Ságvári Ágnes (szerk.): Budapest. The History of a Capital (Budapest, 1975)

Budapest in the Inter-War Period (1919-1945)

(Rose Hill), to the West, along the sides of Mount Gellért and the Sváb-hegy (later Szabadság-hegy or Liberty Hill) the garden suburbs of the wealthy bourgeoisie were built. The 11th and 12th districts were marked by the blocks of flats and houses of the more prosperous, higher civil servants. The overcrowded tenement blocks of the 8th and 9th districts, inhabited by workers and by the poorer petty-bourgeois, were a world away from the rich citizens of the Inner City, Lipótváros and New Lipótváros (today’s 5th District and the southern part of the 13th). The then 13th district, Angyalföld, the Váci út and its surroundings were one of the centres of industry and the labour movement, with “Red Csepel” on Csepel Island, the bastion of the Budapest workers.

Left-Wing Opposition in Budapest

From the minute it took power, the counter-revolutionary municipality had to face strong left-wing opposition, which it was unable to break. The backbone and largest mass support of the left came from the industrial workers. In spite of the agreement reached between the Government and the Social Democratic Party leadership in 1921, the political and economic struggle of organized labour went on. The post-war economic crisis and inflation, which lasted until 1926, the burdens incurred in the stabilization of the economy, and later the great crisis of 1929-1931 primarily affected the workers and all with low wages or salaries. These disasters in the face of a living standard already substantially lower than those of Western Europe, and compounded by an economic policy discriminating in favour of the upper classes, reduced the situation of the petty-bourgeois masses to the level of the industrial workers; and among the workers unemployment became a permanent background to their lives. A decided, but only fleeting change for the better came with the surge of industrial prosperity previous to the Second World War.

Any introduction of unemployment benefit was not only rejected by the Government and Parliament, but by the Municipal General Assembly as well. In their place various welfare activities were initiated (the “pot of soup” run by Jenő Sipőcz, and “Uncle Robert’s soup-kitchen” in Calvin Square). “White-collared” unemployed cleared snow in winter and temporary relief works were provided for them. In 1930 there were 10,000 applications for 600 jobs of this kind.

Economic and political discontent led to the formation of the Socialist Workers’ Party of Hungary in 1925, organized by the left-wing opposition within the Social Democrats and by the underground Communist Party. Until 1928 this party was legally recognized, and campaigned for a democratic and socialist transformation of the country, and more immediately for a decisive voice of the workers in the government of the city.

The strikes and demonstrations in the capital which followed one another in the twenties became morefrequent in the wake of the great economic crisis. On 1st of September 1930 the largest inter-war workers’ demonstration took place in Budapest. Tens of thousands of unemployed marched through the city demanding work and bread, cheering the dictatorship of the proletariat and the Soviet Union. Police intervention in the peaceful demonstration led to one death and several hundred injured. The 1st of September 1930 recalled the memory of the two revolutions of 1919 to the people. The Government replied with the introduction of summary courts and a ban on public meetings.

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