Mihály Farkas

{{Infobox officeholder

| name = Mihály Farkas

| image = Farkas Mihály 2.jpg

| order = Minister of Defence

| term_start = 10 September 1948

| term_end = 4 July 1953

| president =

| predecessor = Péter Veres

| successor = István Bata

| birth_date = {{birth date|1904|06|18|df=y}}

| birth_place = Abaújszántó, Hungary

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1965|12|06|1904|07|18|df=y}}

| death_place = Budapest, Hungary

| profession =

| party = MKP, MDP, MSZMP|

| awards =

| birth_name = Hermann Lőwy

| resting_place = Farkasréti Cemetery

| children = Vladimir Farkas

}}

Mihály Farkas (born Hermann Lőwy; 18 July 1904 – 6 December 1965) was a Hungarian Communist politician who served as Minister of National Defense of the Hungarian People's Republic.

Biography

He was born in 1904 in Abaújszántó to Jewish parents, in the Abaúj-Torna County of the Kingdom of Hungary, and became a Communist in the 1920s. He lived in Košice and Prague then. He fought in the Spanish Civil War; later he moved to the Soviet Union. He returned to Hungary in late 1944 alongside other Hungarian communists and became a member of the Central Committee, the Political Committee and the Secretariat of the Hungarian Communist Party from May 1945. In 1945 he became under-secretary of Home Affairs. In 1946 he was elected deputy secretary and became the chairman of the party's Management Committee.{{Cite web|title=Farkas Mihály {{!}} PLM Namespace|url=https://resolver.pim.hu/auth/PIM53543|access-date=2021-07-12|website=PLM Namespace|language=en-US}}

File:Fortepan 128546 – Farkas Mihály és Révai József.jpg in the parliament, 1950]]

He was Minister of National Defence from 9 September 1948 to 2 July 1953. He was one of the main instigators during the Rákosi era.{{Clarify|date=March 2015}} In 1956 he was expelled from the party and convicted. He was released from prison in 1961 and spent his last years working as an editor and publisher in Budapest, where he died in 1965.

His son Vladimir was a colonel of the security police during the Rákosi era.{{cite book|last=Hollander|first=Paul|title=Political Will and Personal Belief: The Decline and Fall of Soviet Communism|url=https://archive.org/details/politicalwillper00holl_0|url-access=registration|year=1999|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven, CT|isbn=978-0-300-14420-8|page=[https://archive.org/details/politicalwillper00holl_0/page/247 247]}}