1930- . Hungarian Communist politician, prime
minister 1987-88. As leader of the ruling
Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (HSWP)
1988-89, he sought to establish a flexible
system of `socialist pluralism'. Grosz, a
steelworker's son, was a printer and then a
newspaper editor before moving to Budapest to
serve as first deputy head and then head of
the HSWP agitprop (agitation and propaganda)
department 1968-79. He was Budapest party
chief 1984-87 and briefly prime minister
before succeeding Janos Kadar as HSWP leader
in May 1988. Once noted for his political
orthodoxy, Grosz emerged in the late 1980s as
one of the most radical reformers in the
Eastern bloc. In Oct 1989 the HSWP
reconstituted itself as the Hungarian
Socialist Party (HSP) and Grosz was replaced
as party leader by the democrat Rezso Nyers.