Longtime leader Janos Kadar, who came to power after the Soviets crushed the 1956 revolt and steered Hungary through relative prosperity until hard times and liberals forced him out, died Thursday at age 77.
The Communist who led Hungary for 32 years until last year - ultimately coming to symbolize resistance to democratic change - died after "a prolonged, grave illness," the state-run MTI news agency said.MTI said funeral arrangements would be announced later. It was considered unlikely he would be buried before President Bush's visit next week.
He was first reported gravely ill in April and in May lost his post as honorary party chairman as well as a seat on the party's Central Committee, which wrote him a letter criticizing mistakes during his lengthy rule.
Since he was replaced by Karoly Grosz in May 1988 as party general secretary, Kadar's political legacy has come under fierce attck, and the Communists have moved rapidly to embrace democratic change, promising contested elections and a multiparty system.
After guiding Hungary in the 1970's to relative prosperity and freedom dubbed "goulash Communism" in the West, Kadar came to be seen as an impediment to further reform in the 1980's.
He will perhaps be most remembered for his 1962 statement to a rally in the industrial town of Csepel: "Those who are not against us are with us."
By the mid-1980's, Hungary's economy was in a tailspin and the Soviet Union was undergoing a political rebirth under Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Kadar fell out of favor in ruling circles.
He died as the Supreme Court met for the expected legal rehabilitation of Imre Nagy, the leader of the 1956 popular uprising who was executed under Kadar after being convicted of treason and buried in an unmarked grave. Nagy was reburied with honors last month.