ing central committee, which elected the revolutionary Soviet government and its President. In mines and factories the workmen were represented by Soviets with a maximum of seven members. Theatres were socialized. The educational system was revolutionized and both amusement and education were placed at the service of Communist propaganda. In the suppression of property which, of course, was one of the basic principles, house to house confiscation was carried on as had been the case in Russia. All jewelry, all objects of precious metal, were confiscated and apparently retained by the Commissars as a part of public funds. A considerable part of this loot was used in furthering Bolshevik propaganda, not only throughout Hungary, but outside, in Bohemia and Austria. For example, when Bela Kun was attempting to bring about a Communist revolution in Vienna, a search by the Austrian government of the rooms of Bela Kun's agent resulted in the seizing of several millions, worth of this jewelry. Bela Kun attempted to obtain recognition from the Allied governments during the late spring and early summer, but the Allies declined to enter into negotiations with the Bela Kun government, though it offered to do so in case this government was replaced by a genuine social democratic government. Meanwhile war was being carried on between the Roumanian invaders, backed by the Entente Powers and the Hungarian army. The Communist army was at first unorganized, and while it seemed willing to attack the peasants who refused to allow the establishment of a Communist regime in their districts, it showed no discipline in front of the attacks of the regular troops, until Bela Kun followed the same plan adopted by Trotzky in Russia, bringing back the strictest discipline into the army, and placing at its head experienced officers. After this the Hungarian Red army obtained a number of victories over the Roumanians. The management of the financial side of the Communist government was even more destructive than the Russian. The same scheme of destroying money as a medium was carried out. During the 132 days of its supremacy the government spent, with the exception of about $150,000,000 worth of notes, the entire note reserve of the Austro-Hungarian Bank in Budapest, amounting to nearly two milliard kronen, and issued so-called white money --paper money of a certain description to the amount of between two and three milliards, besides so-called green money to the amount of three hundred millions and other smaller groups of financial output. The paralysis of industry by violent socialization, the confiscation of capital and the destruction of the bourgeois and upper classes, made the production of economic wealth practically impossible. It is not merely the extravagance of the Communist government, but the confusion which it introduced into national and individual finances that will make the revival of Hungarian finances a long and difficult problem. The overthrow of the Soviet government was hastened by the regrouping of political forces throughout the country in four different groups: (1) The Christian Socialist Party, especially in the west; (2) the Peasant Party, especially in the center and the west; (3) the Bourgeois Democratic Party, particularly in the towns; (4) the old Social Democratic Party, consisting of organized labor in the towns. The latter party was comparatively small; the Peasant Party was by far the most powerful. The final blow was dealt by two agencies: first, the successful invasion of the Roumanian army at the end of August, and second, the defection of the trade unions during June from the support of the Communist Party. As organized industrial labor had been the main support of the revolution, its defection combined with the invasion and the Allied blockade, made the abdication of Bela Kun on August 1st an absolute necessity. After a short interval of a phantom Social Democratic government, power came into the hands of the reactionary element, which almost immediately established a White Terror as bad as the Red Terror of Samuely and Bela Kun. This included wholesale imprisonment, executions of Communists and persecution of the Jewish element of the population, which was considered mainly responsible for the situation. The persecution of the Socialist and Democratic element in the country has extended to the exclusion from parliamentary life. The Social Democratic Party in Hungary consequently issued, in early September, a protest which stated: "It was through an act of desperation on the part of Hungarian labor that Bolshevism came. It came only, and could only have come, after all hope in the west seemed vain. Bolshevism has now collapsed, and Hungarian labor emerging from this most frightful and critical illness of its sorely tried existence, is now turning itself towards social democracy, trusting to the political methods of the west. "We Social Democrats can only condemn the methods of the dictatorship and the Red Terror. Yet at the moment that we are in the mood to make up for past mistakes we find ourselves face to face with a cruel White Terror of a medieval and barbaric character. We have for Bolshevism only words of condemnation. Nevertheless, we are compelled to point out, and can establish it by documentary evidence, that the White Terror in the four weeks since the usurpation of the Archduke Joseph of Hapsburg and the government of his adventurer lackey Friederich, has spilt a hundredfold more blood than the dictatorial regime of the new overthrown Soviet Republic did in the whole four months of its existence." It is this reactionary situation in Hungary that creates a dangerous center of possible Bolshevist trouble in the future. At the same time, the experiment in Hungary, being better known in its details to Europe and the United States through authentic information, has through its failure, financial, economic and social, given more of a death blow to the success of Bolshevik propaganda in Europe than any other Bolshevik movement has done. |