1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kun, Bela

KUN, BELA (1886–), Hungarian Communist leader, was born in 1886 of a Jewish family in Transylvania, and became a journalist and an official in the Workmen’s Insurance Office in Kolozsvar. Enrolled in the Hungarian army during the World War, he was a prisoner of war in Russia, when he was instructed by Lenin for the purposes of Communist propaganda, and after the collapse of the Central Powers he was sent back to Hungary with a commission to set up a Soviet Republic. From March 21 to Aug. 1 1919 he was People’s Commissary for Foreign Affairs in the Soviet Republic, and after its fall he found refuge in Austria (see Hungary). In July 1920 he succeeded in escaping to Russia, where he was employed by the Soviet Government.