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Hungary Radical Right in Power
Gombos's appointment marked the beginning of the
radical
right's ascendancy in Hungarian politics, which lasted
with few
interruptions until 1945. The radical right garnered its
support
from medium and small farmers, former refugees from
Hungary's
lost territories, and unemployed civil servants, army
officers,
and university graduates. Gombos advocated a one-party
government, revision of the Treaty of Trianon, withdrawal
from
the League of Nations, anti-intellectualism, and social
reform.
He assembled a political machine, but his efforts to
fashion a
one-party state and fulfill his reform platform were
frustrated
by a parliament composed mostly of Bethlen's supporters
and by
Hungary's creditors, who forced Gombos to follow
conventional
policies in dealing with the economic and financial
crisis. The
1935 elections gave Gombos more solid support in the
parliament,
and he succeeded in gaining control of the ministries of
finance,
industry, and defense and in replacing several key
military
officers with his supporters. In September 1936, Gombos
informed
German officials that he would establish a Nazi-like,
one-party
government in Hungary within two years, but he died in
October
without realizing this goal.
In foreign affairs, Gombos led Hungary toward close
relations
with Italy and Germany; in fact, Gombos coined the term
Axis, which was later adopted by the German-Italian
military alliance. Soon after his appointment, Gombos
visited
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and gained his support
for
revision of the Treaty of Trianon. Later, Gombos became
the first
foreign head of government to visit German chancellor
Adolf
Hitler. For a time, Hungary profited handsomely, as Gombos
signed
a trade agreement with Germany that drew Hungary's economy
out of
depression but made Hungary dependent on the German
economy for
both raw materials and markets. In 1928 Germany had
accounted for
19.5 percent of Hungary's imports and 11.7 percent of its
exports; by 1939 the figures were 52.5 percent and 52.2
percent,
respectively. Hungary's annual rate of economic growth
from 1934
to 1940 averaged 10.8 percent. The number of workers in
industry
doubled in the ten years after 1933, and the number of
agricultural workers dropped below 50 percent for the
first time
in the country's history. Hungary also used its
relationship with
Germany to chip away at the Treaty of Trianon. In 1938
Hungary
openly repudiated the treaty's restrictions on its armed
forces.
With German help, Hungary extended its territory four
times and
doubled in size from 1938 to 1941. It regained parts of
southern
Slovakia in 1938, Carpatho-Ukraine in 1939, northern
Transylvania
in 1940, and parts of Vojvodina in 1941.
Hitler's assistance did not come without a price. After
1938
the fuhrer used promises of additional territories,
economic
pressure, and threats of military intervention to pressure
the
Hungarians into supporting his policies, including those
related
to Europe's Jews, which encouraged Hungary's anti-Semites.
The
percentage of Jews in business, finance, and the
professions far
exceeded the percentage of Jews in the overall population.
The
1930 census showed that Jews made up only 5.1 percent of
the
population but provided 54.5 percent of its physicians,
31.7
percent of its journalists, and 49.2 percent of its
lawyers. Jews
controlled an estimated 19.5 percent to 33 percent of the
national income, four of the five leading banks, and 80
percent
of Hungary's industry. After the depression struck,
anti-Semites
made the Jews scapegoats for Hungary's economic plight.
Hungary's Jews suffered the first blows of this renewed
anti-Semitism during the government of Gombos's successor,
Kalman
Daranyi, who fashioned a coalition of conservatives and
reactionaries and dismantled Gombos's political machine.
After
Horthy publicly dashed hopes of land reform, discontented
rightwingers took to the streets denouncing the government and
baiting
the Jews. Daranyi's government attempted to appease the
anti-Semites and the Nazis by proposing and passing the
first socalled Jewish Law, which set quotas limiting Jews to 20
percent
of the positions in certain businesses and professions.
The law
failed to satisfy Hungary's anti-Semitic radicals,
however, and
when Daranyi tried to appease them again, Horthy unseated
him in
1938. The regent then appointed the ill-starred Bela
Imredy, who
drafted a second, harsher Jewish Law before political
opponents
forced his resignation in February 1939 by presenting
documents
showing that Imredy's own grandfather was a Jew.
Imredy's downfall led to Pal Teleki's return to the
prime
minister's office. Teleki dissolved some of the fascist
parties
but did not alter the fundamental policies of his
predecessors.
He undertook a bureaucratic reform and launched cultural
and
educational programs to help the rural poor. Illiteracy
dropped
to about 7 percent by 1941. But Teleki also oversaw
passage of
the second Jewish Law, which broadened the definition of
"Jewishness," cut the quotas on Jews permitted in the
professions
and in business, and required that the quotas be attained
by the
hiring of Gentiles or the firing of Jews. By the June 1939
elections, Hungarian public opinion had shifted so far to
the
right that voters gave the Arrow Cross Party--Hungary's
equivalent of Germany's National Socialist German Workers'
Party
(the Nazi Party)--the second highest number of votes. In
September 1940, the Hungarian government allowed German
troops to
transit the country on their way to Romania, and on
November 20,
1940, Hungary signed the Tripartite Pact, which allied
Germany,
Italy, and Japan.
Data as of September 1989
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