The first definitive biography of Kun, the leader of the 1919 Hungarian Soviet Republic, a civil war leader in Soviet Russia, and a leading Stalinist functionary of the Moscow Comintern, who in 1938 fell victim to Stalin's purges.

In spite of its small size, the Hungarian Communist party (HCP), founded in the fall of 1918, has played an important role both in Hungary's national history and in the international communist movement.

It also treats of the well-known personalities of the party, including Bela Kun, Georg Lucacs, Matyas Rakosi, Laszlo Rajk, Imre Nagy and Janos Kadar.

Béla Kun (1886 - 1938), born Béla Kohn, was a Hungarian Communist politician and a Bolshevik Revolutionary who led the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919.