_June 28th._
The Counter-revolution has been beaten everywhere. The power of the
Dictators seems never to have been greater. When they first came they
had to share their power with the trade-unions, the Soldiers’ Council,
the ‘confidential men,’ the Peasants’ and Workers’ Councils and later on
with the National Soviet. Within three months they have freed themselves
of all these. First of all the peasants disappeared as a deciding
factor. They were followed by the ‘confidential men’ and these by the
Soldiers’ Council. The Workmen’s Council was reduced to a shadow, the
trade-unions were transformed and subdued, the Soviet was sent home, and
of the remnant of these three they made a dummy, the ‘Economic Council,’
in whose hands the new constitution was placed. The beginning and the
end of this Constitution is the domination of their race over the ruins
of the destroyed power of the State. The edifice of tyranny has been
perfected. All means and all power are in its hands. It has absolute
sway over life and death. Law-giver, executive, judge, gaoler and
executioner, all in one.
The red flags of victory are floating over seas of Hungarian blood. The
Dictators are revelling. Complimentary addresses and telegrams are
pouring in. Among the first, Comrade Frank pays his homage to the
Cabinet in the name of the Directorate of Balassagyarmat. The County of
Nográd! Its people bite their lips with shame and hatred. At the
recruiting meeting of Balassagyarmat not a single man presented himself
for enlistment, so the meeting had to be closed, and the Directorate
asked the Government for Terror troops, so that violence and rifle butts
may be used to force men into the army.
Meanwhile the Red press reports a sequence of congratulatory addresses.
The women raise their voices too. What may they have to say? In the name
of the national organisation of Communist women, Sarah Goldstein, Mrs.
Elias Brandstein, Maria Csorba-Goszthony, Ida Josipovich and Vera
Singer, the women whom the unfortunate inhabitants of Budapest called
‘Lenin Girls’ after the defeat of the Counter-revolution, “greet with
love Comrade Haubrich and request him to present their heartfelt
gratitude to the others.” Meanwhile demented mothers and sisters weep
for the captive pupils of the military academy and the shadows of
horrified women roam under the acacias on the banks of the Danube.
“The country honours the victors of the Counter-revolution.” So the
comrades of the Frank type swear to fight to the last breath for the
victory of the Revolution, and Sarah Goldstein and those of her kin send
their “loving thanks,” their warm gratitude. Otherwise there is silence.
Awful silence. And the summary tribunals of the Revolution are sitting
permanently.
Colonel Romanelli prevented the executions at the Octogon, but hostages
are strangled secretly, quietly, on out-of-the-way building plots, in
the deep recesses of dark yards. There are frequent executions in
Parliament Square: the rabble hangs about there for hours on end; women
sit on the kerb and wait.
“What are you waiting for?” someone asked. “For an execution,” a surly
woman answered.
It is so simple, the Entente sees nothing of this. Soldiers with fixed
bayonets bring a victim. The hearse follows. The crowd turns to the
steps. A volley is fired. The stones beneath the lions are battered with
bullet marks. The hearse goes off slowly and the square becomes empty.
There is nothing more to be seen.
In the House of Parliament, on the side reserved for the Peers, are
officers of the Political Investigation Department, modelled on the
Russian Cheka, and Otto Korvin-Klein sits there in judgment. Since the
representatives of the Entente have invited Béla Kun to disband the
terror detachments, the Lenin Boys have transferred their quarters from
the Batthyány palace to this place.
In the adjoining houses people only sleep in the daytime: at night they
look trembling towards the House of Parliament from behind their
darkened windows. Above the entrance of the House of Lords shines a huge
arc lamp. Motors pass incessantly. This is the time when the terrorists
collect the hostages, the material for Korvin-Klein. The cars stop under
the lamp. The light shows leather-coated men dragging along their
miserable victims, whom they push into the entrance. Now and then a
scream filters through the walls of the House of Parliament. Then, as if
by word of command, the engines of the motors begin to purr, the horns
are blown to drown every groan, every death rattle. Armed Lenin Boys
emerge from the gate, dragging a form with them. The group proceeds to
the lower quay. Arms clatter, the steps die away in the distance. There
is a splash. Then the black group returns, but there is no longer anyone
in their midst. Romanelli has protested against public executions. But
near the House of Parliament people cannot sleep at night.
The streets are dark and empty. In the whole town there is but one other
doorway lit up: under a red canopy an arc lamp burns above the door of
Soviet House. Beside it is a small trench mortar and terrorists stand on
the pavement in front of it. On the balcony a huge red flag hides the
machine-guns, and the entrance is vividly illuminated. The People’s
Commissaries arrive in motor-cars. The terrorists line up. Present arms!
Mrs. Béla Kun receives the same honours. And within the walls of Soviet
House the comrades insist on being called ‘Excellencies.’
A country gentleman told me about this; ignorant of the change he went
straight from the station to the Hungaria Hotel. The guards mistook him
for somebody belonging to the place, and only when he wanted to pay his
bill did they discover that he was an outsider. Afraid of being
punished, the frightened servants smuggled him out and the news of the
orgies in Soviet House escaped with him. Michael Károlyi and his wife
spend an evening there now and then.
For a long time I had not heard of them. In the first week of the
Dictatorship of the Proletariat Michael Károlyi stood as an invisible
power above the Revolutionary Cabinet. The People’s Commissaries treated
him with respect. But after the Soviet elections, when Béla Kun and his
followers had obtained full control, Károlyi was thrust into the
background. They wanted to send him to Gödöllö, the former royal
residence, as Commissary of Production, and later they placed their
former protector with a Communistic co-operative society. For
appearances’ sake Károlyi pays occasional visits to his office, but he
does no work whatever. He has had a gramophone installed in his office.
Detectives guard the peace of his villa in the hills of Buda, while
motor lorries pass between the starving houses to carry food and ice to
him. But the hospitals have no ice for their patients. His wife is often
seen in a glaring red hat, driving through the quiet streets in the car
of the People’s Commissaries. At night they partake of the festivities
of Soviet House behind locked doors, in company with Béla Kun, Comrade
Dovcsák, Pogány, Landler and their womenfolk. The Gipsies who play to
them spread the tale. The revels go on and the music never stops.
Disregarding prohibition, French champagne flows freely. Tibor Számuelly
pours some into Countess Károlyi’s glass, pouring it with the hand that
fixes the rope round his victims’ necks. They drink to the eternal
prosperity of the Soviet, and costly banquets are consumed in
illuminated halls while the dark town is starving. The evening ends in
voluptuous dancing. Then the music dies away....
* * * * *
_July 2nd._
People are being stopped in the street.
“Your purse!”
The 91st order of the Revolutionary Cabinet is being put into execution:
“The banknotes of the Austro-Hungarian Bank, of the denomination of 50,
100, 1000, and 10,000 crowns, are withdrawn from circulation on the 1st
of July of this year. Anyone using them after that date for payment,
accepting or proffering them or exchanging them, will be charged before
a revolutionary tribunal. Besides the punishment, all notes found in the
possession of the culprit will be confiscated. The informer shall
receive half the value of the confiscated amount.”
Detectives are about and the Red soldiers are confiscating on their own
account. They present their bayonets: “Your purse! Get it out of your
pocket! Blue money is prohibited!” and they take the notes of the
Austro-Hungarian Bank. Some of them keep the purse too—as a souvenir.
But the white-backed Soviet money is returned with derision to the
owner. Red posters on the walls proclaim: “Social production is the
source of prosperity!” The Soviet system, after despoiling the treasury,
the safe deposits and private dwellings, has now started to ‘produce’
from people’s pockets.
Just as Marxism was incapable of realising its political conception, so
it is incapable of realising its economic ideals. In its attempt to
alleviate the want of small change the Cabinet ordered six locksmiths’
shops in Budapest to manufacture twopenny iron coins. The cost of
production of each of these coins was over a shilling. The Marxian
pamphlet theory has collapsed in the light of the sun; its political
application has resulted in unheard-of tyranny and slaughter, and its
economic application in bankruptcy and robbery.
The Jews have been spreading the news for days that the ‘blue’ money of
the Austro-Hungarian Bank is going to be valueless. This morning at dawn
their wives went to the bridge over the Ipoly and stopped the peasant
women who were bringing their baskets to town. An old woman from the
other side came into the yard and told us that the Jewesses were, after
all, kind to the poor people. They read out at the bridge the new law
about the ‘blue’ money. Those who did not turn back at the news had
theirs exchanged by the Jewesses, out of sheer kindness, so as to save
them from the Revolutionary Tribunal. For three two-hundred-crown
banknotes they had given her a thousand-crown Soviet note. Of course it
was a ‘white’ note and her husband would not have such things in the
house, but in any case the soldiers would have taken the blue notes and
the white ones are better than nothing.
Aladár Huszár came in.
“What has happened? Anything wrong?”
“No, nothing.” He was looking for his wife. They talked for some time,
then came back. I felt that they had read the anxiety in my eyes.
“A reliable carriage has come from the other side of the Ipoly. You can
escape by that.”
So we need worry no longer. Fate has decided.
“We have no right to detain you. You are safer there.” And tears stood
in their eyes too.
Aladár Huszár went to bring the carriage to the door while I packed my
meagre belongings. It was slow work; every trifle reminded me of
something and every movement reminded me that I was still convalescent.
Where shall I rest to-night? To part from good friends to go on the road
again, further from home, to knock again at strangers’ doors? To ask the
Czechs for protection! I shuddered.
When I had finished packing I sat down on a chair and held my breath. I
wanted to think hard what I should have to do. I had little money and my
boots were worn. Yet, somehow I must get to Nyitra, whence I could
escape to Vienna. If I got well I might find some work. Or perhaps at
Szeged.... It tired me out to think of it.
Noon came, then afternoon: Aladár Huszár came in with great glee, a
smile in his eyes. “You’ve got to stay with us! The carriage has gone, I
could not find it. Fate has decided.”
“You stay at home with us,” his wife said softly.
Fate’s carriage had gone. Goodness knows where it is now. It may be a
good omen, it may mean that these things will not last much longer.
“We have lived through bad days together,” said Aladár Huszár. “We will
share the good ones that are coming as well.”
We smiled at each other. We know by now that sufferings unite people
more than joys.
* * * * *
_July 5th._
Everybody says that Balassagyarmat will be in the neutral zone. Its
military evacuation is expected for to-day and people are so excited
they hardly know what to do with themselves. They stroll about in the
street with their hands in their pockets. There is no work, no food; the
shops, even the chemists, are empty. Women gather at the street corners.
And from the other bank there comes an uninterrupted stream of
heavily-laden carts. Fine old furniture, bedding, mattresses, old family
portraits, are heaped pell-mell on them. On one, amidst torn silk
curtains, on empty bags, I caught sight of a beautiful bracket clock,
the jolts of the car making its soul hum.
“The famous Balassa clock from Kékkö Castle,” said Aladár Huszár.
There came a flock of sheep, followed by a troop of singing soldiers,
then a herd of pigs, and some cattle. Valuable Swiss milch cows with
huge udders were being driven to the slaughter-house.
The people glared gloomily at the plunderers.
“The main roads are littered with books,” a young man said in front of
the window. “Everything you see has been stolen.” The loafers shook
their heads and swore. “The whole of the highlands is ruined. They did
not rob the gentry only!”
“Who is all this going to belong to?” an old peasant inquired.
“Who?” said a frightfully shabby man with a gentlemanly appearance.
“Listen to this! It tells you who: ‘The Red soldiers’ Ten Commandments.
10th commandment: Don’t take rich people’s houses, cattle, land or
jewellery. Leave those to the Soviet.’”
* * * * *
_July 6th._
They are coming! Somebody said so and the news ran through the town and
blossomed out in every little house.
They are coming! How often have we said these words with horror within
the last terrible nine months. The soldiers are coming from the front
and are no longer defending our frontiers. The French, the Czechs, the
Rumanians, the Serbians, are coming. The Communists, the Red soldiers,
the searchers, the detectives, are coming. They are coming, the
terrorists. Then again we said, ‘the Rumanians are coming.’
And now the words are in our mouths again and they sound joyful and
great. Hungarians are coming! From Szeged! Everybody says so. It is
simply a question of days.
The Red press splutters with rage. It foams with vulgar, coarse words
against the Entente and Count Stephen Bethlen, because it has heard that
even in occupied territory Hungarian White Guards are allowed to be
enlisted. But, according to ‘The People’s Voice’: “The comic-opera
Government of Szeged has not strength enough to organise the rabble of
the bourgeoisie, it has not even the power to form an armed force from
its hooligans, cut-throats and gutter mob, for the realisation of its
sinister projects.”
We really know nothing at all, we do not even know whence the news came,
yet we keep saying to each other: “They are coming....”
When darkness fell I took a walk in the little back garden. Suddenly
somebody rose from among the shrubs, it was the wife of Gregory, the
coachman:
“Do tell me, please, Miss, what is happening?”
The question came suddenly and I answered instinctively: “Our own people
are coming! The Hungarians have started from Szeged!”
The old woman looked me straight in the eyes, as though seeking
confirmation. It was obvious that she had something to say. Then she
folded her shrivelled old hands, and, in a devout, humble attitude,
which words cannot express, her voice rose through the silent night:
“Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name!”
* * * * *
_July 7th–10th._
The fleeing Directorates from the Highlands are flocking in and
requisitioning houses for themselves. Female detectives have come from
Budapest. The escaped Directorate of Losoncz has quartered itself on
Balassagyarmat. Its chief, Comrade Szijgyártó, terrorises and issues
orders right and left. He wants to dismiss all the officials who had
been left in their places and threatens that he will not allow any
bourgeois family more than one room whatever be the number of its
members. He commandeers whatever he wants—take everything from the
bourgeois! They are taking even from the poor. Orders have been received
that sixty head of cattle have to be sent to Budapest; they will not
even leave the milch cows.
There is no food: the Government has stopped all supplies for
Balassagyarmat, it being in the neutral zone. For days the bakers have
baked no bread, nobody will cart wood, and there is no salt. A peasant
offered four chickens for two pounds of salt, although he would not sell
them for two hundred and forty crowns. One cannot buy anything for
money. Our Sunday dinner cost us a towel and a sheet: everything is done
by barter, money has disappeared from circulation.
In vain has the Cabinet decreed under the pain of severe penalties that
the ‘blue’ money (of the Austro-Hungarian Bank) must be exchanged within
nine days for their own ‘white’ banknotes. At ‘The People’s Bank’ of
Balassagyarmat the people of the whole county have so far exchanged
twenty crowns. The peasants hide their money and say: “What good is it
to pay it into the bank if it is worthless? Let the worthless things
remain in our trunks.” The other day a soldier stuck the white money he
had received for pay on the wall. It has no purchasing value.
The peasants laugh among themselves. They are hiding their crops, they
did not enlist, and they will not give their money to Béla Kun. As for
the propaganda speakers, they say: “We sent them back to the
Government—in blankets.”
Since things have taken this turn, the three hundred crowns daily wage
fails to revive the enthusiasm of the Jewish agitators engaged by the
Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The Commissary for Education has now
decreed that henceforth the teachers will have to speak to the people in
the villages.
* * * * *
Voices in the next room. Railwaymen, postmen, simple citizens now
frequently slip in by the back door; they come for advice and bring the
news.
The Czechs have again entered Kassa, but the Rumanians have not
withdrawn from the Tisza, whatever Clemenceau may have promised. The
heroic pupils of the military academy escaped death at the last moment:
the Terror tribunal sentenced them to hard labour. This is to
Romanelli’s credit. It is said that it was he who delivered Baron
Perényi and his patriotic companions from gaol whither the
Counter-revolution of June 24th had brought them.
A deep sad voice spoke: “Fourteen counter-revolutionaries have been
sentenced to death in Budapest....”
I strolled out into the little back garden but even there I could not
breathe. The trees did not move. The soil was hot and above it the air
trembled like leaves above an open fire.
* * * * *
_July 12th._
They came slowly round the corner, talking with an air of importance.
Then they stopped, as though quarrelling. They had Soviet caps on their
heads and were dressed, regardless of the heat, in leather coats and
black leggings. Then I noticed the hand grenades in their belts. They
had a bestial look about them, with faces that betrayed a familiarity
with gaol. The hand of one was covered with black hair and he had a
costly ring on his finger. Where did he get it from? I shuddered.
They have been coming for days, their number has increased since the
Entente insisted on the evacuation of Balassagyarmat. The forsaken town
listens trembling at night when their nailed boots clatter along the
pavement and stares at them with horror from under doorways, from behind
drawn curtains. They laugh, boisterously, their mouths wide open....
I looked after them. As they lifted their feet I saw the heavy nails on
their heels. How many human faces have they crushed?
The Lenin Boys, escaped convicts, miscreants ready for any
mischief—these are the props of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
These are the men who take hostages. These are the judges presiding over
the terrorist tribunals of Bolshevism. They judge and hang when and
where they like. They can do as they like. Their commander is a sailor
called Cserny who was a leather-worker before the war. His car is
constantly racing through the streets of Budapest. Several people have
described him to me. He always wears a cap drawn deeply over his face
and goes about in a leather waistcoat with long sleeves, a red scarf
round his neck. His face is clean-shaven and his eyes are animated by
the soft, greedy expression which is characteristic of a bloodthirsty
feline playing with its prey. There are many rings on his red hands and
he uses scent. His appearance is that of a footman dressed in his
master’s clothes. His decisions are rapid, he does not waste time on his
victims, and when he has finished with them he spends hours looking at
the artistic frescoes of the House of Parliament. He is sentimental and
without mercy. He purrs and claws.
It is said that this man got to know Károlyi when the sailors mutinied
in Cattaro. After the mutiny he fled to Budapest. He was given money by
his friends and sent on a tour of instruction to Bolshevist Russia,
where he made the acquaintance of Számuelly in a school for agitators in
Moscow. Soon after the October revolution he came to Budapest and during
the whole Károlyi régime he agitated undisturbed among the sailors. On
the night of March 21st he commanded the plunderers.
And since then this brigand[5] is the absolute master of the nights of
Budapest.
* * * * *
_July 13th._
If bread runs short in a town the Revolutionary Cabinet at once
despatches—a propaganda speaker to the place.
Comrade Soma Vass has arrived.
The people taking their Sunday walk stopped in front of the town hall.
Comrade Vass (Weiss is his real name) appeared suddenly on the balcony,
near the red flag. But he wasted his time with his threats and
incitements, the public remained cool and indifferent.
A labourer shouted to him: “Give us bread!”
The speaker waxed hot: “That is not the question to-day. The question
now is the preservation of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. We will
not tolerate the Counter-revolution!”
“Is bread a counter-revolution?” the labourer heckled.
“Don’t interrupt, comrade! We shall crush the Counter-revolution. We
shall exterminate it. We shall hang every bourgeois. If there are not
enough gallows in this Soviet Hungary, we will grow them. Yes, comrades,
we will grow them!”
[Illustration:
JOSEPH CZERNY WITH HIS TERRORISTS “THE LENIN BOYS.” (Hanged 18 Dec.,
1919.)
]
The heckler swore. One man lit a cigarette and several cried, “Shut up,”
but Comrade Soma Vass went on talking. Nobody paid any attention to him,
the people chatting among themselves. “He will grow gallows ... a
nursery of them ... grow them, shape them.... Well, at least he has a
programme of a sort.”
And thus, after all the destruction, Béla Kun’s spokesman has nailed
down the only creative policy of Hungary’s Socialist production. They
are going to grow gallows.
* * * * *
_July 14th–20th._
Béla Kun has sent a note to Clemenceau asking for the evacuation of the
Tisza as promised in compensation for the abandoned offensive against
the Czechs; he received the following answer:
“Béla Kun, Budapest. In answer to your wireless which you sent on the
11th inst. to the President, the Peace Conference declares that it
cannot negotiate with you as long as you fail to observe the conditions
of the armistice.”
For a time I stared at the text of the telegram. How much blood, shame
and suffering would have been spared to humanity if the victorious
powers, instead of sending propositions through General Smuts to Béla
Kun’s band of murderers and dangling before the Soviet’s eyes the
possibility of its admission to the Peace Conference, had sent from the
start a reply to this effect. Let the spilt blood and the inhuman
tortures fall on the heads of those who wanted to bargain when
conscience, honour and charity forbade any bargaining.
It is all clear now. The victorious Great Powers did not enter into
negotiations with Béla Kun because they were pressed to do so by their
own Proletariat, for that pressure would still exist, but simply because
he made light of the integrity of the country to which he had not the
slightest title. This shame can never be wiped out. The frigid, tardy
note cannot restore the lowered dignity of the victorious States.
Béla Kun answered, his reply couched in provocative, ironical terms. He
made little attempt to disguise the doubt he had of Clemenceau’s
veracity and derided his impotence to impose his will on the Rumanians
and Czechs.
Orders for mobilisation are again covering the walls of the town, and
the village criers are walking the streets and beating their drums. Huge
posters have made their appearance, representing the running figure of a
sailor, his mouth wide open. His head is about two feet long, his arms
about three yards. Above his head he stretches a red cloth inscribed
with the words: TO ARMS! And while this frightful poster-sailor overruns
poor, truncated little Hungary, deprived of its seashore, Béla Kun puts
out his tongue at the peace conference. At the meeting of the ‘Committee
of 150’ he rang the tocsin with one hand: “The Proletariat in Hungary is
going through its crisis!” The other he waved in triumph: “To-day the
Hungarian Soviet is an important factor in international affairs, more
important than old Hungary ever was! This is proven by Clemenceau’s last
despatch....” He had a word for everybody, but through his boasting one
could hear the chattering of his teeth. The Bavarian Soviet has died,
the Austrian Soviet was never born, the armies of the Russian Soviet did
not come to the rescue. And throughout Hungary his enemy
Counter-revolution raises its head. It is there on the edge of the
scythe as the stone sharpens it, it is in the glaring emptiness of the
recruiting offices, at the idle writing desks of the offices, in the
movement which hides the blue banknotes and refuses the white ones, in
the stroke of every oar that crosses the Tisza at Szeged.
The Dictatorship is groping about, seeking something to cling to. As a
last hope it is clinging to the phantasmagoria of world-revolution,
which, after all, was from the beginning the foundation of its politics.
So the Soviet Cabinet has addressed an appeal to the Proletariat of the
world, calling on it to demonstrate in favour of the Hungarian and
Russian Soviets and to proclaim world-revolution on July 20–21st.
[Illustration:
A RECRUITING PLACARD FOR THE RED ARMY.
]