Sándor Garbai
Sándor Garbai | |
---|---|
Chairman of the Hungarian Central Executive Council | |
In office 21 March 1919 – 1 August 1919 | |
Prime Minister | Himself |
Preceded by | Mihály Károlyi (as President of Hungary) |
Succeeded by | Gyula Peidl |
Prime Minister of Hungary | |
In office 21 March 1919 – 1 August 1919 | |
Chairman | Himself |
Preceded by | Dénes Berinkey |
Succeeded by | Gyula Peidl |
Personal details | |
Born | Hungarian Social Democratic Party Hungarian Socialist and Communist Party | 27 March 1879
Spouse | Zsófia Pötördi |
Profession | politician, journalist |
Sándor Garbai (27 March 1879 – 7 November 1947) was a Hungarian socialist politician who served as both head of state and prime minister the de jure leader of the Hungarian Soviet Republic.
Life and political career
Garbai was born into the family of a Protestant bricklayer. An active participant in the labor movement from a young age, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Hungary (MSZDP) in 1901 and quickly rose through its ranks.[1]
From 1908 he was the chairman of the Workers' Insurance Fund and during the
According to historian Jerry Z. Muller, Mátyás Rákosi later joked that the revolution's Jewish leaders took the gentile Garbai in so that they would have somebody to sign the death sentences on Shabbat.[3]
After the fall of the Soviet Republic, he was arrested by the Romanian military. Fearing reprisals, Garbai escaped from Romanian captivity in Cluj and fled to Czechoslovakia and first in settled Bratislava and then emigrated to Vienna. He was a leader of the centrist Marxist movement among the Hungarian political refugees. With his family, he opened a restaurant in Vienna, where he hosted former communist and other socialist leaders. The restaurant soon went bankrupt, Garbai suffered huge financial losses and lived in poverty for the rest of his lifetime. After leaving Austria in 1934 due to the victory of the right-wing Fatherland Front, he settled in Bratislava, and in 1938, in Paris.[4]
During the
Garbai remained in Paris where he died on 7 November 1947.[1]
References
- ^ ISBN 9781317475941.
- ^ "Politikatörténeti Intézet" (in Hungarian). Retrieved 2 January 2022.
- ^ Jerry Z. Muller , Capitalism and the Jews, Princeton University Press, 2010, page 153
- , retrieved 2 January 2022