In 1930, on 1 September, 100,000 workers, employed and unemployed, marched through Budapest under the slogan 'Work and Bread!'. Many were injured and one person was killed as the police used swords and, at one point, fired into the crowd. This study sketches the political history of the Hungarian labour movement from the late 19th century to the 1920s and the build-up to the 1930 protest, Hungary's largest in the inter-war period. Drawing on contemporary newspaper accounts and recollections of participants, it asks: Why did such a big demonstration take place? How did it come about? What happened on 1 September 1930? What was the reaction to police repression? It also reviews subsequent historiography and the development of Hungary's labour movement politics after 1930.