Hungarian Nonviolent Resistance against Austria and Its Place in the History of Nonviolence

In: Peace & change: PC ; a journal of peace research, Volume 32, Issue 4, p. 499-519

Abstract

The Hungarian nonviolent resistance campaign against the Austrian absolutist rule in the 1850s and 1860s has been credited with being the "first mass or corporate form of non‐violent resistance," yet it has received little scholarly attention in the nonviolence literature. In its usual portrayal, the movement is epitomized as a forerunner of Gandhi's later mass satyagraha campaigns, and its leader Ferenc Deák as a prototype Mahatma. In reality, the campaign was far more complex and less organized. However, it did demonstrate that even such campaigns can lead to the achievement of the aimed for goals when outside events and deeper internal economic and social drivers come together to unite the oppressed and weaken the position of the oppressor. As recent major studies of nonviolent struggle have shown, the Hungarian example illustrates what can be achieved when the oppressed withdraw their consent to be ruled and undermine state power by targeting areas of particular vulnerability of their oppressor.