Mátyás Lynszk

Jump to navigation Jump to search
Mátyás Lynszk
File:Linsk 2.jpg
Official portrait of Lynszk, circa 1924
Chief-Marshal of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army
In office
5 May 1921 – 31 December 1921
Preceded byNone (Office created)
Succeeded byNone (Office abolished)
Chief Secretary of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Nerotysian Communist Party
In office
28 October 1922 – 26 October 1940
Preceded byNone (Office created)
Succeeded byAleksander Enkolić
General Secretary of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th Congress of the Revolutionary Nerotysian Communist Party
In office
28 October 1922 – 26 October 1940
Preceded byNone (Office created)
Succeeded byFilip Keresztes
Personal details
Born17th February, 1893
Shynsk, Nerotysia
Died8th October, 1941
Zamaraya, Nerotysia
NationalityNerotysian
Political partyRevolutionary Nerotysian Communist Party (1921 - 1941)
ProfessionRevolutionary, Military Strategist, Politician

Mátyás Lynszk (17 February 1893 - 8 October 1941) was a Nerotysian communist revolutionary, military strategist, political theorist, and politician. He served as the leader of the Revolutionary People's Army after the outbreak of the Nerotysian Revolution in 1921, and later was elected Chairperson and General Secretary of the Revolutionary Nerotysian Communist Party, the only person to have held both offices simultaneously. He suffered a series of devastating strokes beginning in 1936 and resigned from politics and public life amidst mounting unrest in 1940. Under his leadership, Nerotysia became independent from the Kolish Empire and emerged as a Marxist state in which all land, industry and business was state-owned. His theories and ideas are collectively known as Lynszkite Thought, or Lynszkite-Marxism.

Born to middle-class bookkeepers in central Shynsk, Lynszk was nurtured on the leftist ideals of his parents, who had both earned literary degrees at the Royal Institute in Shynsk. He was dissatisfied by the curriculum at the Institute, as it had been heavily modified by Kolish officials, and led several student protests. He was later expelled from the school and spent several years traversing the underground network of Nerotysian revolutionaries that spanned the peninsula. In 1914 he was banished from the Kolish Empire and fled to Ossia, where he published hundreds of theses and joined the Democratic Labour Party in Ossia’s Parliament. In 1919 he joined the newly-founded Revolutionary Nerotysian Communist Party and was smuggled back into Nerotysia to work with other revolutionaries in undermining Kolish rule. In 1921 he stormed the Royal Governor's Palace in Shynsk with an army of factory workers, thereby sparking the Nerotysian Revolution.

Lynszk and his compatriots Viktor Chalyar and Aleksander Enkolić became the primary leaders of the revolution as the RNCP took a leading role in the underground resistance. Lynszk’s leadership of the Revolutionary Army won him and the party immense prestige, setting the stage for the Nerotysian Constitution of December 1921, which enshrined the party’s control over the government. Immediately afterwards, he was elected to lead the party as its first Chairperson and General Secretary, making him Nerotysia’s first paramount leader.

After ousting the Kols, Lynszk set to work nationalizing and collectivizing the Nerotysian economy. He oversaw rapid industrialization in the peninsula, involving himself intimately with minute aspects of governance, and he established an effective party bureaucracy. He legalized abortion and homosexuality and extended legal recognition to transgender people, making Nerotysia the first state in Ordis to do so. However, he also crushed political dissent and restricted freedom of speech, in order to prevent challenges to his rule, which he feared would fatally derail his plans.

He survived multiple assassination attempts, and usually worked fourteen to sixteen hours every day, composing thousands of memoranda and involving himself in all matters of state. This placed immense strain on his body, leading to multiple health problems that complicated his leadership of the party and the country. In 1936 he suffered the first of a series of strokes which eventually left him blind and paralysed in his right arm. He was forced to resign in 1940 due to his health, however he continued to mediate between the rival Nerotysian party cliques. He died in 1941 at the age of 48.

Early Life and Revolutionary Activities

Childhood

Natália Erdelyi left her rural farm in 1882 to attend the Imperial Institute and earn a university degree in literary studies. She was angered by Kolish censorship of university materials, but participated in little active resistance, as she feared retribution would be brought on her family. While studying at the Institute she met and fell in love with Rudolf Lynszk, who was the son of a middle-class working family in Shynsk. They both wished to attain high-paying administrative or political jobs in Shynsk to help support their families, however they were often barred from such positions due to their leftist views, which they made no attempt to hide. After finishing university together in 1887 they failed to find high-paying jobs, and from 1889 to 1891 Natalia returned to her birthplace to help care for her sickly mother.

File:Shynsk Bookstore.jpeg
The bookstore where Lynszk was raised.

She returned to Shynsk in 1892 and immediately married Rudolf, who had acquired a bookshop from a deceased relative. Soon Natalia gave birth to her eldest son Mátyás (born 1893), followed by two girls Jozsefa (born 1895) and Zigana (born 1898). Her final child was another son, Jakov (born 1900). The family would often struggle to provide for four children, especially after Rudolf was drafted into the Kolish Foreign Legion to fight in the Zyric Wars in 1902. He returned home in 1908 to a ruined peninsula plagued with poverty and harsh taxes. Many Nerotysians had been enslaved and put to work extracting resources to help prepare the Kolish Empire for war. Rudolf managed to dodge such a fate, but his two sons were not so lucky.

In 1907, both Mátyás and his younger brother Jakov, aged 14 and 7 respectively, were forced to work in a nearby mine to extract coal resources for the Empire. They worked in terrible conditions alongside mostly other child slaves. Michel became very protective of his younger brother, who was both sickly and small for his age, making him both extremely susceptible to injury and extremely useful to the Kolish slavers. Mátyás had been a willful but altogether well-behaved child in school, however now he became tempestuous and easily-provoked. In one instance he instigated a fight with another boy over nothing more than an insult at his brother.

The danger of their work greatly angered Natália, who despite Rudolf’s warnings began to actively protest Imperial laws. She and dozens of fellow protesters were gunned down by Imperial police during a massive protest in Shynsk, and this is believed to be part of what spurred Mátyás’ radical beliefs. He was allowed to leave the mine in 1911 to attend the Imperial Institute, and he was placed in unusually advanced classes after excelling at his early courses. He had been reluctant to leave his brother alone to work in the mine, but Jakov, still only 11, encouraged him to do so.

University and Early Protests

Mátyás Lynszk was an outstanding pupil, taking and finishing classes far beyond his age, and he became something of a celebrity on campus. This popularity was in many ways spawned by his radical socialist views, which he had begun to develop during his days at university. He became famous for hosting weekly gatherings in his dormitory, where he and other students would discuss various political ideas and philosophies. These "Student Enlightenment Societies" became increasingly popular around Nerotysia, and before Kolish authorities discovered their true nature and cracked down on them, Lynszk had already built up a group of twenty people who all called themselves dedicated Marxists.

Lynszk during his university days in 1911.

It was inside these Society Gatherings that Lynszk met fellow Marxist and his future co-conspirator Viktor Chalyar. The two struck up a close friendship, and began to engage in more blatant subversion of Kolish rule. Often they would pin radical theses or other political writings of theirs to dormitory bulletin boards, and they would sneak out into Shynsk in order to spread Marxist literature around the city. 1912 saw an increase in these activities, even bringing them into brief contact with the shadowy Glazprol, a revolutionary group that actively fought Kolish rule. While in their third year at university they met the freshman Aleksander Enkolić, who quickly became a third partner and close friend.

Their third year proved to be their most volatile and their most outspoken. In 1913 Michel began to give speeches in common rooms around the Institute, condemning the Kolish Empire and openly calling for revolution. Chalyar and Enkolić joined him, though their speeches tended to focus more on Marxist philosophy and less on revolution. As such an Imperial crackdown was inevitable - having learned of these incendiary activities, the Kolish authorities banned Chalyar and Enkolić from the university and banished Lynszk from the peninsula, stopping just short of arresting and executing him. Imperial soldiers, which were now to be stationed around campus, escorted the three off the grounds in March of 1913.