John Pepper
Encyclopedia
- This article is about the Hungarian Communist. For the American executive, see John E. Pepper, Jr.John E. Pepper, Jr.John E. Pepper, Jr. serves as chief executive officer of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and chairman of the board of The Walt Disney Company. Previously, he served as vice president of finance and administration at Yale University from January 2004 to December 2005...
.
John Pepper, also known as József Pogány, born József Schwartz (1886–1938) was a Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
-Jewish Communist politician, active in the radical movements of both Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
and the United States. He later served as a functionary in the Communist International in Moscow, before being cashiered in 1929. Later an official in the Soviet government, Pepper ran afoul of the secret police
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
and was executed during the Great Terror
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
of 1937–38.
Early years
József Pogány was born in BudapestBudapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, Hungary on 8 November 1886. While little is known about his early years, Pogány's family were ethnic Jews with the original surname of Schwartz. The surname "Pogány" seems to have been adopted as a means of de-emphasizing Jewish family origins in order to dodge popular anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
.
Hungarian revolutionary
Pogány worked as a high school teacher and journalist in Hungary prior to the revolution of 1918–1919. He wrote for the official organ of the Hungarian Social Democratic PartyHungarian Social Democratic Party
The Hungarian Social Democratic Party is a political party in Hungary. Both the MSZDP and SZDP lay claim to the same heritage: the Social Democratic Party which was part of a governing coalition in Hungary between 1945 and 1948, and a short period in 1956, which itself was renamed from the...
, Népszava
Népszava
Népszava is a Social-democratic newspaper established in 1877 in Budapest by Viktor Külföldi. It was the official newspaper of the Hungarian Social Democratic Party until 1948....
(People's Voice), and was a war correspondent
War correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
during the years of World War I.
Despite his lack of military credentials outside of the time he spent as a war reporter, at the time of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918, Pogány found himself as the leader of the Budapest Soldiers' Soviet. While Pogány dedicated himself to promotion of what one historian has called "the often impossible demands of the soldiers," he nonetheless remained for a time supportive of the policies of the left-wing government of Count Mihály Karolyi
Mihály Károlyi
Count Mihály Ádám György Miklós Károlyi de Nagykároly was briefly Hungary's leader in 1918-19 during a short-lived democracy...
.
On 13 November 1918, Kalolyi's new minister of defense, Albert Bartha
Albert Bartha
Albert Bartha de Nagyborosnyó was a Hungarian military officer and politician, who served as Minister of Defence twice: in 1918 and, almost thirty years later, between 1946 and 1947.-Works:...
, decided to take on the Budapest Soldiers' Soviet head on in an attempt to bolster the sagging discipline of the army. Bartha declared that he would "no longer tolerate Soldiers' Councils," a position which greatly agitated the newly empowered soldiers. On 4 December he was forced to retreat from this position, however, when the disciplinary power of the officers was transferred to new popularly elected military tribunals. Bartha attempted to dodge this decision with the establishment of new disciplinary "flying squads," but this move was regarded as counterrevolutionary and Bartha was forced to resign on 11 December. Before this resignation was publicized, Pogány, acting without the endorsement of the Social Democratic Party, led a soldiers' demonstration on the Ministry of Defense demanding Bartha's dismissal. The formal announcement of the resignation on 12 December made it appear to have been the direct result of the street action, further bolstering the status of the Budapest Soldiers' Soviet at the expense of the authority of the officers corps.
At the time of the March 1919 uprising which proclaimed a Hungarian Soviet Republic
Hungarian Soviet Republic
The Hungarian Soviet Republic or Soviet Republic of Hungary was a short-lived Communist state established in Hungary in the aftermath of World War I....
with Béla Kun
Béla Kun
Béla Kun , born Béla Kohn, was a Hungarian Communist politician and a Bolshevik Revolutionary who led the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919.- Early life :...
as de facto leader, Pogány cast his lot decisively with the revolution. The Communist Party of Hungary
Hungarian Communist Party
The Communist Party of Hungary , renamed Hungarian Communist Party in 1945, was founded on November 24, 1918, and was in power in Hungary briefly from March to August 1919 under Béla Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The communist government was overthrown by the Romanian Army and driven...
(KMP) first merged with radical members of the Social Democratic Party to form a single organization. Pogány was one of five party leaders signing the unity document on behalf of the Left Socialists. While the two parties were formally ratifying the agreement, Pogány's Soldiers' Soviet assumed control of the Budapest police, occupied the collector jail, and dispatched armed bands throughout the capital to intimidate political opponents.
A Revolutionary Governing Council was established on 21 March 1919, with Pogány named the People's Commissar of War of the new revolutionary regime. The first two decrees of the Revolutionary Governing Council instituted the death penalty for armed resistance to the new regime and a total prohibition of alcohol consumption in Hungary. The next day, newspapers appeared carrying the proclamation drafted by Kun and Pogány proclaiming the establishment of a Hungarian Soviet Republic.
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
elements from the Hungarian military and to abolish conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
. It was hoped that a new recruitment campaign targeted at wage-workers and landless peasants would make up the losses, resulting in a homogeneous and loyal military organization. This policy, begun by Pogány and continued by his successor, proved to be a total failure, however, as only about 5,000 qualified individuals chose to enlist in the Hungarian Red Army after an intensive three week campaign.
The former Communists did not trust the former Left-Socialists now enlisted as party allies, however. Pogány clashed pointedly with a number of hardline Communist Party radicals, including Tibor Szamuely
Tibor Szamuely
Tibor Szamuely was a Hungarian Communist leader.Born in Nyíregyháza, a city in the Northeast of Hungary, Szamuely was the oldest son of five children of a Jewish family. After completing his university studies, he became a journalist...
and Béla Vágó
Béla Vágó
Béla Vágó was a Hungarian communist politician, who served as de facto Interior Minister with Jenő Landler during the Hungarian Soviet Republic. After the fall of the communist regime, he emigrated to the Soviet Union.-References:*...
. On 2 April, Pogány was shifted to the less sensitive position of deputy People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs, while Szamuely was transferred to the People's Commissariat of Culture, where he assumed responsibility for the revolutionary government's military recruitment campaign. Pepper was shortly moved again to the position of People's Commissar of Education, a position which he retained until the fall of the revolutionary government on 1 August 1919.
Despite his removal as head of the People's Commissariat of War, Pogány remained a member of governing Revolutionary National Council, in which he seems to have maintained an ultra-radical position against a negotiated truce with Romania and in favor of an all-or-nothing gamble on the policy of uncompromising revolutionary war — a position roughly analogous to that espoused in 1918 by the "Left Communists
Left communism
Left communism is the range of communist viewpoints held by the communist left, which criticizes the political ideas of the Bolsheviks at certain periods, from a position that is asserted to be more authentically Marxist and proletarian than the views of Leninism held by the Communist International...
" in Soviet Russia.
These leading positions made him a target for anti-communist forces. When the Red government was overthrown by Admiral Horthy and his allies, Pogány fled to Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
and later to Soviet Russia
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....
to avoid being killed in the reprisals known as the "White Terror
White Terror
White Terror is the violence carried out by reactionary groups as part of a counter-revolution. In particular, during the 20th century, in several countries the term White Terror was applied to acts of violence against real or suspected socialists and communists.-Historical origin: the French...
." Pogány was accused by the new regime of complicity in the murder of former Hungarian Prime Minister Count István Tisza by a group of soldiers during the Chrysanthemum Revolution of October 1918. He was tried in absentia
In absentia
In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.In...
and convicted along with five others in October 1921, but never extradited for enforcement of the sentence.
In March 1921, Pogány was sent to Germany along with Béla Kun to help organize a revolutionary uprising there with the Communist Party of Germany
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
. Following the defeat of this so-called "March Action
March Action
The March Action The March Action The March Action (German "März Aktion" or "Märzkämpfe in Mitteldeutschland" ("The March battles in Central Germany") was a 1921 workers revolt, led by the Communist Party of Germany, the Communist Workers' Party of Germany, and other radical left-wing...
," Pogány and Kun returned to Moscow, where they attended the 3rd World Congress of the Comintern from 22 June to 12 July.
American Communist leader
Along with other emigréÉmigré
Émigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out", but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....
Hungarian radicals in Soviet Russia, Pogány was set to work in the apparatus of the Communist International (Comintern), which was at the time attempting to foment general socialist revolution across Europe. The Hungarian Communists in exile were bitterly divided along factional lines. Pogány, as a member of the governing Central Committee of the Hungarian Communist Party, was closely allied to Béla Kun in the factional
Political faction
A political faction is a grouping of individuals, such as a political party, a trade union, or other group with a political purpose. A faction or political party may include fragmented sub-factions, “parties within a party," which may be referred to as power blocs, or voting blocs. The individuals...
turmoil which ensued. The Comintern disapproved of the disorganizing impact of this intra-party war among the Hungarian Communists and ordered the feuding groups to disband in January 1922.
Pogány was dispatched by the Comintern to the United States in July 1922 to assist with the Hungarian Federation
Language federation
Language Federations were formed in the late 19th and early 20th century by immigrants to the United States, primarily from Eastern and Southern Europe, who shared a commitment to some form of socialist politics...
of the Communist Party of America (CPA). Upon arrival Pogány adopted a new Americanized name as his own, "John Pepper" — the name by which he was known for the rest of his life — and immediately set about learning the English language. Along with the Comintern's official representative to the CPA, Genrik Valetski
Henryk Walecki
Maksymilian Horwitz was a leader and theoretician of the Polish communist movement.He was a member of the Polish Socialist Party - Left from 1906 and the Communist Party of Poland from 1918 and sat on its Central Committee and politburo...
, and its representative to the Communist Party's trade union movement, Boris Reinstein, Pepper attended the ill-fated August 1922 convention of the CPA
1922 Bridgman Convention
The 1922 Bridgman Convention was a secret conclave of the underground Communist Party of America held in August 1922 near the small town of Bridgman, Michigan, about outside of the city of Chicago on the banks of Lake Michigan...
, held in Bridgman, Michigan
Bridgman, Michigan
Bridgman is a city in Berrien County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 2,428 at the 2000 census. The Bridgman post office, with ZIP code 49106 opened with the name "Laketon" on November 11, 1862. The name changed to Bridgman on April 9, 1874...
, narrowly escaping from the clutches of the police who raided the gathering.
Future factional ally Benjamin Gitlow
Benjamin Gitlow
Benjamin "Ben" Gitlow was a prominent American socialist politician of the early twentieth century and a founding member of the Communist Party USA. From the end of the 1930s, Gitlow turned to conservatism and wrote two sensational exposés of American Communism, books which were very influential...
later recalled the initial impression which Pepper made upon him when he first met him at the Bridgman convention:
"The second of the three Comintern nuncios looked like a Hungarian version of the proverbial traveling salesman. Short and stocky, with a large head and a disproportionately larger nose that proudly bore a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles perched importantly on its bridge, he dressed like a dude, combed his hair sleek and neat, was always clean-shaven, smoked gold-tipped cigarettes, listened attentively to everything that was being said in his presence, and said absolutely nothing.... In Hungary his name had been Josef Pogány; he came to America as John Pepper."
Making use of his European erudition, storied past as a revolutionary leader, and personal magnetism, Pepper soon emerged as one of the CPA's most authoritative voices. Pepper wrote extensively on international developments and domestic policy questions for the party press, becoming the American Communist movement's most forceful advocates for abandonment of "underground" isolation and adoption of the strategy of constructing a mass Labor Party in America.
A factional foe, James P. Cannon
James P. Cannon
James Patrick "Jim" Cannon was an American Trotskyist and a leader of the Socialist Workers Party.Born on February 11, 1890 in Rosedale, Kansas, he joined the Socialist Party of America in 1908 and the Industrial Workers of the World in 1911...
, later recalled the decisive role which Pepper played in the American Communist movement of the 1920s:
"He first came to this country in the summer of 1922 and soon began to regulate party affairs with the arbitrary authority of a receiverReceivershipIn law, receivership is the situation in which an institution or enterprise is being held by a receiver, a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights." The receivership remedy is an equitable remedy that emerged in...
appointed by the court to take over a bankruptBankruptcyBankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
concern. His only trouble was that this particular concern was by no means bankrupt, and the receiver's operations met with challenge and opposition which limited his tenure to a rather short term. But while it lasted it was a real merry-go-round which left everybody dizzy. * * *
"We were [later] told in Moscow that he had been shipped to America in one of the moves to break up the raging faction fight in the emigré leadership of the defeated Hungarian Communist Party, and that his assignment was to work with the Bureau of the Hungarian Federation of the party in the U.S.
"As far as I know, that's all the official authorization he ever had. But Pepper, a manipulator deluxe, was never one to be stopped by the formal rules and regulations which act as restraints on ordinary mortals. The man worked fast."
Pepper was made a member of the governing Central Executive Committee of the CPA's "above-ground" arm, the Workers Party of America
Workers Party of America
The Workers Party of America was the name of the legal party organization used by the Communist Party USA from the last days of 1921 until the middle of 1929. As a legal political party the Workers Party accepted affiliation from independent socialist groups such as the African Blood Brotherhood,...
, a position to which he was re-elected by the 3rd Convention in January 1924. Pepper allied himself closely with the Executive Secretary of the CPA's "legal" wing, C.E. Ruthenberg
Charles Ruthenberg
Charles Emil Ruthenberg was an American Marxist politician and a founder and long-time head of the Communist Party USA .-Biography:Charles Emil Ruthenberg was born July 9, 1882 in Cleveland, Ohio...
, and together the two headed one of the two primary factions in the American Communist Party throughout the second half of the 1920s.
Soviet years
Not surprisingly, Pepper was loathed by the opposition faction headed by William Z. FosterWilliam Z. Foster
William Foster was a radical American labor organizer and Marxist politician, whose career included a lengthy stint as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA...
and James P. Cannon, who managed to have Pepper recalled to Moscow by the Comintern in 1925. There Pepper headed the Information Department of the Comintern, while continuing to play a role in a role factional war that swept the American Communist Party by supporting the various positions of the Ruthenberg-Lovestone
Jay Lovestone
Jay Lovestone was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Central Intelligence Agency helper, and foreign policy advisor to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and various unions...
faction which came before the Executive Committee of the Communist International
Executive Committee of the Communist International
The Executive Committee of the Communist International, commonly known by its acronym, ECCI, was the governing authority of the Comintern between the World Congresses of that body...
(ECCI). An acute factionalist, Pepper was early to attempt to bolster the standing of his American allies in Moscow by agitating against Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
and accusing the Foster group of softness towards the discredited Soviet leader.
Pepper was a delegate of the Communist Party of America to the 5th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI, convened in March 1925, to which he delivered the report of the Information Department on 6 April 1925.
At the 6th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI, held in February and March 1926, Pepper was made an alternate member of the Presidium of ECCI and returned to the political commission of that body. At the 7th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI, held in November and December 1926, Pepper was named a member of the political commission, where he was instrumental in helping to remove his nemesis Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev , born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky Apfelbaum , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician...
from the Comintern Presidency. In July 1927 Pepper was elected to the Presidium of ECCI.
Pepper fell from favor in 1928 as Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
and Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Russian Marxist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and Soviet politician. He was a member of the Politburo and Central Committee , chairman of the Communist International , and the editor in chief of Pravda , the journal Bolshevik , Izvestia , and the Great Soviet...
parted company in the Russian Communist Party, with Pepper's political views coming under criticism at both the 9th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI and the 6th World Congress of the Comintern. In 1929, Stalin repeated accusations against him at the ECCI Presidium and in May 1929 the Comintern sent an open letter to the American Communist Party relaying the news that the "Pepper case" would shortly be submitted to the disciplinary International Control Commission (ICC) of the Cominter The ICC returned its verdict in September 1929, confirming the accusations made against Pepper and removing him from all functions in the Communist International.
Following his dismissal from the Comintern, Pepper went to work in the Soviet government. At the time of his 1937 arrest, Pepper was serving as the head of the publicity department of the People's Commissariat of the Food Industry.
Death and legacy
Pepper was arrested by the Soviet secret policeNKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
(NKVD) on 27 July 1937. Following extensive interrogation, he was convicted of "participation in a counter-revolutionary organization" in a summary trial on 8 February 1938, and executed that same day.
Pepper was posthumously rehabilitated by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on 30 May 1956.
Works
- Arany János politikai nézetei. Budapest: 1909.
- A Balkán-háború és az osztrák-magyar imperializmus. Budapest: 1912.
- Lemberg. Tíz hónap a cárizmus uralma alatt. Budapest: 1915.
- A meghódított Orosz-Lengyelországon keresztül. Budapest, 1915.
- A földre szállt pokol. Az Isonzo eposza: 1916.
- Dánia, a paraszt eldorádó. Budapest: 1918.
- Napóleon. (play) Budapest: 1919.
- For a Labor Party: Recent Revolutionary Changes in American Politics: A Statement by the Workers Party. New York: Workers Party of America, n.d. — Three editions: 1. No author listed, 1922; 2. 2nd Revised Edition, New York, 1923; 3. 3rd Revised Edition, Chicago, 1923.
- "The Farmers and the American Revolution," The Daily Worker, vol. 1, no. 317 (Jan. 19, 1924), section 2, pp. 5-6.
- "Lenin," The Daily Worker, vol. 1, no. 320 (Jan. 23, 1924), pg. 1.
- Radicalism": An Open Letter to Eugene V. Debs and to All Honest Workers Within the Socialist Party. New York: Workers Party of America, 1923.
- The General Strike and the General Betrayal. Chicago: Workers (Communist) Party of America, 1926.
- Why Every Miner Should be a Communist. New York: Workers Library Publishers, n.d. [1928].
- American Negro Problems. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1928.