with the common people but also gave it a potential link to the increasingly powerful Russian Communist Party, as Kun had ties with prominent Russian Bolsheviks. After the establishment of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in March 1919, Kun set about nationalising private industry while embarking on a massive agricultural collectivization project. He also took steps towards normalising foreign relations with the Triple Entente powers in an effort to gain back some of the land that Hungary was set to lose in the postwar negotiations. For the 133 days that the Hungarian Soviet Republic existed, the KMP concentrated mostly on trying to fix the widespread economic chaos that had resulted from Hungary's defeat in World War I. Unfortunately, Kun's economic policy created higher inflation and led to food shortages across the land. Opposition began to grow, led by Miklós Horthy, and in June, an attempted coup made the KMP launch a violent terror campaign through its secret police. The Soviet Republic fell on August 1, 1919 after the Hungarian Army's crushing defeat by Romania. The invading Romanians seized Budapest from the Communists, exiled Kun to Vienna and forced the KMP to hand over power to the Social Democrats. Interwar period and exile The fall of the Soviet Republic was followed by a year-long anticommunist purge, known as the White Terror, by the new nationalist government under István Bethlen in which anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people were killed, and thousands more were imprisoned and tortured. Much of the old KMP leadership was executed or exiled, primarily to Vienna. There, remnants of the KMP Central Committee, once again led by Kun, reformed into a Provisional Central Committee, which attempted to keep the party together despite its illegal status in Hungary. Throughout the 1920s, many Hungarian Communists moved to Moscow, with Kun among them. Kun's actions in Russia, most notably the organization of a massacre of White Russian prisoners-of-war in 1921, drew censure from the Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin and other prominent Bolsheviks. Nonetheless, Kun maintained a prominent position with Comintern until 1937, when he was arrested and executed during one of Joseph Stalin’s purges. Furthermore, Kun was the unquestioned leader of the KMP during the interwar period, with his main rival, Jenő Landler, dying in 1927. The party also organised a legal cover party, the Socialist Workers Party of Hungary (MSzMP), to act as its representative in Hungary. However, the Hungarian government