AHC: Bela Kun's Hungarian Soviet Republic Survives

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
OTL the Hungarian Soviet Republic lasted 133 days and attempted to set up the neighbouring Sovak Soviet Republic before the Romanians occupied Hungary and Kun was toppled. The challenge is a surviving Hungarian Soviet Republic. Have at it!
 

katchen

Banned
How hard would it have been at that time for the Red Army to defeat Romania and take it over, thus preserving Bela Kun?
 
How hard would it have been at that time for the Red Army to defeat Romania and take it over, thus preserving Bela Kun?

Almost impossible. The Romanians quickly did the Red Army a defeat. Only way to get a Bela Kun regime, in my opinion, would be to have the Mihály Károlyi government survive intact after the war with the Romanians. The Romanians will win, and Bela Kun will have legitimate grounds to say that the communists could have saved Hungary from the Romanian hordes, if not for the intrusion of the Reactionaries. If they can discredit the Whites, then a Red Hungary may have chance.
 

Cook

Banned
How hard would it have been at that time for the Red Army to defeat Romania and take it over, thus preserving Bela Kun?
In early 1919 the Red Army was in the middle of fighting the Russian Civil War; hardly the time for foreign adventures, particularly a foreign adventure that would require getting past their White Russian opponents in Southern Russia.
 
Almost impossible. The Romanians quickly did the Red Army a defeat. Only way to get a Bela Kun regime, in my opinion, would be to have the Mihály Károlyi government survive intact after the war with the Romanians. The Romanians will win, and Bela Kun will have legitimate grounds to say that the communists could have saved Hungary from the Romanian hordes, if not for the intrusion of the Reactionaries. If they can discredit the Whites, then a Red Hungary may have chance.
Perhaps combine this with Bela Kun being more rational or at least having some more level headed people among the Party so that they can keep the social democrats on their side and play a populist stance to ensure a steady base of support?
 
This would require a much larger red revolution in Europe in general. The communists would need to win in Germany (doable), Czechoslovakia (less doable), and Austria (no idea), the Polish Republic would have to adopt a non-nationalistic pro-Bolshevik stance (difficult), and all those armies together would need to march into Romanian-controlled territory with a great many troops, many of which are poorly-trained volunteers, all while keeping the peace at home and all while fighting their own respective civil wars.

Then, if Romanian Communists decided to rise up at that time, they could together save Soviet Hungary. Otherwise, it's unlikely. In a best-case scenario, it becomes a protracted, multi-sided war spreading to most other Balkan nations, and the exact borders of Soviet Hungary would change on a near-daily basis.

Basically, it's hard to do this without it being in the context of a pan-European communist revolution
 
Almost impossible. The Romanians quickly did the Red Army a defeat. Only way to get a Bela Kun regime, in my opinion, would be to have the Mihály Károlyi government survive intact after the war with the Romanians. The Romanians will win, and Bela Kun will have legitimate grounds to say that the communists could have saved Hungary from the Romanian hordes, if not for the intrusion of the Reactionaries. If they can discredit the Whites, then a Red Hungary may have chance.

It was not about the romanians, but the French - did Kun not gave in the northen gains for some cloudy promises, he could have remain in power (the only legitimation they had, that they fought a defensive war turkish style, other than that, the were pretty much not liked). Once he gave in, the army under his command simply vanished (switched sides, gone home or siply stayed where they were demoralised) and the romanians had an easy time.
This was the most important, but aside that... pfff.. many things needed, mostly political steps, because on the long run, they would have been toast anyway internally.
 
Then, if Romanian Communists decided to rise up at that time, they could together save Soviet Hungary. Otherwise, it's unlikely. In a best-case scenario, it becomes a protracted, multi-sided war spreading to most other Balkan nations, and the exact borders of Soviet Hungary would change on a near-daily basis.


There was a joke around here that there where as many communists in Romania (in the early interwar period) as there were nudists in Sweden.
 
I'm sorry, but it's not possible. To gain popular support, Bela Kun had to appeal to Magyar irredentism, by saying that he'd take back Transylvania, Slovakia and Croatia (From Yugoslavia). So they went for Slovakia, which was the easiest target. The Romanians knew they were next, so did a pre-emptive strike.
 
I'm sorry, but it's not possible. To gain popular support, Bela Kun had to appeal to Magyar irredentism, by saying that he'd take back Transylvania, Slovakia and Croatia (From Yugoslavia). So they went for Slovakia, which was the easiest target. The Romanians knew they were next, so did a pre-emptive strike.

At that time, the situation was quite simple:
- at north, the new Czech state was quite isolated and weak
- at east, the frontline/demarcation line was along the Tisza river, natural defensive position and the romanian army was somehow strong (for the record, there were a shooting war between Romania and Hungary BEFORE Kun).
- at west, against the austrians the hungarians do not have any real interests/lands to get back, so at least, for the moment, everything put ad acta.
- at the south, the new Serb-Croat-Slavon kingdom was untouchable, because of the french troops stationed there (any attack against them means an instant war with france, suicide, especially since everyone on the hungarian side gambled upon the french non-intervention, at least, not an armed one).

After the northen campaign, the czech got really isolated and separated from Romannia (and thus, the Entente, supplies and such) and yes, the romanians would been next - and after the northen evacuation, the HRA launched an assault on the romanians, wich collapsed badly (since as earlier i mentioned, simply vanished along with morale).
 
Bela Kun's Soviet regime was doomed militarily and, furthermore, the Hungarian Soviet Republic quickly alienated itself from its existing support base in the countryside due to the unpopular collectivization of agriculture

Red Army intervention may be able to prop up his regime in the short term, but in the long term it will be a regime divorced from the peasantry and quite possibly from the urban working-class depending on how things develop assuming that the Soviet Republic in Hungary survives against all odds.

IMHO the only way for the Hungarian Soviet Republic to survive would be to make drastic changes in the regime's policy towards the peasantry, while having Bela Kun not get involved in any gambles that his regime cannot win (i.e. attempting to spread the revolution to Slovakia).

So IMHO a surviving Hungarian Soviet Republic isn't necessarily impossible, but is highly improbable owing to the difficulties it faced historically.
 
Maybe if the Bavarian socialist revolution had succeeded, it might have been able to provide the Kun government with enough help to defeat the Romanian army, or else large numbers of Bavarian communists go into exile and join the Hungarian army.

The Romanian army was not all that strong, as it had demonstrated in WWI. It succeeded in 1919 because it was matched against even weaker opposition.
 
Maybe if the Bavarian socialist revolution had succeeded

IMHO the Bavarian Soviet Republic was also more or less doomed as well, owing to the strength of the Free Corps and the Reichswehr as well as its isolation (greater then with Hungary, which was at least more likely to experience Red Army intervention).

Furthermore, the success of the Bavarian Soviet Republic would not spare the Hungarian Soviet Republic from destruction unless Bela Kun changes his policies towards the peasantry and/or the Red Army props up his regime.

And if the Red Army does prop his regime up, it remains to be seen if Bela Kun's regime can survive afterwards once the Red Army leaves (or until a Hungarian Red Army can be created).

So IMHO the main problem is Bela Kun himself, and his harebrained policies towards the peasantry.

Hence why the Hungarian Soviet Republic's chances for survival are slim, with or without Red Army intervention.
 
A concise idea for a way to keep the commies in power I think might be to have Kun be more level-headed, or at least balanced out by better leaders, so that the Communist Party can maintain power by rallying both the workers and socialists of all stripes as well as maintaining wider support through populist rallying about regaining Hungary's lost lands, as you can expect. Without alienating their leftist allies as well as the common people, the Hungarian Red Army is able to just hold on against the Romanians thanks to better morale, numbers, and some lucky breaks. The opposition to the commies remains and in time gains support from the fascist nations, but by this time the Russian Civil War would be over and the USSR able to more overtly aid the Hungarian Soviet Republic. While not having gained much of the lands they wanted nor even strictly controlling all of Hungary, they are nevertheless able to remain in existence thanks to continuing populist policies as well as simultaneously making internationalist outreaches, putting on a good public face and all. Bela Kun, assuming he is still alive at this time, must retire eventually and is now fully replaced by stabler, saner leadership, while at the same time the Hungarian Soviets receive a lot of immigration from Jews and Romani and whoever else is leery of the Nazis and their White Hungarian puppets. By the time WW2 rolls around you can guess who joins which side and who controls all of Hungary in the end, as well as Soviet favor and land-gains at the expense of certain Axis allies. Thoughts?
 
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