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Title: War and Revolution
Author: Martyn Everett
Date: 2006
Language: en
Topics: Hungary, 1919, World War I, anarchist movement, history, revolution, anti-militarism
Source: Retrieved on 28th February 2021 from https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/73n6fg

Martyn Everett

War and Revolution

INTRODUCTION

The Budapest Commune of 1919 has been neglected by the historians of

anarchism, yet it provides an important and fascinating opportunity to

understand the anarchist movement at a crucial historical moment. We can

see how and why anarchist fortunes declined after the end of the First

World War, as anarchist organisations fused with Marxist parties, or

were crushed by protofascism.

The Commune also raises issues with contemporary resonance — such as the

role of anarchists in revolutionary situations, and the part played by

anarchism in shaping what has been described as “Western Marxism” ,

although both of these subjects are complex enough to require their own

studies. In piecing together the history of the Hungarian anarchists, I

have also been forced to think about the way ideas about anarchism

circulate within the British anarchist movement. This last point is of

particular interest, because although many of the foremost theorists of

anarchism have been European, contemporary anarchist thought often

appears subject to a form of cultural imperialism that parallels the

cultural imperialism of the dominant system. We remain unaware of

important aspects of our own and European history while our ideas and

priorities are often influenced by the cultural values of the anarchist

movement in the USA. Because of a common language ideas are easily

circulated across the Atlantic, whereas language barriers separate us

from the influence of European anarchism. This can cause real problems

for the development of anarchism as an effective social movement. A

classic example of a missed opportunity was our failure to support the

newly emergent anarchist groups in Eastern Europe after the collapse of

Stalinism.

LATE 19th CENTURY HUNGARIAN ANARCHISM

Soon after the foundation of the first Social Democratic Party in

Hungary, a left-wing opposition emerged, forming its own organisation in

1881, described by the police as “socialist anarchist”. Influenced by

the German social democrat turned anarchist, Johann Most, and the

radical Viennese journal Die Zukunft, this group looked to a massive

popular uprising to overthrow capitalism. Their first newspapers were

banned, but in 1883 they published Neparkarat (People’s Will!) and its

German-language counterpart Radikal. The group and the papers managed to

survive for more than a year, during which time they moved to a more

Bakuninist position. Although the Hungarian anarchists were not engaged

in terrorism, in 1884 the Minister of the Interior ordered the expulsion

of all foreign anarchists, and imprisoned the Hungarian organisers.

Andras Szalay, the editor of both papers, and the author of a fiery

editorial: “Against tyrants all means are lawful” was imprisoned and

died in jail.

A second strand of Hungarian anarchism coalesced around the figure of

Jeno Henrik Schmitt, who advocated a form of Christian anarchism

influenced by Gnosticism and Tolstoy’s book The Kingdom of God is Within

You. Schmitt and a small group of followers launched a journal The

Religion of the Spirit, which contained translations of Tolstoy’s

writings, and reports of the Dukhobors’ struggle against military

conscription in Russia.

Schmitt publicly resigned from his job as librarian in 1896, as a way of

renouncing the state in practice as well as in theory — partly in

response to pressure from the authorities after he contributed an

article on “the religion of anarchism” to Gustav Landauer’s Berlin

journal Der Sozialist. During the same year Schmitt suspended

publication of his first paper Die Religion, and started two new papers,

Allam Neikull (Stateless) and Ohne Staat (Without the State). In January

1897 he began a campaign of political agitation amongst the peasantry,

in co-operation with the social democrat turned anarchist, Istvan

Varkonyl.

Varkonyl led a breakaway faction from the social democrats that had

developed into a radical peasant movement, influenced by a mixture of

anarchism, Proudhonism, and Narodnik-style[1] socialism. Varkonyl’s idea

was for a Swiss-style federation of local self-governing communities,

peasant unions, district workers’ federations and national councils. In

his scheme land would not be collectivised nor divided among

small-holders, but allotted temporarily to the cultivators. Schmitt and

Varkonyl were also influential in shaping the anti-statist programme of

the Independent Socialist Party, Which in 1897 issued a manifesto, that

identified:

“the state as the well-spring of all evil and, therefore, advocates that

people refuse granting funds and manpower to it, so that violence ceases

to exist even in its legal form in the name of order.”

Although Varkonyl’s movement successfully mobilised the mass of the

peasantry during the great Harvesters’ Strike of 1897 its success was

short-lived. The government reacted swiftly, banning peasant congresses.

Workers’ meetings were forcibly dispersed by the army resulting in

serious casualties. The Independent Socialist newspaper was banned, and

Varkonyl fled to Vienna, but was extradited and imprisoned for nine

months. Schmitt, although a Tolstoyan pacifist, was put on trial for

incitement to violence. The agrarian movement collapsed under the

repression, with many of its members joining religious sects, rejoining

the social democrats, or other breakaway groups. Schmitt himself moved

to Germany in 1908, living with Gnostic friends until death in 1916.

Another peasant activist was Sandor Csizmadia, a farmworker from

impoverished area around Oroshaza. Forced to give up his small holding

and became a railway worker in order to earn a living, he also became an

anarchist, and in 1894 was imprisoned for anarchist propaganda.

Frequently jailed for his activities he used imprisonment as an

opportunity to learn to read and write, and became a poet. His published

work included Songs of a Proletarian (Proletarkoltemenyck) and To the

Dawn (Hajne’ban) and the “’ Workers’ Marseillaise” the Hungarian

revolutionary “hymn” frequently sung on demonstrations.

In December 1905 Csizmadia helped form a Union of Rural Workers to

challenge the power of the landowners. It grew rapidly. By May 1906 it

had 25.000 members organised in 300 groups, eventually growing to 625

groups and 75.000 members. The Union gave the peasants the confidence to

organise strikes – but again the state took draconian action to break

the peasant organisation, arresting 4.000 and imposing massive fines on

agricultural workers who stayed away from work, and banning the Union.

Csizmadia was among the first to be arrested, and after his release he

was forced to go into hiding on several occasions.

ERVIN BATTHYANY AND EARLY 20th CENTURY ANARCHISM

At the end of the 19^(th) Century Ervin Batthyany was one of the most

active anarchists in Hungary. A member of an ancient aristocratic

family, he studied at Cambridge and London Universities, and was

influenced by Kropotkin’s anarchism and the ideas of Edward Carpenter.

In the mid 1890’s he returned to Hungary where his family possessed

large estates in Pannonie. His anarchist beliefs prompted a strong

reaction from his family who forcibly incarcerated him in a sanatorium

for two years. Influenced by Tolstoy’s example, he distributed the land

among the peasants who cultivated it. Inspired by the Narodniks he

planned to establish clubs, reading rooms and schools on anarchist lines

in the countryside. His first act was to start a progressive school at

Bogote 1905 in a challenge to the Catholic Church’s monopoly on

education. It was immediately attacked in the press by the local clergy

as “ungodly” and by the authorities as seditious. On at least one

occasion a local cleric led an attack on the school by a stone-throwing

mob armed with sticks. Windows were broken and the anarchist poet Sandor

Csizmadia was injured. Undeterred Batthyany expanded the school,

providing free textbooks as well as free education.

Batthyany also provided financial backing for anarchist newspapers and

journals, including the journal Tarsadalmi Forradalom (Social

Revolution), although shortly after its launch he handed editorial

control over to Karoly Krausz, once an advocate of Schmitt’s Christian

anarchism, but by then a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Group of

anarchists. Batthyany financed Allam Nelkul in 1895, (also edited by

Krausz) which survived under a number of titles until 1914, and a

monthly paper A Jovo (Future). He translated the works of Kropotkin,

Tolstoy and Stirner into Hungarian, and wrote and published many

pamphlets for circulation, including a study of Edward Carpenter. He

first appeared in Budapest speaking on anarchism in a lecture series

organised by the influential but dissident Sociological Society. He

argued that anarchism should be based on human solidarity and mutual

aid, rather than the biblical principles advocated by Schmitt. It was

largely due to his energy that several anarchist circles developed In

the early years of the 20^(th) Century.

The intensity of Batthyany’s activism and disheartening personal

disputes with other anarchists eventually resulted in his gradual

disengagement from Hungarian anarchism. The school in Bogote was taken

over by the state, and Batthyany moved permanently to England in 1910,

and became quietly involved within the movement there.

Among those influenced by Batthyany was Bojtor, who directed his

activities to the workers’ circles in Budapest. According to one

account, Bojtor was arrested for involvement in an attempt on the life

of Emperor Franz Joseph. He fled to Italy, but was deported and

eventually finished up in France, where he remained until returning to

Budapest at the end of World War I.

ERVIN SZABO

Towering over Hungarian anarchism is the figure of Ervin Szabo — an

unusual synthesis of scholar, propagandist and conspirator. Son of a

failed small businessman, he studied in Budapest and Vienna, before

eventually becoming a librarian in Budapest. He played a significant

part in the development of a modem public library system in Hungary, and

became director of the Budapest Municipal Library, which he transformed

into a model institution. His influence extended across the political

divisions of Hungarian socialism.

During his early political career Szabo was a member of the Hungarian

Social Democratic Party (HSDP), although he was simultaneously the

Budapest contact for Russian revolutionaries who he met when studying in

Vienna. His role within the HSDP was oppositional but he did not break

with the social democrats until 1909. During this period he edited a

two-volume selection of the works of Marx and Engels, the introduction

to which has been praised as the best introduction to Marxism available

in Hungarian. In 1905 Szabo unsuccessfully attempted to organise

critical opposition within the HSDP in an effort to reform the party’s

structure and to radicalise its agrarian programme. When this failed he

joined the Revolutionary Socialist Group, a Budapest-based group formed

by anarchists and disenchanted socialists like himself.

Founded by Krausz, the Revolutionary Socialist Group was under police

surveillance from it’s formation. It consisted of about 40–50 craft

workers and focused mainly on anti-parliamentary and anti-militarist

propaganda, leafletting and flyposting round Budapest. Krausz edited the

group’s paper Tarsadalmi Forradalom (Social Revolution) from his home,

its normal print-run of 3.000 copies increased to over 5.000 for the

special anti-militarist issues. Although hampered by lack of funds the

revolutionary socialists gradually established contacts with other

groups in Hungary, and its organisational base expanded to about 200.

Szabo tried to organise a syndicalist propaganda group, sometimes in

co-operation with other Budapest anarchists, including Ignac Beller, a

machinist in a factory. Although the meetings were small, they brought

together many of the people who subsequently became active in the

anti-war movement several years later.

Szabo also took part in the activities of the “Fabianist” Sociological

Society, was a major contributor to the journal Huszadik Szazad

(Twentieth Century), and kept up a serious correspondence with prominent

French syndicalists, organising a meeting of visiting

anarcho-syndicalists in Budapest, and occasionally contributing to La

Mouvement Sociale. This was a difficult time for Szabo, increasingly

isolated from the social democrats, and disappointed by the growing

connections between some sections of the international syndicalist

movement and nationalism.

THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT

During the early years of the war Szabo restricted himself to analysing

the nature of war and capitalism in a series of articles and lectures.

These were not calls to action, but a lucid analysis of the economics of

war. In the winter of 1915/1916 he organised a meeting of writers who

were against the war (including the later Marxist Grygory Lukacs, the

poet Mihaly Babits, screen writer and author Bela Balazs and economist

Andre Gabor), but nothing followed on from the meeting. In 1916 he tried

to organise opposition to the war inside the HSDP, but was again

unsuccessful.

The first brief but successful attempt at articulating opposition to the

war was the initiative taken by Szabo’s friend, the anarchist writer and

artist Lajos Kassak. Kassak was pitched into work while still young, and

according to his own account became an effective agitator in his early

teens, causing a strike in a power station at the age of 12. When he was

21 he decided to walk to Paris, with the slightly older Emil Szittya, an

apprentice who had lived for several years by begging and who later

became a writer. They walked through Switzerland and Germany to Belgium,

where Kassak was arrested while attending an anarchist meeting, and

spent several days in prison, before deportation. With the help of the

anarchists he eventually reached Paris.

In Paris he encountered modernist ideas about art and literature. On his

return to Budapest he began publishing short stories, and promoting

avant-garde ideas. In November 1915 Kassak began publishing A Tett (The

Act), in imitation of the German Die Aktion, a paper that had

successfully fused art and politics in opposition to German militarism.

A Tett was idealistic, anti-war, and determined to change the world, but

its anti-war stand and general rebelliousness led to its total

suppression in August 1916. Kassak was not easily deterred and by

November had commenced publishing its equally radical successor, Ma

(Today), although that also had problems with censorship.

As the war dragged on its effects on the workers and peasants became

more pronounced. Workers frequently laboured more than 60 hours a week

to make ends meet, and children as young as 10 and 12 worked up to 12

hours a day. By 1916 the currency was worth only half its pre-war value,

wages fell, although profits soared, in spite of the disruption to

industry caused by the war. On the Eastern front, hundreds of thousands

of Hungarian soldiers died fighting Entente troops in the bitter cold of

the Carpathian mountains, and casualties continued to mount. Throughout

1915 and 1916 there were increasing numbers of strikes.

The Hungarian police were monitoring the connections between Hungarian

radicals and the anti-war socialists in Switzerland. One police report

of summer 1917 notes that few of the Hungarian socialists had contact

with the anti-war movement overseas. Among the few exceptions was Ervin

Szabo, who was in almost constant communication with groups across

Europe, receiving publications from anti-war groups in several

countries.

Although under police surveillance, Szabo used his professional position

as librarian to ensure that he was better informed than anyone else in

Hungary about the international anti-war movement and the Metropolitan

Library became a centre for anti-war propaganda. Szabo’s unique mastery

of conspiratorial techniques learnt during his association with Russian

revolutionaries when younger gave him a central role in the clandestine

anti-war activity that began to unfold.

The spark that ignited the anti-war movement was provided by a young

woman student, Ilona Duczynska, a cousin of Szabo’s who had spent two

years studying at the Technical College in Zurich. Despite iII-health

from over-work and poverty that resulted in two bouts of tuberculosis,

Duczynska was inspired by the Russian Revolution, and abandoned her

studies to act as a courier for the Zurich anti -war socialists. On her

return to Budapest she went to see Szabo with news of the anti-war

socialists. She found Szabo already well-informed, and in possession of

a copy of the Zimmerwald Manifesto, Rosa Luxemburg’s Junius pamphlet,

and copies of Munzenberg’s paper Jugend-Internationale. Szabo put

Duczynska in touch with the Galileo Circle (a study group formed in 1908

by Szabo’s cousin Karl Polanyl, it included Marxists, revolutionary

socialists and anarchists who were opposed to the increasing

militarisation of Hungarian society caused by the war). Some of the

students Duczynska met through the Galileo Circle were to form the core

of the anti-war movement.

Szabo was in close contact with several shop-stewards, and in October

1917 arranged a meeting in his apartment between Duczynska and some of

the Galiliests, and Ignac Becker. Becker, an organiser in the

Independent Bollermen’s union, had been a member of Szabo’s Syndicalist

Propaganda Group Since 1910. A second meeting was arranged in the back

room of a tavern, when two Galileists met with about a dozen

shop-stewards and workers. The meeting was chaired by Becker, and among

those attending were Deszo Vegh and Antal Mosolygo (chief shop-steward

at an airplane factory) for the Syndicalist Propaganda Group. Several of

the others were from the munitions factories, including Sandor

Osztrecher, the chief shop steward at the Csepel Manfred Weiss works,

where 30.000 people worked.

The meeting agreed to produce a leaflet based on the Zimmerwald

manifesto, to be distributed in the factories, in the name of the “Group

of Hungarian Socialists Adhering to Zimmerwald” . From the beginning,

however, the group used the name Revolutionary Socialists among

themselves. The meeting also planned an anti-war street demonstration.

Events snowballed, and two evenings later three members of the new group

went to address a workers’ gathering held in one of the suburbs. More

people joined the group: including bank clerk, Otto Korvin and his

brother Joszef Kelen, an electrical engineer; bank teller Imre Sallal,

and medical student Albert Lantos. Korvin, the son of a timber-yard

worker, who was rejected for military service because of a spinal

deformity, rapidly became a key figure in the anti-war movement,

inciting Hungarian sailors at Pola (on the Adriatic coast of Croatia) to

mutiny.

One week after the Bolshevik’s overthrow of the provisional government

in Russia, a large meeting was held, with some 150 shop stewards

attending. This meeting finalised the arrangements for the first

anti-war demonstration, planned for the evening of Saturday 17 November,

at a major city intersection. At the appointed time groups of workers

and Galileists converged on the junction and marched towards the city

centre, shouting “We want peace” , “Peace or Revolution!” and so on.

Although it was initially blocked, and then attacked by the police, the

demonstration lasted for an hour, and was the first of many, as it

triggered pendent demonstrations by other groups. From September 1917

onwards, Szabo met regularly with Duczynska and others, often in

cemeteries in order to avoid spies.

Szabo taught the group how to combine legal and illegal techniques

successfully, monitored, advised, and edited agitational material, but

was reluctant to provide guidance to the group beyond encouraging its

activities against the war. One of the groups to become involved in the

anti-war effort was known as the “Engineer Socialists” . They argued

that the development of science and technology brought benefits to the

majority of people, and that capitalism had to be abolished so that the

benefits of scientific progress could be brought to all. In spite of its

technocratic vision of socialism, this group was important, as

white-collar workers were not allowed to join existing unions, and so

were forced to develop their own organisations which were free of social

democratic domination. In Spring 1917, members of this group had helped

to form an illegal Inter-factory Committee, with representatives in over

20 major factories and utilities in Budapest. The intention behind the

formation of the Committee was to co-ordinate strikes, and although the

strike plans were unsuccessful, the Inter-factory Committee’s influence

spread through several trade union locals, and gained sympathisers among

social democrats.

Opposition to the war continued to grow, and on December 26^(th) 1917

two syndicalist shop stewards (Mosolygo and Osztrelcher) prompted the

formation of the first workers’ council, and at this point, the

Inter-factory Committee, and others joined in. Plans were made for a

general strike and attempts were made to establish links with Austrian

workers in Vienna, but without success. When a major strike did take

place in Vienna in January 1918, it was unrelated to the efforts of the

Hungarian opposition. It spread rapidly to Germany, and within days to

Hungary, sparking huge mass meetings in which many soldiers took part as

disaffection at last found an outlet, convinced that Hungary should

abandon the war, Ilona Duczynska planned to assassinate the main

advocate of Hungarian involvement, Prime Minister Istvan Tisza. Tisza

had also (in 1912) ordered troops to open fire on workers demanding the

vote. Accounts differ as to Szabo’s involvement in this plan, but armed

with a revolver Duczynska paced nervously up and down under the row of

plane trees in front of Tisza’s residence on the Andrassy Ut. Tisza’s

carriage drew up, and security men got out of the accompanying police

vehicle. As Tisza stepped from his carriage Duczynska grasped the butt

of her revolver but just as she drew the gun from her bag she heard a

newspaper seller shouting that Tisza had resigned as Prime Minister.

Relieved not to have to go ahead she stood and watched as he entered his

mansion, a defeated man.

Early in January 1918 the police arrested several of the Revolutionary

Socialist anti-war group which with increased daring was even

leafletting inside army barracks on a mass scale. On one occasion young

anarchists caught inside the barracks by police were badly beaten.

Police also closed down the Galileo Circle, and two days later the

entire anti-war group, with the exception of Szabo, Korvin and Mosolygo

were arrested and charged with sedition. Undeterred, Mosolygo organised

a secret meeting of syndicalists and representatives from the

Inter-factory Committee, and laid plans for a ‘Workers’ Council for

Budapest” representing every factory, craft and geographical area of the

city.

In the middle of January 1918 a general political strike led by the

railway workers union and the metal workers union’ occurred, outside

HSDP control. 150.000 workers demonstrated on the Budapest streets,

shouting “Long live workers’ councils!” and “Greetings to Soviet

Russia!” . Although the strike was not authorised by the HSDP, the party

backed it for the first three days, and then suddenly claimed a victory

and called off the strike. Initially strikers refused to halt the

strike, but eventually gave way to avoid splitting the workers’

movement. Although the social democrats had managed to undermine the

strike it left their control of workers’ organisations weaker.

Otto Korvin brought several new recruits into the anti-war movement, and

he and his comrades redoubled their efforts, preparing and distributing

hundreds of copies of leaflets during the next few months, each prompted

by a significant domestic or foreign event. Nearly all of the leaflets

promoted the idea of workers’ councils, and according to one member of

the group, Jozsef Lengyel, the last sentence of every leaflet was taken

from Kropotkin’s Appeal to the Young. The desperate economic conditions

and deteriorating military situation gave them an eager audience, but in

May fifty revolutionary socialists and syndicalists, including Duczynska

and Tivadar Sugar, were arrested. The group was broken. Szabo and Korvin

again escaped arrest, although Szabo was questioned by the police.

New strikes broke out in June in reaction to the shooting of

demonstrating workers, and the first workers’ councils were set up to

co-ordinate activity. The strikes spread from Budapest to other

industrial centres, but were called off after 10 days by the social

democratic leadership.

Duczynska and the other arrested members of the Galileo Circle were

brought to trial in September, 1918. Duczynska was singled out for

particularly harsh treatment:

“The accused, Ilona Duczynska, in addition to the six months pre-trial

detention, which occurred through no fault of hers, is condemned to a

further two years during which, every second week she shall be for one

day on only bread and water, on which day she will also have a hard bed

and during the first month of every six month period she shall spend

fifteen days in solitary confinement”.

The military situation continued to deteriorate, and Secret War Ministry

circulars reported that:

“Women workers not only frequently attempt to disrupt factories by

interrupting production, but even deliver inflammatory speeches, take

part in demonstrations, marching in the foremost ranks with their babies

in their arms, and behaving in an insulting manner towards the

representatives of the law.”

In October the Hungarian War Cabinet collapsed. There were uprisings and

mutinies in the army and navy, desertions reached record levels, and

armed groups of deserters linked up with strikers and rebellious

peasants, seizing the land, and dashing with the police. The anarchist

newspaper Tarsadalmi Forradalom (Social Revolution) reported on the

formation of a revolutionary “Green Guard” in Croatia and the Szeremseg

(now part of Croatia) formed by deserters from the Hungarian army. These

revolutionary bands fought with the hated gendarme units in the

villages, killing several members of the gendarme, seizing or destroying

their weapons, and engaging in acts of expropriation from the wealthy.

The state apparatus began to fall apart under pressure from below.

It was at this point that Ervin Szabo, who already suffered from

tuberculosis, fell victim to the epidemic of Spanish flu, and died in

the same month. Even in death Szabo remained influential, as his funeral

brought all the different elements of the opposition together for the

first time, and made people aware of their collective strength. Factory

workers downed tools as a mark of respect, and thousands joined Szabo’s

funeral procession.

GOVERNMENT COLLAPSE

Against a background of military mutinies, strikes and massive daily

street demonstrations, the government collapsed. Soldiers were deserting

en masse and setting up soviets (workers’ councils). On the 27 and 28

October, they dashed with the police, leading to gunfights with rifles

and machine guns that left many dead and wounded. On 29 October Hungary

was declared a republic, and the following day a workers’ uprising

toppled the government without bloodshed. Armed insurgents occupied

strategic positions throughout Budapest, breaking open jails and freeing

political prisoners. The ruling class fell back on the leader of the

parliamentary opposition, the anti-war count Karolyl, to lead a new

coalition government which included the Hungarian Social Democratic

Party as a junior partner.

The change of government did nothing to slow the pace of revolution and

the next day (30^(th) of October) there was a demonstration in front of

Karolyl’s party HQ calling for an immediate armistice. The police

charged and street fights broke out. On the 1^(st) of November the

crowds massed on the streets, invaded the police stations and disarmed

the police. 400.000 people marched through the streets singing the

“Workers’ Marseillaise” ! The new government’s weakness was rapidly

exposed when on November 13^(th) Karolyl was forced to sign an armistice

agreement that divested Hungary of about half of it’s former territory.

In spite of this massive concession the agreement resulted in only a

temporary pause in the military attack against Hungary.

The state’s power was slipping away as the workers became more

confident. On 16 November hundreds of thousands of demonstrators

gathered outside the parliament building to demand a socialist republic.

The streets were full of mutinous soldiers returned from the front.

Officers were attacked on the streets and had their insignia torn from

their shoulders. Workers at the Manfred Weiss arms factory at Csepel,

just outside Budapest, where the Syndicalist Propaganda Group had been

active, seized control of the factory, and formed a workers’ militia.

The economy was collapsing, Hungary was still blockaded by the Entente

armies, and the food situation was critical. The army no longer

supported Karolyl’s government.

Instead the workers were armed and political power was fragmented

between the coalition government, the Soldiers’ Council, the Workers’

Council and the Hungarian National Council (HNC). The social democrats

controlled the Soldiers’ and Workers’ Councils, had considerable

influence in the National Council, but only minority representation the

government. But they used the power they had to systematically exclude

the revolutionary socialists, syndicalists, and Engineer Socialists from

the HNC and from the Budapest Workers’ Council. On November 17^(th) 1918

representatives from all these opposition groups, met with dissident

elements within the HSDP and agreed to form an “Ervin Szabo Circle” to

co-ordinate their activities.

Meanwhile Bela Kun had returned to Budapest. Kun, once a member of the

Hungarian social democrats, had become a Bolshevik while in a Russian

prisoner of war camp. He was intent on establishing a communist party

run on Bolshevik principles in Hungary. The reformist strategy of the

HSDP, and the rapid radicalisation of the Hungarian people might have

resulted in a new organisation to co-ordinate revolutionary opposition

without following the Bolshevik model, but Kun provided a clear

organisational blue-print, and a strategy that appeared successful in

Russia, as well as ample funds to finance propaganda.

Kun approached all the dissident elements, and a preliminary meeting was

held in the flat of Engineer Socialist Jozsef Kelen. The anarchists were

reluctant to participate, but did so at the personal request of returned

prisoner of war Tibor Szamuely. Szamuely, a journalist and member of the

social democrats, had frequented anarchist circles in Budapest before

being conscripted. Captured by the Russians, he had become an active

agitator while still a prisoner of war. After his release he had become

involved with the Bolsheviks and fought with them in the civil war. He

had also visited Peter Kropotkin in Russia before returning to Hungary.

In December 1918 he was actively involved in the riots at Nyiregyhaza,

in which one of his brothers was seriously wounded. Next month he tried

to organise a local insurrection in Satoraljaujhely, but was arrested.

He managed to escape and helped by Kassak went into hiding.

The meeting in Kelen’s flat agreed to set up the Hungarian Communist

Party, with the result that the new party was from the outset a fusion

of anarchists and communists, in which some anarchists played a key

role. Among those who joined the communists were Korvin, Duczynska and

the “ethical” Marxist Gyorgy Lukacs who at the time was influenced by

Szabo’s anarchism.

Otto Korvin’s organisational skills were indispensable (he had a network

of informants, including contacts at the wireless office, that soon made

Kun one of the best informed people in Hungary). Mosolygo, who was at

first prepared to co-operate was offered the vice-chair of the party,

but resigned almost immediately after a disagreement with Kun over

tactics and methods.

By early 1919 there was a sharpening of the conflict between workers and

the coalition government. There were an increasing number of street

demonstrations in the cities and spontaneous land-seizures in the

countryside as the government was unable to satisfy the workers’

demands. State power collapsed in the countryside as estate workers and

servants set up voluntary co operatives to co-ordinate agricultural

production and formed local workers’ councils. Workers had begun to

occupy their factories to counter the owners’ attempts to close them

down. Soldiers’ councils were in control of the arms depots, and the

luxurious Hotel Hungaria had been transformed into a canteen for the

children of Budapest. A revolution from below was beginning.

On February 20^(th), 1919, the Association of the Unemployed marched on

the editorial offices of Nepszava (the HSDP paper) to present demands to

socialist members of the cabinet. Fearing violence the HSDP requested

police protection.

The police attacked the demonstration and became embroiled with the

anarchist self-defence groups resulting in four police deaths. The

government retaliated by arresting 68 known communists and anarchists,

and the detainees were beaten up. Newspaper reports of the beatings

scandalised Budapest. Demonstrations and the threat of retaliation from

the USSR resulted in a relaxation of the conditions of detention and the

dropping of the most serious charges. While Kun and other leading

communists lounged in prison, those anarchists inside the Communist

Party who had not been imprisoned took over the task of running the

organisation, strengthening their position, and establishing a new,

libertarian direction for the party.

The revolution began to spread. Increasing numbers of factories were

taken over by the workers, and on 10 March the local soviet took control

of Szeged. Their example was rapidly followed in other towns, and

peasants seized the lands of former Prime Minister Count Esterhazy. On

20 March print workers in Budapest refused to print the HSDP newspaper,

and went on strike, triggering a general strike that demanded the

release of the imprisoned communists, and the transfer of power to the

workers.

The deteriorating military situation and increasing domestic chaos

encouraged the HSDP executive to commence negotiations with Kun. These

discussions were given an additional urgency by an ultimatum from

Colonel Vyx, the French Chairman of the Entente mission in Budapest,

that would have resulted in Entente occupation of all Hungary, except

for a 20 mile radius around Budapest. The Entente ultimatum was rejected

unanimously as unacceptable by the government, which resigned the next

day. The following day, the 21^(st) of March, a Socialist Republic was

declared.

The collapse of the government strengthened the hand of both the HSDP

and the communists, who soon made an alliance.

THE BUDAPEST COMMUNE

Talks between Kun and the social democrats resulted in the formation of

a Revolutionary Council comprised of 17 socialists, 14 communists and 2

non-party experts, which met for the first time on March 22^(th) 1919.

The internal organisation of this Hungarian soviet was to rest on a

system of workers’ and soldiers’ councils.

A new Hungarian Socialist Party was formed, uniting the HSDP and the

Communist Party. Although communist representation was out of proportion

to its size, and the programme of the Council was based on Kun’s

proposals, the 700.000 member Socialist Party effectively swallowed the

smaller Communist Party with its membership estimated at between 10.000

and 30.000. Szamuely was given a key role in the War Ministry, and

Korvin was made Political Commissar, in charge of the Political

Investigation Office, effectively a kind of police force designed to

gather intelligence and prevent counter-revolutionary activity.

Although both Szamuely and Korvin held key positions in the new party,

unification resulted in the creation of a left opposition in the

Communist Party formed by those who had been imprisoned with Kun but not

told about the negotiations with the social democrats, and those who had

run the party until his release, and who were now planning an armed

uprising for May. The syndicalists also opposed the new order, as they

felt that the powers of the Revolutionary Governing Council were

excessive, and that the Workers’ Councils should be the organisational

basis of society. In April elections were held for the Budapest Council

of Workers and Soldiers’ Deputies. In the Budapest Eighth electoral

district a slate consisting entirely of syndicalist and anarchist

write-in candidates had been elected in place of the single party

ticket, but the Revolutionary Governing Council voided the results. Some

of the anarchists who had been active members of the Communist Party,

left and formed the Anarchist Union. This union included Krausz, Bojtor

and a Romanian lawyer, Andorka Kogan. With help from Korvin they

occupied the Almassy Palace as a social centre and Krausz began to

re-publish Tarsdalmi Forradalom (Social Revolution). The Anarchist Union

began setting up libraries and discussion circles in an attempt to

expand the social base of the revolution.

Differences soon emerged between the Anarchist Union and left communists

like Szamuely and Korvin who remained in the party. Sandor Csizmadia, an

anarchist veteran of Varonki’s Peasant Union had been briefly appointed

Commissar of Agriculture in the Commune but was dismissed from his post

by Kun. At one point Kun ordered the arrest of Kogan and Bojtor; but

Korvin defied Kun, released them, and used his position to provide funds

for the Anarchist Union, with the result that the differences between

the left communists and the anarchists lessened. It is unclear why Kun

ordered the arrest of these two anarchists, but it may have been because

Kogan had been involved in the daring theft of arms and equipment from a

French infantry camp, which was the headquarters of General Vyx, who was

overseeing disarmament.

One of the most controversial groups were the “Lenin Lads” , formed by a

comrade of Szamuely’s, called Jozsef Cserny, a shoemaker’s assistant,

who had joined the Navy during the war, and had subsequently fought with

the Bolsheviks in Russia. The Lenin Lads were comprised of formerly

mutinous soldiers and sailors. They have been described as the eyes and

ears of the revolution, and deliberately set out to cultivate an image

that would terrorise the Right. Their HQ was decorated with enormous

posters that simply said “Terror” in large letters. Reactionary writers

have attributed all kinds of terrorist acts to this group, but during

the whole period of the Commune there were only 129 executions of

counter-revolutionaries, of which perhaps 80 could be attributed to the

Lenin Lads (although some estimates of the number of executions is as

high as 590). These numbers pale into insignificance when compared to

the thousands slaughtered by the counter-revolutionaries later on. The

Right in Hungary was becoming increasingly desperate, and there were a

series of minor coup attempts, although these were often thwarted by the

Lenin Lads and by Szamuely’s “Red Guard” . Outside the control of the

State the Lenin Lads soon attracted the enmity of the social democrats,

who insisted they be disbanded and the members sent to the front.

Outflanked on the left, Kun had become increasingly reliant on social

democratic support, and agreed to their demands, so the Lenin Lads were

disbanded on 19 May. Within days they responded with an unsuccessful

bomb attack on their most outspoken opponent, Wilhelm Bohm SDP head of

the Red Army.

The programme of the Commune, which formed the basis of the alliance

between the communists and the social democrats, clearly shows the

pressure of the libertarian faction inside the organisation. It called

for the suppression of the army and the police, the socialisation of

banking and the confiscation of assets, the abolition of bureaucracy,

and the socialisation of transport. A major point of disagreement,

however, was the proposal for land nationalisation[2]. The Communist

Party was determined to run agriculture through the state. They

appointed the original owners as “Commissars for production” so there

was little difference between the old boss and the new boss for the mass

of the peasants. This move deprived agrarian reform of any revolutionary

content, and sowed distrust among the peasantry, making the supply of

food to the besieged capital even more problematic during the final

weeks of the Commune.

There were also bitter disagreements about censorship in literature and

the arts. These came to a head in June following the First Congress of

the Hungarian Socialist Party, when the writers associated with Kassak’s

paper MA (Today) wrote an Open Letter to Bela Kun in the Name of the

Arts opposing censorship. One hundred thousand copies of this 24-page

pamphlet were secretly printed and openly distributed to the workers of

Budapest. Kun was outraged, but Kassak and the other writers had

widespread support even inside the renamed Socialist-Communist Party of

Hungary.

Entente troops launched a new military offensive against the fledging

Soviet Republic, spearheaded by Romanian forces, which were numerically

superior and better armed than the hastily assembled volunteer Red Army,

and within a few days were only 60 miles from Budapest. In the face of

almost immediate military defeat, the socialist-controlled Budapest

trade unions and the syndicalist factory stewards hastily recruited and

equipped an insurgent force of 50.000 workers. They organised

collections, and sent “flying columns” of clerks, postmen and office

workers to the front. Surprisingly this hastily assembled rag-tag army

stopped the Romanian advance, and wrested every major city on the

Hungarian plains from Entente control.

Almost as soon as the Lenin Lads and Szamuely’s Red Guard had been

broken up, right-wing socialists prepared their own coup attempt, but

then abandoned it. A second more serious coup attempt occurred on June

24^(th) 1919, when a gunboat opened fire on the “Soviet House” which

acted as the home of the Revolutionary Council. Former professional

soldiers and deserters from the Hungarian Red Army were engaged in 24

hours of street-fighting with militia loyal to the Commune.

Although the coup was crushed, it led to increasing demoralisation in

the Revolutionary Council, and the resignation of several of the

“moderate” socialists. Kun’s faction responded by taking draconian

measures to increase production, and arrested several protesting

syndicalist organisers, including Mosolygo.

The anarchists and syndicalists made a desperate attempt to breathe life

back into the revolution. While Szamuely and Cserny re-organised the

Lenin Lads, the anarchists planned an insurrection for July. Centred on

200–300 workers from the armaments factories and from some of the more

left wing workers’ councils, the anarchist plan was discovered before it

could be properly Implemented. Two Ukrainians, Jefimov and Jukelsa,

suspected of involvement were shot and thrown into the Danube, but the

rest of the anarchists, protected by Szamuely and Korvin, were allowed

to escape. Accounts are ambiguous about Szamuely’s role, and he is

sometimes accused of involvement in the planned insurrection, and

betraying it at the last moment.

The Revolution had reached an impasse — riven by factionalism in

Budapest, and under attack from Entente troops on all sides. Early

military successes by the Red Army, especially in Slovakia (where a

Republic of Slovak Councils was also proclaimed), could not continue

without military help from the USSR, but the Soviet Red Army, that had

once looked like it would break through Entente lines, and link the

Hungarian revolution with the Russian one, was now on the retreat. Kun

opened secret negotiations with the Entente powers, and the French

government agreed to allow a socialist government in Hungary, in return

for a cessation of hostilities.

Kun and the Bolshevik core were losing their nerve, and were becoming

increasingly isolated, as the workers’ councils assumed more and more

responsibility for the organisation of society. Kun made a major

tactical error by suggesting a peace treaty, along the lines of the

Brest-Litovsk treaty, to the Czechoslovakian government. This resulted

in the sacrifice of the Slovakian revolutionaries, an increased feeling

of isolation and further demoralisation among supporters of the

revolution in Hungary. The socialist chief of the Red Army, Bohm,

resigned.

On July 20^(th), the Hungarian Red Army was crushed by Romanian troops

in the south, and on July 30^(th) Kun was forced to resign, to be

succeeded by a trade union dominated government, and the occupation of

Budapest by the Romanian army. Protected by the presence of the Romanian

troops, Admiral Horthy subsequently executed a nationalist coup

overthrowing the trade union government.

With the collapse of the soviet, Kun and the Bolsheviks negotiated a

safe passage out of Hungary in a sealed train. The anarchists and left

communists were deliberately excluded from this arrangement and

attempted to organise resistance inside Hungary, but with little

success. Szamuely tried to flee the country, but was caught by border

guards, and beaten to death in a thinly veiled “suicide” . Korvin stayed

in Budapest, and Lukacs who was also left to his fate records that:

“Among comrades who were romantically overstrained, or engaged in

adventurous day-dreaming, or, again suffering from serious nervous

depression, Korvin issued instructions for underground fiats, about

contacts with one another, connecting links, etc., with genial

matter-of-factness. The two of us talked about how to keep each other

informed, how to exchange impressions, how I should transmit my writings

— through his intermediary — to the underground printers. But only once

did I receive any information from him [...]”

Korvin was caught, imprisoned and tortured with red hot irons. Three

anarchists who had fled to Vienna, returned to Budapest to organise a

raid to free Korvin. One, Professor Strassny was Austrian, two others

were Hungarian, a medical student named Marcel Feldman, and an engineer

called Mauthneri who had been in charge of an artillery battalion during

the Commune. Their plan was betrayed and the anarchists were arrested.

Feldman died in a Hungarian jail in 1920. Mauthner was initially

sentenced to death but this was commuted to hard labour. After a series

of attempts he eventually succeeded in escaping in June 1921, finally

seeking refuge in France. Among the others involved in the rescue

attempt, the two Rabinovich brothers (aged only 18 and 20) were

disembowelled by bayonets in their cells, and the younger brother of

Tibor Szamuely hung himself. Korvin was also hung. His final words to

his brother were: “If you return, forget what was done to me.” Reaction

and repression stifled life in Hungary for decades afterwards. The

counter-revolutionary terror resulted in 4.000 executions, and some

9.000 deaths from starvation and injuries among the revolutionaries held

in prison camps, out of a total of 30.000 people interned.

What happened to some of the anarchists who survived? Kogan went to

Vienna, and then to Russia, where he tried to organise an insurrection

against the Bolsheviks. He was arrested and sent to Siberia. A note

published In the French paper Le Libertaire, reported that he was shot

in 1925. Kovacs was captured during fighting at the front, and was

imprisoned in Sofia, Salonica and then Guyana. Bojtor fled to France

where he was detained in the asylum at Charenton. Mosolygo was

imprisoned and then released, and after failing in an attempt to

establish a Hungarian branch of the IWW, spent the last years of his

life in the USSR, and died there in 1927. Lukacs, and the poet Jozef

Reval (who was briefly involved with the anarchists) became members of

the post World War II communist government, although Lukacs, to his

credit, sided with the workers during the insurrection of 1956. The few

surviving anarchists and left-communists who remained active In the

Hungarian Communist Party formed a left opposition, and were

subsequently shot during the Stalinist purges. Kassak remained an

anarchist, living in Vienna, and promoting avant-garde ideas in art.

Ilona Duczynska fled to Russia disguised as a returning refugee. After

working for a few months with Radek organising the 1920 Cornintern

conference she resumed her role as a courier, smuggling diamonds to

Vienna to finance the Hungarian communists in exile. She was expelled

from the Communist Party for her criticism of its authoritarianism. In

Vienna she took part in the 1934 civil war, fighting with the autonomous

Schutzbund (the remnant of the workers’ defence militia) a story

chronicled by her in Workers in Arms. Her outspoken criticism resulted

in her expulsion from the Austrian Communist Party. She eventually

married Kali Polanyl, the Hungarian social theorist, founder of the

Galileo Circle and author of the influential book The Great

Transformation and they settled in Canada. Duczynska never lost her

revolutionary instincts, and after the Hungarian uprising of 1956 she

returned frequently to Hungary, meeting again with her former

comrade-in-arms Jozsef Lengyel, who had written several novels. She

smuggled his writings out of Hungary, translated them into English, and

arranged for their publication. In the last years of her life she took

up the cause of Peter-Paul Zahl, a young German printer and poet

imprisoned following the shooting of a policeman. Zahl had been

sentenced to years imprisonment, but on retrial his sentence was

increased to 15 years. Duczynska circulated his writings and attempted

to organise a committee of support, and to get his case reconsidered. In

Hungary she actively supported dissidents like Miklós Haraszti, a poet

imprisoned for organising an unauthorised demonstration against the

Vietnam War.

Although the anarchists suffered severely from the repression in the

aftermath of the Horthy coup, and some members drifted into Gnostic

circles, by the mid-1920s a small, clandestine anarchist organisation

was organising and producing its own paper Uj Vilag (New World).

The anarchists played an important part in kick-starting opposition to

the war, and in the subsequent Hungarian Revolution, attempting to

broaden it and provide it with a libertarian direction. They were able

to provide a catalyst for opposing the war, but their numbers were

insufficient to enable them to create an effective movement independent

of other factions. This resulted in the dilemma experienced elsewhere,

as in Russia and Spain, where anarchists sought to co-operate with

statist currents.

In Hungary anarchists and Marxists already worked within the same

organisations and groups, so the anarchists were pre-disposed to

co-operation. During the crisis conditions of war and Revolution this

tactic eventually divided the anarchist movement, weakening it further.

Undoubtedly the split within the international anarchist movement over

the First World War contributed to the isolation of anti-war anarchist

currents within Hungary, and predisposed them towards involvement with

the anti-war Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks in turn pursued an active policy

of recruitment from anarchist groups. The pressure of war, which

continued in Hungary long after it had finished elsewhere in central

Europe, also forced anarchists to co-operate with others when in more

peaceful circumstances they would have chosen different tactics. As

crisis enveloped the Commune and the authoritarianism of the social

democratic-communist alliance became more pronounced, members of the

Anarchist Union attempted to develop an alternative independent

strategy, based on broadening the social base of the revolution, but the

pace of events cut this short.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Biardy, Roland, 1919 — La Commune De Budapest. Pans: Editions de la Tete

de Feuilles, 1972

Bozeki, Andras & Sukosd, Miklos, Anarchism In Hungary: Theory, History

Legacies. Centre far Hungarian Studies & Publications Inc., Columbia

University Press, 2006

Dauphin,Meunler, Achille, La Commune Hongroise et les Anarchlstes, 21

Mars 1919–7 Aout 1919. Parts: Librarie Internationale, 1926.

Dalos, Gyorgy, A Cselekves Szerelmese: Duczynsko Ilona Elete. Budapest:

Kossuth Konyvklada, 1984.

Duczynska, Ilona, Workers In Arms: the Austrian Schutzbund and the Civil

War of 1934. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978.

Everett, Martyn, “Ervin Szabo: the Anarchist Librarian’; In Gunpowder

Treason and Plot. Political Subversion In the Library. Association of

Independent Librarians, (forthcoming 2006) Goldberger, S., Ervin Szabo,

Anarcho-syndlcalism and Democratic Revolution in tum of the Century

Hungary. Columbia University, Ph.D. 1985.

Karl Polanyl in Vienna: the Contemporary Significance of the Great

transformation. Edited by Kenneth McRabbit and Karl Polanyl-Levitt.

Montreal: Black Rose, 2000.

Kondor-Victoria, Urzy M., and Zoldachyl Zsuza, D., P.A., Kropotkin and

Count Ervin Battyany: In Studia Slavica Hungaria (1978) 121–135.

Liberty and Socialism: writings of Libertarian Socialists in Hungary,

1884–1919. Edited by Janos M. Bak.

Savage, Md, Rowman &. Littlefield, 1991.

Magyar Anarchizmus e Magyarorszagi Anarchizmus Torrenete

Dokumentumalbot. Edited by Andras Bozoki and Miklas Sukosd. Budapest:

Balassi, 1998.

Szabo, Ervin, Socialism and Social Science: Selected Writings of Ervin

Szabo (1877–1918). Edited by Gyory Litvan and Janos M. Bak. London:

Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982.

Tokes, Rudolf L, Bela KUn and the Hungarian Soviet Republic: the Origins

and Role of the Communist Party of Hungary in the revolutions of

1918–1919. London: Pall Mall Press, 1967.

[1] The Narodniks (Russian: Наро́дники) were a socially-conscious

movement of the Russian middle class in the 1860s and 1870s. Their ideas

and actions were known as Narodnichestvo (Наро́дничество), which can be

translated as “Peopleism”, though it is more commonly rendered as

“populism”.

[2] In contrary to what many anarchists and revolutionary socialists

wanted — socialisation.