In the early 1900s, communism was largely nonexistent throughout Europe. Bela Kun was one of the first major European leaders to attempt to spread a new breed of Bolshevik-Communism to the rest of the world. While in Russia, young Vladimir Lenin recruited Kun to go to Hungary and spread his communist ideologies. In 1918, Kun arrived in Hungary to band together the existing factions of socialists into the Communist Party of Hungary. This political organization sought to use ideas of nationalism, tensions between socioeconomic classes, and xenophobia in order to gain popularity and become the ruling party of Hungary. Bela Kun was the first major non-Russian to spread the word of practical communism through Europe. This would lay the groundwork for the expansion of the Soviet
Union and contributes to the lasting propensity for authoritarianism in Eastern Europe. |
Sources to Get Started |