Hungarian Communist Party

Party of Communists in Hungary (1918–19; 1922–43)
Socialist Party of Hungary (1919)
Party of Socialist Communist Workers in Hungary (1919)
Peace Party (1943–44)
Hungarian Communist Party (1944–48)
First leader Béla Kun
Last leader Mátyás Rákosi
Founded 24 November 1918
Dissolved 22 July 1948
Succeeded by Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP)
Ideology Communism
Marxism–Leninism
Political position Far-left
National affiliation Left Bloc
International affiliation Cominform
Colors Red
Party flag

The Party of Communists in Hungary (Hungarian: Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja), renamed Hungarian Communist Party (Magyar Kommunista Párt) in October 1944, was founded on November 24, 1918, and was in power in Hungary briefly from March to August 1919 under Béla Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The communist government was overthrown by the Romanian Army and driven underground. The party regained power following World War II and held power from 1945 under the leadership of Mátyás Rákosi. In 1948 the party merged with the Social Democrats to become the Hungarian Working People's Party. The Communist Party of Hungary was a member of the Communist International.

Foundation and early years

Logo of the Party of Communists in Hungary

The Communist Party of Hungary (KMP) was first established as The "Party of Communists from Hungary" in late 1918 by Béla Kun, a former journalist who fought for Austria-Hungary in World War I. After spending time in a POW camp, Kun, along with several associates, set up the initial workings of the KMP in Moscow in October 1918. These first members returned to Hungary in November, and on the 24th officially created the KMP. The Communist party chose "The Party of Communists from Hungary" (Hungarian: Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja) title instead of "Hungarian Communist Party", because - at the time - the vast majority of their represented social class: the factory workers the "proletariat" hadn't ethnic Hungarian roots in Hungary yet, and the ethnic Hungarians were only a minority in the newly founded party.[1] Initially, the group was small in number, boasting only its founders and a handful of leftist Social Democrats. Nonetheless, the political instability of the government under Mihály Károlyi and the growing popularity of the Bolshevik movement prompted the Social Democrats to seek a coalition with the KMP. For the Social Democrats, an alliance with the KMP not only increased their standing with the common people, but also gave them a potential link to the increasingly powerful Russian Communist Party, as Kun had ties with prominent Russian Bolsheviks.

Following the establishment of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in March 1919, Kun set about nationalizing private industry while embarking on a massive agricultural collectivization project. He also took steps towards normalizing foreign relations with the Triple Entente powers in an effort to gain back some of the land that Hungary was set to lose in the post-war negotiations. For the 133 days that the Hungarian Soviet Republic existed, the KMP concentrated mostly on trying to fix the widespread economic chaos that had resulted from Hungary’s defeat in World War I. Unfortunately, Kun’s economic policy only created higher inflation while also leading to food shortages across the land. Opposition began to grow, led by Miklós Horthy, and in June, following an attempted coup, the KMP launched a violent terror campaign through its secret police mechanism. Despite all this, the Soviet Republic fell on August 1, 1919, following the Hungarian Army’s crushing defeat by Romania. The invading Romanians seized Budapest from the Communists, exiled Kun to Vienna, and forced the KMP to hand over power to the Social Democrats.

Interwar period and exile

The fall of the Soviet Republic was followed by a year-long anti-Communist purge, known as the White Terror, by the new nationalist government under István Bethlen, in which anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people were killed and thousands more were imprisoned and tortured. Much of the old KMP leadership was either executed or exiled, primarily to Vienna. There, remnants of the KMP Central Committee, once again led by Kun, reformed into a Provisional Central Committee, which attempted to keep the Party together despite its illegal status in Hungary.

Throughout the 1920s, many Hungarian Communists moved to Moscow, with Kun among them. Kun’s actions in Russia, most notably the organization of a massacre of White Russian POWs in 1921, drew censure from Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin and other prominent Bolsheviks. Nonetheless, Kun maintained a prominent position with Comintern until 1937, when he was arrested and executed during one of Joseph Stalin’s purges. Furthermore, Kun was the unquestioned leader of the KMP during the inter-war period, with his main rival, Jenő Landler, dying in 1927.

The Party also organized a legal cover party, the Socialist Workers Party of Hungary (MSzMP), to act as its representative in Hungary. But the Hungarian government soon took steps to abolish the MSzMP, and by 1927, the party existed in name only.

For the remainder of the inter-war period, the internal leadership of the KMP beyond Kun fluctuated tremendously, and membership was minuscule. Following the deadly derailment of a passenger train at Biatorbágy by Szilveszter Matuska in 1931, the government declared martial law, and used the opportunity to arrest suspected Communists. Two of those arrested, leading party members Imré Sallai and Sándor Fürst, were executed the following year. The KMP was damaged to the point that the Comintern dissolved it in 1936.

Further throwing the Hungarian Communists into disarray were the inconsistent policies of the Comintern throughout the 1930s, culminating in the 1939 Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact and the abandonment of the Popular Front tactic that had marked Communist ideology for the last decade. On top of all of that, Stalin’s purges in the late 1930s took a heavy toll on the Hungarian émigrés in Moscow.

World War II and the Communist takeover

The KMP entered the 1940s a shell of what it once was. In late 1941, following Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, the Central Committee advised Party members to work with non-Communist resistance groups in order to present a united anti-German front. This prompted the KMP to attempt to reestablish itself as a legal entity in Hungary, despite the Horthy government’s alliance with Nazi Germany. This movement was quickly put to an end, however, as mass arrests in 1942 effectively destroyed the leadership of the KMP. This, coupled with the dissolution of Comintern in 1943, spelled the end of the KMP as a functioning party for the time being.

In an effort to continue their actions, Hungarian Communists under János Kádár founded a new party, dubbed the Peace Party, as a replacement for the KMP. This designation lasted until late 1944, at which point the Peace Party reverted to its designation as the Communist Party. By this point, Horthy was frantically trying to end Hungary’s role in the war. Attempts to scale back the involvement on the German end failed, and so, with the Red Army approaching the country’s borders, Horthy tried to declare Hungary a neutral state. The move backfired horrendously; Arrow Cross forces seized the capital, took power, and set the stage for a four-month battle that claimed thousands of lives and left Budapest in ruins. The city was finally liberated in February 1945.

Despite rapid growth in membership immediately following the war, the party refounded under the name MKP received 17 percent in the elections, equal to the Hungarian Social Democratic Party. But the appointment of party secretary László Rajk as Minister of the Interior, coupled with the presence of the Red Army in the country and strong support for the MKP within other parties, allowed the Hungarian Communists time to whittle away their political opponents. Party leader Mátyás Rákosi implemented a strategy of pressuring the non-Communist parties to gradually push out their more courageous elements as "fascists," a strategy he later called salami tactics.

Within two years, the MKP had broken the power base of the Independent Smallholders Party (FKGP), the majority party in the new government, and by 1948, every party but the Social Democrats had either vanished or taken over by fellow travelers willing to do the Communists' bidding. The Social Democrats were eliminated in 1948 by a forced merger with the Communists in June 1948 which formed the Hungarian Working People's Party (MDP). However, the few independent-minded Social Democrats were quickly shunted aside, leaving the MDP as essentially the MKP under a new name. In 1949, elections were held in which voters were presented with a single list from the Communist-controlled Independent Democratic Front. This marked the onset of 40 years of undisguised Communist dictatorship in Hungary.

Leaders

Prominent members

See also

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ E. Raffay, Trianon Titkai (Secrets of Trianon), Szikra Press, Budapest 1990 (ISBN 9632174771) - PAGE: 13
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