Order and Disorder in Hungary Between 1918/ 1919

Abstract

After four years of destructive conflict in WWI, on 31
October, Hungary collapsed. The ‘chrysanthemum revolution’ led by Mihály Károlyi had triumphed on the streets of Budapest and almost everywhere in the countryside. The symbol of the old system, former Hungarian prime minister and dreaded political strongman of the entire Dual Monarchy István Tisza was murdered; chaos and unrest began with violent outbursts of popular discontent. The paper examines how the power vacuum and the burden of the lost war formed and deformed the social order. How revolution and prolonged frustration of the majority of the society triggered social, ethnic and ideological conflicts and how the disorder possessed and dispossessed history, and how this short but crucial period led to the ideological radicalization of important strata of the intelligentsia and the bolshevisation, mainly consisting of some of the returning soldiers, the working class of the great factories and the low income urban population especially in the capital city of Hungary, Budapest.