soon rises in the service of the Russian propaganda and becomes an intimate of Lenine. Somehow he still has difficulty in squaring his accounts, and though he opens the Conference of Prisoners of War at Moscow in 1918, he cannot account for the funds appropriated for this purpose and is called a thief by his comrades in open session. Bela Kun and his friend Perlstein soon assume direction of the education of agitators, so all important in the eyes of Lenine.

"A few weeks after Károlyi's revolution, Bela Kun under an alias reappears in Budapest to begin Communistic agitation in Hungary. The Russian Red Cross Mission at Vienna is to supply him regularly with needed funds. According to his own statement, he spent twelve million rubles on agitation in Hungary from the time of his return to the outbreak of Bolshevism in March, 1919.

"At first he had little success, and his paper by such statements as 'It is not sufficient to kill the bourgeois, they have to be cut in pieces', amused rather than influenced the masses. Lack of success in stampeding even the remnants of the disorganized armed forces landed him again in jail. The winning of these elements was not accomplished by Bela Kun but by his comrade Joseph Pogany.

"This Joseph Pogany, who proclaimed himself President of the Soldiers' Soviet, was the same person who on the eve of October 30, 1918, at the head of a small group of assassins, shot Count Stephen Tisza. Pogany was the son of a man who washed corpses for a synagogue in Budapest. He had obtained the degree of Doctor of Law, which seemed highly strange to any one who saw his butcher manners and his brutal appearance. An insignificant reporter, himself, his ambition was to become a successful dramatic writer, and he was the author of a play, 'Napoleon',-refused everywhere, by the way,-in which he pictured the Emperor as a pacifist, dreaming constantly of rural idyls but forced by a merciless fate to wage wars against his will."1

Let us return now to the outbreak of Bolshevism in Hungary. At the time when huge placards announced to the population of Budapest that the proletariat had assumed supreme power and 1 Quand Israel est Roi. Tharaud.

that a large Russian army had crossed the Carpathians to liberate Hungary, "the Bolsheviki in Russia were instilling new courage into their famished population by telling them that a Hungarian Bolshevist army was approaching Russia, brushing aside the enemies of the Soviet, and bringing with it vast droves of hogs for needy Russia.

"It would surely have seemed simplest to decapitate at once the bourgeois and aristocrats, but as this radical transaction offered considerable difficulties, the best way to accomplish the desired end seemed to be to render their life impossible. It was decreed that no person could take part in any election without a membership card in one of the workmen's unions. Thus the whole bourgeoisie was placed beyond the law by a simple stroke of the pen. The bank deposits of the bourgeois were confiscated, and in addition they were summoned-under pain of dire punishment—to turn in, within two weeks, all their gold, jewels, art objects and foreign securities. For the surveillance of the bourgeoisie, every private or apartment house had to have a man of confidence, elected solely by the proletarians, living on the premises. He represented the proletariat power in the house, turning out or installing people as best he saw fit, deciding differences arising between the owner and his constituents, the new squatters,-collecting rent from the bourgeois for the Soviet Government, and holding the unfortunate owner under the constant menace of denunciation to the Soviet tribunals.

"No sooner had the Dictatorship of the Proletariat been proclaimed than all stocks of goods in the shops were declared Communistic property, and supervisors, appointed by the Soviets, were placed in every one of the shops. This incidentally gives an idea of the way in which the number of public employees was multiplied under Soviet rule. A nominal low price was fixed for each article in the shop, but in order to prevent non-proletarians from benefitting by these special prices, it was decreed that no one would have the right to buy any article unless he showed a card of membership in a union and a special permit granted by the man of confidence in his particular dwelling place. The benefit derived from the socialization of shops was, however, of very short duration, even to the proletariat. It naturally took

only a few days to empty the shops and the robbed shopkeepers had, of course, not the slightest desire to replenish them, even if they had the means to do so.

"All workshops employing more than ten persons were socialized. In case of good behaviour the managers and engineers were allowed to retain their positions temporarily, at an arbitrarily fixed low pay. It was made plain, however, that this state of things still fell far short of the Communistic ideal, and that all mental workers would be discharged as soon as the manual workers were able to get along without them. Naturally the profits of the workshops and plants were to go to the Communistic state-but there never were any profits." Partly the fabulously increased wages and partly the removal of all private incentive to success rendered the plants in reality nobody's business.

The complete failure of Communism with respect to industrial production became so clearly realized in the last days of Bolshevism that in order to revive production workingmen were no longer paid by the hour or the day but according to piece-work. The experiences of Bolshevism in the realm of finance were no better. At first the Communist state was swimming in money. This lasted as long as there was any money or values left in the Communized banks, and as long as there remained stocks of seized goods in the warehouses. The money fast disappeared in paying tremendous salaries to the innumerable Soviet officials deemed necessary to assure the new order-not to speak of the fantastic amounts consumed by graft. The most reckless printing of paper money could not remedy the situation, and nothing is more characteristic of the failure of Communism in the realm of finance than the fact that after two months of its existence, the Soviet Government had to invite the same bourgeois whom it had declared parasites and placed beyond the law, to lend money to the new Government at eight per cent-double the rate paid by the former governments.

The Soviet took great pleasure in posing as a promoter of public education and culture. Literature and art were socialized in order to serve the purposes of the Soviet. The rigidity of the censorship surpassed anything known in wartime. Theatres,

1 Quand Israel est Roi. Tharaud.

movies and other places of recreation were made gratuitous to anyone producing a union card.

Most curious were the educational measures. At the university, the law and divinity faculties were simply abolished as of no value to the Marxian principles. Examinations were abolished altogether, as they were bound to bring about inequality not consistent with the Communistic principle. All teachers and professors desiring to retain their positions had to take a four weeks' course acquainting themselves with the principles of Bolshevism. A large number of eminent scholars were simply discharged because they were not considered sufficiently in sympathy with the new order. Not satisfied with changing professors and teachers into "comrade instructors", a Soviet of pupils was established in every school, charged with the supervision of teaching from the point of view of the Marxian doctrines and with the duty of denouncing to the Soviets teachers not sufficiently in sympathy with the latter.

All religious instruction was barred. All the more attention was paid to sex enlightenment of both boys and girls, and the most shocking exhibitions were made at movies, plastic figure cabinets, etc., usually ending in the praise of free love.

As a result of Bolshevism, even the pampered workmen themselves could no longer buy anything with the fiat money issued by the Soviet, which the farmers refused to accept in payment for their produce. To break the increasing resistance of the bourgeois and the recalcitrance of the farmers, terror detachments were soon employed which committed the most dastardly crimes. When the Soviet rule finally collapsed, a new national government was established under the leadership of ex-Admiral Horthy. Admiral Horthy is the scion of a well known family whose members have distinguished themselves as public servants, in civil life or in the defense of their country. One of his brothers fell in the first month of the war. Horthy himself was a graduate of our naval academy and had served in the navy with distinction. The outbreak of the war finds him commander of a small cruiser. He distinguishes himself in various smaller engagements. He attracts the attention of his superiors by his action in the Straits of Otranto where he engages sixteen similar small enemy craft.

Though wounded he remains on a stretcher on the bridge and successfully terminates his daredevil sortie. Splendid representative of the international type of an energetic and fearless naval officer, whether on sea or on land, he rallies to the national cause after the outbreak of Bolshevism and hurries to Szeged where the patriots were assembling. The latter were most fortunate indeed to be able to select this born leader as their standard bearer, which he has remained ever since.

After the downfall of Bolshevism, elections were held on the basis of the widest conceivable franchise, and the legislature thus elected in turn elected Admiral Horthy, as Governor of Hungary. National reconstruction could not be brought about without incidents of violence in reaction against the Bolshevist rule, which—as regrettable as they were can be fully understood in the light of the misdeeds of the Bolsheviki. The feeble, reëstablished government did its best to reinstate law and order, but was unable to prevent many acts of revenge which have received the widest publicity abroad under the name of the "White Terror".

Gradually, however, public order was restored and Hungary is again one of the safest countries in Europe.

Today practically the only memories of the periods of hatred are certain educational discriminatory measures against the Jews. Since these measures have formed the foundation of countless attacks against Hungary, it might be well to dwell on them at some length.

It is not within my province to determine whether Bela Kun and his People's Commissaries were good Jews or bad Jews; the fact is that not only Bela Kun but eighteen out of the twentyfour People's Commissaries were Jews, as were likewise the leaders of the terror detachments. The Gentile Commissaries were of such little consequence that the current joke was that they held office only to transact business on the Sabbath!

Hungary before the war had, to my knowledge, been the most liberal country with respect to the Jews. A very large immigration had been tolerated for many years from Russia, Roumania, ⚫ and other countries where the Jews were subject to persecution, taking it for granted that in return they would become law