Béla Kun (, born Béla Kohn; 20 February 1886 – 29 August 1938) was a Hungarian
communist
Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...
revolutionary and politician who in 1919 governed the
Hungarian Soviet Republic.
After attending
Franz Joseph University at Kolozsvár (today
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca ( ; ), or simply Cluj ( , ), is a city in northwestern Romania. It is the second-most populous city in the country and the seat of Cluj County. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest (), Budapest () and Belgrade ( ...
,
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...
), Kun had worked as a journalist until
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
. He served in the
Austro-Hungarian Army
The Austro-Hungarian Army, also known as the Imperial and Royal Army,; was the principal ground force of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918. It consisted of three organisations: the Common Army (, recruited from all parts of Austria-Hungary), ...
, was captured by the
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army () was the army of the Russian Empire, active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of Regular army, regular troops and ...
in 1916, and was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in the
Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan. . In Russia Kun embraced communist ideas, and in 1918 in Moscow he co-founded a Hungarian arm of the
Russian Communist Party. He befriended
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
and fought for the
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...
in the
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...
.
In November 1918 Kun returned to Hungary with Soviet support and set up the
Party of Communists in Hungary. Adopting Lenin's tactics, he agitated against the government of
Mihály Károlyi and achieved great popularity despite being imprisoned. After his release in March 1919, Kun led a successful
coup d'état
A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup
, is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...
, formed a Communist-
Social Democratic
Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...
coalition government
A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an ...
, and proclaimed a
Hungarian Soviet Republic. Though the Republic's ''
de jure
In law and government, ''de jure'' (; ; ) describes practices that are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms, regardless of whether the practice exists in reality. The phrase is often used in contrast with '' de facto'' ('from fa ...
'' leader was Prime Minister
Sándor Garbai, ''
de facto'' power was held by Foreign Minister Kun, who
maintained direct contact with Lenin via radiotelegraph and received orders and advice from the Kremlin.
Four months later, the new regime collapsed in the face of a
military offensive by the
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania () was a constitutional monarchy that existed from with the crowning of prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as King of Romania, King Carol I of Romania, Carol I (thus beginning the Romanian royal family), until 1947 wit ...
. Kun fled to
Soviet Russia, where from 1920 he worked as a
functionary
An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless of whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (either their own or that of the ...
in the
Communist International
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internationa ...
bureaucracy as head of the
Crimean Revolutionary Committee. He organised and actively participated in the
Red Terror
The Red Terror () was a campaign of political repression and Mass killing, executions in Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Russia which was carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police ...
in Crimea (1920–1921), following which he participated in the 1921
March Action, a failed Communist uprising in
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
.
During the late-1930s
Great Purge
The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...
, Kun was accused of
Trotskyism
Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an ...
and was arrested, interrogated, tried, and executed in quick succession. In 1956, following
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
's death and the Soviet Union's
de-Stalinization
De-Stalinization () comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and Khrushchev Thaw, the thaw brought about by ascension of Nik ...
under
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...
, he was posthumously
rehabilitated by the Soviet leadership.
Life
Early life
Béla Kohn, later known as Béla Kun, was born on 20 February 1886 in the village of Lele, located near
Szilágycseh,
Szilágy County,
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from 1000 to 1946 and was a key part of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526-1918. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coro ...
(today part of
Hodod,
Satu Mare County
Satu Mare County (, , ) is a county (Counties of Romania, județ) of Romania, on the border with Hungary and Ukraine. The capital city is Satu Mare.
Name
In Hungarian language, Hungarian, it is known as ''Szatmár megye'', in German language, Ge ...
,
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...
). His father, Samu Kohn, was a lapsed
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
village
notary
A notary is a person authorised to perform acts in legal affairs, in particular witnessing signatures on documents. The form that the notarial profession takes varies with local legal systems.
A notary, while a legal professional, is distin ...
. His mother was Hungarian, but converted to Judaism upon marriage. Despite his parents' secular outlook, he was educated at the Silvania Főgimnázium in Zilah (present-day
Silvania National College,
Zalău
Zalău (, unofficial and former official name: (; or , , ) is the seat of Sălaj County, Romania. In 2021, its estimated population was 52,359.
History
Ancient times
Zalău is situated in the area inhabited by "Free Dacians", away from the h ...
) and a famous
Reformed ''kollegium'' (grammar school) in the city of Kolozsvár (now
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca ( ; ), or simply Cluj ( , ), is a city in northwestern Romania. It is the second-most populous city in the country and the seat of Cluj County. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest (), Budapest () and Belgrade ( ...
,
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...
).
At the ''kollegium'' Kun won the prize for best essay on
Hungarian literature that allowed him to attend a
gymnasium. His essay was on the poet
Sándor Petőfi
Sándor Petőfi ( []; né Petrovics; ; ; 1 January 1823 – most likely 31 July 1849) was a Hungarian poet and Classical Liberalism, liberal revolutionary. He is considered Hungary's national poet, and was one of the key figures of the Hungari ...
and the concluding paragraphs were:
The storming rage of Petőfi's soul... turned against the privileged classes, against the people's oppressor... and confronted them with revolutionary abandon. Petőfi felt that the country would not be saved through moderation, but through the use of the most extreme means available. He detested even the thought of cowardice... Petőfi's vision was correct. There is no room for prudence in revolutions whose fate and eventual success is always decided by boldness and raw courage... this is why Petőfi condemned his compatriots for the sin of opportunism and hesitation when faced with the great problems of their age... Petőfi's works must be regarded as the law of the Hungarian soul... and of the... love of the country".[Tokes, Rudolf ''Béla Kun: The Man and the Revolutionary'' pp. 170–207, from ''Hungary in Revolution'' edited by Ivan Volgyes, Lincoln: ]University of Nebraska Press
The University of Nebraska Press (UNP) was founded in 1941 and is an academic publisher of scholarly and general-interest books. The press is under the auspices of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the main campus of the University of Ne ...
, 1971 p. 173.
In 1904 he began to study law at
Franz Joseph University in Kolozsvár. Béla
magyarized his birth surname, ''Kohn,'' to ''Kun'' in 1904, although the almanac of the university still referred to him in print by his former name as late as 1909.
[Borsányi, ''The Life of a Communist Revolutionary,'' pg. 2.] There is no archival evidence that he took any formal action to change the spelling of his name, although it is clear that from 1904 all those around him referred to him as Béla Kun rather than Kohn, and he likewise used the Magyar variant in his signature.
Before
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, he was a
muck-raking journalist with sympathies for the
Hungarian Social Democratic Party in Kolozsvár. In addition, Kun served on the Kolozsvár Social Insurance Board, from which he was later to be accused of embezzling. He had a fiery reputation and was involved in duels several times. In May 1913 he married Irén Gál, a music teacher of middle-class background from Nagyenyed (today
Aiud,
Alba County
Alba County () is a county (județ) of Romania located in the historic region of Transylvania. Its capital is Alba Iulia, a city with a population of 63,536.
Name
"Alba", meaning "white" in Latin and Romanian, is derived from the name of the ...
); they had two children, Ágnes, born in 1915, and Miklós, born in 1920.
Early political career
During his early education at
Kolozsvár, Kun became friends with the poet
Endre Ady, who introduced him to many members of
Budapest
Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...
's left-wing
intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...
.
Kun fought with the
Austro-Hungarian Army
The Austro-Hungarian Army, also known as the Imperial and Royal Army,; was the principal ground force of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918. It consisted of three organisations: the Common Army (, recruited from all parts of Austria-Hungary), ...
in
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, and was captured and made a
prisoner of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...
in 1916 by the
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army () was the army of the Russian Empire, active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of Regular army, regular troops and ...
. He was sent to a
prisoner of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...
camp in the
Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan. , where he was exposed to
Communism
Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...
. The
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...
in March 1917 and the subsequent
Bolshevik coup the following November not only set him free, but provided him with unforeseen opportunities.
In March 1918, in
Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
, Kun co-founded the Hungarian Group of the
Russian Communist Party (the predecessor to the
Party of Communists in Hungary) with other former Hungarian POWs.
He travelled widely, including to
Petrograd and Moscow. He came to know
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
there, but inside the party he promoted ultra-radical left-wing political opposition to Lenin and the mainstream
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...
s. Kun and his friends, such as the Italian
Umberto Terracini and the Hungarian
Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi (; born Mátyás Rosenfeld; 9 March 1892 – 5 February 1971) was a Hungarian communism, communist politician who was the ''de facto'' leader of Hungary from 1947 to 1956. He served first as General Secretary of the Hungarian ...
, aggregated around
Grigory Zinoviev or
Karl Radek
Karl Berngardovich Radek (; 31 October 1885 – 19 May 1939) was a revolutionary and writer active in the Polish and German social democratic movements before World War I and a Communist International leader in the Soviet Union after the Russian ...
. Whereas Lenin advocated making peace with the
Central Powers
The Central Powers, also known as the Central Empires,; ; , ; were one of the two main coalitions that fought in World War I (1914–1918). It consisted of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulga ...
, despite the harsh conditions they imposed, in order to "save the revolution", Kun and his group took the side of
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (; rus, Николай Иванович Бухарин, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ bʊˈxarʲɪn; – 15 March 1938) was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and Marxist theorist. A prominent Bolshevik ...
, who wanted to continue and expand the war to transform it into an international revolutionary struggle to impose Communism on the rest of Europe.
Lenin often called them "kunerists", and said of Kun, "We can see that this man comes from a country of poets and dreamers."
In the
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...
in 1918, Kun fought for the Bolsheviks. During this time, he first started to make detailed plans for a Communist revolution in Hungary. In November 1918, with at least several hundred other Hungarian Communists and with a large sum of money provided by the Soviets, he returned to Hungary.
Hungarian People's Republic
In Hungary, the resources of a shattered government were further strained by refugees from lands lost to the
Allies during the war, and which were due to be lost permanently under the
Treaty of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon (; ; ; ), often referred to in Hungary as the Peace Dictate of Trianon or Dictate of Trianon, was prepared at the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace Conference. It was signed on the one side by Hungary ...
. Rampant inflation, housing shortages, mass unemployment, food shortages and coal shortages further weakened the economy and stimulated widespread protests. In October 1918, the
Aster Revolution saw the inauguration the
Hungarian People's Republic
The Hungarian People's Republic (HPR) was a landlocked country in Central Europe from its formation on 20 August 1949 until the establishment of the current Hungary, Republic of Hungary on 23 October 1989. It was a professed Communist_state# ...
, under an unstable coalition government of Socialists and other radicals. Led by Béla Kun, the inner circle of the freshly established party returned to Budapest from Moscow on 16 November 1918. On 24 November they created the Party of Communists from Hungary (Hungarian: Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja).
He immediately began a highly energetic
propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...
campaign against the government of President
Mihály Károlyi, and his
Social Democrat
Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...
ic allies, accusing them of betraying the working class, of lack of class consciousness, of not wanting to continue the expropriation of large domains and the big capital. His aim was to copy the tactics Lenin had used so successfully, which included pandering to the demands of all the discontented in society: unemployed, pensioners, veterans, employees; relentlessly denouncing the Government and the parties that supported it; as well as infiltrating the trade unions, discrediting their executives, and undermining the Socialist Party by dividing the more moderate leaders from the more extreme ones.
His speeches had a considerable impact on his audiences. One who heard such a speech wrote in his diary:
Yesterday I heard Kun speak... it was an audacious, hateful, enthusiastic oratory. ..He knows his audience and rules over them... Factory workers long at odds with the Social Democratic Party leaders, young intellectuals, teachers, doctors, lawyers, clerks who came to his room... meet Kun and Marxism.[Tokes, Rudolf ''Béla Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Republic'' New York: F.A. Praeger, 1967 pp. 111–2.]
In addition, the Communists held frequent marches and rallies and organised
strikes. Desiring to achieve a revolution in Hungary, he communicated by
telegraph
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...
with
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
to garner support from the Bolsheviks, which would ultimately not materialise.
[Borsanyi, Gyorgy ''The life of a Communist revolutionary, Béla Kun'' Boulder, Colo: Social Science Monographs; 1993, pp. 146–7.]
Despite Kun's efforts, by February 1919 the Communists had fewer than 30,000 members, compared with the 700,000 of the Social Democrats. Kun knew that if the upcoming elections went ahead, they would be a disaster for the Communists. Therefore, the Communist press launched a campaign against a fictitious "reactionary conspiracy" which they claimed the Károlyi government was either unaware of, or unwilling to crush. On 20 February 1919 the Communists invaded and pillaged the headquarters of the Socialist daily newspaper. The attack left a few dead and many injured, primarily policemen who had tried to stop the Communist aggression. Kun and 67 other Communist leaders were arrested.
However, despite the apparent failure of this adventure, there were two factors that worked to Kun's advantage. First, the press, even the non-socialist press, claimed that the imprisoned Communists had been mistreated by some members of the police force that supposedly wanted to avenge the death of their colleagues, and also publicised the supposedly courageous attitude of prisoner Béla Kun, a man previously little known outside his circle of followers. This greatly increased the popularity of Kun and sympathy toward the Communists among the general public. Concerned by this unintended shift in public opinion, the government gave orders that while in prison Kun be allowed to carry out any political activity he wished, which meant he was able to continue directing the Hungarian Communist Party from his cell. There were days in which Kun received up to four hundred visitors, mainly far-left Social Democrats who now considered Kun, whose stature was already increased by the prestige of participating in the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, a martyr.
The second was that on 19 March 1919, French Lt-Col Fernand Vix presented the "
Vix Note", ordering Hungarian forces to be pulled back further from where they were stationed, clearing the areas of
Debrecen
Debrecen ( ; ; ; ) is Hungary's cities of Hungary, second-largest city, after Budapest, the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain Regions of Hungary, region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar County. A city with county rights, it was the large ...
and
Makó
Makó (, , Makowe, or , ) is a town in Csongrád County, in southeastern Hungary, from the Romanian border. It lies on the Maros River. Makó is home to 21,913 people and it has an area of , of which is arable land. Makó is the fourth-larges ...
. It was assumed that the military lines would be the new frontiers that would be established by the peace conference between Hungary and the Allies. Károlyi resigned, perhaps in order not to link his name to the acceptance of that imposition, and soon after a proclamation was made public in his name stating that he had voluntarily given up his powers to a "new government of the proletariat", i.e., the Socialists. Later in his life Károlyi denied that he had made such a statement, though he did not disavow it at the time or in the following years during which he remained quietly in Hungary. The Vix Note created a massive upsurge of nationalist outrage, and the Hungarians resolved to fight the Allies rather than accept the new demarcation lines.

The Social Democrats approached Kun on the subject of a coalition government, hoping he would be able to use his Bolshevik connections to bring the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...
to Hungary's aid. So desperate were they for support from Moscow that it was Kun, a captive, who dictated the terms to his captors. This was despite the Red Army's full involvement in the Russian Civil War and the unlikelihood that it could be of any direct military assistance. Kun proposed the merger of the Social Democrat and Communist parties, the establishment of a Soviet Republic and several other radical measures, which the Social Democrats agreed to.
Hungarian Soviet Republic

On 21 March 1919, the
Hungarian Soviet Republic, the second Communist regime in Europe after Russia itself, was proclaimed; the Social Democrats and the Communists merged under the interim name Hungarian Socialist Party, and Béla Kun was released from prison and sworn into office.
The nominal head of the Soviet Republic was a Socialist leader,
Sándor Garbai, but in practice power rested with Kun, although officially he was only People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, and from April 1919 also People's Commissar for Defence.
As he told Lenin, "My personal influence in the Revolutionary Governing Council is such that the dictatorship of the proletariat is firmly established, since the masses are backing me."
[Janos, Andrew, ''The Politics of Backwardness in Hungary'', Princeton: ]Princeton University Press
Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large.
The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...
, 1982, p. 197.
The Social Democrats continued to hold the majority of seats in government. Of the thirty-three
People's Commissar
Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English language, English transliteration of the Russian language, Russian (''komissar''), which means 'commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the pol ...
s of the Revolutionary Governing Council that ruled the Soviet Republic, fourteen were former Communists, seventeen were former Social Democrats and two had no party affiliation. With the exception of Kun, every Commissar was a former Social Democrat and every Deputy Commissar a former Communist. Despite the fact that the Socialists were by far more numerous, they passively accepted the leadership and the programme of the smaller but far more active and determined Communist Party, which claimed to represent the "dictatorship of the proletariat".
In the hope of placating the new Hungarian regime, the victorious Entente expressed willingness to bring the military demarcation to the line specified by the
armistice of Belgrade the previous November, stating however that it would have no relevance to the final clauses of the peace treaty. This gesture was an undeniable success for the Socialist-Communist government which was thus offered some badly needed breathing space. However Kun rejected the proposal, declaring during a rally on 19 April:
Comrades, we do not profess the doctrine of territorial integrity, but we want to live, and this is why we did not accept that our freed proletarian brothers living in the neutralised zone be rejected under the yoke of capitalism. To do so would deprive the Hungarian proletariat of the physical means necessary to live. ..It is a matter, therefore, which concerns the struggle between the international revolution and the international counter-revolution.
However he stated in a letter to Lenin a few days later, on 22 April, possibly to exculpate himself from the suspicion of harbouring nationalist sentiment:
Whatever happens, all our actions will be dictated by the interests of the world revolution. We do not think even for a moment to sacrifice the interests of the world revolution to those of one of its components. Even if we were obliged to sign a peace 'à la Brest-Litovsk', we would do it with the clear conscience which inspired you when you made the Brest-Litovsk peace, concluded against my will and against the will of the Left Communists.
Given the disparity in power between Hungary and the Allies, Hungarian chances for victory were slim at best. To buy time, Kun tried to negotiate with the Allies, meeting the South African General
Jan Smuts
Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts, (baptismal name Jan Christiaan Smuts, 24 May 1870 11 September 1950) was a South African statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various military and cabinet posts, he served as P ...
at a summit in Budapest in April. Agreement proved impossible, and Hungary was soon at war later in April with the
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania () was a constitutional monarchy that existed from with the crowning of prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as King of Romania, King Carol I of Romania, Carol I (thus beginning the Romanian royal family), until 1947 wit ...
(as part of the
Hungarian–Romanian War) and
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
(as part of the
Hungarian–Czechoslovak War), both aided by France.
The "dictatorship of the proletariat" was characterised from almost the beginning by harsh measures not only against the old ruling classes, but also against the peasants. The first action of the new government was the
nationalization
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English)
is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with p ...
of the large majority of private property in Hungary. Despite their promises, Béla Kun's government chose not to redistribute land to the peasantry. Instead, all land was to be converted into
collective farms and former estate owners, managers, and
bailiff
A bailiff is a manager, overseer or custodian – a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. There are different kinds, and their offices and scope of duties vary.
Another official sometimes referred to as a '' ...
s were to be retained as the new collective farm managers.
The Communists remained highly unpopular in the Hungarian countryside, where they had little to no actual authority, and from which the communist paramilitary group the
Lenin Boys confiscated food for the cities.
Furthermore, the initial measures of the government in the military field included the elimination of "non-proletarians" from the new Hungarian Red Army, the abolition of conscription and the introduction of voluntary recruitment. The result was catastrophic: in three weeks only 5,000 "workers" had asked to enlist. Equally ineffective were the social measures, beginning with the reduction of the rental fees and wage increases immediately negated by inflation. The failures of the Communists in economic issues meant that in three weeks they were excluded from economic affairs by the ex-Socialists. The Communists, however, retained control of the political police. They unleashed terror gangs of thugs called the Lenin Boys who went hunting for "bourgeois" and "counter-revolutionaries", and committed armed robberies, kidnappings, shootings, and hangings.
This indiscriminate terror, in which Kun's friends,
Tibor Szamuely
Tibor Szamuely (December 27, 1890 – August 2, 1919) 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.
Early life ...
and
Ottó Korvin, proved especially bloodthirsty, attracted protests from the sole representative of the Allied governments in Budapest, Italian lieutenant colonel
Guido Romanelli, which Kun rejected. It also had the effect of splitting the government and dividing the Communists themselves, some of whom doubted the usefulness of the atrocities committed. Kun proved unable to control his more extreme followers, particularly Ferenc Jancsik,
Ferenc Münnich, Szamuely, and
Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi (; born Mátyás Rosenfeld; 9 March 1892 – 5 February 1971) was a Hungarian communism, communist politician who was the ''de facto'' leader of Hungary from 1947 to 1956. He served first as General Secretary of the Hungarian ...
. Members of the government demanded Kun either stop the atrocities committed by his men, or face the hostility of organised workers and unions. In response Kun sent his friends as political commissars to the front where, however, the situation was not much better.
The Romanian Army had launched an offensive on 17 April 1919, and by the end of the month they were only from Budapest. On 26 April, Kun was forced to admit publicly that he had made a mistake in rejecting the proposals of the Allies, and spoke of resignation. The leaders of the trade unions still controlled by ex-Socialists recruited an army of 50,000 men who managed to halt the Romanian troops and to reoccupy the most important cities which had been lost in
Upper Hungary
Upper Hungary (, "Upland"), is the area that was historically the northern part of the Kingdom of Hungary, now mostly present-day Slovakia. The region has also been called ''Felső-Magyarország'' ( literally: "Upper Hungary"; ).
During the ...
. However, this victory was attributed to the People' Commissar for Defence,
Vilmos Böhm, and his soldiers, all from the Socialist Party, and not to the Communist political commissars Rákosi and Münnich.
In the second half of June,
Georges Clemenceau proposed a memorandum that promised a cessation of hostilities by the
Entente in return for an immediate evacuation of Upper Hungary by the Hungarian Army, which Kun accepted, though he stated in a speech that "The imperialist peace that we are forced to conclude will not last longer than that of Brest-Litovsk, because of the revolution that will inevitably burst out in other European countries." One of these "inevitable" revolutions was to be the insurrection Hungarian Communist agents were planning in neighbouring Austria. However, Austrian police discovered the plot and arrested the organisers the day before the coup was to be carried out.
The domestic situation was rapidly worsening as a result of the regime's actions, with not only former army officers and Catholic and Protestant clergy but urban workers, the Communist's primary base of support, becoming increasingly disaffected. On 24 June, an uprising against the regime in Budapest was suppressed after twenty hours of fighting in the streets. At the same time an anarchist conspiracy was uncovered and suppressed (its members shot) in Budapest and other cities.
The government retaliated with secret police,
revolutionary tribunals and semiregular detachments such as
Tibor Szamuely
Tibor Szamuely (December 27, 1890 – August 2, 1919) 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.
Early life ...
's bodyguards, the Lenin Boys; this renewed campaign of repression became known as the
Red Terror
The Red Terror () was a campaign of political repression and Mass killing, executions in Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Russia which was carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police ...
. Of those arrested, an estimated 370 to about 600 were killed;
[Borsanyi, Gyorgy ''The life of a Communist revolutionary'' pp. 197–8.] others place the number at 590. Subsequently, the White Terror that followed the fall of the Communist regime claimed 10 times as many victims.
At the front, the Hungarians had suffered repeated defeats at the hands of the Romanians. In the middle of July 1919, Hungary launched a major counter-offensive against the Romanian invasion. The Allied Commander in the
Balkans
The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...
, the French Marshal
Louis Franchet d'Esperey, wrote to Marshal
Ferdinand Foch
Ferdinand Foch ( , ; 2 October 1851 – 20 March 1929) was a French general, Marshal of France and a member of the Académie Française and French Academy of Sciences, Académie des Sciences. He distinguished himself as Supreme Allied Commander ...
on 21 July 1919:
We are convinced that the Hungarian offensive will collapse of its own accord... When the Hungarian offensive is launched, we shall retreat to the line of demarcation and launch the counteroffensive from that line. Two Romanian brigades will march from Romania to the front in the coming days, according to General Fertianu's promise. You see, Marshal, we have nothing to fear from the Hungarian army. I can assure you that the Hungarian Soviets will last no more than two or three weeks. And should our offensive not bring the Kun regime down, its untenable internal situation surely will.[Borsanyi, Gyorgy ''The life of a Communist revolutionary'', pp. 435–6.]
The Bolsheviks promised to invade Romania and link up with Kun and were on the verge of doing so, but military reversals suffered by the Red Army in
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
halted the invasion of Romania before it began. When the Romanian Army crossed the river
Tisza
The Tisza, Tysa or Tisa (see below) is one of the major rivers of Central and Eastern Europe. It was once called "the most Hungarian river" because it used to flow entirely within the Kingdom of Hungary. Today, it crosses several national bo ...
at the end of July they met virtually no opposition. However, by this point the regime was facing, in Kun's own words, a "crisis of power, economy and morale" and most fatally, of popular support. The former Social Democrats had withdrawn completely from government; the rural peasantry were disillusioned by the unfulfilled promises of land redistribution and by the decision of the regime to pay for agricultural products in a new paper currency they did not trust. Most fatally, the "industrial proletariat" in whose name the dictatorship had been established refused to fight for a cause they no longer considered their own.
The only hope for saving the Hungarian Soviet Republic had been "the military intervention of the Red Army or a revolution in one or more other European countries."
Both these hopes had now failed. On 1 August, Kun gave his last speech in Hungary, stating:
The Hungarian proletariat betrayed not their leaders but itself. ..If there had been in Hungary a proletariat with the consciousness of the dictatorship of the proletariat it would not collapse in this way ..I would have liked to see the proletariat fighting on the barricades declaring that it would rather die than give up power. ..The proletariat which continued to shout in factories, 'Down with the dictatorship of the proletariat', will be even less satisfied with any future government."
He fled to Austria a few hours after, and the
Romanian forces took Budapest three days later. Historian and former Italian diplomat to Hungary Alberto Indelicato attributed the downfall of the regime not to external military intervention by the allies, but to the regime's own internal flaws, stating
Whereas the "dictatorship of the proletariat" could be proclaimed as a result of international political events which weighed heavily on the whole affair, the fall of "the Republic of Councils" did not occur because of the intervention of the reactionary circles of the Entente or of the "White" Hungarian counter-revolution (as a Communist legend maintains and is still affirmed by some partisan historians), but because of its inherent weaknesses, the consequence of its internal, social and economic policies.
Activity in Crimea
Béla Kun went into exile in
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
, then controlled by the
Social Democratic Party of Austria. He was captured and interned in Austria, where he spent his time interned at the
Karlstein castle, together with the majority of the former People's Commissars of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Conditions for the internees were difficult: the castle's rooms were not heated, and all the internees contracted
scabies
Scabies (; also sometimes known as the seven-year itch) is a contagious human skin infestation by the tiny (0.2–0.45 mm) mite ''Sarcoptes scabiei'', variety ''hominis''. The word is from . The most common symptoms are severe itchiness a ...
due to the castle's unsanitary health conditions. Despite these hardships, during his permanence in the castle Kun was able to give interviews to visiting American, British, and Italian journalists. In February 1920, Kun and the other People's Commissars were transferred to
Steinhof and confined to a wing of the local mental asylum. During their stay at Steinhof, the People's Commissars survived two attempted murders. White Hungarians attempted to storm the building and execute the People's Commissars, but were deterred by the Austrian police. On April 4th,
Easter Sunday
Easter, also called Pascha (Aramaic: פַּסְחָא , ''paskha''; Greek language, Greek: πάσχα, ''páskha'') or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, de ...
, a package signed "from comrades in Vienna" was delivered to the asylum. The package contained chocolate, oranges, and other desserts, which the internees proceeded to share with each other. Within a few hours, they began to exhibit symptoms of poisoning. A later investigation revealed that the sweets had been laced with
atropine
Atropine is a tropane alkaloid and anticholinergic medication used to treat certain types of nerve agent and pesticide poisonings as well as some types of slow heart rate, and to decrease saliva production during surgery. It is typically give ...
, but the prompt administration of gastric lavages saved the Commissars from more serious consequences. In July 1920, Béla Kun was released in exchange for Austrian prisoners in Russia. He never returned to Hungary. Once in Russia, he rejoined the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...
. Kun was put in charge of the regional Revolutionary Committee in
Crimea
Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...
, which during the
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...
changed hands numerous times and was for a time a stronghold for the anti-Bolshevik
White Army. It was in Crimea that the White Russians led by
General Wrangel fell to the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...
in 1920. About 50,000 prisoners of war and anti-Bolshevik civilians who had surrendered after they had been promised amnesty, were subsequently executed, on Kun's and
Rosalia Zemlyachka's order, with Lenin's approval.
Mass arrests and executions were carried out under Kun's administration. Between 60,000 and 70,000 inhabitants of the Crimea were murdered in the process. The figures related to the massacre in Crimea remain contested.
Anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...
and Bolshevik
Victor Serge
Victor Serge (; born Viktor Lvovich Kibalchich, ; 30 December 1890 – 17 November 1947) was a Belgian-born Russian revolutionary, novelist, poet, historian, journalist, and translator. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Bolsheviks in Janu ...
gave a lower figure for White officers around 13,000 which he claims were exaggerated. Yet, he condemned Kun for his treacherous actions towards allied anarchists and surrendering whites. According to social scientist, Nikolay Zayats, from the
National Academy of Sciences of Belarus the large, “fantastic” estimates derived from eyewitness accounts and
White army emigre press. A Crimean Cheka report in 1921 showed that 441 people were shot with a modern estimation that 5,000-12,000 people in total were executed in Crimea.
The "March Action" in Germany
Kun became a leading figure in the
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...
as an ally of
Grigory Zinoviev. In March 1921, he was sent to Germany to advise the
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany (, ; KPD ) was a major Far-left politics, far-left political party in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period, German resistance to Nazism, underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and minor party ...
(KPD) and encouraged the KPD to follow the "Theory of the Offensive" as supported by Zinoviev,
August Thalheimer,
Paul Frölich
Paul Frölich (7 August 1884 – 16 March 1953) was a German journalist and author. As a left-wing political activist, he was a founding member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and founder of the party's paper, ''Die Rote Fahne''. A KPD de ...
, and others which in the words of
Ruth Fischer meant "the working class could be moved only when set in motion by a series of offensive acts."
[Hallas, Duncan ''The Comintern'' pp. 62-64, Haymarket Books, 2008]
On 27 March, leaders of the Communist Party of Germany decided to launch a "revolutionary offensive" in support of miners in central Germany. Kun along with Thallheimer were among the driving force behind the attempted revolutionary campaign known as "Märzaktion" ("
March Action"), which ultimately ended in failure.
In the end, Lenin blamed himself for appointing Kun and charged him with responsibility for the failure of the German revolution. He was considerably angered by Kun's actions and his failure to secure a general uprising in Germany. In a closed Congress of the Operative Committee — as
Victor Serge
Victor Serge (; born Viktor Lvovich Kibalchich, ; 30 December 1890 – 17 November 1947) was a Belgian-born Russian revolutionary, novelist, poet, historian, journalist, and translator. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Bolsheviks in Janu ...
writes — Lenin called his actions idiotic ("''les bêtises de Béla Kun''").
György Lukács
György Lukács (born Bernát György Löwinger; ; ; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, literary critic, and Aesthetics, aesthetician. He was one of the founders of Western Marxism, an inter ...
, moreover, claimed that Kun acted through "demagogy, violence and, if need be, bribery", and recounted an incident in the summer of 1920 when it was discovered that Kun bribed his supporters by sending them gold deliveries (he had supposedly stolen the gold from requisitioning that was carried out in the Russian Revolution).
László Rudas admitted to receiving gold from Kun. But Kun did not lose his membership in the Operative Committee, and the closing document accepted at the end of the sitting formally acknowledged the "battle spirit" of the German Communists.
Kun was not stripped of his Party offices, but the March Action was the end of the radical opposition and of the theory of "Permanent Offensive". Lenin wrote
"The final analysis of things shows that Levi
Levi ( ; ) was, according to the Book of Genesis, the third of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's third son), and the founder of the Israelites, Israelite Tribe of Levi (the Levites, including the Kohanim) and the great-grandfather of Aaron ...
was politically right in many ways. The thesis of Thallheimer and Béla Kun is politically totally false. Phrases and bare attending, playing the radical leftist.".[ Lenin's letter to G. Zinoviev]
Throughout the 1920s Kun was a prominent Comintern operative, serving mostly in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, but his notoriety ultimately stopped him from being useful for undercover work.
Later career
Kun's final undercover assignment ended in 1928 when he was arrested in Vienna by the local police for travelling on a forged passport. Back in Moscow, he spent much of his time feuding with other Hungarian Communist émigrés, several of whom he denounced to the Soviet secret police, the
OGPU
The Joint State Political Directorate ( rus, Объединённое государственное политическое управление, p=ɐbjɪdʲɪˈnʲɵn(ː)əjə ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əjə pəlʲɪˈtʲitɕɪskəjə ʊprɐˈv ...
, which arrested and imprisoned them in the late 1920s and early 1930s. During the Comintern's "Third Period" from 1928 to 1935, Kun was a prominent supporter of the
Social Fascism line that revealed the Social-Democrats' role as "social fascism" because they sought the preservation of capitalism precisely when it was in crisis, an animosity in large part owing to Kun's strained relations with the Hungarian Social Democrats, whom he believed had betrayed him sixteen years earlier.
[Chase, William "Microhistory and Mass Repression: Politics, Personalities, and Revenge in the Fall of Béla Kun" pp. 454-483 from '' The Russian Review'', Volume 67, Issue # 3, July 2008 page 462.] In 1934, Kun was charged with preparing the agenda for the 7th Congress of the Comintern, in which the Social Fascism line was to be abandoned and the
Popular Front was to be the new line for Communists all over the world, a policy change that Kun opposed. Instead of submitting to party discipline, Kun did his best to sabotage the adoption of the Popular Front policy, which led to his formal sanction for insubordination.
In 1935–36, the leadership of the émigré Hungarian Communist Party was thrown into crisis as Kun sought to prevent the adoption of the Popular Front policy, which occasioned a vigorous round of party in-fighting. Beyond policy, there was also a clash of personalities as Kun's abrasive and autocratic leadership style had left him with many enemies. These individuals saw the dispute over whether the Hungarian Communist Party was to adopt the Popular Front strategy as a chance to bring down Kun, whom many Hungarian émigrés deeply hated. His embattled position led Kun to denounce one of his leading enemies in the Comintern,
Dmitry Manuilsky, to the NKVD as a "Trotskyite"; in turn, Manuilsky, who was sympathetic to the anti-Kun faction, had also denounced Kun to the NKVD as a "Trotskyite".
Death and legacy
During the
Great Purge
The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...
of the late 1930s, Kun was accused of
Trotskyism
Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an ...
and brutally beaten and arrested by the NKVD on 28 June 1937.
[L.I. Shvetsova, et al. (eds.), ''Rasstrel'nye spiski: Moskva, 1937-1941: ... Kniga pamiati zhertv politicheskii repressii.'' (The Execution List: Moscow, 1937-1941: ... Book of remembrances of the victims of political repression). Moscow: Memorial Society, Zven'ia Publishing House, 2000; pg. 229.] Little was known about his subsequent fate beyond the fact that he never returned. Even an official Hungarian Communist biographer with official access to the Communist International's archives in Moscow was denied information during the mid-1970s.
Only some time after the
fall of the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of Nationalities, Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. :s: ...
and the opening of certain archives in the aftermath did Kun's fate become public: after a brief incarceration and interrogation, he was hauled before a
judicial troika on charges of having acted as the leader of a "counter-revolutionary terrorist organization." Kun was found guilty and
sentenced to death at the end of this brief secret trial. The sentence was carried out later that day at the
Kommunarka shooting ground.
When Kun was politically
rehabilitated in 1956, as part of the
de-Stalinization
De-Stalinization () comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and Khrushchev Thaw, the thaw brought about by ascension of Nik ...
process, the Soviet Communist Party told its Hungarian counterpart that Kun had died in prison on 30 November 1939. In 1989, the Soviet government announced that Kun had actually been executed in the
Gulag
The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...
more than a year earlier than that, on 29 August 1938.
["New information about death of Bela Kun," from ]BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
transmission of Hungarian Telegraph Agency in English, 14 February 1989
After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
the Soviets set up the
Marxist–Leninist Hungarian People's Republic
The Hungarian People's Republic (HPR) was a landlocked country in Central Europe from its formation on 20 August 1949 until the establishment of the current Hungary, Republic of Hungary on 23 October 1989. It was a professed Communist_state# ...
under the leadership of
Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi (; born Mátyás Rosenfeld; 9 March 1892 – 5 February 1971) was a Hungarian communism, communist politician who was the ''de facto'' leader of Hungary from 1947 to 1956. He served first as General Secretary of the Hungarian ...
, one of Kun's few surviving colleagues from the 1919 coup.
Notes
Further reading
Hungary (The Virtual Jewish World) - Jewish Virtual Library* György Borsányi,
The Life of a Communist Revolutionary, Béla Kun' translated by
Mario Fenyo,
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule city in Boulder County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the most ...
: Social Science Monographs; New York: Distributed by
Columbia University Press
Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's la ...
, 1993.
* Andrew C. Janos and William Slottman (eds.), ''Revolution in perspective: essays on the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919'': Published for the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, Center for Slavic and East European Studies, Berkeley, California:
University of California Press
The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...
, 1971.
*
* Béla Menczer, ''Béla Kun and the Hungarian Revolution of 1919'' pages 299–309 from ''History Today'', Volume XIX, Issue #5, London:
History Today Inc., May 1969.
* Rudolf Tőkés, ''Béla Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Republic: the origins and role of the Communist Party of Hungary in the revolutions of 1918–1919'' New York: published for the
Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford, California, by
F. A. Praeger, 1967.
* Iván Völgyes, (ed.), ''Hungary in Revolution, 1918–19: nine essays'' Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press
The University of Nebraska Press (UNP) was founded in 1941 and is an academic publisher of scholarly and general-interest books. The press is under the auspices of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the main campus of the University of Ne ...
, 1971.
* Louis Birinyi, ''The Tragedy of Hungary, An Appeal for World Peace'' Cleveland, 1924.
External links
Béla Kun Internet Archiveat
Marxists Internet Archive
Marxists Internet Archive, also known as MIA or Marxists.org, is a non-profit online encyclopedia that hosts a multilingual library (created in 1990) of the works of communist, anarchist, and socialist writers, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Enge ...
.
Wireless Message to Béla Kun 23 March 1919.
* Crimean government on th
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kun, Bela
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