Béla Kun

Béla Kun
Béla Kun pictured in 1923
People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs
In office 21 March 1919 – 1 August 1919
Preceded by	Ferenc Harrer (Minister)
Succeeded by	Péter Ágoston (Minister)
Personal details
Born	(1886-02-20)20 February 1886 Lele, Austria-Hungary (today Romania)
Died	29 August 1938 or 30 November 1939 Moscow, Soviet Union (today Russia)
Political party	Hungarian Social Democratic Party (MSZDP) Communist Party of Hungary (KMP) Socialist Party of Hungary (MSZP)
Profession	Politician, journalist

Hungarian Social Democratic Party (MSZDP)
Communist Party of Hungary (KMP)

Béla Kun (20 February 1886 – 29 August 1938 or 30 November 1939), born Béla Kohn, was a Hungarian Communist revolutionary and politician who de facto led the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. Following the fall of the Hungarian revolution, Kun emigrated to the Soviet Union, where he worked as a functionary in the Communist International bureaucracy as the head of the Crimean Revolutionary Committee since 1920 and organizer and an active participant of the Red Terror in Crimea (1920—1921).

During the Great Purge of the late 1930s, Kun was arrested, interrogated, tried, and executed in quick succession. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1956, following the death of Joseph Stalin and the critical reassessment of Stalinism.

Béla Kohn, later known as Béla Kun, was born on 20 February 1886 in the village of Lele, located near Szilágycseh, Transylvania, Austria-Hungary (today Lelei, Romania). His father was a lapsed Jewish village notary, while his mother was Protestant. Despite his parents' secular outlook, he was educated at the Silvania Főgimnázium in Zilah (present-day Colegiul Naţional "Silvania" Zalău) and a famous Reformed kollegium (grammar school) in the city of Kolozsvár (modern Cluj-Napoca, Romania).