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THE STRUGGLE FOR INTERNAL POLITICAL STABILITY AND TERRITORIAL
INTEGRITY, 1918-20
From Károlyi's Baurgeois-Democratic Revolution to Kun's Soviet Republic
The Kádrolyi's government's
last-minute attempt to persuade the Entente Powers to conclude a separate
peace with an independent Hungary and make generous concessions to persuade
the non-Magyar peoples to remain within Hungary failed during the first days
of November 1918. Despite the agreement of the Allies to leave a final
settlement of the new east central European frontiers until after the Paris
Peace Conference the Czechs, Slovaks, Ruthenes, Rumanians, Croats, Serbs and
Slovenes, helped by the French military, now seized those parts of Hungary to
which they laid claim. Ignoring the armistice signed by the commander of the
French Balkan army, Franchet D'Esperey, and the Károlyi government in Belgrade on 7 November 1918, the Rumanian National
Council in Arad
notified the Hungarian authorities on 10 November of the takeover of the
administration in twenty-three counties and parts of three other counties.
Rumanian troops advanced into Transylvania whose annexation was unilaterally
proclaimed by the Bucharest
government on 11 January 1919. The Serbs had already taken over the
administration of the Bácska, the Baranya and the western Banat
on 24 November 1918, presenting the Hungarians with a well-nigh irreversible fait accompli. Czech troops advanced into Slovakia,
or 'Upper Hungary' as it was formerly
called, and were poised to occupy the districts of Ung, Ugosca, Bereg and
Máramaros with their Ruthenian population, to which the Rumanians
also laid claim. On 3 and 23 December 1918, the Allied Supreme Command agreed
to the takeover of the civilian administration by the Czech authorities. On
29 October, the diet of the Kingdom
of Croatia and Slavonia had
announced an end to its ties with Hungary
and the Habsburg monarchy and joined Serbia. In view of the realities
of the situation the Hungarians were unable to take any effective measures to
prevent the break-up of their country.
Hungarian poster reflecting
territorial claims of Hungary’s
neighbours after her voluntary disarmament
This dismemberment of the Monarchy, which the
Hungarians were powerless to resist, caused a growing sense of bitterness
among the Hungarian population and increasingly undermined the prime
minister's prestige. Károlyi was regarded as relatively pro-Entente and a
politician who enjoyed good relations with western statesmen. As early as
1914 in the USA and again
in neutral Switzerland in
the autumn of 1917 he had argued for his belief in the need for an
evolutionary change in Hungary's
socio-economic and political conditions. The tough actions taken by the
emerging nation states, tolerated, though not always approved of by the
allied governments, showed that, contrary to expectations, Hungary could not hope for more
considerate treatment. The Károlyi government was particularly disappointed
by the Entente Powers' growing readiness to depart from the principles set
out in Wilson's Fourteen Points, which those
groups willing to introduce reforms had been in the end prepared to use as a
basis for the necessary restructuring of an independent Hungary. The argument that Hungary's
premier, István Tisza, like the Hungarian population in general, had opposed
the unleashing of the First World War in the summer of 1914 failed to
persuade the Allies to grant more favourable peace terms.
With the growing willingness of the Allied
governments to allow a ring of territorially well-endowed successor states to
emerge, confining Hungary to a relatively narrow area of Magyar settlement,
the progressive idea of the new minister for nationalities, Oszkár Jászi, to
make Hungary a kind of 'eastern Switzerland', became untenable. As well as
analysing and condemning former policies towards the nationalities, Jászi
proposed working towards a new form of coexistence between the nations in the
Danube Basin on the basis of extensive political
and cultural autonomy. However, during the course of the discussions with
Slovak and Rumanian representatives it soon became clear that even the most
generous concessions could not overcome their desire to join their
conationals in the new or already existing nation states which had been
greatly enlarged by the acquisition of new territories. The I ncreasingly
obvious impossibility of breaking out of Hungary's foreign policy isolation
and preventing the country's territorial disintegration prior to the terms of
the Paris Peace Conference being made known also increasingly limited
Károlyi's room for manoeuvre in domestic politics.
The first new government measures were
infused with a progressive spirit and met with broad approval. A new
electoral law extended the franchise to all men and the majority of women
over 21 who had been Hungarian citizens for a period of at least six years.
Future elections were to be conducted by secret ballot. In a similar liberal
and generous spirit the government guaranteed by law freedom of the press,
assembly and speech. The Ruthenian population was granted autonomy and
preparations made to introduce a land reform. The workers won the acceptance
of their demand for an eight-hour working day, first raised a decade previously,
although there was still insufficient work available and food shortages. The
effects of the Allied blockade, the disruption to Hungary's
close economic ties with Austria,
together with the military occupation of major territories in the north,
south and east of the country, all contributed to a general situation which
brought factory production to a standstill. Shortages of raw materials and
fuel, together with the disruption to freight traffic, produced maximum
economic chaos. The unemployment figures rose daily. Returning prisoners of
war and demobilised soldiers swelled the flood of refugees from the occupied
territories who were often homeless and incapable of making ends meet. The
country's finances had been completely ruined by the war and could not be
used to alleviate the widespread distress. Appeals for voluntary donations
showed people's willingness to help, but donations of clothes and money were
inadequate to provide effective long-term relief. A feeling of growing
bitterness spread among people facing basic food shortages in the urban
areas, since they suspected landowners and wealthy peasants of deliberately
holding back deliveries to the starving towns. The refusal of many landowners
to cultivate their fields in view of the impending land reform and the
growing impatience of the rural proletariat, which saw no sign of the
promised redistribution of cultivable land, heightened tensions and created
an explosive atmosphere.
Because its proposals for a democratic
reform of society were increasingly criticised and condemned by the political
Right as too radical and partisan, the Károlyi government felt obliged to
take steps to prevent developments taking a more radical direction. The
minister of defence, Bartha, who had been behind the setting up of special
armed units to defend the government and the property of the state, was
forced to resign from his post as a result of public pressure. But the
minister of the interior, Count Tivadar Batthyány, also resigned on the
grounds that the measures taken against the threats from the Left were too
lax. Government officials were very hesitant about pushing through laws which
ran counter to their own political beliefs. Members of the army officer corps
founded secret organisations committed to the defence of the fatherland which
Gyula Gömbös, a general staff captain and future prime minister, tried to
unite in the Hungarian Militia Association.
The political Left was also in the process
of organising itself. A small nucleus of political activists had been formed
from among the half a million or so Hungarian soldiers who had ended up in
Russian captivity and had in many cases been influenced by Marxist-Leninist
ideology. After their release from captivity they had spread the message of
Socialist revolution and had made their mark as organisers and speakers at
mass demonstrations both before and after the revolution of 1918. Some, like
Béla Kun, had also taken an active part in the Russian revolution and had
fought in the ranks of the Red Guard. On his return to Budapest Kun, who
derived great authority from being one of Lenin's former colleagues, had
immediately made contact with the Social Democratic Party's left wing and the
Revolutionary Socialists. The latter had played a major part in the
preparation and execution of the 'Chrysanthemum revolution', but were
dissatisfied with the official line of their parties who were content with a
bourgeois democratic revolution. The Soldiers' and Workers' Councils which
had appeared spontaneously in both the capital and the provinces, had not
grown as dynamically as had been hoped. It was felt that it would be
impossible to implement a political programme or gain a say in government
without first developing a strict party organisation. On 24 November 1918,
therefore, the Communist Party of Hungary (Kommunisták Magyarországi
Pártja) was founded and soon published its own newspaper theVörös
Újság (Red News).
The new party, which at first concentrated
its activities on the big factories in Budapest
and the soldiers garrisoned in the capital, soon tried to whip up support for
its programme in the provinces too. Its aims were varied, Its propaganda
concentrated on crushing the 'counter-revolution', exposing the betrayal
perpetrated by the 'right-wing' leaders of the Social Democratic Party and
creating a system of Soviets on the Bolshevik model. It also put forward
concrete demands for a 'complete break with the remnants of feudalism', an
end to cooperation with the bourgeoisie and its corrupt politicians and a
change in Hungarian foreign policy away from the Entente and towards an
alliance with the new Soviet Russia. Although the nucleus of the Communist
Party remained relatively small in size, Communist slogans had an effective
appeal in a situation of growing social distress and widespread
dissatisfaction. They helped weaken popular support for the Social Democrats
and thus for the government coalition. Revolutionary Soldiers', Workers' and
Peasants' Councils were now also formed in the provincial towns and pursued
policies very close to the Communist Party programme. As early as late
December demonstrators organised by the Communist Party demanded the
proclamation of a Hungarian
Soviet Republic.
The entire country was engulfed by a wave of strikes as infuriated workers
took over their factories and seized transport and communications
installations. When the government sent in the army to restore order numerous
factories were occupied between the 1 and 5 January 1919 and control of
production passed to the Communist-dominated Soviets.
The government turned out to be no match for
this deeply motivated revolt. After lengthy discussions the internal argument
within the Social Democratic Party, whether, in view of the masses' action
and the Communists' growing influence, it would not make more sense to
withdraw from participation in the government in order to retain some of
their influence with the workers, or whether the Social Democrats could
better defend their positions in the crisis by assuming an even more
prominent role in government, was decided in favour of those who supported
continuing the policy of shared governmental responsibility. The party's
National Council hoped that Count Mihály Karolyi's appointment as President
of the Republic on 11 January 1919 and the entrusting of the former minister
of justice, DU +00E9nes Berinkey, with the formation of a new government
would bring about greater stability. The Social Democrats occupied five posts
in the new government, including Vilmos Böhm as minister of defence. The
Smallholders' Party nominated the popular István Nagyatádi Szábo for the new
government as a man who could be expected to speed up the land reform for
which the peasants were becoming more impatient. The Social Democrats tried
to tame the left wing of their own party at first. After an emergency party
conference had approved tough measures on 28 January 1919 the Budapest
Workers' Council expelled the Communists from its membership and that of the
trade unions. Following the dissolution of the spontaneously elected workers'
councils, which had proved impossible to control, workers' participation was
to be guaranteed by elected shop-floor committees in all factories with more
than 25 employees. The Law for the Protection of the Republic gave the
minister of the interior the power to order the internment of persons
considered dangerous to the state. However, it was members of the right-wing
opposition who proved to be the first victims of the preventive measure. The
government undertook a thorough purge of the bureaucracy, dismissing the
lord-lieutenants of the county administrations. The dissolved county
commissions were replaced by elected People's Councils. The Militia
Association was banned and measures carried out against the conservative
elements around the president's older brother, Count józsef Kádrolyi, and
Count István Bethlen, who tried to unite their supporters in the county
administrations in a new right-wing opposition party. By announcing the law
on land reform on 16 February 1919 the government hoped to calm the
revolutionary mood in the countryside. All estates of over 300 hectares were
to be expropriated and compensation paid to their owners. These were then to
be parcelled out with the aim of creating a new economic structure based on
small peasant farms allocated to the small and dwarf-holding peasantry. The
new president, Mihály Károlyi began personally to redistribute the land on
his great estates in Kálkápolna on 23 February.
However, this land reform sparked off a new
internal political conflict. The large-scale landowners showed little
inclination to support the passage of the proposed legislation and offered
stubborn resistance. The rural proletariat reacted bitterly at the
government's completely inadequate upper limit on the size of individual
allocations. They also criticised the lengthy and cumbersome process of
redistribution which prevented the transfer of ownership in time for the
spring planting of crops and complained at the amount of compensation they
were expected to pay, sums which the poor rural population could not in fact
afford. When the government refused to halt the work of the land distribution
committees and satisfy the calls for reform, voiced with increasing
bitterness by the intended beneficiaries, the number of land seizures by the
peasants began to rise from the beginning of March 1919 onwards as attempts
were made to cultivate the land collectively. Even the newly appointed
government officials who were supposed to take over the leading positions in
the county administrations were not always able to take up office and had to
watch helplessly as makeshift committees, dominated by landless peasants and
workers, usurped the administration's functions. In some provincial towns
such as Szeged
the town council was controlled by workers' committees set up by the
left-wing Social Democrats and the Communists.
Even the arrest of the Communist Party's
leaders on 21 February 1919, which the Social Democrats also agreed to after
considerable hesitation, failed to dampen the mood of revolution. The arrests
had come about as a result of a demonstration organised by the Communists
outside the editorial building of the Social Democratic daily newspaper Népszava(The Voice of the
People), where several policemen had been killed the previous day. Since, at
Károlyi's request, the fifty or so defendants were granted the status of
political prisoners, they were also able to lead the Communists from inside
prison and create more difficulties for the government whose image was
completely tarnished, not least because of its lack of success in foreign
policy.
As early as November 1918 the Károlyi
government had tried to establish closer contacts with Italy in the hope of acquiring a
spokesman at the Paris Peace Conference. The government's willingness to
settle the problem of Hungary's
disputed territories and develop economic relations with its neighbours was
communicated to the new South Slav kingdom
of Yugoslavia. In Vienna and Berne, where
the Hungarian diplomats had been accredited without further ado, the opportunity
presented itself of establishing the first direct contacts with the western
Allies and putting the Hungarian case. An economic mission led by A.E.
Taylor, followed by a political mission headed by A.C. Coolidge on 15 January
1919, renewed Hungarian hopes of being included in America's financial aid programme
under the direction of Herbert Hoover. It was clear that the country's
national economic recovery was bound to have an affect on the government's
ability to stabilise the internal political situation. With the Allied
military intervention against Bolshevik Russia fully underway, the Hungarians
felt they could expect an acceptable settlement of the frontier problem from
the Paris Peace Conference, since this appeared to be the only way of avoiding
revolution and a takeover of power by the radical Left in Hungary. Thus, the
measures taken to curb the influence of the Communists also stemmed from
foreign policy considerations.
However, the Peace Conference decision of 26
February 1919, first intimated to the Hungarian government in Budapest on 20 March,
effectively swept the Kádrolyi government from office. It proposed creating a
neutral zone in the south-east of the country in order to separate the
opposing Hungarian and Rumanian forces, which stood ready for battle on the
demarcation line, and envisaged sending in more Allied troops. Acceptance of
these proposals would have exacerbated Hungary's internal political
crisis which had already reached a dangerous level after the Communist Party
announced its intention of liberating its imprisoned leaders by holding a
mass demonstration on 23 March. The Social Democrats, pressed by Károlyi to
take over sole responsibility for the government, intensified their ongoing
negotiations with the imprisoned Communist leaders. In view of the external
political threat faced by Hungary,
the Social Democrats announced their willingness on 21 March to unite with
the Hungarian Communist Party to form the United Workers' Party of Hungary ( Magyarországi Szocialista Párt)
and to form a new government of both parties pledged to implementing
important points in the Communist Party programme. After Károlyi had rejected
the Allies' demands as unacceptable he transferred power 'on behalf of the
proletarian class' to this new government, the Revolutionary Governing
Council ( Forradalmi
Kormányzótanćs). Although its chairman was the Social Democratic
Centralist, Sándor Garbai, it was effectively led by Béla Kun who had secured
his position as head of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs.
On the 22 March 1919, the new government
proclaimed Hungary
a republic and announced its declared aim of establishing the dictatorship of
the proletariat. Proclaiming its desire to live in peace with all peoples, to
maintain relations with the western powers and arrive at a just compromise
with the country's nationalities, it announced that the most important tasks
facing the new Soviet Republic were the construction of a Socialist
society and the forging of an alliance with the Soviet
Union. Kun, who soon claimed and received dictatorial powers,
placed his faith in the prospect of military help from the Red Army to defend
Hungarian territory, interpreted as a struggle against the imperialism of the
capitalist powers. The vast majority of the population was at first persuaded
by this view and prepared to take up arms to defend Hungary's territorial unity,
although most thought little of the Communists' utopian doctrinaire measures
in internal politics. There was no opposition, nor protests, at first, since
only a completely new political departure appeared to offer Hungary the chance to break out
of its foreign policy isolation and take the heat out of the confused
internal political situation. Although the number of organised Communists remained
few, the majority of Social Democrats, many bourgeois radicals and even
reformist liberals supported the change introduced by the new Soviet
government. There followed a rapid succession of decrees which in the course
of time revealed the dominant influence of the Communists.
On 25 March 1919, the government officially
announced a reorganisation of the armed forces and the creation of the
Hungarian Red Army. This was to be recruited from the organised workers with
political commissars attached to each unit in order to counteract the
influence of the old officer corps and ensure that the troops were
successfully re-educated ideologically. The Red Guard, in which Communist
supporters occupied all the key positions, was charged with maintaining
internal law and order instead of the police and the gendarmerie. The courts
were replaced by revolutionary tribunals on which lay-judges, loyal to the
party line, were given the final say. On 26 March, mining and transport were
nationalised along with industrial concerns with more than twenty employees.
These were to be managed in future by production commissars and controlled by
elected workers' councils. Banks, insurance companies and home ownership were
likewise placed under state control. By placing accommodation under public
ownership an attempt was made to overcome the housing shortage caused by the
flood of refugees. Social policy measures -- wage increases, sexual equality,
the prohibition of child labour, improved educational opportunities -- met
with widespread approval, as did the nationalisation of major commercial
concerns, the introduction of food and consumer goods rationing and the
supervised distribution of food by the trade unions. On 29 March 1919, it was
announced that schools and educational institutions were also now the
property of the state. Up to 80 per cent of elementary schools and 65 per
cent of middle-schools had previously been run by the Church. It was
envisaged that members of the Church's teaching orders would continue to be
employed on condition that they were prepared to enter the state service.
György Lukács, People's Commissar for Education, also proposed a progressive
reform of the universities and the entire range of cultural activities, and
began a campaign against illiteracy.
The government's most radical measure was
the land reform decrees of 3 April. Middle and large-sized estates together
with their inventories were expropriated without compensation and taken into
state ownership. The Church's landed properties were also subsequently
nationalised, although some land was spared in order to support the clergy.
The division of land into individual plots was forbidden. Estates were to be
collectively managed by agricultural cooperatives, whereby the previous
owners, tenants and managers had to take charge as 'production commissars',
who would be subject to control by the People's Soviets, comprising former
rural labourers and farmhands, i.e. the so-called 'collective farm workers'.
In the belief that large-scale enterprises would effectively produce more to
cover food requirements than small peasant farms lacking capital, machinery
and seed stocks, the rural poor's spontaneous land seizures, hitherto
encouraged by the Communists, were now reversed. However, dissatisfaction
with this measure was so great in some districts that the government was soon
obliged to allow the creation of small plots or allotments.
In order to acquire political legitimacy and
popular support for their far-reaching measures, which resulted in
considerable social change and unforeseeable changes in the production and
administrative apparatus, Soviet elections were held between 7 and 10 April
on the basis of the extended suffrage granted by the provisional constitution
of 2 April 1919. Since there was only a single list of candidates, the
Revolutionary Governing Council could be sure of winning a majority for its
programme which was increasingly modelled on Soviet-Russian organisational
principles. But in both the Socialist Party and the Revolutionary Governing Council
the former Social Democrats, who harboured growing reservations regarding
Kun's new direction in foreign policy, began to raise objections to the
flagrant violation of existing legal norms and ruthless persecution of both
actual or potential opponents.
To increase pressure on the Hungarian Soviet
government to change its policies or even resign, the Peace Conference, which
perceived the Soviet
Republic as a threat,
had decided on 28 March to maintain its economic blockade of the country. Hungary could, therefore, cultivate diplomatic
and economic contracts only with Austria. Soviet Russia, itself imperilled by
civil war and Allied intervention, had immediately recognised the Hungarian
Soviet régime, but could not provide effective help. On 24 March, Kun had
asked the Peace Conference to help settle the points at issue by sending a
diplomatic mission to Hungary
and entering into direct negotiations with Soviet government. Since America's President Wilson and Britain's prime minister, Lloyd George, interpreted
the radical turn of events in Hungary
as primarily a result of protest against the violation of Hungarian national
interests and excessive French demands, they argued for the acceptance of
Kun's proposal. Afraid that the Hungarian Communist virus might also spread
to Austria and Germany,
they thought it desirable to show a readiness to make some form of
compromise. But Clemenceau's already mooted idea of establishing a cordon sanitaire in east central Europe appeared a better
guarantee for holding feared German revanchist designs in check, while at the
same time preventing the export of the Russian revolution and isolating Hungary
internationally. The decision to withdraw the French interventionist troops
from the Ukraine and the
Crimea and hand over their weapons to the Rumanian army was motivated by the
idea of using Czechoslovakia
and Rumania, as directly
affected neighbours, to exorcise the red spectre in Hungary. After long discussions
the 'Big Four' finally agreed to send General Smuts to Budapest to sound out the Hungarians'
willingness to negotiate. The talks, which began on 4 April, failed to
produce any concrete results, since the Allies insisted on the creation of a
neutral zone, albeit reduced, in south-east Hungary
and Kun failed to have his proposal accepted of holding a conference of the
powers directly involved to settle the problems of the Danube
region.
Map from Hungarian Historical Atlas
showing pre-Trianon Hungary, Entente-established demarcation lines, limits of
the territory controlled by Hungarian Soviet government as well as Rumanian
and Czechoslovakian military expansion
of 1918-19.
Click on the map for higher resolution
The Rumanian Crown Council, in a decree of
10 April 1919, decided, therefore, to insist on a military solution of its
territorial claims against Hungary.
Although the newly formed Kingdom of
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes refused
to join in any common action, Czechoslovakia
also made military preparations. At first the Hungarian Red Army failed to
halt the Rumanian advance which began on 16 April, with the result that Hungary had to surrender its territories east
of the river Tisza. Earnest appeals and a
wave of patriotism did, however, result in a rush of volunteers, especially
after Czech units joined the campaign. A Committee of Public Safety,
organised by Tibor Szamuely, increased the pressure on the civilian
population and soon practised open terror against all suspected sympathisers
of the Society for the Liberation of Hungary, founded by Count István Bethlen
in Vienna on
13 April 1919. Against the background of a steadily deteriorating military
situation and the failure of Hungary's increasingly anxious appeals to the
Peace Conference and neighbouring governments, the Social Democratic People's
Commissars showed at an emergency sitting of 1 and 2 May 1919 that they were
prepared to create the conditions to end the military intervention through
the resignation of the Revolutionary Governing Council and the appointment of
a transitional government. With the help of the Budapest Soviet, however, Kun
was able to drum up a majority in favour of continuing the fighting. The Red
Army, which was quickly doubled in strength, began its offensive against the
Czech units in Slovakia
and Ruthenia in the middle of May. Hoping to
create a direct land corridor to Soviet Russia and greatly improve the Soviet Republic's military and political
situation, it managed to achieve a series of quick successes and by the
beginning of June had already succeeded in driving a wedge between the rather
ineffective Czech and Rumanian forces. A short-lived Soviet
Republic was even proclaimed in the
Slovak town of Kassa.
This unexpected recovery by the Hungarians
led to various forms of intensified activity which eventually contributed to
the fall of the Hungarian Soviet régime. In Szeged, which was under the control of
French occupation forces, an anti-Bolshevik Committee was formed in which bourgeois
politicians and members of the bureaucracy, together with some aristocrats
and ex-servicemen, prepared to set up a rival government on 3 June 1919 under
Count Gyula Károlyi's chairmanship. This counter-revolutionary government was
to include Count Pál Teleki as foreign minister and the last
commander-in-chief of the Austro-Hungarian navy and former aide-de-camp to
the Emperor Francis Joseph, Rear Admiral Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya as
minister of war. At the same time, Horthy took over the command of the
National Army which had been mainly organised by Gyula Gömbös.
Dissatisfaction with the Communists expressed itself in revolts in the
countryside and refusals to cooperate. In the towns also, tensions were again
heightened by the crisis caused by basic fuel and food shortages. The
Revolutionary Governing Council tried to blame the peasants for the lack of
food, thus exacerbating the already strained relationship between town and
country, and increasingly resorted to coercion in order to maintain discipline
and keep work going in the unpopular agricultural collectives. A Central
Economic Council was eventually put in charge of the country's entire
economic life with the task of overcoming the supply situation. However, the
discontented rural population increasingly refused to cooperate. Resistance
spread and was merely fuelled further by the government's counter-measures.
In the western counties, in particular, riots and strikes, organised by
ex-army officers and civil servants, flared up repeatedly, especially since
the brutality with which the Red Guard units, charged with the maintenance of
internal order, tried to crush the disturbances, led to a continual increase
in the numbers of those opposing the government.
At the first party congress of the Hungarian
Socialist Party, held on 12-13 June 1919, a head-on clash took place between
groups who opposed the government's handling of domestic and foreign policy.
Many Social Democrats obviously no longer agreed with the partisan direction
of the Communists' policies and sharply condemned the radical measures
against the population. As a result the party changed its name to the
Socialist-Communist Party of Hungarian Workers (Szocialista-Kommunista
Munkások Magyarországi) At the opening session of a new kind of
parliament, the National Congress of Councils (Soviets) which lasted from 14
to 23 June, the Communists succeeded in passing a draft constitution which
was entirely dominated by their ideas. They also demonstrated their
controlling influence on the elections to the Central Executive Committee,
whose task was to control the work of the Revolutionary Governing Council
between the sittings of the National Congress. The deliberations were
interrupted by the news that a major uprising involving the rival Szeged government had broken out between the Danube and
the Tisza. The unrest spilled over to Budapest on 24 June as
ex-servicemen gave their support to the government's opponents. By deploying
Red Guard units, the government once more succeeded in crushing the
disturbances, not least because the industrial workers refused to join the
ranks of insurgents. But, since the workers were also not prepared to
continue supporting the Soviet régime, the position of the Revolutionary
Governing Council became increasingly precarious.
The actions of the Entente Powers also
contributed to the crisis, True, the hastily conceived plan for an Allied
military intervention was soon dropped in favour of diplomatic and economic
pressure, but this made little impression on the Governing Council. The
demand, communicated to the Budapest
government on 7 June 1919, to stop the further advance of the Red Army to the
north-east in order to begin peace negotiations in Paris with the participation of Hungarian
delegates was ignored. On 13 June, an offer arrived from Paris
that if the Hungarian troops retreated to the former demarcation line, the
Rumanian army would be pulled back from the Tisza
to its original positions. In view of the Hungarian army's logistical
problems and growing internal resistance this proposal was accepted, though
with some reservations. The Red Army began to pull back. Many of its generals
and officers, who up until now had fought in order to fulfil their patriotic
duty and defend their country, protested at this climb-down. The
commander-in-chief, Vilmos Bőhm, and the chief of the general staff,
Aurél Stromfeld, joined others in resigning their commissions in protest. It
was also announced on 2 July that the Rumanians were refusing to withdraw
their troops from the line of the Tisza
until the Hungarian army had been completely disarmed.
When Kun wanted to force the evacuation of
the territories beyond the Tisza by
launching a surprise attack on 20 July 1919, the Red Army managed to achieve
some initial victories, but was forced to fall back in disorderly flight when
the Rumanians launched their counter-attack. In the final days of July
Rumanian troops crossed the Tisza along a
broad front. By 31 July, only 100 kilometres separated them from Budapest. Trade
unionists and former Social Democrats had already expressed their view more
openly that the occupation of the entire country by foreign troops could be
prevented only by expelling the Communists from the Governing Council and
forming a new government which the Entente Powers would recognise as a
negotiating partner. This view was reinforced by reports from Vienna where Entente
diplomats had presented the Hungarian negotiator, Vilmos Bőhm, with a
list of eight points setting out their conditions for ending the Rumanian advance
and beginning peace negotiations. The first condition demanded the voluntary
resignation of the Governing Council and the creation of a caretaker
government under the leadership of the trade unions. Although the Communists
still refused to open the way for a negotiated settlement on 31 July, they
had to accept the resignation of the Governing Council which was forced by
the Budapest Central Workers' Council on 1 August 1919. After a period of 133
days Hungary's
experiment in Soviet dictatorship had collapsed. It had ended, not only
because of its total rejection by the Allies and the military superiority of
its enemies, but because of internal opposition which had derived its
strength from the government's errors of political judgement, economic problems
and blind terror. Its leaders fled to Austria where they and their
families were granted political asylum. A transitional government, headed by
Gyula Peidl, had to try to minimise the damage caused to Hungary by Soviet rule.
The 'White Terror' and the Trianon Peace Treaty
In the weeks following the collapse of the
Soviet dictatorship Hungary
faced complete chaos. On 3 August 1919, Rumanian troops marched unopposed
into Budapest
where a succession of helpless and impotent governments rapidly wore themselves
out.
Peidl's 'government of the trade unions',
which was supported only by the Social Democrats, immediately began to repeal
and annul the unpopular decrees and measures of Soviet rule. Private property
was restored, a functioning state apparatus was re-established and what
remained of the 'Red Terror', i.e. the revolutionary tribunals and the Red
Guard, was eliminated. On 6 August, however, Peidl's government was
overthrown in an armed coup. A new government led by the factory owner,
István Friedrich, took over the running of the country. Although the rival
Szeged government aknowledged the authority of the new government, the
former's war minister and commander of the small counter-revolutionary
'National Army', Miklós Horthy, refused to carry out its instructions. Since
the Entente Powers also refused to recognise the new government, its orders
carried no weight and could not put an end to the killing and the looting. In
the meantime, Horthy's troops had advanced into the areas between the Tisza
and the Danube which were not under Rumanian occupation and soon extended
their control over areas west of the Danube
which were now free of foreign military occupation. Real and alleged
Communists were ruthlessly persecuted along with workers and peasants who had
played an active part in implementing the Soviet government's programme. The
same fate was shared by the Jews who suffered considerable loss of life in
punitive actions reminiscent of mediaeval pogroms. The officer detachments
responsible for the 'White Terror' were actively supported by such newly
formed paramilitary organisations as the Hungarian National Defence Force
Association and the Association of Vigilant Hungarians, whose members were
drawn mainly from the ranks of the reserve officers, students, civil servants
and those Magyars who had been socially and economically uprooted following
their expulsion from the former nationality territories now lost to Hungary's
new neighbours. This 'White Terror', which raged throughout the countryside
until the autumn of 1919 and died away only slowly in the spring of 1920,
bore no semblance of legality. It claimed around 5,000 lives, put 70,000
citizens behind bars or crowded them into hastily erected internment camps
and forced many suspects to flee abroad.
A mission of the Entente Powers, which
arrived in Budapest
on 5 August 1919, did little to stop the unbridled persecution and chaos.
Whereas the various Hungarian governments tried in vain to maintain internal
order and political stability, most of the government commissars in the
counties, who were appointed from among the wealthy landowners, had
sufficient power and means at heir disposal to
restore traditional authority and property relations while at the same time
reversing the principles of democratic liberal reform. They were fully
supported by those groups in the towns and countryside who were horrified at
the extent of the Soviet government's democratisation measures and the 'Red
Terror'. These were the aristocracy, civil servants, the military and middle
and small-ranking property owners in the towns who had no sympathy for the
appeals of the intelligentsia -- itself implicated in the failure of
democratic reforms -- not to let Hungary depart from the
principles of parliamentary democracy. The visit of the British diplomat Sir
George Clerk in October 1919 was evidence of the western Allies' interest in
seeing a liberal parliamentary democracy established in Hungary. The Allies also urgently
demanded that a general election, based on the secret ballot, should be held
for a national assembly, conceived as a single chamber parliament elected
bianually. The only reason that the Hungarians reluctantly agreed to these
proposals was that they were the only means by which they could secure the
withdrawal of the Rumanian troops from Budapest.
After 16 November 1919, when Horthy entered the capital at the head of his
National Army, now swollen to 25,000 men, a government of national
concentration led by the Christian Social leader, Károlyi Huszár, was formed
on 25 November. The post of social welfare minister was filled by Károly
Peyer, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, newly reorganised in
August. But the new government was unable to satisfy expectations that it
would bring stability to the woeful political and economic situation. It
could not and would not take vigorous action against the 'White Terror' at
large throughout the country. As a result, the Social Democrats left the
government on 15 January 1920 and decided to boycott the elections due to be held
on 25 January. The other political factions displayed a lack of unity and
instability. Many influential politicians of the pre-war period like Gyula
Andrássy, Albert Apponyi and István Bethlen initially held back from joining
any of the parties, but instead created independent dissenting groups. Newly
created parties like the National Civic Party, the National Liberal Party or
the Democratic Party lacked popular support and primarily represented
business interests and high finance. In contrast, the Christian National
Unity Party (Keresztény Nemzeti Egyesülgs Pdrtja) which was the result
of a merger on 25 October 1919 between the Christian National Party, the
Christian Social Economic Party and several smaller groups, was able to rely
on the support of both the petty bourgeoisie and the wealthy L
andowners who remained loyal to the Habsburgs and supported their
restoration. In the meantime the National Smallholders' Party, led by István
Nagyatádi Szabó, had become an important political factor. After its merger
with the Party of Arable Farmers and Rural Labourers (Országos Kisgazda és
Földmüves Párt), founded by Gyula Dann, it could count on the support of
the majority of the rural population. Despite the continuation of the 'White
Terror' the freest elections in Hungary's history -- free, because they were
mainly conducted by secret ballot -- produced a majority for the
Smallholders' Party which won 40 per cent of the vote and seventy-nine seats,
while the Christian National Union won 35.1 per cent of the vote and
seventy-four seats. Three further splinter groups returned ten deputies to
the new parliament. The workers, however, still had no represention in the
new National Assembly. When, on 15 June 1920, further elections were held in
the territories which had been under foreign occupation, the Smallholders'
Party succeeded in strengthening its leading position even further.
The Smallholders' demand to introduce land
reform legislation in the interests of its supporters and the problem of the
king were the key issues which the new parliament had to address. All the
parties acknowledged that Hungary's 'indivisible and indissoluble' connection
with the Habsburg crown lands had been severed; but all agreed that the
monarchy should continue to exist beyond the 13 November 1918, although the
Crown's prerogatives had been terminated as of that date. A quarrel now broke
out between the 'Legitimists', who, drawn mainly from among the ranks of the
wealthier magnates and the Catholic episcopacy, considered King Charles IV,
who had not yet abdicated, to be the country's legitimate ruler and those who
supported an elective monarchy based on popular support, i.e. the
middle-ranking landowning nobility and leaders of the Calvinist Church who
held that the monarch's claim to the throne had been forfeited and demanded
the nation's right to choose a new king on the basis of free elections. Since
both sides were unable to reach a compromise on the questions of whether King
Charles was still Hungary's rightful ruler or how they should otherwise
determine the succession, the government fell back on an institution of the
late Middle Ages which Lajos Kossuth had revived in 1849: they proposed
appointing a regent for the duration of the interregnum (Law I of 1920). On 1
March 1920, Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was elected Regent in a parliament
building occupied by the military at the time.
As commander-in-chief of the Szeged National
Army, which had grown to almost 50,000 men in Transdanubia after joining up
with Baron Antal Lehár's units at the beginning of 1920, Horthy, who was not
a particularly talented military commander or politician, exhibited an
exceptional desire to legitimise his authority. Thanks to his sincere manner
in dealing with others, his ability in several languages and the troops under
his command, he was able to win the support of the Entente representatives
stationed in Budapest.
His active tolerance of the 'White Terror' had made him acceptable to the
enemies of reform as well as those opposed to revolution. They hoped they
could install this reputedly malleable and arrogant professional soldier as a
figurehead to help them achieve their own aims. Horthy knew how to give both
the legitimists and those who supported an elective monarchy the impression
that he supported their respective positions. He also cultivated the image of
a leader who, on account of his good personal contacts with leading Entente
politicians, could obtain improved peace terms for Hungary. But as soon as he was
made Regent, Horthy increasingly pursued his own policy, primarily in the
interests of his own family. The result was that the suspicion soon grew that
he had his eyes on the crown for himself or his eldest son.
On 10 March 1920, the Huszár government made
way for a new cabinet led by Sándor Simonyi-Semadam, whose priority was to
seek an improvement in the harsh peace terms. On 25 November 1919, the
Hungarian government had been invited to send a delegation to Paris to receive the
terms. This delegation, headed by Apponyi, Bethlen and Pál Teleki tried to
have the draft of the peace treaty, which was handed to them on 20 January
1920, changed to more favourable terms on the basis of historical, economic
and legal arguments. They not only pointed to the geographical unity of the
Danube basin up to the natural frontier of the Carpathians in the north and
east and to the fact that the territories recently seized by Czechoslovakia
and Rumania had for a thousand years, since the beginning of the 11th
century, constantly formed part of the crown lands of St Stephen. They also
argued that, despite the intermingling of populations of different
nationalities it would be difficult, though not impossible, to draw a more
equitable frontier. They failed, however, to gain any concessions with their
arguments. The Hungarian government also tried in vain to prevent the
inclusion of a war-guilt clause by pointing out that the Hungarian population
and the prime minister, Tisza, had been opposed to war in the summer of 1914
and suggested changing the proposed terms stipulating a reduction in the size
of armed forces to allow a system of conscription for a standing army of
100,000 men in place of the permitted strength of 35,000. When this also was
rejected, broad sections of the Hungarian population were already bitterly
opposed to the proposed peace treaty even before it was signed in the Trianon
on 4 June 1920, believing that a major revision of its terms was inevitable.
The independent 'Kingdom
of Hungary', which emerged as a
result of the Trianon peace treaty comprised only 92,963 square kilometres
compared with the original 325,411 square kilometres of the old pre-war Kingdom of Hungary. According to the 1920 census,
its population now numbered 7.62 million inhabitants compared with the
earlier figure of 20.9 million. Under the terms of the Treaty the new Kingdom
of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later named Yugloslavia, received the Bácska,
the Baranya and the western Banat, amounting to 20,956 square kilometres,
i.e. 6.44 per cent of pre-war Hungary,
involving the loss of 1.5 million inhabitants. Hungary was obliged to cede
102,787 square kilometres, i.e. 31.59 per cent of its entire territory and
5,265,000 inhabitants to Rumania, the latter obtaining the whole of
Transylvania including the Szekler region, the eastern Banat, most of the
counties of Körös and Tisza and the southern part of Máramaros. Of the 62,937
square kilometres or 19.34 per cent of pre-war Hungary
ceded to the new Czechoslovakian Republic, Slovakia
received 48,994 square kilometres, Ruthenia
12,639. Of the 3,250,000 inhabitants affected by these changes, 2,950,000
were settled in Slovakia
and 571,000 in Ruthenia. More than three
million Magyars now lived under foreign rule: 1,063,000 in Czechoslovakia, 1,700,000 in Rumania and 558,000 in Yugoslavia.
Thanks to Italy's
support, Hungary was at
least able to push part of its claim through against the weak Austrian
government on the question of the Burgenland when a somewhat dubious
plebiscite held on 14 December 1921 resulted in the return to Hungary of the area around Sopron.
Although no exact figure was set, Hungary
had to agree to pay reparations. The armed forces permitted under the treaty,
comprising a professional army of 35,000 men on a long period of service, but
minus heavy artillery, armoured corps and an air force, was intended
exclusively to maintain internal order and the defence of Hungary's frontiers. An
Inter-Allied Control Commission was given the task of seeing that these
armament limitations were observed.
Every section of the Hungarian population
felt disappointment at the scale of losses demanded by the peace treaty,
which came to be regarded as a dictated settlement. The historic Kingdom of Hungary
had possessed a geographical unity without parallel in the rest of Europe. In the second half of the nineteenth century
the national economy had been a coordinated whole in which the different
parts of the country had been mutually dependent on each other and the
capital, Budapest.
This economic unit had been destroyed by the territorial terms of the peace.
The effects of the world economic crisis in 1931-32 made the problems
resulting from the destruction of the Habsburg Empire's unified economy very
apparent and these proved impossible to overcome satisfactorily in the period
before 1938. As a semi-industrialised country with an inadequately developed
manufacturing industry Trianon Hungary began to fall behind
other countries economically. Since its bauxite and oil resources were yet to
be exploited, the government had to give priority to agricultural production.
The war and the period of Soviet rule had done little to reduce the social
tensions which resulted from the partisan redistribution of landed property,
and these played a crucial part in determining the direction taken by Hungary's
domestic and foreign policies during the inter-war period. The influx of
350,000 immigrants from the territories of the successor states, comprising
mainly civil servants, teachers and soldiers, also added to the problem of
achieving social cohesion, since they represented a politically aware group
which could not be so quickly and easily accommodated in a country that had
been reduced so much in size. The only problem solved by the imposition of
the Trianon peace treaty terms was that of the national minorities. According
to the 1920 census, only 833,475 people, i.e. 10.4 per cent of the
population, including 552,000 Germans (6.9 per cent) and 142,000 Slovaks (1.8
per cent), did not speak Hungarian as their mother tongue. According to the
same census, the number of Jews living in Hungary was 473,000.
Despite the sacrifices imposed by the
treaty, Hungary's
government and people continued to identify their dismembered state firmly
with pre-war Hungary.
Deliberately shunning any compromise with the new circumstances, they
remained absolutely inflexible, rejecting even the possibility of any
constructive developments within the new frontiers. They carefully nurtured
the Magyars' sense of an historically based national identity, looking back
to the founding of the state, the Hungarian
Kingdom's thousand
years of history and their belief in the Magyar cultural mission of spreading
their superior civilisation. They kept alive the sense of humiliation at Hungary's
defeat, the experience of economic privation and despair at the injustices of
the peace settlement. In an eruption of national patriotism which permeated
all social classes they argued for a revision of the peace treaty, invoking
the symbol of the crown of St Stephen to argue for the restoration of the territories
lost to their despised neighbours. Although differences of opinion soon
emerged regarding the extent of the desired revision, the treaty's failings
were pilloried. Its unrealistically high reparations demands, war-guilt
clause, territorial and military terms and unjust treatment of the Magyar
minorities in Hungary's
neighbour states all became a focus of resentment. The slogan, 'Nem, nem,
soha!' (no, no, never!) summed up the attitude of every Magyar to the
peace treaty. Diplomatic, artistic and economic contracts with other
countries were cultivated with renewed intensity with a view to revising the
treaty's terms eventually. 'The world's conscience' was not to be allowed to
rest 'in view of the injustices done to Hungary at the Trianon and the
consequent danger to peace'. Whereas at first demands were made to restore to
Hungary its pre-war territories, implying a total revision of the treaty,
which could not be achieved peacefully but only by a victorious war, from
1930 onwards more enlightened circles worked for a revision of the treaty's
territorial terms within the framework of national self-determination: '
Hungary will recover those citizens seized from her whose first language is
Magyar, although plebiscites will be held in territories whose inhabitants'
native language is not Hungarian'.
Hungary's revisionist policy was,
however, primarily intended to divert attention away from the country's
internal social and economic problems. The traditional upper classes, the
aristocratic representatives of the governments and parties of the period
before the Soviet republic, which quickly regained their prominence, were
interested only in preserving what remained of feudal rule, in resisting any
genuine land reform and in obtaining compensation for their extensive
holdings which now lay in the territories seized from Hungary. It
was thanks to their influence that a subtle combination of democratic
elements was incorporated into the new constitution of 28 February 1920 which
did much to perpetuate social injustices. The traditional middle class,
recruited mainly from members of declining middle nobility, who had been
gentrified and earned their living as civil servants or professional
soldiers, tried increasingly to curb the influence of the upper nobility and
secure their politicial and economic position. They were able – especially I n their unbridled campaign
against the Jews -- to count on the complete support of a petty bourgeoisie
which was also imbued with the conviction that it was ordained to rule politically
and economically. Despite a large influx of Jewish immigration before the
First World War, Hungary's
Jews, in fact, formed only 6 per cent of the country's population, but
controlled major areas of industry, banking and commerce as well as dominating
several liberal professions like medicine, the law and journalism. Although
the Jews had not posed a threat to any social class and had created many
positions for the first time in their role as a substitute bourgeoisie, they
were used as a scapegoat in order to release the pent-up dissatisfaction of
the middle classes. Even in the officer corps, which was initially the only
stabilising factor in the state and which exerted considerable influence on
Horthy during his period as Regent, a groundswell of antisemitism combined
with anti-liberal ideals. Above all, it was Hungary's professional soldiers
who rejected democratic institutions and a liberal state based on the rule of
law. Their growing chauvinism and demands for a complete revision of the
peace treaty were accompanied by the call to establish naked authoritarian
rule in the form of an overt military dictatorship. Hungary's governments and
political parties had to resist these tendencies before they could even begin
the long overdue process of consolidation.
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