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HUNGARIAN SOVIET REPUBLIC Excerpt from “The Black Book of Communism”
(Harward / 1997) Map: Andras Bereznai |
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Pages 273-275 The most famous example of these
revolutionary movements was in Hungary. In defeat, Hungary had found the
forced loss of Transylvania, decreed by the victors of the war, a hard pill to
swallow. It became the first genuine instance of the Bolsheviks' exporting
their revolution. Beginning in early 1918 the Bolshevik Party
collected all non-Russian Communist sympathizers into a group called the
Federation of Foreign Communist Groups. As a result, there existed a
Hungarian group in Moscow made up, for the most part, of former prisoners of
war. In October 1918 this group sent some 20
members back to Hungary. On 4 November the Hungarian Workers' (Communist)
Party (HCP) was established in Budapest under the leadership of Bela Kun. Kun had been a prisoner of war and had quickly
rallied to the Bolshevik revolution, becoming president of the Federation of
Foreign Communist Groups in April 1918. He arrived in Hungary in November,
accompanied by 80 activists, and was immediately elected Party leader. It has
been estimated that in late 1918 and early 1919 another 250 to 300
"agitators" and revolutionaries arrived in Hungary. With financial support provided by the
Bolsheviks, the Hungarian Communists set about spreading propaganda, and
their influence soon began to grow. The official newspaper of the Social
Democrats, the Nepszava (The voice of the people),
which was firmly opposed to the Bolsheviks, was attacked on 18 February 1919
by a group of soldiers and unemployed workers who had been mobilized by the
Communists. Their aim was either to take control of the printing press or to
destroy it. The police intervened, and in the ensuing conflict 8 people died
and 100 were injured. The same night, Bela Kun and
his collaborators were arrested. At the police headquarters many of the
prisoners were beaten by the police in revenge for their colleagues who had
died in the attempt to break up the attack on the Nepszava.
Hungary's president, Mihaly Karolyi,
sent his secretary to inquire after the health of the Communist leader, who
was subsequently granted extremely liberal custodial restrictions and allowed
to pursue his activities, and was soon able to reverse the setback despite
his detention. On 21 March, while still in prison, he achieved a major
success by bringing about the merger of the HCP and the Social Democratic
Party. At the same time, President Karolyi's
resignation opened the way for the establishment of a ''republic of
Soviets," the freeing of all imprisoned Communists, and the organization
on the Bolshevik model of a Revolutionary Council of State modeled on the
Soviet People's Commissars. This republic lasted 133 days, from 21 March
until 1 August 1919.
Bela Kun At their first meeting the commissars
decided to establish revolutionary courts with judges chosen from among the
people. Lenin, whom Bela Kun had hailed as the
leader of the world proletariat, was in regular contact by telegram with
Budapest after 22 March (218 messages were exchanged), and he advised
shooting the Social Democrats and "petits-bourgeois."
In his message to the Hungarian workers on 27 May 1919, he justified this
recourse to terror: “The dictatorship of the proletariat requires the use of
swift, implacable, and resolute violence to crush the resistance of
exploiters, capitalists, great landowners, and their minions. Anyone who does
not understand this is not a revolutionary." Soon the commissars of commerce, Matyas Rakosi, and of economic
affairs, Eugen Varga, and
the head of the new courts had alienated all businessmen, industrial
employees, and lawyers. One proclamation posted on the walls summed up the
mood of the moment: "In the proletarian state, only the workers are
allowed to live!" Work became obligatory, and all businesses employing
more than twenty workers were immediately nationalized, followed by
businesses employing more than ten, and soon the rest as well. The army and the police force were
dissolved, and a new army was created, composed exclusively of revolutionary
volunteers. Soon a Terror Group of the Revolutionary Council of the
Government was formed and quickly became known as "Lenin's Boys."
The Terror Group murdered about ten people, including a young naval ensign, Ladislas Dobsa; a former first
secretary of state and his son, who was the chief of the railways; and three
police officers. "Lenin's Boys" answered to a retired sailor named Jozsef Czerny, who recruited them from among the
most radical Communists, particularly former prisoners of war who had taken
part in the Russian Revolution.
The “Lenin’s Boys’
Click on the map for better resolution Czerny was politically closer to Tibor Szamuely, the most
radical of the Communist leaders, than he was to Bela
Kun, who at one point proposed dissolving "Lenin's Boys." In
response Szamuely gathered together his troops and
marched on the House of Soviets. Kun received the support of the Social
Democrat Jozsef Haubrich,
joint people's commissar of war. Finally negotiations began, and Czerny's men
agreed to join forces with the People's Commissariat of the Interior or to enlist
in the army, which in fact most of them did. With some twenty of "Lenin's Boys, 11 Szamuely then went to Solnok,
the first city to be taken by the Hungarian Red Army, where he executed
several locals accused of collaborating with the Romanians, who were
considered national enemies because of their takeover of Transylvania and
political enemies because of their regime's opposition to the Bolsheviks. One
Jewish schoolboy who tried to plead for his father's life was killed for
calling Szamuely a "wild beast." The
chief of the Red Army tried in vain to put a brake on Szamuely's
appetite for terror. Szamuely had requisitioned a
train, and was traveling around the country hanging any peasants opposed to
collectivization measures. Accused of having killed more than 150 people, his
assistant Jozsef Kerekes
admitted to having shot 5 and having hanged 13 others with his own hands. Although the exact number of people killed
has never been established, Arthur Koestler claimed that there were perhaps
slightly fewer than 500, but went on to note: "I have no doubt that
Communism in Hungary would have followed the same path as its Russian model,
and soon degenerated into a totalitarian police state. But that certitude,
which came only much later, does nothing to dim the glorious days of hope of
the early days of the revolution." Historians attribute some 80 of the
129 recorded deaths to "Lenin's Boys," but it is likely that the
real number was at least several hundred. Faced with mounting opposition and a worsening
of the threat posed by the Romanian troops, the revolutionary government drew
upon popular antisemitism. One poster denounced
Jews who refused to fight at the front: "Exterminate them, if they won't
give their lives to the sacred cause of the dictatorship of the
proletariat!" Bela Kun ordered the arrest of
5,000 Polish Jews who had come looking for food; he then confiscated their
goods and had them expelled. The HCP radicals demanded that Szamuely take charge of the situation, and called for a
"Red St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre," thinking for whatever reason
that this was the only means of halting the decline of the Republic of
Councils. Czerny tried to reorganize "Lenin's Boys," and in
mid-July an appeal appeared in Nepszava: "All
previous members of the Terror Group, who were demobilized when the group
was broken up, are requested to turn up at Jozsef
Czerny's office to reenlist." The following day an official denial was
published: "Notice is hereby given that no reestablishment of the
'Lenin's Boys' group can possibly be envisaged. Such great atrocities against
the honor of the proletariat were committed by the group as to preclude any
future role played by them in the service of the Republic of Councils."
Tibor Szamuely The last weeks of the Budapest Commune were
chaotic. Bela Kun faced an attempted coup against
his leadership, possibly led by Szamuely. On 1
August 1919 he left Budapest under the protection of the Italian military. In
the summer of 1920 he took refuge in the U.S.S.R. and was immediately named a
political commissar of the Red Army on the southern front. There he
distinguished himself by executing officers from Wrangel's
army who had agreed to surrender if their lives would be spared. Szamuely attempted to flee to Austria but was arrested on
2 August and committed suicide soon afterward Click HERE to read the whole
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