A-Infos (en) Britain, Anarchist Federation Organise #67 - Pamphlet review - War and revolution: the Hungarian anarchist movement in World War I and the Budapest Commune (1919)

Martyn Everett. Kate Sharpley Library. 28 pages, illustrated with 
portraits of Hungarian anarchists. 3 pounds.
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 
1956. But Hungary had another revolution in 1919 in the aftermath of the 
First World War.
Martyn Everett describes the emergence of an anarchist movement as a 
breakaway from the Social Democratic Party. He then goes on to describe 
other emerging currents and the strong support that anarchism had for a 
time among Hungarian peasants. Such important figures of Hungarian 
anarchism and libertarian socialism such as Ervin Szabo, Ervin 
Batthyany, Sandor Czismadia and Jeno Henrik Schmitt, are discussed. The 
ideas and activities of these individuals nurtured a movement that was 
eventually to spark off the revolutionary days of 1918-1919.
An anti-war movement was initiated in 1917 around the Galileo Circle, a 
study group of students and intellectuals, and workplace activists from 
the Syndicalist propaganda group that had been initiated by Szabo. 
Agitation in the factories led to the formation of the first Workers' 
Council in late December 1917. Meanwhile young anarchists gained 
entrance into Budapest army barracks to spread anti-war propaganda. A 
general strike calling for workers' councils broke out in January 1918 
in Budapest. Strikes and agitation increased, in spite of the round-up 
of 50 anarchists, syndicalists and revolutionary socialists.

A secret Government circular 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."

The government collapsed, whilst strikes, military mutinies and massive 
demonstrations spread.

By November workers' militias had been formed. By early 1919 estate 
workers and servants began to occupy the land, whilst workers took over 
their factories. Soldiers' councils were formed and the unemployed put 
on mass demonstrations. The coalition government collapsed.

Meanwhile a Communist Party had been formed, initially set up by 
returning Hungarians like Bela Kun, a former Social Democrat who had 
become a Bolshevik whilst in Russia. Many anarchists and syndicalists 
believed at this time that the Bolsheviks were carrying out a 
libertarian revolution in Russia, and they joined the new Party. These 
illusions began to be shaken a little when Kun, on the orders of Lenin, 
engineered a merger of the Communist Party and the Social Democratic 
Party (a party that had been pro-war, and had attacked the emerging 
revolutionary movement). The much larger Social Democrats effectively 
swallowed the Communist Party. Some anarchists left to set up the 
Anarchist Union and began setting up centres and forming their own 
militias. Others remained as a libertarian opposition within the merged 
party.

Meanwhile a Socialist Republic had been formed, followed by the forming 
of a Revolutionary Council in Budapest - the Budapest Commune. Whilst 
libertarian influence was demonstrated in its call for the abolition of 
bureaucracy, and the suppression of the army, Bolshevik influence was 
equally apparent in the call for land nationalization, where the 
original owners were appointed as "commissars for production". This 
disarmed revolution in the countryside and caused resentment among the 
peasantry. Kun started taking authoritarian measures against the 
workers, calling for increased production and arresting several 
syndicalist militants.

Kun's military policies were equally disastrous. Initially revolutionary 
militias had swept back attacking troops led by the Romanians with the 
support of the French government. Kun called for a peace treaty with the 
Czechoslovak government and thus sacrificed Slovak revolutionaries who 
had also moved to set up a Republic of Councils. This added to growing 
demoralization. Kun and his Bolshevik core negotiated safe passage out 
of Hungary, deliberately excluding anarchists and oppositional 
Communists. The Budapest Commune was drowned in blood and many 
revolutionaries murdered, some in ways like something out of the Middle 
Ages.

As Martyn Everett remarks "/The pressure of war, which continued in 
Hungary long after it had finished elsewhere in Central Europe, also 
forced anarchists to cooperate 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./"
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