Gyula Peidl

Who was Gyula Peidl?

Gyula Peidl was a Hungarian trade union leader and socialist politician who served briefly as the last prime minister and acting head of state of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919.

In the six days his government ruled, he tried to minimize the damage caused to Hungary by Communist rule. As Romanian troops advanced on Budapest, he began to repeal and annul the unpopular decrees and measures of the Communists, restored private property, closed the revolutionary tribunals and dissolved the Red Guards.

On 6 August 1919 his government was overthrown by a rightist armed coup. Peidl went in exile in Austria. In 1921, Peidl returned to Hungary and resumed his political and trade union activities. From 1922 to 1931, he led the Hungarian Social Democratic Party in the Hungarian parliament.

Peidl died in Hungary in 1943.