Claim:
Károlyi was a stupid, untalented, spineless character.
Rebuttal:
Károlyi was too naive and gullible to be a politician, but accusations of spinelessness are not substantiated by contemporary sources.
In detail:
Judging by his actions Károlyi was a naive idealist, who often failed to recognise the actual intentions of his adversaries, he was gullible and easily misled. Therefore numerous of his friends didn’t consider him cut out for a political career, especially not in a crisis situation. (As an émigré he got close to the communists and for a long time naively believed in the Soviet utopia). All this, however, doesn’t mean that Károlyi was stupid or had less talent than the average leading Hungarian politician of his time. His political aptitude is debated by historians, and the majority of them don’t consider him a talented or good politician. However, the accusations of dishonesty or spinelessness spread by his adversaries are not substantiated by either his actions or unbiassed contemporary observers. It is highly unlikely that a cynical, utilitarian career-oriented person would willingly give up the aristocratic club where he belonged just to join the democrats of doubtful reputation and even more doubtful future and then divide up his lands among the landless peasants. These steps can only be explained through his ideological convictions, his faith. It was claimed that the lands he gave up had been mortgaged to the hilt, but this is not true – the majority of his lands were so-called ’fideicommissum’, which could not be mortgaged or otherwise alienated.
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