good relations with the United States, though could only go so far due to the limitations imposed by Kádár's ultimate commitment to communist internationalism.

During Kádár's rule, international tourism increased dramatically, with many tourists (including Hungarians who emigrated in 1956 or before) from Canada, the US, and Western Europe bringing much-needed money into Hungary.

Also, foreign guests often visited the Hungarian forests too, from the Shah of Iran through Fidel Castro to the King of Nepal, and Leonid Brezhnev hunted with Kádár several times.

[61] János Kádár held power in Hungary until the "apparat coup" in the spring of 1988,[62] when he resigned under pressure as General Secretary in the face of mounting economic difficulties and his own ill health.

Grósz and his associates were in no position to resist, as they were in turn were being sidelined by a faction of young "radical reformers" who set out to dismantle Communism altogether and rehabilitate the party's image ahead of free elections due the following year.

[67] According to Miklós Németh's testimony, in late May or early June 1989, a few weeks before his death, Kádár asked a Roman Catholic priest to hear his confession, which some have theorised as a sign of a possible revelation and conversion to Christianity.

Kádár's grave at the Kerepesi Cemetery in Budapest was vandalized on 2 May 2007 as a number of his bones, including his skull, were dug up and stolen, along with his wife Mária Tamáska's urn.

Others argue that although Kádár increased the standard of living for Hungarians, and instituted broad liberalization, the country was still fundamentally a dictatorship and a Soviet satellite state.

[78] An interpretation of events in Kádár's political and personal life, beginning circa 1945, including an association with the trial, execution, reburial, and atonement of László Rajk, and ending with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, are portrayed in Robert Ardrey's 1958 play, Shadow of Heroes.