Communists Vs. Conservatives and the Struggle for the Hungarian Soul in Canada
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COMMUNISTS VS. CONSERVATIVES AND THE STRUGGLE FOR THE HUNGARIAN SOUL IN CANADA, 1940-1989 By CHRISTOPHER PETER ADAM Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree in History Department of History Faculty of Arts University of Ottawa © Christopher Peter Adam, Ottawa, Canada, 2012 ABSTRACT COMMUNISTS VS. CONSERVATIVES AND THE STRUGGLE FOR THE HUNGARIAN SOUL IN CANADA, 1940-1989 Christopher Peter Adam Supervisor: University of Ottawa M. Mark Stolarik This thesis explores the pervasive political divide within Canada’s Hungarian communities between communists and nationalist conservatives. Both sides in this conflict struggled for ownership of Hungarian national symbols and the right to be seen as the “true” guardians of Hungarian identity in Canada. While religious differences between Roman Catholic and Calvinist Hungarian immigrants served as a divisive force in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the arrival of a massive wave of new immigrants from the lands of the defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire after the First World War introduced into Canada the fiery political divisions between the far left and right that engulfed Hungary in 1918/19. Throughout the interwar period, during the Second World War and in the Cold War era, successive regimes in Budapest intervened, further politicized and divided Canada’s Hungarian communities, separating them into “loyal” and “disloyal” camps. But both communist and conservative Hungarian-Canadian leaders demonstrated a significant level of agency by often charting their own course and thus confounding their allies in Budapest. This thesis argues that Hungarian-Canadian communists only paid lip service to the Marxist language of class conflict, while national self- identification trumped class-based identity or internationalism, and conservative nationalists represented a large, politically heterogeneous camp, divided by generational conflicts and tensions between immigrant cohorts. 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A number of historians, academics, friends and family members have been instrumental in making my research for this dissertation possible. Mária Palasik, head archivist at the Historical Archives of Hungarian State Security not only sparked my interest in the field of Hungarian state security, but also helped grant me speedy access to an array of collections on Hungarian agents in Canada. Hungarian historians and researcher János Kenedi, the former government-appointed chair of the Kenedi Commission into Hungarian communist- era state security, provided me with a wealth of background information on the workings of the former security apparatus and was good enough to share his knowledge with me during three meetings at his apartment in Budapest and in a regular stream of e-mails. Professor Mark Stolarik, more than anyone else, spent time reading, correcting and suggesting changes to my research, as well as encouraging me, while I struggled to balance my work-related obligations with the completion of my dissertation. Professor Stolarik was always available to meet with me and provided invaluable insight into my research, arguments and methodology. My parents have also played a key role in encouraging me to continue my university education. Although my father did not live to see me complete the PhD, as an immigrant, he was always supportive and proud that his son had the opportunity to complete graduate studies. My family’s immigration to Canada, as a result of the suppressed 1956 Hungarian Revolution, sparked my interest in this field. 3 CONTENTS: Abstract: 1. Acknowledgements 2. Introduction 5 Chapter 1: The Development of Canada’s Immigration Policy and the Rise of Hungarian Communities in Canada 35 Chapter 2: Multiple Identities and Divided Loyalties: The Politics of Identity and Canada’s Hungarians during the Second World War 69 Chapter 3: Mutual Suspicions 104 Chapter 4: The Hungarian-Canadian Communist Movement 134 Chapter 5: The Anti-Communist Far Right 183 Conclusion 213 Postscript 225 Appendix 1: Hungarians in Canada by province (1941) 232 Appendix 2: Denominational breakdown of Hungarian-Canadians 233 Appendix 3: The Refugees of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution 234 Appendix 4: Hungarian places of worship in Canada 235 Appendix 5: Hungarian weeklies and monthlies 237 Bibliography 238 4 Introduction Diaspora communities often struggle more with issues of multiple identities and conflicting patriotic loyalties than their compatriots who never emigrated from their homeland. Canada’s politically diverse communities grappled with what it meant to be patriotic during the Second World War and then in the Cold War, when repression in communist Hungary forced tens of thousands of Hungarians to flee. But the different junctures in Hungarian history that led people to emigrate created a diaspora deeply scarred by the past, marked by political battles in the home country and intra-ethnic feuds over which faction served as the authentic guardian of Hungarian patriotism abroad. Historian Carmela Patrias’ seminal work on the politics of the Hungarian-Canadian community during the interwar period argued that Hungarians were divided ideologically into two camps: conservative anti-communist nationalists, who were largely supportive of Hungary’s authoritarian, right-wing interwar regime and Communists schooled in the language of international and class warfare; devout believers in the dictatorship of the proletariat.1 Hungarian Canadian Communists were, in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s keen to build class solidarity around the ever-growing number of Hungarian emigrants arriving in Canada from the lands of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. What Patrias does not explore is that even if this may have been their initial goal, and that of the Communist Party of Canada, Hungarian Canadian Communists were never able to tear themselves away from the language of patriotism, and occasionally even ethnic nationalism. Class-based identification never proved salient. 1 Carmela Patrias, Patriots and Proletarians : Politicizing Hungarian Immigrants in Interwar Canada, (Montreal : McGill, 1994) 169. 5 This study explores the ideological divide between conservatives and communists from 1940 to 1989, continuing where Patrias left off, but offering an alternative narrative and set of conclusions. Rather than reaffirming the dichotomy present in Patrias’ work, it is more accurate to speak of two warring factions within the Hungarian-Canadian diaspora: one of them deeply anti-communist, conservative in outlook and overtly nationalist, while the other pretended to subscribe to Marxist precepts of internationalism, gravitated only superficially to the supremacy of class-based identity, but was every bit as ethnically insular and keen to be seen as patriotically Hungarian as their archenemies on the right. Both sides in this ideological divide chose key episodes in Hungarian history and specific national symbols to rally around and the actions of both, as well as the political conflicts in the community, were heavily determined by their respective relationship with the Hungarian government. Those who were members of Hungarian communities in Canada, but chose not to gravitate to either political camp were most likely to have their loyalties and patriotism questioned by both sides. Hungarian Canadian community leaders and the editors of Hungarian-language newspapers perceived themselves or each as belonging to two distinct and diametrically-opposed camps encompassing Hungarian patriots and internationalist proletarians. In fact, both groups battled for ownership over the symbols of Hungarian patriotism and the right to serve as guardians of the Hungarian identity and the nation's “soul.” Hungarian-Canadian Communists were first and foremost patriots, rather than proletarians. Their national identity always trumped class-based loyalties, even if the rhetoric of class warfare proved salient in internecine battles with right-wing Hungarians. 6 Politics, patriotism and diaspora National governments often see their respective diasporas as strategic political assets and the successive Hungarian regimes—including the country’s World War II authoritarian leadership and postwar communist dictatorship—were no exceptions. However, Oxford sociologist Steven Vertovec argues that each change in government in the home country and every new wave of immigrants create ideological rifts and tensions within the diaspora. “Awkward encounters or serious intra-diaspora conflicts tend to arise as new waves of migrants meet people of previous waves who preserve bygone traditions or who left with greatly differing political views and circumstances.”2 According to political geographer Alan Gamlen, the more underdeveloped and poverty-stricken the home country, and the more dramatic a recent regime change has been, the more likely it is that the government will place a heavy emphasis on exerting control and political influence over its diaspora.3 Favoured diaspora leaders and the regime of the home country collude, in order to delay the process of integration into the host country and build a loyalty to the regime at home, which can have political, diplomatic and economic advantages for the developing state and its fledgling rulers. According to Gamlen, “the common thread running through all these policies is the attempt by states to produce a communal mentality amongst non-residents; a sense of common belonging to the home- state that renders expatriates