László Rudas
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László Rudas (born Adolf Róth; 21 February 1885, in
Sárvár Sárvár (german: Kotenburg or ; la, Bassiana; sl, Mala Sela) is a town in Vas County, Hungary. Sárvár lies on the banks of the River Rába at Kemeneshát. The population is nearly 16,000. The town has become a tourist centre of internatio ...
– 29 April, 1950, in
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
) was a Hungarian
communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
newspaper editor,
Marxist–Leninist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialect ...
philosopher, professor and politician who survived the
Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
to become director of the Central Party School of the
Communist Party of Hungary The Hungarian Communist Party ( hu, Magyar Kommunista Párt, abbr. MKP), known earlier as the Party of Communists in Hungary ( hu, Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja, abbr. KMP), was a communist party in Hungary that existed during the interwar ...
.


Biography


Before the 1918 Revolution

László Rudas was born in
Sárvár Sárvár (german: Kotenburg or ; la, Bassiana; sl, Mala Sela) is a town in Vas County, Hungary. Sárvár lies on the banks of the River Rába at Kemeneshát. The population is nearly 16,000. The town has become a tourist centre of internatio ...
in to a poor
Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
family,
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
on 21 February 1885. He joined the
Social Democratic Party of Hungary The Social Democratic Party of Hungary ( hu, Magyarországi Szociáldemokrata Párt, MSZDP) is a social democratic political party in Hungary. Historically, the party was dissolved during the occupation of Hungary by Nazi Germany (1944–1945) ...
(SDP) in 1903 as a university student and identified with the
revolutionary socialist Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revoluti ...
left wing of the party. From 1905 he was on the staff of ''Népszava'' (People's Voice), the official organ of the Hungarian SDP. Following the October 1918 Hungarian Revolution, Rudas consistently stood on the left wing of the Hungarian SDP, voting with a minority of the Central Committee to condemn the Hungarian majority socialists for participation in the independent Hungarian government of
Mihály Károlyi Count Mihály Ádám György Miklós Károlyi de Nagykároly ( hu, gróf nagykárolyi Károlyi Mihály Ádám György Miklós; archaically English: Michael Adam George Nicholas Károlyi, or in short simple form: Michael Károlyi; 4 March 1875 ...
. Whereas the majority socialists sought an independent Hungary within the framework of a monarchy, the left wing sought insurrection leading to establishment of a workers' republic of the
Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
type, as was currently being established in
Soviet Russia The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
. On November 17, 1918, Rudas and his co-thinker, János Hirrosik, called a secret meeting of 50 left wing members of the SDP. Rudas denounced the compromises made by the leadership of his party and called for the immediate formation of a new radical political organization, an idea which was not immediately supported by a majority of the session's participants. However, a week later, on November 24, members of the SDP met in a private apartment in
Buda Buda (; german: Ofen, sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Budim, Будим, Czech and sk, Budín, tr, Budin) was the historic capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and since 1873 has been the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest, on the ...
and acceded to Béla Kun's demand for the establishment of the
Communist Party of Hungary The Hungarian Communist Party ( hu, Magyar Kommunista Párt, abbr. MKP), known earlier as the Party of Communists in Hungary ( hu, Kommunisták Magyarországi Pártja, abbr. KMP), was a communist party in Hungary that existed during the interwar ...
. Rudas was a member from the Party's inception and was one of 18 original members on its first Central Committee. members. He also served as editor-in-chief of the party's official newspaper, ''Vörös Ujság'' ("Red Gazette"). Rudas was the first translator of
V.I. Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
's ''The'' ''State and Revolution'' into Hungarian and also produced a number of other translations of Russian pamphlet literature. Rudas was designated as the delegate of the Hungarian party to the founding congress of the
Communist International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...
(Comintern) in March 1919, but was unable to reach
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
until a month after the gathering had concluded. Rudas stayed in Moscow for several months, attending meetings of the
Executive Committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
of the Communist International (ECCI). He then left for
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
and
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, where he took part in the highly factionalized politics of the exiled Hungarian Communist Party (CP). During the Hungarian Revolution, Rudas stood with the far left of the revolutionary government, urging "strong and merciless" application of the proletarian dictatorship "until the world revolution spreads elsewhere in Europe." He was regarded by revolutionary leader Béla Kun as an advisor on ideological matters, along with
György Lukács György Lukács (born György Bernát Löwinger; hu, szegedi Lukács György Bernát; german: Georg Bernard Baron Lukács von Szegedin; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, critic, and ae ...
.


After the fall of the Hungarian Revolution

After the fall of the Hungarian revolutionary government, Rudas was among the 100,000 people who emigrated from the country, avoiding the fate of many — some 5,000 executions were conducted and 75,000 imprisonments made of revolutionary participants by the right wing regime of
Miklós Horthy Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya ( hu, Vitéz nagybányai Horthy Miklós; ; English: Nicholas Horthy; german: Nikolaus Horthy Ritter von Nagybánya; 18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957), was a Hungarian admiral and dictator who served as the Regent o ...
. Rudas, ever the leftist, drew a radical conclusion from the fall of the Kun regime, declaring in 1920 that "the mistake lay not in unification f various strata of the country behind the revolutionary government The mistake was in the communists' abandonment of the struggle to captivate the masses." In the extreme factional politics following the fall of the revolution, the hardline Rudas was an opponent of József Pogány (
John Pepper John Pepper, also known as József Pogány and Joseph Pogany (born József Schwartz; November 8, 1886 – February 8, 1938), was a Hungarian Communist politician. He later served as a functionary in the Communist International (Comintern) in Mos ...
), regarded by the left wing as an
opportunist Opportunism is the practice of taking advantage of circumstances – with little regard for principles or with what the consequences are for others. Opportunist actions are expedient actions guided primarily by self-interested motives. The term ...
; the moderate wing of the Communist Party regarded Rudas and his associates as dangerous revolutionary adventurers. In March 1922 Rudas returned to Moscow to attend meetings of ECCI and its Presidium. He was co-opted into the Comintern apparatus, remaining to teach in Moscow at the
Institute of Red Professors An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes can ...
, later at the Comintern's
International Lenin School The International Lenin School (ILS) was an official training school operated in Moscow, Soviet Union, by the Communist International from May 1926 to 1938. It was resumed after the Second World War and run by the Communist Party of the Soviet Unio ...
. During the 1930s, Rudas worked at the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute in Moscow and contributed frequently to the theoretical journal ''Pod znamenem marksizma'' ("
Under the Banner of Marxism ''Under the Banner of Marxism'' (russian: Под знаменем марксизма, german: Unter dem Banner des Marxismus) was a Soviet philosophical and socio-economic journal published in Moscow from 1922 to 1944. It was published monthly, e ...
"). He was arrested in 1938, during the last days of the
Great Terror The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
, but was subsequently released. He was arrested again in 1941 during the first panicky days of the German invasion but was released again, along with Lukács, who had also been taken in the roundup. After the conclusion of the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Rudas returned to Hungary, where he became director of the Central Party School of the Communist Party of Hungary as well as a member of the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences The Hungarian Academy of Sciences ( hu, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, MTA) is the most important and prestigious learned society of Hungary. Its seat is at the bank of the Danube in Budapest, between Széchenyi rakpart and Akadémia utca. Its ma ...
. He also served as a member of parliament from 1945 to 1950. Rudas was a voice of staunch party orthodoxy, leading a criticism of the ideas of Lukács in 1949.Kovrig, ''Communism in Hungary: From Kun to Kádár,'' p. 261. László Rudas died in
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
on 29 April 1950.


Footnotes


Works


Books and pamphlets

* ''Dialectical Materialism and Communism.'' London: Labour Monthly, 1934. 2nd ed., 1935.


Articles

* "The Proletarian Revolution in Hungary," ''The Communist International,'' vol. 1, no. 1 (May 1, 1919), p. 55. * "The Meaning of Sidney Hook," ''The Communist,'' vol. 14, no. 4 (April 1935), pp. 326–349.


Further reading

* "Lazlo Rudas: An Obituary," ''Labour Monthly'', vol. 32, no. 7 (July 1950), p. 325. {{DEFAULTSORT:Rudas, Laszlo 1885 births 1950 deaths People from Sárvár Members of the Hungarian Working People's Party Hungarian Comintern people Hungarian Communist Party politicians Hungarian expatriates in the Soviet Union Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (1945–1947) Hungarian Marxists 20th-century Hungarian philosophers Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (1947–1949) Members of the National Assembly of Hungary (1949–1953) Executive Committee of the Communist International