Hungarian Americans

HUNGARIAN AMERICANS. The origins of Hungarian radicalism can be traced back to the failed revolution of 1848 and the flight of Lajos Kossuth and others who found asylum in the United States. But for the most part this immigration followed the general pattern of other eastern and southern Europeans. About 1.7 million Hungarians emigrated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire before World War I and between one-third and one-half of these were Hungarian-speaking Magyars. Most were peasants, but a third were industrial and/or itinerant workers, whose acquaintance with socialism and unions in Budapest and other Hungarian cities laid the basis for the development of the Hungarian American Left.

The Hungarians concentrated in New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Hartford, Chicago, and other large eastern and midwestern cities, working primarily in mining and heavy industry, especially coal, stockyards, iron, steel, and in the 1930s rubber and automobiles. Within these industries Hungarians were frequently given the most dangerous jobs, with resultant high accident rates. In New York, Chicago, Cleveland, and the smaller cities of New Jersey, skilled workers congregated and worked in trades such as printing, cabinetmaking, and painting.

Although there were at least four Hungarian locals of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) among the printers, carpenters, furniture workers (Wurlitzer piano makers), and miners, the AFL had little impact among Hungarians because the vast majority of Hungarians were unskilled. Many of the unskilled were used as strikebreakers, but some were active in the Industrial Workers of the World and published a Hungarian-language paper in Chicago, Bermunkas (Wage Worker). In the 1920s Hungarians played a prominent role in the Passaic, New Jersey, textile strike, providing organizers such as James Lustig with more than $15,000 in cash. Since most Hungarian workers were concentrated in the mass-production industries, they also played a role in organizing the most important of the unions affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations: United Automobile Workers, United Steel Workers, International Fur and Leather Workers, and the United Electrical Workers (especially Julius Emspack), in the United Mine Workers, the Painters Union (especially Louis Weinstock), and the Carpenters Union.

Because most Hungarian American radicals integrated themselves into the union movement, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Labor Party, and the Communist Party, it is difficult to trace their particular ethnic contribution. But involvement in the Left grew out of, and drew strength from, Hungarian sick and benevolent societies (e.g., Altalanos Magyar Munkas Betegseglyz, Hungarian Workers Benefit Association), and especially from the Hungarian Left press that developed at the turn of the century.

In 1905 the Socialist Party founded its own paper, Elöre (Forward), which has continued under various names and radical sponsorships until the present day. From period to period, as the economic or political situation permitted, it came out as a weekly, a biweekly, and a daily. During World War I it became very attentive to American and international issues, with less emphasis on Hungarian nationalist concerns. It also took a strong anti-war and anti-imperialist position and as a result the Wilson government took away its mailing rights and investigated and arrested a number of its editors and supporters. Hungarian American radicals fought against the restrictions against Elöre by delivering the paper by hand and by mailing it to subscribers in other packages.

The postwar repression and Red Scare were more than offset by the excitement generated by the Hungarian Revolution in 1918–1919. Readership increased greatly as radicalism and nationalism were joined. The Hungarian Left in America was further strengthened when, after the failure of the revolution, a coterie of intellectuals, artists, writers, and left-wing leaders migrated to the United States. At the same time the Socialists split, the Communist Party was founded. Many of the leaders of the Hungarian American Left followed the leadership of the Communist Party, including the editors of Elöre, which was renamed Uj Elöre (New Forward) on 5 November 1921. The paper was published in Chicago, New York, Cleveland, and finally back in New York again in 1937.

During the 1920s and 1930s the press and sick and benevolent associations such as Rakoczi (named for the leader of the 1903–1911 revolution) and certain branches of Verhobay helped sustain a sense of community with educational meetings, picnics, and banquets. But the most important unifying force was opposition to the fascist regime of Miklos Horthy that ruled Hungary from 1919 through World War II. The post–World War I period saw a flowering of cultural and political activity. There were about forty weekly papers supported by Hungarian Workers Clubs in dozens of cities from Akron to Hartford to Newark to Elizabeth. In 1927 the Anti-Fascist League in the United States was formed by groups associated with the Communist Party, and in 1937 it met in Buffalo and reorganized as a Popular Front organization, the Hungarian Democratic Federation, which attracted prominent Hungarian American liberals such as the actor Bela Lugosi, who served as its president, as well as Communists such as the artist Hugo Gellert.

With the war over and the establishment of the Hungarian People’s Republic, there was a major split in the Hungarian community. One group supported Hungary’s ties with the Eastern bloc and the others were very opposed. In the early 1950s, Uj Elöre, which had been renamed in 1938 to support the Popular Front, became the weekly Magyar Szo (Magyar Voice), which openly supported the Communist regime.

The Hungarian American community suffered a major jolt with the brutal Soviet repression of a popular uprising in 1956. The Magyar Szo remained supportive of the Communist government and because of its point of view lost a good deal of its readership. But in addition to this political difficulty, there was a natural attrition of the older Hungarian readership, who died or moved to California or Florida. The Magyar Szo continued into the late 1980s as a weekly, although in reduced form.

Deák, Zoltán. This Noble Flame: Portrait of a Hungarian Newspaper in the USA,
1902–1982. New York: Heritage Press, 1982.

Foreign Language Federations
(1890s-1930). Hungarian Federations. Marxist Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/eam/lf/lfedhungarian.html