Erno Gero

Ern Gero [ˈɛrnøː ˈɡɛrøː] (born Ernő Singer; 8 July 1898 – 12 March 1980) was a Hungarian community politician in the period after World War II. He briefly became the de facto leader of the country in 1956 when he succeeded Matyas Rakosi as General Secretary of the Hungarian Working People's Party.

Born to a Jewish family in the Kingdom of Hungary, he became an ardent communist at a young age. He fled to the Soviet Union after the fall of Bela Kun's government, and became a member of the NKVD. He fought for the Spanish Republicans, during the Spanish Civil Wark, though he spent most of his time purging Trotskyists, earning himself the nickname the "Butcher of Barcelona". He stayed in the Soviet Union for most of World War II, returning to Hungary in 1944. He quickly became the right-hand man of Matyas Rakosi, the Soviet Union's puppet ruler of Hungary. Gero became premier in 1952, though he was replaced after Joseph Stalin's death the following year. As de-Stalinization began to spread under Nikita Khrushchev, Raskosi was ousted on the orders of Anastas Mikoyan, but Rakosi was able to arrange for Gero to succeed him as General Secretary. However, he was ousted upon the outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. After a brief exile to the USSR, he returned to Hungary in 1960, and retired.