After all non-Communist parties were formally disbanded in 1949, Dobi joined the Hungarian Working People's Party (as the Communists had been known since forcing the Social Democrats to merge with them the previous summer). In 1952, he gave up the prime ministership because Communist Party boss Mátyás Rákosi wanted that post for himself. Dobi was then promoted to Chairman of the Presidential Council ("de facto" president of Hungary) from 1952 until his retirement in April 1967. Through taking on numerous other high-profile roles, he eventually became the second or third most powerful man in Hungary. He supported the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. He was a winner of the Lenin Peace Prize in 1962. He died in Budapest in 1968.