himself and return to Budapest. During the German occupation of Hungary and the Arrow Cross Party's seizure of power in 1944, he was baptized as a Roman Catholic for the sake of the Jews who were being hidden by him or through him. Following the Soviet Occupation of Hungary in 1945, he was first a member of the re-forming communist party's Budapest Party Committee (Hu: Budapesti Pártbizottság), later he joined its organisation in the 5th district (Hu: V. Kerületi Pártbizottság), and from August 1946 he worked in its Zemplén county office. In the 1947 "blue-ballot" election he was elected to the Parliament. He was re-elected in the May 1949 elections, but only two months later, on July 6, he was arrested and sentenced to a life imprisonment in one of the show trials of László Rajk. He was released on 25 August 1954, and rehabilitated on 1 September. On November 1, he was appointed director of the Nr. 23 State Construction Company, but he could not get a political position. Director of cultural policy During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he participated in the armoured defense of the party's headquarters in the 5th district. ion, he immediately joined János Kádár's new regime, and on 31 October, he became the founding member of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSZMP) and he was elected a member of its Central Committee (Hu: Központi Bizottság). In the judgment of the revolution and the role of Imre Nagy, he represented the party's "softer" line. After the Soviet troops crushed the revolt, on 13 April 1957, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Culture. He served as First Deputy Minister of Culture from 10 February 1958 until 18 April 1967. In this position, he gradually grew up (especially under Pál Ilku's ministership) as a leading cultural politician of the Kádár regime. As a result, Ilku was sarcastically named as the First Superior Minister of Culture, as Aczél functioned as the de facto head of the ministry. In a letter to the political committee in the summer of 1957, he raised the notorious "three Ts". The three T letters are an abbreviation of the Hungarian words for tiltott, tűrt, támogatott (En: prohibited, tolerated, supported). This attitude became a real, common practice only in the sixties and seventies. Within its ideological boundaries, his activity was characterized by pragmatism. Due to his extensive personal relationships and his friendship with János