Party of Hungarian Life
헝가리 생활당
The Horthy-era Hungarian government party under the names it took after 1932: the Party of National Unity under Gyula Gömbös from 1932, and the Party of Hungarian Life under Pál Teleki from 1939. It pursued an authoritarian nationalist course, enacting anti-Jewish laws and alignment with Germany, and won more than two-thirds of the seats in the 1939 election. It lost any independent role after the German occupation of 1944 and was dissolved as a 'fascist organisation' on 26 February 1945.
In depth
Gyula Gömbös, who became prime minister in October 1932, renamed the Unity Party the Party of National Unity and set out to turn it into a mass party, using paid party organisers and heavy propaganda. His 95-point 'National Work Plan' envisaged greater state direction of the economy and a more authoritarian state order, but it was only partly carried out because of resistance from Horthy and the conservatives around István Bethlen. Bethlen and his followers left the party in 1935. The Hungarian-language source puts the party's seats in the 1935 election at 171, the German-language source at 149.
After Gömbös died in office in October 1936, Kálmán Darányi at first restrained the radical right, but in March 1938 he announced a rearmament programme in the Győr Programme and foreshadowed legislation restricting Jews. Under his successor Béla Imrédy the First Jewish Law was passed, and in November 1938 the First Vienna Award returned part of the lost territory. At the end of 1938 a large group of government deputies left over a revision of parliamentary standing orders, leaving the party in a minority for the first time.
After Imrédy resigned in February 1939 and Pál Teleki became prime minister, the Hungarian Life Movement launched by Imrédy was merged into the party, which took the name Party of Hungarian Life; the Hungarian- and Russian-language sources date the renaming to 2 February, the German-language source to 22 February. In the May 1939 election it won 187 of 260 seats according to the Hungarian-language source and 181 according to the German-language source; the English-language source gives 72 percent of the seats and 49 percent of the vote. The Second Jewish Law was passed the same year. In October 1940 the most pro-Nazi deputies followed Imrédy out of the party to form the Party of Hungarian Renewal.
After Teleki's suicide in April 1941, Hungary joined the attack on Yugoslavia and the war against the Soviet Union under László Bárdossy. Miklós Kállay, prime minister from March 1942, sought secret contacts with the Western Allies, which caused tensions within the party as well. When German troops occupied Hungary in March 1944, Kállay had to step down. The party was not dissolved but remained one of four permitted parties; its moderates were purged, some being arrested by the Gestapo, and 23 deputies lost their seats. After Ferenc Szálasi's Arrow Cross took power in October 1944 the party played no independent role, and it was dissolved as a fascist organisation on 26 February 1945.