Bela Kun: 1886-1938 - a photo on Flickriver

Bela Kun: 1886-1938

Bela Kun, Hungarian leader of the third successful communist revolution in 1919, is shown in an undated image on an undated postcard.

Following World War I, Kun led communists to oppose the government. Hungary was in desperate straits and Kun had substantial support among the population. The Social Democratic Party approached Kun about entering a coalition government and Kun extracted terms that permitted the establishment of a soviet republic March 21, 1919.

Kun nationalized virtually all private property including agrarian lands and set up collective farms in the countryside.

In April, the Kingdom of Romania and Czechoslovakia, aided by France, began war with Hungary. Kun organized a red army to fight the invasion and defeated an anti-communist coup in June.

Kun’s forces defeated the Czechs, but suffered repeated setbacks against the forces of the Romanian army.

The Soviet Union, engaged in its own civil war, promised aid and forces began gathering to aid the Hungarian Soviet. However, the Soviet Union’s forces suffered setbacks in the Ukraine and were unable to come to Hungary’s aid. The Romanians defeated the communist regime when they took Budapest August 1, 1919 and ultimately handed over power to Miklos Horthy who established the first European fascist regime.

In the end the Hungarian soviet regime lasted just over four months—a short period, but longer than the Paris Commune of 1871.

Kun left Hungary for the Soviet Union where he played a role in crushing the final white army opposition in the Crimea. He later attempted a revolution in Germany in 1921, but it was quickly defeated and substantially weakened the communists in that period. He died in the Soviet Union under mysterious circumstances in the late 1930s. Recent information suggests he was charged with Trotskyism by the Soviets and executed in 1938.

Kun was generally regarded as an ultra-leftist whose actions contributed to defeat in many of the undertakings he led. The seizure of land in Hungary and failure to redistribute to the peasants undermined his support in the countryside and helped to lead to the defeat of the Soviet regime there. Likewise his other endeavors in Germany, Czechoslovakia and Austria ended in defeat.

For more images and information on random radicals, see flic.kr/s/aHske413N1

The photographer is unknown. The image is an auction find

Some rights reserved

Taken on: January 1, 1919

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Sets appears in: • Random radicals

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