Count Stephen Bethlen

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Bethlen of Bethlen, István Count (b. 8 Oct. 1874, d. 1947?). Prime Minister of Hungary 1921–31 Born into an aristocratic family in Transylvania, he was first elected to the Hungarian Parliament in 1901. A strong counter-revolutionary, he helped to support Admiral Horthy's activities in deposing Béla Kun and became Prime Minister in April 1921. With his belief in the need to preserve feudal aristocratic privileges, he ended land redistribution. He gained the support of the Roman Catholic Church by giving it substantial control over education, and confirmed his political position through merging the popular smallholders' party with his own Christian Social Party. He also reintroduced the open ballot in the country districts in order to restore landowner control over the vote of their tenants. Eventually, he also received the support of the army by allowing it to ignore some of the restrictions imposed upon it by the Treaty of Trianon. He tried hard to promote modern agricultural and industrial techniques, and foreign investment. His regime came unstuck as a result of the Great Depression, with the collapse of production and exports followed by a banking crisis in 1931. He resigned in the face of growing unrest. He managed to hide from the German troops occupying the country in 1944, but was discovered by the Soviet forces who followed, and was taken to Moscow, where he died.

Count Stephen Bethlen 1874–1947?, Hungarian premier (1921–31). A Transylvanian, he entered the Hungarian parliament in 1901, and in 1919 he was a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference. Called to the premiership by Admiral Horthy, he prevented (1921), despite his monarchist leanings, the return of King Charles (Austrian Emperor Charles I) to avoid military intervention by the Little Entente . The chief aim of his foreign policy was the revision of the post-World-War-I Treaty of Trianon (see Trianon, Treaty of ); a treaty of friendship (1927) with Italy advanced this cause. Bethlen survived a scandal over the forgery of francs in 1926, but his revisionism aroused the increasing suspicion of the Little Entente powers. In 1931, French bankers offered a loan to the hard-pressed government on condition that there be an end to revisionism, and Count Bethlen resigned. He was succeeded as premier by Count Julius Károlyi. Drawn at first toward collaboration with Nazi Germany, Bethlen grew increasingly opposed to Adolf Hitler and in 1940 opposed Hungary's alliance with Germany. In 1945 he was taken by the Russians to the USSR, apparently because of his efforts at concluding a separate peace with the Western powers. He was unofficially reported to have died there in prison.