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Hungary Bethlen Government
Horthy appointed Pal Teleki prime minister in July
1920. His
right-wing government set quotas effectively limiting
admission
of Jews to universities, legalized corporal punishment,
and, to
quiet rural discontent, took initial steps toward
fulfilling a
promise of major land reform by dividing about 385,000
hectares
from the largest estates into smallholdings. Teleki's
government
resigned, however, after the former emperor, Karl IV,
unsuccessfully attempted to retake Hungary's throne in
March
1921. King Karl's return narhed a split parties between
conservatives who favored a Habsburg restoration and
nationalist
right-wing radicals who supported election of a Hungarian
king.
Bethlen, a nonaffiliated, right-wing member of the
parliament,
took advantage of this rift by convincing members of the
Christian National Union who opposed Karl's reenthronement
to
merge with the Smallholders' Party and form a new Party of
Unity
with Bethlen as its leader. Horthy then appointed Bethlen
prime
minister.
As prime minister, Bethlen dominated Hungarian politics
between 1921 and 1931. He fashioned a political machine by
amending the electoral law, eliminating peasants from the
Party
of Unity, providing jobs in the bureaucracy to his
supporters,
and manipulating elections in rural areas. Bethlen
restored order
to the country by giving the radical
counterrevolutionaries
payoffs and government jobs in exchange for ceasing their
campaign of terror against Jews and leftists. In 1921
Bethlen
made a deal with the Social Democrats and trade unions,
agreeing,
among other things, to legalize their activities and free
political prisoners in return for their pledge to refrain
from
spreading anti-Hungarian propaganda, calling political
strikes,
and organizing the peasantry. In May 1922, the Party of
Unity
captured a large parliamentary majority. Karl IV's death,
soon
after he failed a second time to reclaim the throne in
October
1921, allowed the revision of the Treaty of Trianon to
rise to
the top of Hungary's political agenda. Bethlen's strategy
to win
the treaty's revision was first to strengthen his
country's
economy and then to build relations with stronger nations
that
could further Hungary's goals. Revision of the treaty had
such a
broad backing in Hungary that Bethlen used it, at least in
part,
to deflect criticism of his economic, social, and
political
policies. However, Bethlen's only foreign policy success
was a
treaty of friendship with Italy in 1927, which had little
immediate impact.
Data as of September 1989
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