Szamuelly, Tibor

Born Dec. 27, 1890, in Nyíregyháza; died Aug. 2, 1919. Figure in the Hungarian workers’ movement; one of the founders of the Communist Party of Hungary (CPH).

The son of an office worker, Szamuelly studied at a Gymnasium and a trade school. He joined the Social Democratic Party of Hungary in 1908; beginning in 1913 he was a contributor to the newspaper Népszava, the party’s central organ. He was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army in 1914 and was captured on the Russian front in 1915. He participated in the founding of the Hungarian group of the RCP(B) in March 1918; he was also active in suppressing the Left Socialist Revolutionary Revolt of 1918 in Moscow.

Szamuelly returned to Hungary in January 1919 and was elected a member of the Central Committee of the CPH and of the editorial collegium of the newspaper Vörös Ujság, the party’s central organ. During the Hungarian Soviet Republic, Szamuelly was deputy people’s commissar of defense, people’s commissar of education, and head of the committee for ensuring the security of the rear. In May 1919 he went to Moscow for negotiations with V. I. Lenin. Szamuelly was killed by counterrevolutionaries while crossing the Austrian frontier after the downfall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic.