A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Historica 8. (Szeged, 2005)

SIPOS József: Parasztpárok és az impériumváltás Erdélyben

JÓZSEF SIPOS PEASANT PARTIES AND THE CHANGE OF RULE IN TRANSYLVANIA The study examines the policy and activity of the Hungarian peasant parties, the National Smallholders Party (active with this name from November 1918) and the National Peasant Party (founded in December 1918) at the time of the change of rule. The paper presents the new policies concerning Transylvania and the national question developed during the revolution of 1918-19. These parties — although reluctantly — accepted the Belgrade Military Convention, but condemned the Romanian military occupation of Transylvania. Placing confidence in a Wilsonian peace treaty, they requested the peaceful acceptation of the occupation from the Hungarian-Szekler peasantry. After this introduction the study outlines the formulation of the local branches of these parties on new source material. The Smallholders Party had local branches already at the end of the First World War in Transylvania in the counties of Maros, Torda, Temes, Bihar and Csanád. This party formulated new branches even at the turn of 1918/19 in the counties of Arad, Bihar and Szatmár not occupied at that time by the Romanian army. In November 1919 the National Peasant Party founded Peasant Councils mainly at Szeklerland, but also in the counties of Maros-Torda, Torda-Aranyos, Kisküküllő, Nagyküküllő, Kolozs, KrassóSzörény, Arad, Bihar, Szilágy and Szatmár. These councils based on the leaders of the Hangya Production, Consumer and Marketing Co-operative were founded before the First World War. On the basis of these councils the local branches of the National Peasant Party were created at the turn of 1918/19 mainly in the territories not occupied by the Romanian army. Present paper aims at proving the fact that the local branches of the Hangya Production, Consumer and Marketing Co-operative, the peasant parties mentioned above and the Hungarian Framer Association all provided a certain kind of institutional continuity to the democratic peasant party, the Transylvanian People's Party founded in Bánffyhunyad (today Huedin, Romania) on 5 June 1921. This new peasant party was led by Károly Kós.