He wrote poems under the pen name Iván Bethlen, but as his interests in sociological questions grew, he started to distance himself of the aesthetic literature theories of that generation.
He started to work as a sociologist in villages, and soon as a journalist, for the "Új Nemzedék" (New Generation) and "Nemzeti Újság" (National Newspaper).
In 1940, before the Second Vienna Award he received a brief military training, and took part in the entry of the Hungarian troops to North Transylvania as a corporal.
[1] He took part in the organizing of the Liberation Committee for the Hungarian National Uprising (Magyar Nemzeti Felkelés Felszabadító Bizottsága).
On 22 November 1944, he was arrested by the pro-Nazi Hungarian secret police on a meeting of that committee, along with Lt. Gen János Kiss, (military leader of the resistance) and Vilmos Tartsay.