Ervin Szabó

Hungarian social scientist, librarian and Marxist anarcho-syndicalist revolutionary, born in what is now part of Slovakia. Studied law at the University of Vienna and wrote for 'Népszava', a Social-democratic newspaper. In 1911, he became director of Budapest's Metropolitan Library (which now bears his name), creating a series of community libraries based on the British public library system. After 1905, he began to move away from social democracy towards revolutionary anarcho-syndicalism, and translated the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels into Hungarian. He also wrote articles in the German 'Neue Zeit' and the French 'Mouvement Socialiste' periodicals and the sociological journal 'Huszadik Század' (Twentieth Century). He became an associate of the likes of Sorel, Kautsky, Mehring, Plehanov, had contacts with Lagardelle and the French syndicalists whilst in Paris at the end of 1904 and with several Russian socialists living in exile. In the years of World War I, despite his serious illness, he became the spiritual leader of the anti-militarist movement. He finished his great historical work 'Social and Party Struggles in The Revolution of 1848-49' in his sick-bed.