History/Political Science paper by Bodó, Béla
Panel Proposal: Trianon Issues. II. Action and Reaction: the Shared Roots and the Divergent Causes of the Red and White Terrors (Accepted)
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
My presentation will examine the rise of left and right-wing paramilitary violence in Hungary after the First World War. The presentation will address the controversial question of whether, and if so, then to what extent, the White Terror was a reaction to the Red Terror. The presentation will touch on the long-term causes of the Red and White Terrors, such as labor militancy and police brutality and the rise of anarchism, proto-fascism and antisemitism and the birth of the student militias before 1914. The presentation will discuss the war-time experiences of officers and peasant and working- lass recruits, as well as the brutalizing impact of the long military conflict on soldiers, their family members and society at large. It will pay special attention to the place of the militias in the political and military hierarchies of the Communist and counterrevolutionary regimes (and their proximity to selected leaders), the unique structure of paramilitary groups, and the role of charismatic leadership and youth culture as the shared causes of the Red and White terrors. At the same time, it will also draw attention to the different social composition of the Red and White paramilitary groups and the diverging social aspirations of their leaders and rank-and-file. Finally, the paper will discuss political paranoia, ideology and political culture, particularly the role of antisemitism, as sources of violence against class and ethnic enemies during this controversial period in Hungarian history.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Béla Bodó, PhD, is professor of East European History at the University of Bonn. He is the author of numerous articles published in academic journals on the White Terror. His monographs are the following: The White Terror: Political and Antisemitic Violence in Hungary, 1919-1923 (London: Routledge, June, 2019). Pál Prónay: Paramilitary Violence and Anti-Semitism in Hungary, 1919-1922 (Pittsburg University Press: Beck Papers, 2010). Tiszazug: the Social History of a Murder Epidemic (New York: Columbia University Press: Eastern European Monographs, 2002).