Everything about The Hungarian Soviet Republic totally explained
The
Hungarian Soviet Republic or
Soviet Republic of Hungary (
Hungarian:
Magyarországi Tanácsköztársaság) was a
Communist regime established in
Hungary from
March 21 until
August 6,
1919, under the leadership of
Béla Kun. It was the first Communist government to be formed in
Europe after the
October Revolution in
Russia which brought the
Bolsheviks to power in that country. Lasting only four months, the Soviet republic fell apart when
Romanian forces occupied
Budapest. The successor to the state was the
Kingdom of Hungary formed after the Romanian army pulled out of Hungary.
Formation
The immediate cause of the formation of the Hungarian Soviet Republic was the failure of Count
Mihály Károlyi's government of the re-born state of Hungary to organize the country's social and economic life after the loss of
World War I and the dissolution of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. After less than six months in power, Károlyi was dismissed by a coalition of Social Democrats and
Communists.
The Hungarian Communist Party was small at this time, but its members were very active and it began expanding. An initial nucleus of the party had been organized just a few months earlier, in a
Moscow hotel on
November 4 1918; when a group of Hungarian prisoners of war and some other Communist sympathizers formed a Central Committee. Led by
Béla Kun, they soon left for Hungary and started to recruit new members and propagate the party's ideas, radicalising many of the Social Democrats in the process. By February 1919, the party numbered 30,000 to 40,000 members, including many unemployed ex-soldiers, young intellectuals and ethnic minorities.
Kun founded a newspaper, called
Vörös Újság ('Red News'), and concentrated on attacking Károlyi's government. During the following months, the Communist Party's power-base rapidly expanded. Their supporters began to stage aggressive demonstrations against the media. In one crucial incident, a demonstration turned violent on
February 20 and the protesters attacked the editorial office of the Social Democrats' official paper, called
Népszava (
People's Word). In the ensuing chaos, seven people - including policemen - were killed. The government arrested the leaders of the Hungarian Communist Party. They executed victims without trial. This caused a number of conflicts with the local population, some of which turned violent.
Foreign policy
In late May, the HSR invaded southern
Czechoslovakia and declared a
Slovak Soviet Republic based on the belief that the treaty of
Treaty of Trianon granting the territory to the newly-formed Czechoslovakia following World War I was unjust. With Czechoslovak advances and American & French threats, the Hungarian army retreated from occupied Slovakia which was fully liberated by
17 July. Following the army's retreat from Slovakia, Kun's Hungary turned to Romania in an attempt to regain
Transylvania on the same principles. The war was unsucesful and by
30 July Romanians occupied Budapest. On
1 August the Hungarian Soviet Republic was ousted by Romanian forces. Kun himself and an unknown number of other Hungarian communists were executed in Stalin's purge of foreign communists in late 1930s.
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