White Terror (Hungary)

The White Terror in Hungary was a two-year period (1919–1921) of repressive violence by counter-revolutionary soldiers, with the intent of crushing any vestige of Hungary’s brief Communist state. Many of the victims of the White Terror were Jewish.

At the end of World War I, the political configuration of the Hungarian state was forced into swift and radical change. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, of which Hungary had been a powerful member, collapsed. The victorious Entente powers took steps to carve out Hungary’s ethnically mixed border regions and grant them to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Czechoslovakia, and Romania – efforts which resulted in Hungary’s losing two thirds of its land area, and one third of its Hungarian-speaking nationals. These losses together with the postwar socioeconomic upheaval catalyzed deep feelings of humiliation and resentment among many Hungarians.

In this volatile atmosphere, the nation’s fledgling efforts at modern democracy failed. In March 1919, a Communist cadre took advantage of the political instability, seized power and proclaimed a new Hungarian Soviet Republic. Although it was ostensibly led by a Social Democratic-Communist coalition, it was controlled behind the scenes by the Communist leader Béla Kun. Kun’s regime lasted less than four months. The nation was shocked by the Communists’ thuggish enforcers, gangs of roving toughs who intimidated and murdered their opponents in what came to be known as the Red Terror. This kind of vengeful internal violence was new to Hungary, and whatever popularity Kun’s regime had plummeted. The new government tried to retain Slovakia and Transylvania – but these steps only brought a counter-invasion by Romanian troops, who reached Budapest in August 1919. Kun and his fellow Communists fled; the Communist regime in Hungary was no more.

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