Hungary in Revolution, 1918-19: Nine Essays

231 Pages·1971·4.641 MB·Italian

by  Ivan Volgyes

HUNGARY IN REVOLUTION, 1918-19

HUNGARY IN REVOLUTION,
1918-19
Nine Essays
Edited by
IVÁN VÖLGYES
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS • LINCOLN
Thanks are due to the editors of the East European
Quarterly for permission to include uSoviet Russia and
Soviet Hungary” by Iván Völgyes, which originally
appeared in the Quarterly in somewhat different form.
Copyright © 1971 by the University of Nebraska Press
All rights reserved
International Standard Book Number 0-8032-0788-3
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 71-125855
Manufactured in the United States of America
To Mary Rowena Volgyes

Contents
Preface ix
The Heritage of the Past: Hungary before World War I i
Joseph Held
The Decline and Fall of Habsburg Hungary, 1914-18 10
István Deák
The October Revolution in Hungary: From Károlyi to Kun 31
Gábor Vermes
The Internal Policies of the Hungarian Soviet Republic 61
Frank Eckelt
Nationality Problems of the Hungarian Soviet Republic 89
Éva S. Balogh
Problems of Foreign Policy before the Revolutionary Governing Council 121
Zsuzsa L. Nagy Translated by Iván Völgyes
Soviet Hungary and the Paris Peace Conference 137
Alfred D. Low
Soviet Russia and Soviet Hungary 158
Iván Völgyes
Béla Kun: The Man and the Revolutionary 170
Rudolf L. T őkés
List of Contributors 208
Index 209
vii

Preface
Revolutions, born out of man’s disaffection with his environment, out of his im­
patience with intolerable conditions, and out of a conviction that the future possesses
unexploited possibilities, are the proper study of all those concerned with man and his
society. Historians have attempted to mark the course of revolutions, charting the
great sweep of events leading up to them and recording the myriads of detail associated
with them. Social scientists have developed theories about revolutions, have built
models to explain how social change takes place, and have analyzed the revolutions of
the past. This volume is another attempt at recording and analyzing a series of revolu­
tionary changes. The events with which the essays are concerned took place after the
end of World War I in Hungary, in a country where revolts and revolutions have
occurred with relative frequency.
Hungary in Revolution, içi8-iç seeks a partial, probing answer to the questions
posed by two of the revolutions of Hungary. Looking from the vantage point of well
over fifty years, nine specialists on Hungarian history and politics dissect the series of
events which occurred in Hungary during the second decade of the twentieth century.
It is difficult to determine from a reading of these pages whether the contributors are
historians, political scientists, or economists, for a deliberately broad range of expertise
is represented by each of the authors. They were chosen for their expert knowledge;
only scholars who had previously done research in the area were invited to write
articles. It is hoped that the participation in this project by Zsuzsa L. Nagy of the
Historical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Science, whose essay was translated
by the editor, will open the way for further joint efforts between American and
Hungarian scholars.
These essays, the result of nearly three years of labor, reflect a wide variety of
political belief. Their conclusions, tentative and sometimes hypothetical, are based on
the best available information. While each essay is complete in itself, taken together
they comprise the first comprehensive volume dealing with the subject of the two
Hungarian revolutions of 1918 and 1919.
Focused on the history of the turbulent era prior to and immediately after World
War I, Hungary in Revolution chronologically examines the background and causes of
the upheaval. The first two articles by Held and Deák trace the development of the
country and consider the contributions of modernization and defeat in the war to the
rise of the revolutionary movements. The failure of the liberal bourgeois regime—the
first of the revolutionary take-overs—to establish a democratic republic which in turn
led to the nonviolent succession of the Communists to power is discussed by Vermes.
The internal and external policies of the Hungarian Soviet Republic are treated in
IX
X PREFACE
succeeding essays. Eckelt deals with the attempts of the Communist regime to
accomplish too much too quickly in reforms on the domestic front: Balogh, with the
special problem of integrating the many nationalities within the country into the
soviet republic, in the face of these nationalities’ desires for regional autonomy. The
complex foreign problems confronting the regime’s Revolutionary Governing
Council are discussed by Nagy, while Low concentrates on the relations of the soviet
regime with the Allied nations participating in the Paris Peace Conference. The
minimal influence of Soviet Russia in the Hungarian Soviet Republic and the vast
difference between the two Communist parties’ accession to power, make-up, and
policies are presented by Völgyes. The concluding essay by Tőkés supplies a biography
of Béla Kun, the leader of the soviet republic, and offers a reassessment of his career
as a revolutionary.
To assist readers who are unfamiliar with the Hungarian language, all Hungarian
titles have been translated in the footnotes, which also in most cases give complete
bibliographical information. In some instances it was impossible to ascertain the name
of the publisher of a work.
My warmest thanks go to Joseph Held, Associate Professor of History, Rutgers
University, who has corrected the page proofs of this volume and prepared the index.