In Hungary, the revolution was led by Béla Kun (1886–1938). Born in
Transylvania to an assimilated Jewish father and a disinterested Protestant
mother, Kun was first indifferent and later hostile to religion. In 1906 he
Magyarized his name from Kohn to Kun. Prior to the First World War, he
was a journalist for the Hungarian Social Democratic Party. Like other social-
ists, he fought for Austria-Hungary during the war. He was captured by the
Russians in 1916 and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in the Ural Mountains.
In 1917, he was swept up by the romance of the Russian Revolution. In
1918, he founded the Hungarian group of the Russian Communist Party, the
forerunner of the Hungarian Communist Party.
In November 1918, Kun returned to Hungary with several hundred
Hungarian communists. Supported and funded by Lenin, he deposed the
provisional government, which had been unable to deal with inflation, unem-
ployment, and shortages of housing, food, and coal. By February 1919, the
Hungarian Communist Party had 40,000 members. The Social Democratic
Party, still the largest and most dominant party, invited Kun to join a coali-
tion socialist government. In March 1919, Kun and the communists took
over government and founded the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Kun was
appointed Commissar for Foreign Affairs, but was the de factoleader.
From March to August 1919, the communist government undertook a
series of drastic reforms, most notably the elimination of noble titles and
privileges. The government also nationalized industry, commerce, transporta-
tion, financial institutions, and medicine. The regime also nationalized
private property but, contrary to Lenin’s advice, refused to redistribute land,
opting instead to nationalize farms. The management of farms defaulted to
preexisting estate managers, which alienated the peasantry.
In June 1919, a failed anticommunist coup prompted a Red terror in
which the communist secret police convened tribunals and executed
500–600 people who were suspected dissidents. In response, opponents of
the regime, led by Admiral Miklós Horthy, formed a National Army to
fight the communists. Before this civil war could break out, Romania
invaded and defeated the Hungarian Red Army, captured Budapest, and
forced Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Republic to cede authority to the
Social Democrats. On November 14, the Romanians withdrew from
Budapest, leaving the city to Horthy’s National Army. This prompted an
anti-communist White terror.
The perception that these were Jewish revolutions galvanized and exacer-
bated preexisting anti-Semitism, an important element in the sharp rise of
anti-Semitism during the interwar years. The prominent role of Jewish
communists such as Luxemburg and Kun animated a perception that
Judaism and communism/Bolshevism were largely indistinguishable. From
this point on, anti-Semitism and anticommunism would dovetail in a single
virulent xenophobic strain that would find a growing audience during the
interwar years.
From renewal to devastation, 1914–45 209