Oscar Jászi and the Magyar-Jewish Alliance in Hungary

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Oscar Jászi and the Magyar-Jewish Alliance in Hungary

Nobuaki Terao

No understanding of modern Hungary will be possible without appraising the realities of

Magyar-Jewish alliance. For the analysis of this alliance from the second half of the 19th

century onward, the works of confrontationist Oscar Jászi [1875-1957] are helpful; for he was

the first to diagnose it as a structural pathology of Hungary. In his controversial book of

Magyar Kálvária Magyar Föltámadá s [Magyar Calvary Hungarian Resurrection],(1) Jászi found

the roots of economic and moral unhealthiness in "the most vicious combination in the world",

that is, a curious mixture of the Magyar gentry's way of life (arrogance, self-indulgence,laziness, superficiality) and the Jewish life style (cynicism, hedonism, amoralism) of

Lipótváros. That was, in his words, a socio-political conglomerate of the "despotic spirit of

szolgabíró (chief administrator of a district)" and the "miser spirit of capitalist", or "feudalism

and usury."(2) In this context, Jászi criticized the negative aspect of Jewish assimilation as

renegades who were "the loudest and the most intolerant representatives of Magyar

nationalism" or "an unscrupulous instrument of feudal and financial class domination." (3)

It may be in this respect that Jászi is estimated in Israel as an excellent example of

"self-hating Jew."(4) In an article of Béla Vágó, Jászi is alleged to have condemned "in a

quasi-racial tone"(5) the faults and failings of the Jews, and their parasitism. In Hungary, Péter

Hanák has regarded the Jászi's behavior to the Jews as "self anti-Semitism". According to him,

such a self anti-Semitism was not a special phenomenon among the educated descendants of

the assimilated Jews at the end of the 19th century. He tries to explain it in the Freudian way as

an intellectual self-defense of the younger Jews who saw their "prehistory" in the primitive

newcomers from the east.(6)

Meanwhile, the above-mentioned renegade did not mean the religious convert to Jászi, but

was anybody who had best succeeded in making his peace with "that organised system of

exploitation which is called the Hungarian State."(7) However, as rightly pointed out by Robert

A. Kann, such an interpretation implies the renunciation of the process of assimilation itself.(8)

Yet this renegade played a leading role not only on the Hungarian chauvinism, but on the

radical Left including Jászi himself. Nevertheless, the latter fact was completely disregarded by

him.(9)

Further, and more telling, it is the most fateful Jászi's weakness that in his notion of

Magyar-Jewish alliance, two distinct factors of the suppression system were confused: one is

the feudal and economic elites' union, or the cartel of the latifundium of aristocracy and the

financial capital in the center; and the other is their junior collaboration of the gentry



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bureaucrats and the village Jews in the periphery, both of which functioned as the foreign

domination and the agrarian exploitation. Consequently, in order to deepen this argument, the

present paper examines the double structure of this alliance.Incidentally, the word 'gentry' in Hungary generally means nontitled nobilities and their

descendants who were forced to change their economic basis later. However in this study,

according to Peter I. Hidas,(10) only their upper element (nobiles bene possessionati) is labeled

gentry, who belonged to the ruling class, whereas the lesser nobilities (nobiles possessionati &

armalista) who remained outside the ranks of the establishment are called 'gentroid'. This group

includes the newly recruited officials from the assimilated German urbanites and the wealthy

farmers, although the former two strata differed from the latter by social origin.

Magyar-Jewish Alliance

Defeated by Prussia in the war of 1866, Austria tried to remake the Hapsburg Monarchy by

Ausgleich with Hungary next year (Hungarian Law XII of 1867). In the Monarchy Jews had

been allowed to live in part Austria, and all over Hungary by the Emperor Joseph II [1780-90].

He aimed to weaken the defiant Magyar gentry's power by his centralization and

Germanization project, and at the same time, the urban guilds by the Jewish emancipation.

Meanwhile in Hungary, between Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism, Magyars who had no sib

among the neighbors, considered themselves too weak to stand alone in the midst of the

numerically superior, and often hostile nationalities. In fact, they represented only 44,4 per cent

of the whole population of "historic" Hungary which included Croatia-Slavonia. Therefore, in

exchange for semi-autonomy (Nagodba, Law XXX of 1868) they cut it off, and managed to get

more than half population(11) in the form of the alliance with Jews, who had received full rights

of citizenship by the Law XVII of 1867.(12) They also expected to conquer their intellectual

inferiority to Germans with the help of their partner. (13) In this respect, Jews were themselves

conscious of their dual task. One is the modernization of economy by the cooperation with the

big landowners (about 600 aristocrats in particular, who each possessed at least 5,000 hold

[2875 ha] of land), in whose hands were nearly half of the landed estates;(14) the other is the

Magyarization of the nationalities in collaboration with the gentry and gentroid classes, who

had ruled over the local governments.

In the background of the Magyar-Jewish alliance, there existed not only numerical pressure

of Slavdom, but military trauma of the Russian Tsarism during the Revolution of 1848-49, and

the Slavic intelligentsia who had seemed to threaten the Magyar culture. These factors had

further stirred the Slav fears among the ruling class, which reached neurotic stages in the mid

19th century. So that the Slavophobe Kálmán Tisza and his son István,(15) imitating the new

imperial bureaucracy of Joseph II,(16) proclaimed Magyar as the official language and tried to



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work out a compromise of Lajos Kossuth's passion and Count István Széchenyi's ideal—that is,

"an alliance of great aristocrats and urban middle class"(17) under the gentry's bureaucratic

leadership. Consequently, civil service was almost monopolized by the Magyar gentry andgentroid.(18)

Now the Magyar gentry who regarded themselves as a core of the ruling class, were the

upper layer of the untitled nobilities constituting about 15-20 per cent of the privileged class

(136,000 families in the mid-19th century: about 5 per cent of the population). Their richest

stratum owned between 1,000 and 5,000 hold [575-2875 ha] of land, but the rest of them

cultivated the land ranging from 200 to 1,000 hold [115-575 ha]. They were originally

anti-Hapsburg rural little lords, or noble men who had been relatively well-educated, and

socio-economically homogeneous. Their tradition, class consciousness, or life style separatedthemselves from both the aristocracy and the lesser nobilities.(19) However, ironically as a

result of the greatest achievement of the 1848 Revolution—that is, the emancipation of serfs

and the elimination of the related feudal ownership, most of the privileged class lost not only

their economic foundation, but their hereditary rights in jurisdiction and administration. While

abolition of the Robot (the labor service) began the decline of lower gentry, the influx of

American cheap wheat completed their bankruptcy.

But they never ceased to be strong men in their externals, not withstanding divorced from

the land. They found their new way of life chiefly in the state employment as civil and military

officials, or in other careers considered suitable to a gentleman: for example, certain

intellectual professions like lawyer. However, even doctors or teachers were evaluated with

some contempt from their peculiar mentality; and so the social prestige of these professions

was far behind that of civil servants, army officers or lawyers. Moreover, as the gentry had as

yet no business motive for rivalry with the Jews, the latter got a considerable freedom in those

fields with the proviso that they would not interfere with the former's socio-political hegemony.

Owing to this kind of social symbiosis, the number of bureaucratic gentry and gentroid

doubled from 60,776 to 119,937 for the two decades at the turn of the century.(20) In the year of

1890, 67,5 per cent of the senior officials in the Office of the Prime Minister, 64,1 per cent in

the Ministry of the Interior, and 53,8 per cent in the Department of Finance were said to be of

so-called gentry origin. Their proportion was even higher in local administration: 48 out of the

64, or 75 per cent alispán (vice-sheriff elected by the respective county's administrative

committee) came from this class. On the other hand, in the House of Representatives they

comprised 42,4 per cent of the membership even as late as 1910.(21) In this way, they

established their identity in the newly created system as a junior partner of the magnates and

the Jewish big business. However, they could not imagine their upward progress in society

without taking advantage of the customary practices of "connection, protectionism, and



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nepotism" in their large fraternities.(22) Their unique Weltanschauung was soon widespread

even among the newly recruited officials.

As much as that in Hungary where feudal remains had been long preserved, andadministration and justice were not separated in the rural life, all power was concentrated in

the same hands of appointed officials. These were the sheriffs (főispán) in the counties, the

prefects (szolgabító) in the districts, and the notaries (jegyző) in the villages, who were as a

whole commanded by the Minister of the Interior. Especially on the lower level of the

countryside, real power was in the hands of prefect and his agent notary. The former called

nagyságos úr belonged to the upper middle grade of the bureaucratic hierarchy, while the latter

címzetes úr was a lesser official.(23) Prefect, here synonymous with gentry, engaged in from

elections of towns and villages (because the candidates needed his recommendation) till thewages of agrarian laborers. For instance, the Agricultural Labor Law (Law II of 1898, the

so-called Slave Act, which established a kind of neo-serfdom) enacted in consequence of the

previous year's jacquerie, permitted him to intervene in a labor dispute, and punish the laborers

who tried a strike for higher wages by heavy prison sentence. In addition, it assured the

employers (mostly landowning upper gentry and aristocracy) not only the use of gendarmerie

for suppression of the labor sabotages, but whipping the runaways.

In the meantime, starting with the grain market in Budapest, Hungarian Jews gradually

advanced the possessions of landed property as a symbol of wealth for a decade of the late 19th

century: numerically from 1,898 owners to 2,778, and territorially 1,750,000 hold [1,006,250

ha] to 2,620,000 hold [l,506,500 ha].(24) In other words, 16,5 per cent of the over 1,000 hold

[575 ha] estates and 53,7 per cent of such lease holdings were in their hands in 1910. Moreover,

in early this century (the period of industrial revolution in Hungary) 84,4 per cent owners of

industrial enterprises with 20 workers, and 90,3 per cent owners and directors of banks in the

urban areas belonged to Jewry.(25) Thanks to this overwhelming economic efficiency and the

population in the capital (nearly 25%), where one of every two voters was Jewish, they

dominated a substantial part of the intellectual life. Some data demonstrate that they comprised

61,5 per cent lawyers, 58,8 per cent doctors, and 48,4 per cent journalists of the whole country

in 1910, nearly 50 per cent of the professors at Budapest University, and 70 per cent of the

journalists in the metropolitan region.(26) In addition, 7 out of the 13 members of the Highest

Court of Appeal,(27) and 50 members of the House of Representatives during the Ausgleich

era.(28) Furthermore, 346 families of Jewish extraction were granted the noble titles including

28 Barons, and enjoyed the friendly relationship with the establishment. Hence 17 members of

the House of Lords,(29) and the two members of the War Cabinets: General Baron Samu Hazai

(Minister of War 1910-17) and Vilmos Vázsonyi (Minister of Justice 1915-17 & 1918) who

were truly the masterpieces of this high society.



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The greatest stroke in favor of the Jewish social rise was that in the struggle against the old

guild system between 1867 and 1895, the mercantile governments supplied the emerging

entrepreneurial classes (Jews in particular, who had been excluded from urban craft guildsuntil the mid-19th century) with subsidies and tax exemptions for the competitiveness of

Hungarian goods on the Austrian and the Balkan markets. The leader of this ruling

mercantilists, Kálmán Tisza, head of the Liberal Party confessed that Jews were an

"industrious and constructive segment of the population.(30) Available evidence shows indeed

that roughly 60 per cent of the 50 founding members of the National Association of

Industrialists (GyOSz), or the leaders of the largest industrial capitalist group were Jews or

converted Jews including Ferenc Chorin and Manfréd Weiss.(31) Accordingly, the phrase

'liberal' (correctly, conservative liberalism) and pro-Jewish were almost synonymous at thattime. A. J. P. Taylor indicated in this connection that Kálmán Tisza's only weakness was his

welcome to the Jews.(32) Despite of his indication, however, there remains a fact that Tisza's

creation of "gentry state" necessitated the union of the magnates and the Jewish big business.

And this economic elites' cooperation could usher the Dualist Hungary into the "take-off stage"

of W. W. Rostow.(33)

However, such economic elites constituted a tiny fraction, not exceeding a few hundred in

total, while more than 60 per cent Jews were members of the middle class.(34) Besides, it is no

less noteworthy that nearly half (44%) of the Hungarian Jews lived in the small towns or large

villages as merchants, doctors or lawyers and formed a strong bridgehead for the forcible

assimilation in the nationality areas. There, sometimes as one and only Magyar-speaking

family, the village Jews were as middlemen "selling everything the peasants bought and

buying everything the peasants sold."(35) They gained the concessions of usury and liquor

monopoly from magnates, and pursued them as tavern keepers. Miklós Bartha, (36) who

published a book entitled Kazár-földön [In the land of Kazars] in 1901, described that the Jews

coming from Galicia were so "practical like a sparrow" and "destructive like a rat",(37) and

affected the Slovak and Ruthenian peasants with alcoholism and usury. As Péter Hanák claims,

usury was a similar means of capital accumulation. Yet as he also added at the same time that

usury in the period of original accumulation was an especially heavy burden for farmers, and

for agricultural producers in general, when "a rate of 100 per cent was no rarity."(38) Bartha

condemned these village Jews; however, Jászi proclaimed that it was determined by the system

of concessions, or arrenda system, and "the same responsibility of magnates who sublet their

right to the Jews."(39)

As concerns the attitude of Jews to the nationalities, the relation between the Jewish

collaboration and the arrenda system was suggested in the work of Robert W. Seton-Watson:

in the election campaign for Parliament or County Assembly, pressure was brought to bear



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upon the village Jews to vote for the "desirable" candidate; and refusal was apt to involve loss

of their concessions.(40) One of the aides of Milan Hodza (later Prime Minister of

Czechoslovakia), Anton Stefánek (later Minister of Public Instruction) noted that the villageJews were considered as "the exponents of the Magyars, or an auxiliary troop of the prefects,

the notaries, and the gendarmerie". (This phrase of his comment on the Jewish question of

1917 made good copy in Jászi's book in 1929).(41) Furthermore, a man of German origin, Béla

Grünwald was unforgettable in this question. He served the extinction of non-Magyar schools

as a vice-sheriff of Zólyom county (now Zvolen in Slovakia). (42) Considering the Slovak

national movement as a symptom of Pan-Slavism, (43) he adapted the local secondary schools

for a "huge machine, at one end of which the Slovak youths are thrown in by hundreds, and at

the other end of which they come out as Magyars."

(44)

In this regard, Stefánek testified againthat "the more the schools progressed in the field of Magyarization, the more aggressive and

active the Jews became in politics."(45) Jászi explained these Jews from the viewpoint of a

general psychology of the 'renegade' that they usually became nationalistic and zealously

ardent supporters of the ideology of the ruling class in order to share the advantages of their

domination.(46) Such a kind of allegiance was exaggeratedly emphasized in the "noisiest"

propagandism not only of Grünwald but of Jenő Rákosi(47) who advocated creating "the 30

million Magyar State" as a chief editor of the daily Budapesti Hírlap.

The center of Magyarization was the backward northeast provinces of Hungary inhabited

by Slovaks, Ruthenians or Romanians. Orthodox Jews were largely concentrated in this area:

45 per cent of the inhabitants in Munkács, 28 per cent in Beregszász, and 25,8 per cent in

Nagyvárad,(48) while about 810,000 Jews lived in Galicia at the turn of the century. Miklós

Kozma (later Minister of the Interior) often heard of the pogroms in this region after the

collapse of the Monarchy. It appeared to the natives that Jews had put money into their pockets

by blackmarketing and profiteering, who had been always with "despotic" notaries or "brutal"

army officers.(49) Hence, the natural allies of the local officials representing the government of

Budapest. This added fuel to the popular anti-Semitism especially during the First World War.

Kozma did not go into details about it, but he observed the miserable destiny of the notaries,

and wrote it down as follows: in Macsola (Ruthenian area) the natives disinterred a deceased

notary's body, and dumped it into a ditch of the cemetery. (50) Yet it was only one of the

instances concerning the villagers' revenges. The vice-sheriff of Komárom prefecture

(northwest area) reported to the Minister of Interior on November 4, 1918, that in many places

people plundered, set fire, and attacked the prefects and notaries.(51) Statistical evidence

indicates that, during the first half of November 1918: 40 per cent of notaries (the national

average) were expelled, while 66 per cent in Temes prefecture, now in Romania.(52) Another

data estimates that about one third of notaries fled from Magyar villages, 50 per cent from



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Slovak areas, and almost 90 per cent from Romanian regions.(53)The above-mentioned

descriptions and data remind us how harsh the foreign domination and the agrarian exploitation

were to the rural population; the villagers' revenge can be understood as a result of their (inmost cases, national) resentment of suppression fused with the painful struggle against the

exploitation. Nevertheless, it should be kept in mind that, in any case, the principal victims

were both the village Jews and the subordinate officials such as notaries, gendarmes,

policemen, teachers, and priests, who had a direct contact with the natives at the bottom of the

power structure, and symbolized the old authority after the upper officials returned home.

Therefore, the village Jews and those subordinates mostly composed of gentroid and the newly

recruited lower middle class, who had swollen during and immediately after the War, can be

said to be the substantial counterparts of the Magyar-Jewish alliance at one pole of the ovalsociety of Hungary. At the other pole, the feudal and economic aristocracy enjoyed their

traditional cooperation in modern fashion.

As the subordinates' status was completely dependent upon the state apparatus, its

destruction left them in an utmost economic and psychological insecurity.(54) They were

humiliated and persecuted in the detached areas; and in compact Hungary, they had to contend

for the professions with Jews. Because the latter had rushed into the state employment for

security or pension during the two Republic Revolutions of 1918-1919, which increased the

number of them from 5,2 per cent in 1910 to 7,4 per cent in 1920.(55) Thus, the Revolutions and

the Treaty of Trianon (June 4, 1920) became the watershed of the Magyar-Jewish alliance.

When the Treaty deprived Hungary of 71,4 per cent of her prewar territory, and 63,5 per cent

of the population, it also destroyed the relationship of the provincial officials and the Jewish

middle class in the periphery. That signaled the beginning of the dissolution of the

Magyar-Jewish alliance itself.

Radicalism of the Refugees and their Anti-Semitism

Between 1918 and 1924, about 350,000 individuals were registered as the refugees from

the detached areas; but the real number was estimated more than 420,000. And the largest

group (42,9%) among them was consisted of the former subordinate officials who were

seeking a secure existence in the state service. Besides, the former army officers from the same

stratum had to find a job in civilian life, too. The second group (34,4%) was of the employees

of commerce and industry, or small business owners and craftmen. A group of gentry and

aristocratic landowners was the third (18,1%), but the most active and powerful in politics.(56)

Now, what the bitter refugees saw in Trianon Hungary, who had comfortable pasts but

depressed prospects for the future, was a Jewish overwhelming share among the professions.

For example in the year of 1920, from one third to 60 per cent of the free professions in the



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whole country,(57) and two thirds of the small trade owners in the urban areas were Jews. (58)

Additionally in Budapest, where 23,14 per cent of its population was Jewish even then, nearly

40 per cent of the two-story, 50 per cent of the three-story, and 60 per cent of the more thansix-story buildings were in their hands.(59) Here emerged a keen socio-economic competition in

the shrinking country between the Jews (473,355 individuals, who constituted 5,9 per cent of

the population in 1920) and the refugees (estimated actual number was 426,000, or 5,3%): in

other words, between the well-educated Jewish middle class and the "unemployed and

homeless" Magyars and partly Germans with high education. As Barany points out adequately,

the issue of "middle class anti-Semitism" did not become acute as long as the Hungarian

economy was expanding, the state bureaucracy could absorb the "historic" Magyar

intelligentsia, and the Jewish assimilation could be used as a lever in the interest of Magyarnationalism.(60)

However, the decisive factor which switched this kind of economic friction acutely to a

political anti-Semitism was an odious trauma of the two revolutions of 1918-1919, especially

Jewish high participation and commanding positions during the Communist dictatorship—that

is, people's commissars in the government, political commissars in the army, and judges and

prosecutors of the revolutionary courts. According to Jászi, and if his statistics is to be believed,

they occupied 95 per cent of the people's commissars.(61) And they ordered, for example, to

reconstruct religious buildings into movie theaters.(62) This became a very target of

anti-Semitism in the villages; and the anti-Semitic turmoil raged even at the National Congress

of Councils. In face of these attacks, communist leader Béla Kun had to defend as follows: "A

Jew as I am, I am not embarrassed to raise these issues. My father was a Jew, but I am no

longer a Jew, for I became a Socialist and a Communist."(63) In spite of his rhetoric, however,

the savage White Terror of Miklós Horthy's "best men" was directed against the Jewish

community in general.

That can be said to be one of anti-Jewish riots in the whole of East Central Europe at the

end of the War. On June 5 and 12 of 1919, during the invasion of the Hungarian Red Army, the

Slovak paper in Pittsburgh Národné Noviny which had charged Jews with "Magyarization and

exploitation" of the Slovak people, did not hesitate to deny the occurrence of bloody pogroms

in East Central Europe, and described them as Jewish falsehood and propaganda against the

Slavonic peoples.(64)The vindictiveness of the old suppressed nationalities was the same in

Transylvania, where Jews as well as Magyars had to be humiliated because of their "historic

exploitation of the Romanian masses."(65)

The political development of anti-Semitism was embodied as the 'Szeged idea'. (Szeged is

a large city in southern Hungary, which had a government supported by the Horthy-led

counter-revolutionary forces.) It was based on the grievances of the lower middle class,



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particularly that of the refugees. The lower middle class emerged first as independent Right

Radicals in the general election of early 1920 for the new National Assembly, when former

experienced politicians were frequently defeated in favor of unknowns.(66)

And under theslogan of punishing the "sinful Budapest" by Christian nationalism and agrarianism, they

aimed at the radical transformation of the society to a very great extent "at the expense of

Jewish community."(67) However, their characteristics included not only anti-Semitic

revisionism but staunch hostility toward the feudal elites as well, who had spent a great part of

their lives in their palaces abroad. Because of their cosmopolitan outlook and the allies of Jews,

the feudal elites also seemed alien in the eyes of the Right Radicals: the cities which were

originally in East Central Europe the spaces for foreigners, especially for Germans and Jews,

represented their "decadent and ruinous spirit" and the disastrous effect of capitalism on thecharacter of Magyardom. Thus, the Right Radicals sought the only true source of Magyardom

in the idealized peasantry, arguing that the real Magyars are in the countryside. This theme

became the leitmotif for the populist writers as well in the interwar period.

The 'Szeged idea' was supported by such organizations as the National Defense Force

Union (MOVE) and the Union of Awakening Magyars (ÉME). The former was recruited

mainly from military officers, while the latter from civil officials and intellectuals. The leader

of these organizations was Horthy's right hand, Gyula Gömbös (later Prime Minister

1932-1936). He was born a son of well-to-do Swabian (assimilated German) peasants, who

"simply usurped a title of nobility."(68) He was merely a Captain on the General staff earlier,

but became Under-Secretary of War in the Szeged government. The Hungarian Germans

including Gömbös, played a leading role in military life; and the result was that the army

became a center of the Right radicalism and fierce chauvinism. They unusually emphasized the

Christian nature in the struggle against the Jews because of a great disappointment that they

had not been chosen a partner of Magyars in spite of their population (10,4% in 1910) and a

jealousy of the Jewish advance and disproportionate influence. Jászi pointed out in this respect

that "the anti-Semitism and narrow nationalism of Swabian lower middle class" had been

always the most violent.(69)

The anxiety and resentment of the lower middle class accelerated further by the educational

policy which produced more diploma-holders than had the universities of prewar Hungary with

twice as many inhabitants;(70) in 1920s an estimated 15-20 per cent of the educated class was of

German background.(71) Furthermore, in the early 1930s the international monetary crisis

reached Hungary and quickly undermined her fragile economy; jobless university graduates

fostered the anti-Semitic camp.(72) And all these instances paralleled the increase of Swabian

ministers in the cabinets: 18,2 per cent between 1887-1901 and 22,3 per cent between

190l-1918, whereas 30,1 per cent between 1920-1932 and 42,l per cent between 1932-1944



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(the premiership of Gömbös and pro-German era.)(73)

The newly elected National Assembly passed the Law I of 1920 on abrogating all acts of

Count Mihály Károlyi's government and that of the Soviet Republic. The former was accusedof being a "Jewish stooge", the latter a "Jewish rule". Then they declared restoring the

Kingdom, revived corporal punishment (Law XXVI of 1920) as a symbol of gentry's rural

domination, and introduced the institution of the title of Vitéz (valiant). Vitéz orders were

those who contributed to Horthy in the counter-revolution, and received larger parcels in return

by the Land Reform (Law XXXVI of 1920). 4,400 Vitéz were given 72,000 hold : 50 hold for

officers and 12 hold for soldiers on the average,(74) whereas hardly more than 1 hold [1,42 acre]

per person for others.

The anti-Semitic aspect of the 'Szeged idea' was crystallized into the Numerus Clausus(Law XXV of 1920). It aimed at the restriction of the number of Jewish students in higher

education under their rate of population (6%) in order to curtail their professional

preponderance. According to the Ministry of Education "the Numerus Clausus is the result of

the dismemberment of Hungary, which will be unable to render a livelihood for as many

diploma-holders as before, and the Communist Revolution, which proved that the presence of

an intellectual proletariat is dangerous to the state."(75) Here Jews were categorized de facto as a

separate "race and nationality". And as a result of this act, the ratio of Jewish doctors decreased

by 25,5 per cent ten years later (from 59,9% in 1920 to 34,4% in 1930), and the employees of

the state by 3,1 per cent (from 7,4% to 4,3% ).(76) However, the Numerus Clausus did not bring

about a reduction of Jewish students to the allegedly desired 6 per cent level. Actually in the

1930s, as Bálint Hóman (Minister of Education) conceded in the Parliament, 27 per cent of the

medical school at Budapest University was constituted by them.(77) Nor did the act bring about

such a reduction of their professional domination as the government wanted, since they could

study in the foreign universities.

This measure was, explained Count Pál Teleki on the other hand, who was the Prime

Minister at the enactment of the Numerus Clausus, taken to confront the "combatant

cosmopolitanism" of the unassimilated Eastern Jews, who had undermined the "way of

thinking of intellectuals", and were really responsible for the revolutions of 1918-1919. In his

judgment, and the Right Radicals were of the same opinion that Jews were not only exploiters

but the inspirers of Bolshevism. Thus he protested against a bill aiming the easing of the act

some years later, claiming that the chances of Magyar youth to find employment are limited by

them, he denounced outspokenly at the same time that "the nation is in the process of

Judaization" because of their continuous immigration from the east.(78) The number of Eastern

Jews was actually, in consequence of pogroms in Russia and Romania, an irritating

anti-Semitism in Austria, and the extremely high birth rate of Orthodox Jews, growing too



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rapidly in Hungary, then the rate of increase in their population (68,4%) became as twice as

that of Christians for the last 40 years after Ausgleich. (79) That seemed a new threat to the

Magyar national identity instead of Slavdom. So that the government declared, preceding the Numerus Clausus Law, to banish "the Jews who had immigrated after August 1 of 1914."(80)

Concerning their "combatant cosmopolitanism" which Teleki mentioned above, Gyula

Szekfű tried to establish the existence of a historical link between the downfall of gentry and

the Jewish expansion in Három Nemzedék (Three Generations) of 1920 in order to denounce

Jews as the major cause of disaster of Hungary. According to him, Hungary's tragedy was a

product of the Magyar-Jewish alliance—namely, that of the amalgamation of "an excess of the

liberal spirit of the West, and the exuberance of certain racial sins of the Magyars" and "the

corrosive influences of Jewish radicalism and internationalism."

(81)

Jászi argued back in this point that the Magyar racial sins which Szekfű mentioned such as "vanity, conceit, short-lived

zeal, megalomany, self-deception, disregard of reality, inertia, and contempt of productive

work" were only the historical consequences of the semi-feudal society; thus, they were far

less "racial" problems than the sickness of a society as well as the detrimental effects of the

influence like "usury, economic exploitation, and reinforcement of the chauvinistic

tendencies."(82)

Another point of Eastern Jews which Right Radicals questioned is that they were believed

to be 'unassimilable passengers', who had passed through Hungary in large numbers at the time

of Dual Monarchy. Domokos Kosáry, who did not conceal his unpleasant manifestation on

Jászi saying that "no people likes being criticized by new comers in its own country",

explained the term of 'passengers' best as follows: "their first generation settled in the

northeastern counties of Hungary; the second and third moved to the cities, preferably to

Budapest., the fourth generation in many cases migrated further west to other countries. In this

procedure, Hungary mostly lost the assimilated European-type educated Jewish element, and

received instead ever new waves from the east, raw and unassimilated as they were."(83) Horthy

and the traditional upper classes, however, distinguished these 'Galician' Jews carefully from

the 'real' Hungarian Jews in order to keep the intimate economic ties with their high society.

In addition to these arguments by the Right Radicals, negative attitude toward the Eastern

Jews was manifested by the leaders of Jewish community. That is, in the course of

Parliamentary debates on the Numerus Clausus Law, one of the Jewish assimilationist leaders,

Pál Sándor emphatically asserted for the benefit of the 'rea1' Jews in Hungary, that "please do

throw out the Galicians; if this would be done my greatest desire would be realized." (84) In this

context, an apologetic work of Rabbi Lajos Venetianer was published in order to deny the

charge that they were responsible for the Communist dictatorship.(85)

Under these circumstances, in the struggle against the White Terror, Vázsonyi, a prewar



12

Minister and head of the National Democratic Party ( A Polgári Demokrata Párt ) vehemently

attacked such Jewish upper class including Pál Sándor, and their contribution to the

counter-revolution. For instance, the greatest financial supporters of Horthy in Szeged: BernátBack (mill owner) and Samuel Biedl (lumber dealer), a member of Szeged government: Jenő

Polnai, a financial elite and a leader of the National League of Jews ( Magyar Zsidó Országosos

Szövetsége).(86) Because those men intended only their own survival at the expense of the

majority of Jewish community.

Vázsonyi had been closely tied up with the commercial capitalist group, the National

Association of Merchants (OMKE). It was, however, unable to form an alliance with the

establishment because of their inferior economic position to the industrial and financial

groups.

(87)

So that he had to advocate the strict control of cartels and termination of state privileges for the big capital, and the state protection of small-scale industry and retail trade.(88)

This is a full-fledged class antagonism, which he considered to be sharper in the Jewish

community than in non-Jewish society. Such 'middle class' Jews Vázsonyi and Jászi as well

aimed at organizing were socio-politically the most sensitive masses on the fringes of the

ruling class, like the old days' lesser nobilities (nobiles possessionati & armalista), who

became pawns of the Court in Vienna or its opponent Magyar gentry, and as was the case in

1849, of the radical intelligentsia.(89)

The Jewish question was, however, downplayed with the appointment of Count István

Bethlen to the premiership in April 1921. It is said that his government [1921-3l] was

controlled by "reasonable" anti-Semites.(90) That is, for the reconsolidation of the normal

political life, Bethlen outlawed first of all the Communist Party (Law III of 192l) to ensure

more effective social and state order. Then he turned the Social Democrats into his loyal

opposition by securing their representation in the elections. Under the terms of the

Bethlen-Peyer Pact at the end of that year, any kind of political strike in the public service and

organizing activity in the villages were prohibited. And the open ballot in the provinces was

re-established next year. Following these measures toward the Left he opened a strong

campaign against the Right. Because the traditionalists like Bethlen and Horthy were afraid

that the Rightist anti-Semitic and irredentist attitudes might pose a threat not only to the

economic reconstruction but to the foreign relations.

Therefore, the government of Bethlen pended the territorial demands and the throne

question. In face of royal putsch twice in 1921, he opposed the restoration of the Hapsburg

Monarchy, because it would have conflict not only Succssion States but the Germany's desire

to annex Austria. It was also opposed by Gömbös and the free-electionist Right Radicals,

because they feared the traditional association between the Crown and the Magyar feudal elites

who had supported Bethlen. The political success of the Horthy-Bethlen regime depended



13

essentially upon the economic improvement; and the rehabilitation of economy necessitated

cooperation with Jewish capitals, which still possessed considerable influence. Hence Bethlen's

appeasement policy was, above all, directed toward them in order to restore the prewar "greatsocial coalition"(91) with the help of gentry class, who were ready to see him as Count István

Tisza's successor. The reconstitution of the House of Lords (Law XXII of 1926) was identified

with the re-creation of the old gentry state, which provided each seat for the Orthodox and the

Neologs. The re-creation of the old system was enjoyed very much by the upper classes of the

Magyar-Jewish alliance but their junior partners.(92)

Jászi as the Ideologue of the Revolution of 1918-1919

According to Alfred Cobban, Hungary's tragedy was that at a time when the other peoplesof Central Europe were struggling to convert their cultural nationalities into politically

independent states, she was still attempting to force her way in the opposite direction, from

political to cultural unity.(93) One of these attempts was a compromise between the non-Magyar

nationalities and the Magyardom in 1868 by the name of the Equal Rights of Nationalities

(Law XLIV of 1868). Although the Law identified Magyar as the state language, it declared

the civil equality of all nationalities, and guaranteed the linguistic and cultural autonomy on

the lower level of administration and justice, as well as in primary and secondary schools.

However in reality, the rights of nationalities were violated continuously by the

government; the Law remained a dead letter thereafter. Such a fate followed the non-Magyars

after death, too. For example, in the cemeteries of Budapest, they were prohibited from

erecting the tombstones bearing their own inscriptions.(94) Jászi judged their sufferings as

"surplus of grievances" ( sérelmi többlet ), and called such a system "feudal agrarianism". That

is a socio-economic pressure of the feudal class domination combined with a "usurious kind of

capitalism", which did not allow the productive forces of the peasants and national minorities

to be developed.(95) One can see it in the unbalanced Parliament where 405 Magyar deputies

were seated, while only 8 (three Slovaks and five Romanians) represented the nationalities.(96)

In this context, he denounced the Jews for abetting the oppression of the national

minorities; then Jewish question was viewed as an eminently deformed nationality and

agrarian question.(97) Consequently, his emancipation theory of nationalities was naturally

connected with the radical land reform. Being convinced that the feudal landownership should

be replaced by peasant property (because the majority of the smallholdings were under 5 ha

[8,7 hold ], whereas contemporary estimates denoted the lands of 5 to 15 ha [8,7-26 hold ]

"sound family farms" which did not have to sell or hire labor, (98) he suggested that their

agricultural cooperatives and the introduction of genuine universal suffrage would solve the

national conflicts.



14

From such a point of view, he paid special attention to the Danish cooperatives organized

by the peasant proprietors. By this method in Denmark since the mid 19th century, as well as

in France, Belgium and Bavaria, where the smallholders were the bearers of modern agrarianrevolution, twice as much wheat as in Hungary was produced before the First World War. (99)

And her national income ranked fourth in Europe after Britain, Belgium and Switzerland,

where industrial revolution had been completed much earlier. Besides, she had almost

overcome illiteracy by that time (in Hungary its ratio was 31,3% in 1910), and realized even

woman suffrage in 1915. Such Danish farmers were, according to Jászi, "urban and cultivated,

open and brave persons in contrast to sneaky and humble Magyar peasants." (100) From this

instance of Denmark, he maintained that the land distribution to the small or landless peasantry

without national discrimination would have to be the "morality of nation-building" and the"barometer of democracy"; but he meant it only for the right of possession by inheritance

(örökbérlet ).(101)

In this way, the land reform on the Danish model (the creation of peasant proprietors and

their re-union) and the emancipation of national minorities on the Swiss model as its analogy

(national self-determination and their federation) became X and Y axis of Jászi's

reorganization plan of the Hapsburg Monarchy. That is, the concept of "independence to

cooperation" on the basis of democracy was the central thesis of his emancipation theory with

confidence that men will reach a stage of internationalism only after passing through the

nation.(102) But, how did his key concept harmonize with Sacro Egoismo of nationalities and

land famine of peasantry? In this point, he seemed to be certainly optimistic that Sacro

Egoismo of nationalities and land famine of peasantry were only negative patrimony of

feudalism to be solved in the world-wide reformism of early this century, although his

confidence was nothing but a belief in the universality of the nationalism of the French

Revolution. Even so, he had accepted such a view until 1918, and confessed that the

nationality question is in the last analysis a problem of assimilation: Jews can also assimilate

through conversion or emotional abandonment of their ancestral traditions.(103) But, it was far

from forcible Magyarization propagated in the journal of Magyar Figyelő, which was founded

by István Tisza in order to offset the influence of Jászi-led radical journal of Huszadik Század

and the Sociological Society, which Robert W. Seton-Watson called the "Hungarian Fabian

Society."(104)

However, Jászi's emancipation theory was more essentially based on the abolition of

unearned income such as the "feudalistic latifundium" and the "usurious kind of capitalism",

which was defined as "liberal socialism."(105) He hated those who lived on unearned income

because of their parasitism. Nevertheless, the Hungarian capitalism stood, in his opinion, on a

level with the old colonial regime of the Western Powers "living mainly on extortion and



15

corruption", and was "a fit tool and accomplice of the political machine," (106) whereas most of

gentry and gentroid parasitized the state as cifra (ornament). This idea of the abolition of

unearned income parallels the concept of "withering away of the state" in the proletarianinternationalism of Marxism. But, the bearer of his urbanite ethos was the "lateiner", or the

working middle class intellectuals,(107) and their rural allies were expected to be the "sound

family farms" which did not have to sell or hire labor. However, his party had no such ties with

rural population enough to organize them. Even so, he sought in both of them the political

function of citoyen: while Marxist expected the universal development in the concentration of

the industrial capitals, he claimed the moral and economic importance of independent farmers

and made much of the individual initiative and the free competition against the state

enforcement. Marxist set up the moral and spiritual criteria in the post-revolutionary society;however, Jászi found the concrete basement of the social development in the "best civilization

existing."(108)

In this very context, Jászi concluded that "there is only one rational solution of the Jewish

question for men of honor and good will: the raising and strengthening of the people and the

repression of Jewish parasitism, combined, however, with an increased respect for Jewish

intellectual workers."(109) In his vision, what was current in Budapest would happen repeatedly

in other places: the advanced democracy, big industry, urban life,(110) and the replacement of

the gentry's oligarchy in counties by the "municipal socialism." (111) The bearers would be, of

course, the intellectual elites around the Huszadik Század against the feudal and economic

elites. Now, remember that 28 per cent of the Jewish community was the new middle class;(112)

we may safely say that Jászi expected their leading role, whereas Vázsonyi regarded himself to

be a tribune of the old one.

Arguments on the elimination of the gentry's oligarchy in counties, and the abolishment of

unearned income were crystallized into the decree 430 of the Károlyi government (Jan. 27,

1919), and its People's Law XVI and XVII (Feb.12, 1919). The former decree aimed at the

abolition of the so-called Slave Act; the latter two Laws were enacted in order to exclude the

uppermost taxpayers from the village and town Assemblies.(113) Furthermore, in the provisional

constitution of the Soviet Republic (Apr. 2, 1919), Article XXI deprived suffrage of those

"living on unearned income", or "hiring others for profit";(114) the Article remained intact in the

constitution (Article LIVIII) adopted at the National Congress of Councils on June 23. (115)

These were all for breaking with the evil continuity of the history of Hungary.

Consequently, the success of the revolutions depended upon the fate of their land reform.

In Jászi's words, the only means of the preservation of Hungary was the immediate partition of

the church and other large estates in the peripheries among the land famine peasants of the

national minorities.(116) But, the government was standing between the extreme Right and Left



16

activities against the distribution of land. Nevertheless, as rightly pointed out by Tibor Haidu,

the difficulty of the land reform must be looked for "in the gap between town and country," (117)

or the double social structure: agricultural laborers in the country could never enjoy the fruitssuch as 8-hour-workingday or unemployment allowance which urban industrial workers had

already won.(118)

On the other hand, Jászi's reorganization project of Dualism to Pentarchy by the "historic"

nations such as German, Magyar, Pole, Czech and South Slav against the "huge mills of

Germany and Russia" was a friendly reply to the Austro-Slavism: the decision which was

made in favor of a Pentarchical plan of federation against the Hungarian conception of

Dualism in 1867, and even during the First World War. At the same time, his idea was in

response to Wilson's Fourteen Points between the Russian Revolution and the French CordonSanitaire. However personally, it was addressed to Seton-Watson who had published the

influential book of Racial Problems in Hungary by the name of Scotus Viator in 1908. He had

already gained a reputation as the authority of the Danubian national problems, and a friend of

the independent nationalities. But, Jászi also issued one of his most ambitious works A

Nemzeti Államok Kialakulása és a Nemzetiségi Kérdés (The Formation of the Nation States

and the Nationality Question) in 1912, and made his debut as an expert of the field. However

as far as the influence of their books, Seton-Watson's was much greater than Jászi's, because

the latter was published in Magyar only and not translated into any other language. In this

connection, he recognized it frankly 30 years later that the work of Seton-Watson became "one

of the strongest arguments to the dismemberment of Hungary in 1918." (119)

These two persons were equally bitter enemies of the Hungarian chauvinism. However,

Jászi tried to save Hungary from dismemberment by turning her into an "Eastern Switzerland".

Although he was a federalist, his federalism did not reach the stage of "historic" Hungary, but

just a recognition of the right of cultural autonomy. He believed in the future of a progressive

Magyar culture which would be the common interests of all the peoples in Hungary. It was

always in his thought and action to respect the "force of culture". Therefore he contended that

the Magyar hegemony would not be an obstacle to the Danubian cooperation if the forcible

Magyarization had stopped. Historic Hungary was, in his view, lacking in the indispensable

condition for the federation. She had no economic and geographic possibilities of separation,

no tradition of territorial autonomy and more than anything else, no consciousness of the

multinational state.(120)

The basis of such a double standard was that Jászi (Minister of nationalities in the Károlyi

government) and the other leaders of the revolution could not break with the concept of

"historic nation" of the 19th century;(121) in other words, they could not sever themselves from

the Great Magyarism of Lajos Kossuth, a petty noble of Slovak origin with no land, who



17

maintained in the Pesti Hírlap as a would-be Magyar gentry that "there never was and can not

be a Slovak nation in Hungary."(122) According to Taylor, it was his "conversion" to

Magyarism,(123)

which was the very renegade behavior Jászi analyzed. Nevertheless, the legacyof Kossuyh was a heavy yoke of the political changes in Hungary. For example, Károlyi Party

declared in its program of 1916 that the mission of Magyardom was to protect the small and

weak nationalities against the expansionism of the Great Powers. (124) Leaders of Social

Democrats required the nationality members not to separate from Hungary for their advanced

trade unions.(125) As the President of the Republic, Károlyi also repeatedly claimed in his New

Year speech of 1919 "the territorial integrity" from the economic point of view, (126) but with no

doubt about the existence of historic Hungary. In view of these circumstances, it can't be

denied that Jászi's reorganization idea was—to quote Béla K. Király—nothing but the"half-century-old Kossuth project."(127) And in Kann's words additionally, the preservation of

the historic Hungary blocked the true union of the Danube peoples." (128)

Conclusion

Jews were essentially an indispensable part of modern Hungary although Jászi

exaggeratedly emphasized the negative sides of their roles. It is not surprising therefore, that

Kann discovered the roots of the interwar crisis of the relation between Magyar and Jew in

their Golden Age under the Dual Monarchy, and concluded its origin to be their "profound

miscomprehension" of Hungary as an only national Magyar instead of a multinational state on

the Jewish side as well.(129) We accept his interpretation; however, we wish to go one step

further by the analysis of the power structure. That is, as the interwar governments sought to

change the composition of the intellectuals and to strengthen the non-Jewish middle classes,

the real roots of the crisis should be traced back to the traditional ruling system of the Tiszas'

"gentry state," or the double structure of the rapidly industrialized and urbanized

country—fundamentally agrarian in its economy, provincial in its mentality and hierarchical in

its social structure.

So that this paper sought to demonstrate the point of the question in the double faced

Magyar-Jewish alliance, or in the great cleavage of the bipolar society itself: some crucial

antagonisms in the Jewish community between the economic elites such as the industrial and

financial capitalists who could form an alliance with the ruling class and the commercial ones

who remained outside the ranks of the establishment in the socio-political mechanism; others

in the junior partnership in the periphery, or the "substantial rule" of the provincial

subordinates and the village usurers at the bottom of the power structure.

All things considered, we are lastly led to the conclusion that the Jewish question was the

question of the Hungarian historic classes of gentry and gentroid, although it has already been



18

mentioned. Nevertheless, for our deeper understanding of modern Hungary, further studies of

the middle classes are required: the old-fashioned antagonisms between aristocrats belonging

to the ruling class and lesser nobility on its fringes, and the new ones between the economicelite of the Magyar-Jewish alliance and those who remained outside the ranks of the

establishment, or between the small-scale industry and retail trade of the Jewish community

Vázsonyi protected and the newly emerging salaried white-collar employees as well as the

liberal and intellectual professions Jászi represented. Besides, the substance of the middle class

farmers who were idealized respectively by both Jászi and the interwar folk writers (népi írók )

is also required to examine. From such viewpoints, we should re-examine the controversies on

the Magyar-Jewish alliance between Jászi and his die-hard opponent Szekfű for the Hungarian

historiography.



19

Notes

(1) Oszkár Jászi, Magyar Kálvária Magyar Föltámadás: A Két Forradalom Értelme,

Jelentősége és Tanulságai［Magyar Calvary Hungarian Resurrection: Meaning, Significanceand Lessons of the Two Revolutions］(Originally published in 1920 in Vienna, reprinted in

1969 in Munich, and in 1989 in Budapest).(2) Jászi, ibid., Munich edition p.156, Budapest edition p.160; Oscar Jászi, Revolution and

Counter-Revolution in Hungary (New York, 1969; first published in 1924 as an English

version of the above Magyar Kálvária Magyar Föltámadás), p.189.(3) Oscar Jászi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy ((Chicago / London: The University

of Chicago Press, 1971. Originally published in 1929), p.174.(4)

Ezra Mendelsolm, The Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars (Bloomington,1987), p.111.

(5) Béla Vágó, "The attitude toward the Jews as a criterion of the Left-Right concept" in Béla

Vágó・George L. Mosse eds., Jews and Non-Jews in Eastern Europe 1918-1945 (Jerusalem,

1974, hereafter cited as Jews and Non- Jews in Eastern Europe), p.32.(6) Péter Hanák, Jászi Oszkár Dunai Patriotizmusa [Danubian Patriotism of Oscar Jászi]

(Budapest, 1985), p.10.(7) Jászi, Magyar Kálvária Magyar Föltámadás, Munich edition p.156, Budapest edition p.160;

Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Hungary, p.189.

(8) Robert A. Kann, "Hungarian Jewry during Austria-Hungary's constitutional period (1867-

1918)", Jewish Social Studies (1945, vol.7, no.4), p.368.(9) Ibid., p.367.(10) Peter I. Hidas, The Metamorphosis of a Social Class in Hungary during the Reign of Young

Franz Joseph (New York, 1977), pp. 64-65. Cf. Andrew C. Janos, Hungary: 1867-1939, A

Study of Social Change and the Political Process (Unpublished dissertation, Princeton

University, 1961), pp.135-144, 175-186; William Batkay, "Trianon: cause or

effect—Hungarian democratic politics in the 1920's" in Béla K. Király・Peter Pastor ・Ivan

Sanders eds., Essays on World War 1: Total war and peacemaking, a case study on Trianon(New York, 1982, hereafter cited as Essays on World War 1), p.524 note 23.

(11) 54,5 per cent according to the census of 1910. However, according to the same census there

lived in Hungary 911,000 Jews or almost 5 per cent of the population (18,264,000). So, if

they had been treated as a separate nationality, the Magyar majority would have

disappeared (Jászi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, pp.274-275).(12) Jewish emancipation was enacted after the Ausgleich with Austria in 1867. The bill to this

effect was passed unanimously in the House of Representatives in December of that year,

and in the House of Lords by a majority of 64 to 4, thereafter promulgated as Law XVII of



20

1867: Az izraeliták egyenjogúságáról és politikai jogok tekintetében [On the equality and

political rights of Jewry] (Nathaniel Katzburg, Hungary and the Jews: Policy and

Legislation 1920-1943 (Jerusalem, 1981), p.17).(13) Barany states that Magyars did not choose German minority (10,4% in 1910) as their

partner because of their inferiority complex to German culture as well as their rejection

against Pan-Germanism (George Barany, " 'Magyar Jew or Jewish Magyar? ' Reflection on

the question of assimilation" in Jews and Non-Jews in Eastern Europe, p.61).(14) One of the concrete evidences to prove the alliance of the Jewish high finance and the

Magyar aristocracy is that, in early 20th century while the tremendous industrial banking

groups were headed by "rather narrow concerns" (Ferenc Chorin, Manfréd Weiss, Leó

Lánczy, or the families of Fellner, Ullmann, and Kornfeld), 88 Counts and 64 Barons sat

on the boards of directors and of supervision directors in various industrial works, railway

companies and banks, many of them on the board of more than one firm. According to the

speculation of Jenő Varga's first work of A Magyar Kartelek [Hungarian Cartels]

(Budapest, 1912), about 50 men standing at the head of the big banks owned altogether 20

per cent of the total capital but drew half of the total net income (Iván T. Berend・György

Ránki, Economic Development in East-Central Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries

(New York & London, 1974), p.164.)(15) Kálmán Tisza, originally from a Calvinist Transylvanian middle noble, was in the premier-

ship for 15 years between 1875 and 1890. His son István became an MP at the age of

twenty-five in 1886, then head of the Industrial and Commercial Bank for a decade at the

end of the 19th century. He was granted the title of count in possession of 2000 hold [1150

ha] of land, served twice as a Prime Minister from 1903 to 1905 and from 1913 to 1917.(16) Joseph II intended to centralize the Monarchy by German language, abolish the local

autonomy of Magyar gentry, and replace them with German bureaucrats.(17) A. J. P. Taylor, The Habsburg Monarchy 1809-1918: A history of the Austrian Empire and

Austria-Hungary (London, 1976), p.57.

(18) The 54,5 per cent Magyars including the assimilated nationalities supplied about 96 percent of all the state employees (Kann, op. cit., p.360).

(19) Hidas, op. cit., p.64. The nobiles possessionati was the majority of the lesser nobilities,

who belonged to the privileged class only by law. While their richest segment held

100-200 acres [70-140 hold ] of land with several families of serfs, the poorest armalista

had nothing but the dog skin parchment on which their origin was certified (Hidas, ibid.,

p.65).(20) Andrew C. Janos, "The decline of oligarchy: Bureaucratic and mass politics in the age of

Dualism (1867-1918)" in Andrew C. Janos・William B. Slottman eds., Revolution in



21

Perspective: Essays on the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919 (Berkeley, 1971), p.56.(21) Ibid., pp.7-8.(22)

In the mutual relations of their in-group, senior officials addressed their subordinatesaffectionately as 'my son' ( fiam) or 'my younger brother' (öcsém), while the latter addressed

the former as 'my uncle' (bátyám) (Janos, Hungary: 1867-1939, p.139; "The decline of

oligarchy", pp.19-20).

(23) Péter Hanák ed., Magyarország Története: 1890-1918 [History of Hungary, vol.7]

(Budapest, 1978), p.454.(24) Jászi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, p.320 fn.13.(25) Janos, Hungary: 1867-1939, p.168 fn.67.(26)

Ibid., p.169 fn.67; István Deák, "Budapest and the Hungarian revolutions of 1918-1919",The Slavonic and East European Review (1968, vol.46, no.106), pp.132, 139 fn.36.

(27) I. Deák, ibid., p.139 fn.36.(28) Janos, "The decline of oligarchy", p.58.(29) Hanák ed., Magyarország Története, p.447.(30) Janos, "The decline of oligarchy" p.36. According to a deposition to the Parliament in the

year of 1896, 55 Liberals held 77 jobs with railroad and transportation companies based on

their extensive ties, while another 86 held 93 positions with banks and industrial

corporations either as legal advisors or as members of the board ( ibid., p.22).(31) George Deak, ''The search for an urban alliance: The politics of the National Association of

Hungarian Industrialists [GyOSz] before the First World War" in Michael K. Silber ed.,

Jews in the Hungarian Economy 1760-1945: Studies Dedicated to Moshe

Carmilly-Weinberger on the Eightieth Birthday (Jerusalem. 1992, hereafter cited as Jews in

the Hungarian Economy), pp.210-211.(32) Taylor, op. cit., p.208.(33) Peter I. Hidas, "Hidden urbanization: The birth of the bourgeoisie in mid-nineteenth century

Hungary" in Jews in the Hungarian Economy, p.136. Owing to this alliance the national

product increased six fold for some 60 years of the Dualist Era. While the agricultural

population declined from 87 per cent to 62,4 per cent, the number of those dependent on

industry in creased from 6,7% to 18,2%. However, by the beginning of this century, 44% of

the output of manufacturing industry came from the food branch alone (Berend・Ránki,

Economic Development in East-Central Europe, pp.152-153; Janos, "The decline of

oligarchy", p.40).

(34) One third of the Jewish community can be classified as the old middle class including petty

artisans and tradesmen, and another 28 per cent as the new middle class such as civil

servants or liberal and intellectual professions (György Ránki ed., Magyarország



22

Története: 1918-1919, 1919-1945 [History of Hungary, vol.8] (Budapest, 1978),

pp.785-786).(35)

Arthur J. May, The Hapsburg Monarchy 1867-1914 (New York, 1968), p.243.(36) Bartha was, according to Jászi, one of the most brilliant and influential publicists of

Hungary at the end of the 19th century, but a conservative and an almost reactionary

politician (Jászi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, pp.234-235). Some

descriptions of his book are contained in Kirekesztők: Antiszemita Iráok 1881-1992

[Eliminations: Anti-Semitic writings 1881-1992] by László Karsai (Budapest, 1992),

pp.15-18.(37) Kirekesztők , p.17.

(38)

Péter Hanák, "Jews and the modernization of commerce in Hungary, 1760-1848" in Jews inthe Hungarian Economy, p.35.

(39) Jászi, op. cit., p.236.(40) Robert W. Seton-Watson, Racial Problems in Hungary (New York, 1972, originally

published in 1908), p.286.

(41) Péter Hanák ed., Zsidókérdés Asszimilació Antiszemitizmus: Tanulmányok a Zsidókérdés

ről a Huszadik Századi Magyarországon [Jewish Question, Assimilation, Anti-Semitism:

Lessons on the Jewish Question in the Twentieth Century Hungary] (Budapest, 1984.

hereafter cited as Hanák ed., Zsidókérdés), p.92; Jászi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg

Monarchy, p.175.(42) László Szarka, Szlovák Nemzeti Fejlődés: Magyar Nemzetiségi Politika 1867-1918 [Slovak

National Development: Hungarian Nationality Policy 1867-1918] (Bratislava, 1995),

p.108; Seton- Watson, op. cit., p.164.(43) Szarka, ibid., p.118. As a Prime Minister, Kálmán Tisza justified the expulsion of Slovak

pupils from Magyar gymnasiums, who had been "guilty of reading a Slovak newspaper

which under cover of Press freedom, agitated against the State, and of singing a song

which fostered hatred of the Magyars; and such a spirit could not be tolerated in Hungarian

institutions!. (Seton-Watson, op. cit., pp.174-175).(44) Béla Grünwald, A Felvidék [The Highlands] (Budapest, 1878), p.140 quoted in

Seton-Watson, op. cit., p.210.(45) Hanák ed., Zsidókérdés, p.92.(46) Jászi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, pp.275, 324-325.(47) Rákosi was said to be originally a Jew of the name of Krebs in Robert W. Seton-Watson, A

History of Czechs and Slovaks (Connecticut, 1965, first published in 1943), p.272. But

according to the Hungarian historians including Domokos Kosáry, he was of "German"

parentage of Kremsner. Dominic G. Kosáry, A History of Hungary (New York, 1971,



23

reprint edition of 1941), p.327.(48) Orthodox Jews were numerically smaller (29,9%) than the majority Neologs, which

constituted 65,5 per cent in 1930 (Katzburg, op. cit., p.27).(49) Tibor Hajdu, A Magyarországi Tanácsköztársaság [The Hungarian Soviet Republic]

(Budapest, 1969), p.215.

(50) Miklós Kozma, Az Összeomlás 1918-1919 [The Collapse 1918-1919] (Budapest, 1933),

p.64. Cf. István I. Mócsy, ''Partition of Hungary and the origins of the refugees problem" in

Essays on World War I , p.497.(51) Dokumentumok a Szlovák Tanácsköztársaságról 1919 [Documents on the Slovak Soviet

Republic 1919] (Budapest, 1970), pp.11-12.

(52)

Ferenc Pölöskei・

Kálmán Szakács eds., Földmunkás- és Szegényparaszt-Mozgalmak Magyarországon 1848-1948 [Laborer and Poor Peasant Movements in Hungary

1848-1948] (Budapest, 1962), p.506.(53) Tibor Hajdu, Az 1918-as Magyarországi Demokratikus Forradalom [The Hungarian

Democratic Revolution of 1918] (Budapest, 1968), p.98.(54) Janos, Hungary: 1867-1939, p.102.(55) Hajdu,, A Magyarországi Tanácsköztársaság , p.215; Tibor Hajdu, The Hungarian Soviet

Republic (Budapest, 1979), pp.127-128; Mendelsohn, op. cit ., p.268 note 36; Frank Eckelt, The

Rise and Fall of the Béla Kun Regime in 1919 (Unpublished dissertation, New York University,

1965), p.57.(56) Mócsy, op. cit., pp.494-495.(57) 34,3 per cent of all editors and journalists, 50,6 per cent of al1 lawyers, and 59,9 per cent of all

doctors were Jewish (Mendelsohn, op.cit., p.101).(58) Janos, Hungary: 1867-1939, p.169.

(59) Thomas Karfunke1, "The impact of Trianon on the Jews of Hungary" in Essays on World

War I , p.468.(60) Barany, op. cit., p.80.

(61) Jászi, Magyar Kálvária Magyar Föltámadás, Munich edition p.127, Budapest edition

p.129; Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Hungary, p.122. However, it is 70,4 per cent

according to Frank Eckelt (Eckelt, op.cit ., p.61).(62) A Tanácsok Országos Gyűlésének Naplója: 1919 június 14-június 23 [The Minutes of the

National Congress of Councils: 1919 June 14-23] (Budapest, 1919), p.70.(63) Ibid., p.205. Cf. Andrew C. Janos, ''The agrarian opposition at the National Congress of

Councils" in Janos・Slottman eds., Revolution in Perspective, p.97.(64) Yeshayahu Jelinek, "The Treaty of Trianon and Czechoslovakia: Reflections" in Essays on

World War I , p.454 note 43.



24

(65) Stephen Fischer-Galati, "Trianon and Romania" in ibid., pp.428-429.

(66) William M. Batkay, Authoritarian Politics in a Transitional State: István Bethlen and the

Unified Party in Hungary 1919-1926 (New York, 1982), p.17.(67) Karfunkel, op. cit., p.461.(68) István Deák, "Hungary" in Hans Rogger ・Eugene Weber eds., The European Right: A

Historical Profile (Berkeley & Log Angeles, 1965), p.377.(69) Jászi, Magyar Kálvária Magyar Föltámadás, Munich edition, p.153, Budapest edition,

p.156; Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Hungary, p.157.(70) Janos, Hungary: 1867-1939, p.102.(71) Barany, op. cit., p.95 note 81.(72)

During the economic crisis [1931-33] 48 per cent of law students, 55,2 per cent ofengineers, 70 per cent of teachers, and 90 per cent of the agricultural college students were

unable to find any employment after graduation (Janos, Hungary: 1867-1939, p.179).(73) Janos, ibid., p.190.(74) Mihály Kerék, A Magyar Földkérdés [The Hungarian Land Question] (Budapest, 1939),

pp.l77-178.(75) Thomas Spira, "Hungary's Numerus Clausus, the Jewish Minority, and the League of

Nations", Ungarn Jahrbuch (1972, vo1. 4), p.119 note 18.(76) Karfunkel. op. cit., p.473; Mendelsohn, op. cit., pp.101, 268 note 36.

(77) Képviselőház Naplója [The Minutes of the Parliament] 130 Session, 29 November 1932,

pp.461-464 quoted in Bernald Klein, "Anti-Jewish Demonstration in Hungarian

Universities, 1932-1936: István Bethlen vs. Gyula Gömbös", Jewish Social Studies (1982,

vol. 44, no. 2), p.113.(78) Lóránt Tilkovszky, Pál Teleki (1879-1941): A Biographical Sketch (Budapest, 1974), pp.28, 29.(79) Kann, op. cit., p.380.(80) Dezső Nemes, Az Ellenforradalom Története Magyarországon 1919-1921 [The History of

Counter-Revolution in Hungary 1919-1921] (Budapest, 1962), p.273.

(81) Jászi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, p.239 fn.10.(82) Jászi, ibid .(83) Kosáry, op. cit., pp.323-324, 345.(84) Az 1920. Évi Február Hó 16-ára Hirdetett Nemzetgyűlés Naplója [The Minutes of the

Parliament of February 1920] (Budapest, 1920), p.472 quoted in Robert Blumstock, "Going

Home: Arthur Koestler's Thirteenth Tribe" in Jewish Social Studies (1986, vo1. 48, no. 2), p.99.(85) Lajos Venetianer, A Magyar Zsidóság Története: A Honfoglalásról a Világháború Kitöréséig

[The History of the Hungarian Jewry from the Conquest to the Outbreak of the World War]

(Budapest, 1922), which was reprinted (pp.18-485) by the name of A Magyar Zsidóság



25

Törtánete: Különös Tekintettel Gazdasági és Művelődési Fejlődésére a XIX. Században [A

History of Hungarian Jewry: with Special Regard to Economic and Cultural Development in the

19th Century] (Budapest, 1986).(86) Katzburg, op. cit., p.47; Vago, op. cit., pp.26, 46 note 12; György Száraz,"Egy Előitélet

Nyomában" [On the Scent of a Prejudice] in Zsidókérdés, p.321.(87) Such a situation did not change in the interwar period (Zsuzsa L. Nagy, The Liberal Opposition

in Hungary 1919-1945 (Budapest, 1983), p.12).(88) Húgó Csergő & József Balassa eds., Vázsonyi Vilmos Beszédei és Írásai [The Speech and

Articles of Vilmos Vázsonyi] (Budapest, 1927) vol.1, pp.155-156.

(89) Hidas, The Metamorphosis of a Social Class in Hungary, p.65.(90)

Karfunkel, op. cit., p.463.(91) Janos, Hungary: I867-1939, p.100.(92) Even as late as the year of 1937, 70 per cent of the members of the Boards of Directors of

the 20 greatest industrial enterprises were Jews (Katzburg, op. cit., p.30).(93) Alfred Cobban, The Nation State and National Self-Determination (New York, 1970), p.36.(94) Seton-Watson, Racial Problems in Hungary, p.286.

(95) Jászi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, p.451.(96) Ibid ., p.345.(97) Hanák ed., Zsidókérdés, pp.83-84.(98) Berend・Ránki, Economic Development in East-Central Europe, p.29.

According to the census of 1895, 1,279,718 holdings were the land of under 5 hold ,

whereas the land of "5 to 20 hold " were 843,916. In addition to them, there were nearly 4

million landless peasants (2,74l,753 agricultural laborers and 1,211,234 farm hands) in

1910 (Pö1öskei・Szakács eds., Földmunkás- és Szegényparaszt-Mozgalmak

Magyarországon, p.495).(99) Barna Buza, "Az októberi földreform" [The land reform of the October Revolution] in

Vince Nagy ed., A Károlyi Korszak Előzményei és Céljai [The Precedents and Aims of the

Károlyi era] (Budapest, 1923), p.43.(100) György Fukász, A Magyarországi Polgári Radikalizmus Történetéhez 1900-1918: Jászi

Oszkár Ideológiájának Bírálata [The History of Hungarian Bourgeois Radicalism

1900-1918: Criticism of Oscar Jászi's Ideology] (Budapest, 1960), p.276.(101) Világ (Dec. 21, 1918) "A szocialista földprogramm" [The socialist land reform] in ibid.

(Feb. 2, 1919) "Az archimedesi pont" [The point of Archimedes].(102) Oszkár Jászi, A Nemzetiségi Kérdés és Magyarországi Jöuője [The Nationality Question

and the Future of Hungary] (Budapest, 1911), p.27.

(103) Oszkár Jászi, A Nemzeti Államok Kialakulása és a Nemzetiségi Kérdés [The Formation of



26

the National States and the Nationality Question] (Budapest, 1912), pp.228-229 fn.2;

abridged edition (Budapest, 1986), pp.294-295 note 8.(104)

As one of the editors of the journal, Mihá1y Réz (professor of Kolozsvár University nowin Romania) regarded history as a process of racial struggle, and so approved power

politics on the basis of social Darwinism. Then, he used to attack Jászi whom he labeled

''an ardent admirer of European culture" for a danger of dismembering historic Hungary.

Cf. Mihály Réz,"A nemzeti á1lamok kialakulása és a nemzetiségi kérdés" [The formation

of the nation states and the nationality question], Magyar Figyelő (1912, vol. 2), p.328.(105) Oszhár Jászi, Mi a Radikalizmus? [What is the Radicalism?] (Budapest, 1918), p.13;

Marxizmus, vagy Liberális Szocializmus [Marxism, or Liberal Socialism?] (Paris, 1983),

pp.68-71.(106) Jászi, Magyar Kálvária Magyar Föltámadás, Munich edition, p.88, Budapest edition,

p.88; Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Hungary, p.75.(107) Jászi, Mi a Radikalizmus? pp.6-7.(108) Ibid., pp.8-9.(109) Jászi, Magyar Kálvária Magyar Föltámadás, Munich edition, p.157, Budapest edition,

p.160; Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Hungary, p.189.(110) Jászi, A Nemzeti Államok Kialakulása és a Nemzetiségi Kérdés, p.513; abridged edition of

1986, pp.260-261.(111) Oszkár Jászi, "Az új Magyarország felé" [Toward the New Hungary], Huszadik Század

(1907, vol. 8, no. 1), p.12.(112) Ránki ed., Magyarország története: 1918-1919, 1919-1945 [History of Hungary, vol.8], p.786.(113) Magyárország Rendeletek Tára [The Collected Decrees] (Budapest, 1919), pp.70-71; Az

1919. Évi Törvények Gyűjteménye [The Collection of Laws of 1919] (Budapest, 1920),

pp.72-83.(114) A Forradalmi Kormányzótanács és Népbiztosságok Rendeletei [The Decrees of

Revolutionary Governing Council and People's Commissars] (Budapest, 1919), vo1.1,

p.46.(115) Ibid.,vol. 5, pp.17.

(116) Jászi, Magyar Kálvária Magyar Föltámadás, Munich edition, p.94, Budapest edition,

p.95; Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Hungary, p.84.(117) Hajdu, The Hungarian Soviel Republic, p.58.(118) A Tanácsok Országos Gyűlésének Naplója, pp.187, 220: Reichel János.(119) Oscar Jászi, "Danubia: Old and New", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society

(1949, vol. 93. no.1), p.14.

(120) Oszkár Jászi, A Monarchia Jövője: A Dualizmus bukása és a Dunai Egyesült Éllamok [The



Future of the Monarchy: The Fall of the Dualism and the Danubian United States]

(Budapest, 1918), pp.38, 52; reprinted edition (Budapest, 1988), pp.38, 52.(121)

György Ránki, "A hit, az illúzió és a politika" [The faith, the illusion and the politics],Valóság (1977, no. 9), p.62.

(122) Seton-Watson, Racial Problems in Hungary, p.393.(123) Taylor, op. cit., p.58.(124) Gyula Mérei, A Magyar Polgári Pártok Programjai [The Programs of the Bourgeois

Parties] (Budapest, 1971), p.311.(125) Ernőné Müller, Eszmélés: Emlékezések Magyarországi Munkámozgalmi Elményeimre

[Recollection of a Personal Experience of the Working-Class Movement] (Budapest,

1964), p.268.(126) Zsuzsa L. Nagy, A Párizsi Békekonferencia és Magyarország 1918-1919 [The Paris Peace

Conference and Hungary 1918-1919] (Budapest, 1965), p.24.(127) Béla K. Király, "The Danubian Problem in Oscar Jászi's Political Thought", The New Hungaian

Quarterly (1965, vol. 5, no.1-2), p.124.(128) Robert A. Kann, The Multinalional Empire: Nationalism and National Reform in the Habsburg

Monarchy 1848-1918 (New York, 1977), vo1.1, p.149.(129) Kann, "Hungarian Jewry during Austria-Hungary's constitutional period", p.386.

Osaka University of Foreign Studies: Division of Europe I, Russian and East European

Studies (No. 1, 1997), pp.61-101