Peyer, Károly

Peyer, Károly 

Born May 9, 1881, in Városle̋d; died Oct. 25, 1956, in New York. Hungarian politician; a leader of the right-wing Social Democrats.

A member of the leadership of the metalworkers’ union from 1906 to 1911, Peyer was elected to the leadership of the Social Democratic Party of Hungary in 1917. The next year he was elected secretary of the All-Hungarian Union of Miners and Metalworkers. In early 1919, as a commissar of D. Berinkey’s government, Peyer participated in the suppression of revolutionary actions by miners. At the time of the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919, he supported the exclusion of the Communists from the government and negotiations with the Entente. After the overthrow of the soviet government in Hungary, Peyer served as minister of internal affairs (in August 1919) and organized the counterrevolutionary terror. He was a deputy to the National Assembly during the Horthy regime (1919-44). With other right-wing Social Democratic leaders, Peyer signed a secret agreement with I. Bethlen’s government in December 1921 (seeBETHLEN-PEYER PACT OF 1921). This agreement was directed against the labor movement. After a people’s democracy was established in Hungary, Peyer opposed the Social Democratic Party’s cooperation with the Communists. He was expelled from the party in the summer of 1947 and soon emigrated to the USA, where he engaged in subversive activities against the Hungarian People’s Republic.