Soviet Republic of Hungary | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
21 March – 1 August 1919 | |||||||||
Motto: Világ proletárjai, egyesüljetek! "Workers of the world, unite!" | |||||||||
Anthem: Internacionálé [1] "The Internationale" | |||||||||
Status | Unrecognized rump state | ||||||||
Capital | Budapest 47°29′00″N19°02′00″E / 47.4833°N 19.0333°E | ||||||||
Common languages | Hungarian | ||||||||
Demonym(s) | Hungarian | ||||||||
Government | Soviet socialist republic | ||||||||
De facto leader | |||||||||
• 1919 | Béla Kun [nb 1] | ||||||||
Chairman of the Central Executive Council and Prime Minister | |||||||||
• 1919 | Sándor Garbai | ||||||||
Legislature | National Assembly of Soviets | ||||||||
Historical era | Interwar period | ||||||||
• Established | 21 March 1919 | ||||||||
• Provisional constitution | 23 March 1919 | ||||||||
• Soviet elections | 7-14 April 1919 | ||||||||
• National Assembly of Soviets convenes | 14 June 1919 | ||||||||
• Permanent constitution | 23 June 1919 | ||||||||
• Kun resigns | 1 August 1919 | ||||||||
• People's Republic restored | 2 August 1919 | ||||||||
3 August 1919 | |||||||||
Currency | Hungarian korona | ||||||||
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The Hungarian Soviet Republic [nb 2] , also known as the Socialist Federative Soviet Republic of Hungary [nb 3] was a short-lived communist state [2] that existed from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919 (133 days), succeeding the First Hungarian Republic. [3] The Hungarian Soviet Republic was a small communist rump state [4] which, at its time of establishment, controlled approximately only 23% of Hungary's historic territory. The head of government was Sándor Garbai, but the influence of the foreign minister Béla Kun of the Party of Communists in Hungary was much stronger. Unable to reach an agreement with the Triple Entente, which maintained an economic blockade of Hungary, in dispute with neighboring countries over territorial disputes, and beset by profound internal social changes, the Hungarian Soviet Republic failed in its objectives and was abolished a few months after its existence. Its main figure was the Communist Béla Kun, [3] despite the fact that in the first days the majority of the new government consisted of radical Social Democrats. [5] The new system effectively concentrated power in the governing councils, which exercised it in the name of the working class. [6] [nb 4]
The new Communist government failed to reach an agreement with the Triple Entente that would lead to the lifting of the economic blockade, the improvement of the new borders or the recognition of the new government by the victorious powers of World War I. [7] A small volunteer army was organized mostly from Budapest factory workers and attempts were made to recover the territories lost to neighboring countries, an objective that had widespread support from many working class people in some larger cities, not only those favorable to the new regime. [8] Initially, thanks to patriotic support from conservative officers, the republican forces advanced against the Czechoslovaks in north Hungary, [9] after suffering a defeat in the east at the hands of the Romanian Army in late April, which led to a retreat on the banks of the Tisza. [10] In mid-June, the birth of the Slovak Soviet Republic was proclaimed, which lasted two weeks until a Hungarian withdrawal at the request of the Triple Entente. [9] Later that month, there was an attempted coup by the Social Democrats of Budapest, which was retaliated by the communist government. On 20 July, the republic launched a new attack on the Romanian posts who were deep in Hungary at the Tisza river. [11] After a few days of the Hungarian advance, the Romanians managed to stop the offensive [12] and break through the Hungarian lines. Kun and most of the government fled to Vienna. The Social-Democrat–Communist government was succeeded by an exclusively Social Democratic one on 1 August. [5] [12] The communists left Budapest and went abroad. [12] Despite the opposition from the Entente, the Romanians entered Budapest, the Hungarian capital, on 4 August. [13]
The Hungarian heads of government applied controversial doctrinal measures in both foreign (internationalism instead of national interests during wartime) and domestic policy (planned economy and heightened class struggle) that made them lose the favor of the majority of the population. [14] The attempt of the new executive to profoundly change the lifestyle and the system of values of the population proved to be a resounding failure; [15] After the withdrawal from Slovakia, the application of some measures aimed at regaining popular support was ordered, but without great success; [16] in particular, the ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages was repealed, and attempts were made to improve the monetary situation and food supply. [16] Unable to apply these policies effectively, the republic had already lost the support of the majority of the population between June and July, which led, together with the military defeats, to its downfall. [16] The failure of internal reform was compounded by the political and economic isolation imposed on Hungary by the Triple Entente, the military failures against neighboring countries, and the impossibility of joining forces with the Red Army because of the ongoing Russian Civil War contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Republic. [17]
When the Hungarian Soviet Republic was established in 1919, it controlled about 23% of the territory of Hungary's previous pre-World War I territories (325,411 km2). It was the successor of the First Hungarian Republic and lasted from 21 March to 1 August of the same year. Though the de jure leader of the Hungarian Soviet Republic was president Sándor Garbai, the de facto power was in the hands of foreign minister Béla Kun, who maintained direct contact with Vladimir Lenin via radiotelegraph. It was Lenin who gave the direct orders and advice to Béla Kun via constant radio communication with the Kremlin. [18]
It was the second socialist state in the world to be formed, preceded only by Soviet Russia after the October Revolution in Imperial Russia which brought the Bolsheviks to power. The Soviet Republic had military conflicts with the Kingdom of Romania, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and the evolving Czechoslovakia. It ended on 1 August when Hungarians sent representatives to negotiate their surrender to the Romanian forces.
Austria-Hungary's Habsburg monarchy collapsed in 1918, and the independent First Hungarian Republic was formed after the Aster Revolution. The official proclamation of the republic was on 16 November and the liberal Count Mihály Károlyi became its president. Károlyi struggled to establish the government's authority and to control the country. The Hungarian Royal Honvéd army still had more than 1,400,000 soldiers [19] [20] when Mihály Károlyi was announced as prime minister of Hungary. Károlyi yielded to United States president Woodrow Wilson's demand for pacifism by ordering the unilateral self-disarmament of the Hungarian Army. This happened under the direction of Minister of War Béla Linder, on 2 November 1918. [21] [22] Due to the unilateral disarmament of its army, Hungary was to remain without a national defence at a time of particular vulnerability. The Hungarian self-disarmament made the occupation of Hungary directly possible for the relatively small armies of Romania, the Franco-Serbian army and the armed forces of the newly established Czechoslovakia.
On the request of the Austro-Hungarian government, an armistice was granted to Austria-Hungary on 3 November by the Allies. [23] Military and political events changed rapidly and drastically thereafter. On 5 November, the Serbian Army, with the help of the French Army, crossed southern borders. On 8 November, the Czechoslovak Army crossed the northern borders. On 13 November, the Romanian Army crossed the eastern borders of the Kingdom of Hungary. During the rule of Károlyi's pacifist cabinet, Hungary lost control over approximately 75% of its former pre-World War I territories (325,411 km²) without armed resistance and was subject to foreign occupation. [24] For their part, the neighboring countries used the so-called "struggle against communism", first against the capitalist and liberal government of Count Mihály Károlyi and later against the soviet republic of communist Bela Kun, as a justification for their expansionist ambitions. [14]
An initial nucleus of a Party of Communists in Hungary had been organized in a hotel on 4 November 1918, when a group of former Hungarian prisoners of war and other communist proponents formed a Central Committee in the downtown of Moscow. Led by Béla Kun, the inner circle of the freshly established party returned to Budapest from Moscow on 16 November. [25] On 24 November, they created the Party of Communists from Hungary (Hungarian: Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja, KMP). The name was chosen instead of the Hungarian Communist Party because the vast majority of supporters were from the urban industrial working class in Hungary which at the time was largely made up of people from non-Hungarian ethnic backgrounds, with ethnic Hungarians a minority in the new party itself. [26] The party recruited members while propagating its ideas, radicalising many members of the Social Democratic Party of Hungary in the process. By February 1919, the party numbered 30,000 to 40,000 members, including many unemployed ex-soldiers, young intellectuals and ethnic minorities. [27]
Kun founded a newspaper, called Vörös Újság (Red News) and concentrated on attacking Károlyi's liberal government. The party became popular among the Budapest proletariat, it also promised that Hungary would be able to defend its territory even without conscription. Kun promised military help and intervention of the Soviet Red Army, which never came, against non-communist Romanian, Czechoslovak, French and Yugoslav forces. During the following months, the Communist party's power-base rapidly expanded. Its supporters began to stage aggressive demonstrations against the media and against the Social Democratic Party. The Communists considered the Social Democrats as their main rivals, because the Social Democrats recruited their political supporters from the same social class: the industrial working class of the cities. In one crucial incident, a demonstration turned violent on 20 February and the protesters attacked the editorial office of the Social Democratic Party of Hungary's official newspaper called Népszava (People's Word). In the ensuing chaos, seven people, some policemen, were killed. The government arrested the leaders of the Communist party, [27] banned its daily newspaper Vörös Újság, and closed down the party's buildings. The arrests were particularly violent, with police officers openly beating the communists. This resulted in a wave of public sympathy for the party among the masses of Budapester proletariat. On 1 March, Vörös Újság was given permission to publish again, and the Communist party's premises were re-opened. The leaders were permitted to receive guests in prison, which allowed them to keep up with political affairs.
On 20 March, Károlyi announced that the government of Prime Minister Dénes Berinkey would resign. The presentation of the Vix Note proved fatal to the government, which was by then devoid of significant support. [28] Károlyi and Berinkey had been placed in an untenable situation when they received a note from Paris ordering Hungarian troops to further withdraw their lines. It was widely assumed that the new military lines would be the postwar boundaries. Károlyi and Berinkey concluded that they were not in a position to reject the note although they believed that accepting it would endanger Hungary's territorial integrity. On 21 March, Károlyi informed the Council of Ministers that only Social Democrats could form a new government, as they were the party with the highest public support in the largest cities and especially in Budapest. To form a governing coalition, the Social Democrats started secret negotiations with the Communist leaders, who were still imprisoned, and decided to merge their two parties under the name of the Hungarian Socialist Party. [29] President Károlyi, who was an outspoken anticommunist, was not informed about the merger. Thus, he swore in what he believed to be a Social Democratic government, only to find himself faced with one dominated by Communists. Károlyi resigned on 21 March. Béla Kun and his fellow communists were released from the Margit Ring prison on the night of 20 March. [30] The liberal president Károlyi was arrested by the new Communist government on the first day; in July, he managed to make his escape and flee to Paris. [31]
For the Social Democrats, an alliance with the KMP not only increased their standing with the industrial working class but also gave them a potential link to the increasingly powerful Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), as Kun had strong ties with prominent Russian Bolsheviks. Following Vladimir Lenin's model but without the direct participation of the workers' councils (soviets) from which it took its name, the newly united Socialist Party created a government called the Revolutionary Governing Council, which proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic and dismissed President Károlyi on 21 March. In a radio dispatch to the Russian SFSR, Kun informed Lenin that a dictatorship of the proletariat had been established in Hungary and asked for a treaty of alliance with the Russian SFSR. [27] The Russian SFSR refused because it was itself tied down in the Russian Civil War. On 23 March, Lenin gave an order to Béla Kun that Social Democrats must be removed from power, so that Hungary could be transformed into a socialist state ruled by a "dictatorship of the proletariat". [32] Accordingly, the Communists started to purge the Social Democrats from the government on the next day. [33] [34]
The government was formally led by Sándor Garbai, but Kun, as the Commissar of Foreign Affairs, held the real power because only Kun had the acquaintance and friendship with Lenin. He was the only person in the government who met and talked to the Bolshevik leader during the Russian Revolution, and Kun kept the contact with the Kremlin via radio communication. The ministries, often rotated among the various members of the government, were:
After the declaration of the constitution changes took place in the commissariat. The new ministries were:
This government consisted of a coalition of socialists and communists, but with the exception of Kun, all commissars were former social democrats. [35] Under the rule of Kun, the new government, which had adopted in full the program of the Communists, decreed the abolition of aristocratic titles and privileges, the separation of church and state, codified freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, and implemented free education and language and cultural rights to minorities. [27]
The Communist government also nationalized industrial and commercial enterprises and socialized housing, transport, banking, medicine, cultural institutions, and all landholdings of more than 40 hectares. Public support for the Communists was also heavily dependent on their promise of restoring Hungary's former borders. [27] The government took steps toward normalizing foreign relations with the Triple Entente powers in an effort to gain back some of the lands that Hungary was set to lose in the post-war negotiations. The Communists remained bitterly unpopular [36] in the Hungarian countryside, where the authority of that government was often nonexistent. [37] The Communist party and their policies had real popular support among only the proletarian masses of large industrial centers, especially in Budapest, where the working class represented a high proportion of the inhabitants.
The Hungarian government was left on its own, and a Red Guard was established under the command of Mátyás Rákosi. In addition, a group of 200 armed men known as the Lenin Boys formed a mobile detachment under the leadership of József Cserny. This detachment was deployed at various locations around the country where counter-revolutionary movements were suspected to operate. The Lenin Boys as well as other similar groups and agitators killed and terrorised many people (e.g. armed with hand grenades and using their rifles' butts they disbanded religious ceremonies). [38] They executed victims without trial, and this caused a number of conflicts with the local population, some of which turned violent. The situation of the Hungarian Communists began to deteriorate in the capital city Budapest after a failed coup by the Social Democrats on 24 June; the newly composed Communist government of Sándor Garbai resorted to large-scale reprisals. Revolutionary tribunals ordered executions of people who were suspected of having been involved in the attempted coup. This became known as the Red Terror, and greatly reduced domestic support for the government even among the working classes of the highly industrialized suburb districts and metropolitan area of Budapest.
In late May, after the Entente military representative demanded more territorial concessions from Hungary, Kun attempted to fulfill his promise to adhere to Hungary's historical borders. The men of the Hungarian Red Army were recruited from the volunteers of the Budapest proletariat. [39] In June, the Hungarian Red Army invaded the eastern part of the newly forming Czechoslovak state (today's Slovakia), the former so-called Upper Hungary. The Hungarian Red Army achieved some military success early on: under the leadership of Colonel Aurél Stromfeld, it ousted Czech troops from the north, and planned to march against the Romanian Army in the east. Despite promises for the restoration of the former borders of Hungary, the Communists declared the establishment of the Slovak Soviet Republic in Prešov on 16 June. [40]
After the proclamation of the Slovak Soviet Republic, the Hungarian nationalists and patriots soon realized that the new communist government had no intention of recapturing the lost territories, only in spreading communist ideology and the establishment of other communist states in Europe, thus sacrificing Hungarian national interests. [41] The Hungarian patriots in the Red Army and the professional military officers saw this as a betrayal, and their support for the government began to erode (the communists and their government supported the establishment of the Slovak Communist state, while the Hungarian patriots wanted to keep the reoccupied territories for Hungary). Despite a series of military victories against the Czechoslovak army, the Hungarian Red Army started to disintegrate due to tension between nationalists and communists during the establishment of the Slovak Soviet Republic. The concession eroded support of the communist government among professional military officers and nationalists in the Hungarian Red Army; even the chief of the general staff Aurél Stromfeld, resigned his post in protest. [42]
When the French promised the Hungarian government that Romanian forces would withdraw from the Tiszántúl, Kun withdrew his remaining military units who had remained loyal after the political fiasco in Upper Hungary; however, following the Red Army's retreat from the north, the Romanian forces were not pulled back. Kun then unsuccessfully tried to turn the remaining units of the demoralized Hungarian Red Army on the Romanians with Hungarian-Romanian War of 1919. The Hungarian Soviet found it increasingly difficult to fight Romania with its small force of communist volunteers from Budapest, and support for both the war and the Communist party was waning at home. After the demoralizing retreat from northern Hungary (later part of Czechoslovakia), only the most dedicated Hungarian Communists volunteered for combat, and the Romanian Army broke through the weak lines of the Hungarian Red Army on 30 July.
Béla Kun, together with other high-ranking Communists, fled to Vienna on 1 August [27] with only a minority, including György Lukács, the former Commissar for Culture and noted Marxist philosopher, remaining to organise an underground Communist party. [43] Before they fled to Vienna, Kun and his followers took along numerous art treasures and the gold stocks of the National Bank. [44] The Budapest Workers' Soviet elected a new government, headed by Gyula Peidl, which lasted only a few days before Romanian forces entered Budapest on 6 August. [45] [46] [47]
In the power vacuum created by the fall of the soviet republic and the presence of the Romanian Army, semi-regular detachments (technically under Horthy's command, but mostly independent in practice) initiated a campaign of violence against communists, leftists, and Jews, known as the White Terror. [48] Many supporters of the Hungarian Soviet Republic were executed without trial; others, including Péter Ágoston, Ferenc Bajáki, Dezső Bokányi, Antal Dovcsák, József Haubrich, Kalmár Henrik, Kelen József, György Nyisztor, Sándor Szabados, and Károly Vántus, were imprisoned by trial ("comissar suits"). Actor Bela Lugosi, the founder of the country's National Trade Union of Actors (the world's first film actor's union), managed to escape. Most were later released to the Soviet Union by amnesty during the reign of Horthy, after a prisoner exchange agreement between Hungary and the Russian Soviet government in 1921. In all, about 415 prisoners were released as a result of this agreement. [49]
Kun himself, along with an unknown number of other Hungarian communists, were executed during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge of the late 1930s in the Soviet Union, to which they had fled in the 1920s. [27] Rákosi, one of the survivors of the soviet republic, would go on to be the first leader of the second and longer-lasting attempt at a Communist state in Hungary, the People's Republic of Hungary, from 1949 to 1956.
Béla Kun was a Hungarian communist revolutionary and politician who governed the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. After attending Franz Joseph University at Kolozsvár, Kun worked as a journalist up until the First World War. He served in the Austro-Hungarian Army and was captured by the Imperial Russian Army in 1916, after which he was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in the Urals. Kun embraced communist ideas during his time in Russia, and in 1918 he co-founded a Hungarian arm of the Russian Communist Party in Moscow. He befriended Vladimir Lenin and fought for the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War.
Mátyás Rákosi was a Hungarian communist politician who was the de facto leader of Hungary from 1947 to 1956. He served first as General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party from 1945 to 1948 and then as General Secretary of the Hungarian Working People's Party from 1948 to 1956.
The Hungarian Communist Party, known earlier as the Party of Communists in Hungary, was a communist party in Hungary that existed during the interwar period and briefly after World War II.
Count Mihály Ádám György Miklós Károlyi de Nagykároly was a Hungarian politician who served as a leader of the short-lived and unrecognized First Hungarian Republic from 1918 to 1919. He served as prime minister between 1 and 16 November 1918 and as president between 16 November 1918 and 21 March 1919.
István Friedrich was a Hungarian politician, footballer and factory owner who served as prime minister of Hungary for three months between August and November in 1919. His tenure coincided with a period of political instability in Hungary immediately after World War I, during which several successive governments ruled the country.
Tibor Szamuely was a Hungarian communist politician and journalist who was Deputy People's Commissar of War and People's Commissar of Public Education during the Hungarian Soviet Republic.
József Pogány, known in English as John Pepper or Joseph Pogany, was a Hungarian Communist politician. He later served as a functionary in the Communist International (Comintern) in Moscow, before being cashiered in 1929. Later as an official in the Soviet government, Pepper ran afoul of the secret police and was executed during the Great Terror of 1937–38.
The First Hungarian Republic, until 21 March 1919 the Hungarian People's Republic, was a short-lived unrecognized country, which quickly transformed into a small rump state due to the foreign and military policy of the doctrinaire pacifist Károlyi government. It existed from 16 November 1918 until 8 August 1919, apart from a 133-day interruption in the form of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The republic was established in the wake of the dissolution of Austria-Hungary following World War I as a replacement for the Kingdom of Hungary. During the rule of Count Mihály Károlyi's pacifist cabinet, Hungary lost control over approximately 75% of its former pre-World War I territories, which was about 325,411 km2 (125,642 sq mi), without armed resistance and was subjected to unhindered foreign occupation. It was in turn succeeded by the Hungarian Soviet Republic but re-established following its demise, and ultimately replaced by the Hungarian Republic.
After the collapse of a short-lived Communist regime, according to historian István Deák:
The Lenin Boys were the paramilitary of the Hungarian Communist Party operating in Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. The group consisted of around 200 men and was commanded by József Cserny. The Lenin Boys were used as an instrument to suppress counter-revolutionary urges against the revolutionary government.
Hungarian–Soviet relations developed in three phases. After a short period when Béla Kun ruled a Soviet Republic, the Horthy era saw an almost complete break in relations until after World War II. The Yalta Conference, however, created conditions that ensured political, economic, and cultural interventions by the Soviet Union in internal Hungarian politics for the 45 years of the Cold War. Hungary became a member of the Warsaw Pact in 1955; since the end of World War II, Soviet troops were stationed in the country, intervening at the time of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Starting in March 1990, the Soviet Army began leaving Hungary, with the last troops being withdrawn on June 19, 1991.
The Hungarian–Romanian War was fought between Hungary and Romania from 13 November 1918 to 3 August 1919. The conflict had a complex background, with often contradictory motivations for the parties involved.
László Rudas was a Hungarian communist newspaper editor, philosopher, professor and politician who become director of the Central Party School of the Communist Party of Hungary.
The Hungarian National Council was an institution from the time of transition from the Kingdom of Hungary to the People's Republic in 1918. At the congress of the Hungarian Social Democratic Party (MSZDP) in October 1918 called for the Socialist Left József Pogány minority to its own policy, which should be based on the emerging workers 'and soldiers' councils. In contrast prevailed Zsigmond Kunfi in the MSZDP that the liberal left "48" party of Count Mihály Károlyi and the bourgeois radical party of Oszkár Jászi was entered into an alliance. These three parties formed on 25 October, the Hungarian National Council.
József Kelen was a Hungarian mechanical engineer, deputy commissar of the Soviet republic of Hungary, then commissar of the Soviet republic of Hungary, brother of communist politician Ottó Korvin, cousin of Pál Hajdu, husband of the politician Jolán Kelen and the founder of the Communist Party of Hungary in Budapest. He was also the brother of Ottó Korvin.
The Red Terror in Hungary was a period of repressive violence and suppression carried out by the Hungarian Communist Party in 1919 during the four-month period of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, primarily towards anti-communist forces, and others deemed "enemies of the state".
Anarchism in Hungary emerged from the social democratic movement in the late 19th century, coming to play a prominent role in the anti-militarist movement during World War I and in the subsequent revolution that culminated in the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The anarchist movement was then repressed by the Horthy regime, before re-emerging as part of the anti-fascist resistance movement during World War II. This second wave of anarchism was also repressed, this time by the newly established communist regime. Anarchist ideas were briefly expressed during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 but remained largely suppressed until the fall of socialism, which gave way to a third wave of anarchism in Hungary.
The following lists events in the year 1919 in Hungary.
József Cserny was a Hungarian communist revolutionary who was commander of the Lenin Boys during the Hungarian Soviet Republic and was a leading participant in the Red Terror.
The Revolutionary Governing Council was the leading body and principal executive organ of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, effectively its government. It functioned from March 21, 1919, to August 1, 1919, and was chaired by Sándor Garbai. As the government of the Soviet Republic, it was also known as the Soviet Government.