Three years after the overthrow of Soviet Hungary, the state of labor under the Horthy regime.

‘The Hungarian Trade Union Movement’ by Albert Kirally from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 2 No. 72. August 25, 1922.

In this third year of the counter-revolution the trade union movement is gaining strength. Under the pressure of the ever rising cost of living, the unemployment, and the tyranny of the employing class, the workers are joining the unions in masses. In the period which followed immediately after the fall of the Soviets, the wage fight could be conducted only under the cloak of a Christian-Social movement. Today, even those masses are striking, which left the proletarian organizations after the success of the counter-revolution and joined the Christian-Social unions,–the communal workers, the state employees, the workers in the city hospitals, the workers of the national tobacco factories, etc.

The trade union statistics for 1921 record in Hungary (Baranga included) 37 trade unions with 146,400 members and 4 office workers’ unions with 23,772 members. Outside of these there are also the illegal, independent organizations of the railroad workers, the governmental employees and the household servants. At the present time the number of organized workers has reached 200,000. About 40% of the urban proletariat is organized; of the rural proletariat, almost none. The Union of Agricultural Workers which included 1300 members in 1917; 40,950 in 1918; 580,000 in 1919 (under the Soviet Republic); 1,241 in 1920;–today has a membership of 3400.

The number of organized workers during the past five years was as follows:

Year–Form of Government–Membership:

Dec. 1917– Monarchy–214,228
Dec. 1918—Karoly–723,937
Dec. 1919– Soviets—1,663,189
Dec. 1920– Horthy–153,822
July 1921—Horthy–184,172

and to date 200,000. We see that this number has now almost reached that of 1917. Just as in 1917, railroad workers, communal employees, street car employees, governmental employees and servants are forbidden to organize. These workers are organized in weak nationalist and Christian-Social unions, formed and led by the higher bureaucracy.

The Christian-Social trade unions are dying out, in spite of all governmental support.

The last elections have had a tremendous influence upon the organized workers. By violence, by disfranchisement of the industrial and especially of the agrarian proletariat, the landowners and the financial capitalists were able to secure 165 seats out of 245, which together with the 24 Legitimist seats, gives the counter-revolution 189 seats as against 30 for the petty bourgeoisie, urban and rural, and 24 for the Social Democracy. Of the 24 Social Democratic deputies, 23 are trade union secretaries. The trade union bureaucracy sits in Parliament. The Socialist Party of Hungary, (among them, the former Socialist-Communist secretaries), denounce the “Bolshevik” Revolution. Nevertheless, under pressure from the masses, the S.P. and the radical petty bourgeois opposition had to include in their demands a “general amnesty” and the “abolition of internment”. This they did officially in Parliament, on June 28th.

If the Communists did not conduct an energetic fight for the most elementary liberties, for the liberation of our revolutionary heroes, the Social Democrats and the bourgeois radicals would never rise beyond mere phrases.

The legalized white terror, in possession of all the means of espionage and oppression, strangles every legal Communis: activity. And this suppression of the Communists is supported by the Social Democratic trade union bureaucracy. At all political and trade union meetings, they declare: “We shall ruthlessly suppress any tendency towards the left” (i.e., those who advocate the class struggle will be interned or banished). This is what takes place in the trade unions, with few exceptions. Those who are freed are asked. “Have you reformed?”, that is, “have you renounced Communism?”

In the workshops, all differences between Social Democrats and Communists disappear. The exploitation of the proletariat is such that the workers have to fight for the most primitive human rights. The Communists lead the struggle, take the initiative in all proletarian movements (under a Social Democratic cloak for the present), and influence thereby the trade union movement. The actions of the Communists have often prevented the betrayal of the trade union leaders in wage fights. And here appears a great danger. The Communists must see to it that the Social Democratic trade union deputies do not sacrifice the struggle for economic betterment to apparent parliamentary successes.

In Hungary, after the Revolution, the Social Democrats had first occupied the ministerial posts. Today, after two revolutions and two counter-revolutions, the reformist, Social Democratic movement has reached its goal. The leading office holders of the trade unions sit in Parliament. A part of the proletariat rejoices, applauds the “good speakers” and lays great hopes on the parliamentary fight. Another part realizes that the S.P. is searching for the old ways, the old tactics: compromises with the bourgeoisie to the advantage of the aristocracy of labor, and at the cost of the agricultural proletariat. The first, golden weeks of Social Democratic order will soon be over. It is the duty of the Communists to unmask this reformistic parliamentarism. A part of the Hungarian proletariat realizes clearly that this parliamentarism will not lead to a victory of the proletariat, and is preparing in the shops and in the unions for the coming class war. The existence of a Communist Party of Hungary would hasten the process.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecor” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecor’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecor, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1922/v02n072-aug-25-1922-Inprecor.pdf