Chapter X: Hungary’s Attitude To-Day

The hostile attitude of Hungary towards the new States and her determination to seek revision of the Treaty of Trianon, are demonstrated by methods other than those of propaganda. It is unfortunately true that in present-day Hungary exists a State whose rulers and the majority of whose people have abandoned all attempts to organise the Magyar territory which remains to them into a stable modern State, in favour of a policy of self-seeking and aggression. The traditional Hungarian policy of refusing all share in the government of the country to all but a privileged class was followed by a natural corollary after the War. The tenets of Bolshevism found a fruitful soil in the “unitary Magyar State.” The attractions held out by its exponents were bound to appeal to a proletariat which had for ever been excluded from any semblance of power. The Soviet Republic was the result, which lasted until the people had discovered that they had only exchanged one tyranny for another. Then came the reaction, which was no less disastrous to Hungary’s prosperity and good name than the revolution had been. And through the whole of this sequence can be traced their primal cause, the incapacity of the Magyar spirit to accommodate itself to modern democratic ideas.

Hungary, under the rule of Horthy, is no more worthy of sympathy than she has ever been in her history of oppression and crime. That this is so can be proved out of the mouths of patriotic Magyars, themselves not guiltless of the sins committed in the past by Hungary’s rulers, but now exiled because they have shown symptoms of relaxation of the principles of Magyar oligarchy. These men are Michael Karolyi, the President of the Hungarian Republic established in October 1918, John Hock, who was President of the National Council, and three of the Ministers of their Government, Oskar Jaszi, the first Minister of Racial Minorities, Bela Linder and Paul Szende. On the occasion of the meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Conference at Vienna in August 1922, this “group of Hungarian Democratic and Republican _Émigrés_,” issued a pamphlet entitled “On the sham Parliamentary Government instituted by a Military Dictatorship in Hungary and on the need of replacing it by true Parliamentarianism.” Extracts from this pamphlet follow. It must be explained that the pamphlet is addressed to the members of the Conference.

“It is our duty to lay before you sincerely the real condition of Hungary and to leave nothing undone to impress you with the truth, that the actual situation in Hungary is not only disastrous to the Hungarian people, but that it is also a formidable obstacle and impediment to European consolidation.”

“Hungary is at present the only member of the former Central Powers on the territory of which the _ancien régime_ is still in full swing. Nay, it is flourishing more strongly than ever.

“Except for a short interruption, _Hungarian feudalism has never ceased to live and assert itself_. Before the collapse of the old order of things through the October Revolution of 1918, Hungarian Parliamentarianism had never been more than a democratic screen, behind which feudal nobility continued its reign. An excessive property qualification and open voting were essential to the Hungarian Constitution. Electoral districts were artificially arranged in such a way that the urban wards, including several thousand voters, were counterbalanced by small country divisions numbering only a few hundred voters. Bayonets, alcoholic drinks and bribes: such were the traditional means by which the Government fought out its electoral battles in Hungary.

“The alliance of the great landowners, the Hungarian governing class, with the dynasty set up a barrier against democratic reformist movements. The Hungarian ruling class provided for the military needs of the dynasty, in return for which the dynasty left the privileges of Hungarian feudalism untouched. By these means Hungarian aristocracy and nobility, in common with the plutocracy of finance, were able to maintain their rule over the Hungarian people and the non-Magyar nationalities of Hungary, even up to the beginning of the twentieth century. Hungary continued to be the stronghold of Central European feudalism.

“As the result of Magyar pseudo-democracy illiteracy was excessively widespread, the masses were decimated by diseases, especially by consumption; great bodies of workers had to emigrate to America and to other countries, while the welfare and general culture of Hungary remained on the very lowest level.

“_It was only the October Revolution of 1918, following on the military collapse of the Dual Monarchy, which raised Hungary for a short time to a higher level. A democratic Republic was established, with universal suffrage, secret ballot and proportional representation; the freedom of meetings, coalitions and of the Press, was proclaimed, the equality of racial minorities guaranteed; the social conditions of the workers was improved on Western lines._”

“Counter-revolution began by erecting a Military Dictatorship in Hungary.... The Military Dictatorship had to create _a parliamentary screen_. Universal suffrage and secret ballot were actually given, but the elections were placed under the control of the military _détachements_. Moreover, the Hungarian Fascisti, the so-called _Awakened Magyars_, helped to suppress the meetings of the opposition, kidnapping, imprisoning, whipping and torturing the recalcitrant voters. The very moderate Social Democratic Party of Hungary was forced to quit the field, and to boycott the elections.”

“Such were the antecedents of the meeting of the first National Assembly under the Military Dictatorship. Yet even then _the détachement of Ostenburg had to occupy the Parliament House, in order to secure the election of Vice-Admiral Horthy, the chief of the military clique, to the Governorship of Hungary_. The election of the National Assembly had been achieved by him with the help of the bayonets of his _détachements_; his election to the Governorship was due to the assistance of his officers. In spite of pretended democracy and mock elections, the first Assembly of the counter-revolution represented no more than a puppet-show in the hands of a military clique.

“With the exception of a very few honest and brave men, this Assembly as a whole had not a word of protest against the murders committed by Horthy’s officers. It was left unmoved by the hecatombs of Orgovany, by the cruelties with which the White Terror butchered the social democratic editors Somogyi and Bacso, together with Cservenka, the Secretary of the Social Democratic Party, and many others.”

These references are to the orgy of revenge which followed the establishment of the counter-revolution. After the suppression of Bolshevism in August 1919, vengeance for the excesses committed by Bela Kun and his bloodthirsty lieutenant Szamueli was, with the connivance of the Government, undertaken by two Societies, known respectively as the __M.O.V.E. (Magyar orszagos vedo egyesulet, League for Hungarian Integrity) and the _Awakening Magyars_. These societies used as their physical arm the _Physical Force Formations_ and the _Détachements_, which were in effect organised bands of ex-officers and soldiers, and whose chief occupation was the murder of so-called Communists, in fact of anyone whom they suspected a sympathy with the Bolsheviks.[51] There was a certain rough and ready justice about their original formation, for it was an undisputed fact that the Bolsheviks had shed large quantities of innocent blood. But they very soon abandoned any pretence of justice for the more lucrative employment of assassinating anybody who became obnoxious to the counter-revolution, or from whose murder any loot might be derived. In the massacres of Orgovany and Kecskemet it is estimated that 170 victims were murdered, and the guilt for these crimes was fixed upon the leader of one of the bands, by name Hejjas. The bodies of the three men referred to above, Somogyi, Bacso and Cservenka, the two former of which were responsible for the Socialist newspaper _Nepszava_, were found in the Danube, and this crime also was brought home to Hejjas and his band. The Memorandum of Karolyi and his associates goes on to describe the further adventures of this man.

“The methods employed by the military dictatorship were thrown into sharp light by a recent trial. Ivan Hejjas, an officer very influential with Horthy, was falsely informed by a confidential agent that three merchants in the country had offered to pay a million and a half crowns to the Rumanians as the price of their staying three weeks longer in the district as an army of occupation. Although no inquiry whatever was made by him, Hejjas nonetheless gave orders that these citizens be executed instantly. In his written evidence sent to the court, he expressed himself in the following manner: ‘_My patriotic feelings having been shocked by what I heard, I ordered Zbona and Danics to kidnap the three Jews and to put them to death._’”

“Ivan Hejjas, this ‘best officer’ of the Governor (as he was called by Horthy when addressing the British Labour Delegation led by Colonel Wedgwood, M.P.), when pardoned for his numberless murders and other crimes, flung back this amnesty to the Court of Justice with the following words: ‘Concerning the mercy granted to me, I declare that I do not need it and refuse to accept it most emphatically. I have not implored anybody’s mercy and do not expect mercy from anybody.’ This declaration of Hejjas remained as unpunished as did his greater crimes. According to the statement of a Government paper, political balance in Hungary depends on Hejjas. And, indeed, the man by whose mercy the present system is living little needs any mercy from this system.”[52]

“The ruling clique, being in their own opinion identical with the Hungarian State and the Hungarian Nation, everybody lessening the authority or impairing the credit of the Military Dictatorship or using an abusive expression against the _détachements_ is prosecuted under Statute III of 1921 (which punishes such an offence by five years’ penal servitude). The Parliament of Military Dictatorship does not, of course, regard its own actions as high treason against a people deserving a better fate. But it regards as treasonable any description of its own barbarous system of government, and any attempt to draw the attention of Europe to these extreme abuses.”

This is a reference to the conditions under which the Press works in Hungary. By a law of December 1920 statements appearing in the Press which were deemed likely to impair Hungary’s good name abroad were made punishable offences, and the penalties were fixed according to the gravity of the offence. Fines up to 100,000 crowns, imprisonment for life, or expulsion from Hungary could be awarded. So-called freedom of the Press was restored in December 1921, but it was limited to the conditions obtaining during the War. The value of this freedom is shown by the fact that newspapers are not allowed to print verbatim reports of debates in the Assembly.

“Not even this National Assembly was, however, inclined to restrict the franchise by which it was elected. The Government omitted to submit the draft of a Constitutional Bill to the Parliament, spending its whole time in framing the specifically Hungarian institution of a kingdom without a king. In the very last week of the two years’ session, Parliament was suddenly taken unawares by a Bill for the regulation of elections. When the National Assembly attempted to resist this unexpected attack, the Government restricted the franchise by a _ukase_. By the new ‘law’ some million and a half citizens lost their right to vote.”

Under this law the suffrage was restricted as follows:

Men. Over twenty-four years of age, who have been citizens of the Magyar State for ten years, have resided for two years in the same district, and have passed through four classes of an elementary school.

Women. Over thirty years of age, the same national and residential qualifications as men, and in addition must

(_a_) Be lawfully married and have at least two children.

(_b_) Support themselves from their own property or earnings.

(_c_) Have passed through eight classes of a secondary school or be married to a man of equivalent educational standing.

“Not only the poorer classes, but also ‘politically unreliable persons’ were excluded from the franchise. Electoral qualification and eligibility are denied to those who are under the charge of a political offence. The franchise is denied also to those _who gave utterance privately or in the Press to their sympathy with the enemy during the War_.... Disfranchised are, further, all public officials discharged by arbitrary decree on account of their political attitude, whereby the flower of Hungarian _intelligentsia_ is robbed of its political rights.

“The darkest blot of all on this reactionary electoral law is the paragraph supplanting ballot by open vote.[53] With the exception of the larger urban wards, in more than two-thirds of the country divisions the electoral decree ordains open voting. This is practically identical in Hungary with the dominance of the gendarmerie, the publican and the local bankers at the polls. The repeal of secret ballot means, therefore, the utter moral self-condemnation of the existing system. It means an open confession that the present regime in Hungary can only maintain itself with the help of military pressure and corruption.”

“The electioneering campaign was aptly opened by the bombing attempt against the Democratic Club in the Elisabeth district of Budapest. At this place a banquet was to be held in honour of Charles Rassay, ex-M.P., the leader of the liberal opposition. The chief leaders of the parliamentary Liberal Party were also to be in attendance on this occasion. More than three hundred persons were present. The politicians were happily some minutes late, when a terrific explosion rent the walls of the building. An infernal machine had exploded and laid everything in the hall in ruins. Eight persons were killed, more than thirty severely wounded. A series of attempts by bombs followed. These murderous attempts were committed by the _Awakened Magyars_, who went so far as to cheer the criminals responsible before the club-house of the Democratic Party, at the moment when the infernal machine exploded. Detective-Inspector Kovacsevics saw some ill-famed _Awakened Magyars_ leaving the critical spot immediately after the explosion had taken place. Other reliable witnesses could give authentic evidence on utterances of conspicuous _Awakened Magyars_ regarding the attempt. The editor of the official paper of the _Awakened Magyars_ gave evidence in connection with another bombing affair, that he had himself given some hand-grenades to an _Awakened_ in the official premises of the _Awakened Magyars_. A proclamation posted by the _Awakened_ states that ‘the Home Secretary has in three instances implored the chiefs of the _Awakened_ to ask for an investigation against themselves,’ which they, however, haughtily refused to do. Under the pressure of public opinion the Home Secretary had finally to instruct the police to search one of the rooms in the premises of the _Awakened_. Although the Society of the _Awakened Magyars_ had ample leisure to remove anything it thought fit, yet several bombs were found in the course of this very superficial investigation. After this the search slackened, the _Awakened_ who happened to have been detained were again released and publicly honoured by their comrades. At a banquet given in honour of one of the released chiefs of the _Awakened_, Julius Gömbös, formerly captain on the Staff, and at that time head of the electioneering machine of the Government Party invested with dictatorial powers, did not fail to appear. Count Albert Apponyi is reported by the papers to have made the following statement on this affair: ‘Regarding the antecedents and circumstances of the case it is not too much to say that the good name of the country as well as the safety of the citizens depends on a positive result of the investigations.’ It scarcely needs to be said that the investigations led to no positive result at all.”

The elections took place during May and June 1922. The policy of the Government was to disallow public meetings during as many days of the campaign as they dared, on all sorts of ridiculous pretexts.

“During the short time when meetings were permitted, those of the opposition were usually prohibited by special order of the local authorities or simply broken up by the _Awakened_. Special decrees were issued with respect to the agenda of meetings, in general forbidding any debate on the question of land reform, excluding thereby the main problem of actual Hungarian politics from discussion. No wonder that opposition voters were sent to the internment camps, were arrested, kidnapped, stabbed, beaten (women not being spared), that nomination papers were stolen and torn up, that voters were imprisoned under the sole charge of attempting to present to the authorities the nomination paper of an opposition candidate, as happened in the case of the Liberal leader Ladislaus Fenyes. No wonder that even the candidates themselves, such as Buza Barna, Ladislaus Fenyes, Ernest Nagy, and Louis Szilagyi were arrested, nearly all candidates of the opposition having been threatened with death! Candidates were forbidden to express their policy, as it happened with Imre Veer in Szentes, the motive given being that the candidate was known to hold republican views. The head of the gendarmerie in the district of Sajo-Szentpeter called the candidate, Rudolph Krupa, a ‘swinish scoundrel.’ Krupa, having asked for a proof of his identity, the gendarmerie official whipped out his revolver and apostrophised the candidate thus: ‘_There is my proof of identity, and if you don’t shut up, I will let it into you swiftly enough._’

“On the election day military terror was at its height. Three days were appointed for the voting, the official reason given being that the military force of the Government was not sufficient to complete the elections in one day. In spite of open terror, the Government could only succeed _in the districts where voting was open, only 18 per cent. of votes being gained by the Government Party in wards with secret ballot, whilst in districts with open vote 67·2 per cent. of votes were gained by the Government_. That is why the Government abolished the ballot and re-established in Hungary the shameful practice of open voting.

“Although some five and twenty Socialists and a dozen Liberals succeeded in getting seats (mostly in wards with secret ballot), the National Assembly only represents the interests of the great landed estates. The peasantry is far more inadequately represented than it was in the first Assembly. The great majority of the Assembly are under the direct influence of the great landowners. The territory of Hungary covers 7,404,383 hectares (about 18 million acres), of which 3,339,174 hectares (about 9 million acres) belong to 1,500 landlords, each of them owning more than 575·5 hectares (about 1,400 acres). These 1,500 great landowners are the masters of the National Assembly by permission of the Military Dictatorship. In this Parliament there is restored the system of Tisza which was one of the primary factors of war.”

I must impress upon my readers that this is no highly coloured report derived from anti-Magyar sources, but the actual wording of a considered statement drawn up by five leading Magyars, and that it describes, not an exceptional state of affairs under transitory conditions, but the Hungarian elections of 1922 under the actual regime which prevails at this moment in Hungary, the country, according to its apologists, “whose ideals have so nearly approximated to our own for centuries past.”

The conclusions reached by the authors of the Memorandum are equally interesting.

“Military Dictatorship in Hungary is the obstacle to all real parliamentarianism. That Parliament which was elected by the force of a terrorist suffrage does nothing but _strengthen military dictatorship_. And as long as this Military Dictatorship, as long as the Governor’s _détachements_ are in power, all Central Europe has reason to fear that the peace of this hopelessly storm-tossed Europe will be utterly broken by the Hungarian military gangs. The safety of Europe must not depend on that same Ivan Hejjas, who, according to a recently published record, made the following statement: ‘I have been watching events in Austria for a long time. I have noticed that Austria is proceeding on her downward path of ruin, so that the proclamation of Proletarian Dictatorship will be inevitable.... _For some length of time I have been systematically recruiting soldiers in all parts of the country in order to form a body of insurgent troops.... I have organised these bands with the single aim of being able to operate with them in a more independent and uncontrolled fashion in the dismembered parts of Hungary, as I cannot use the regular troops for some of my actions which are prompted by patriotism._’”

“But not only the peace of Central Europe is threatened at every moment by Hungarian Reaction. As in Hungary civil war is not yet ended, as, in defiance of the explicit agreement in the Treaty of Trianon, the ruling classes are continually attacking the workers, the outbreak of revolution in Hungary may be expected at any minute. This revolution would certainly not leave untouched the European balance. Is it imaginable that there should be no revolutionary tension in a country where, for instance, the Sheriff at Vac breaks up a public meeting dealing with economic measures with the declaration that ‘owing to the recent elections the mood of the people is not such as to justify the permission to hold public meetings’? Where the Home Secretary by Order 44, 126/1922, confers the power to allow or forbid the establishment of Local Groups of Trade Unions on the local administrative authorities, who may forbid them if they are pleased to think that the establishment of the Local Group is ‘not sufficiently justified by public interest?’”

“The dangers of a _coup d’état_ abroad and revolution at home will not disappear in Hungary until Military Dictatorship disguised by a mock Parliament is replaced by real democracy, real parliamentarianism. Therefore, we are prompted by true patriotism (which is never opposed to the interests of international civilisation), to beg all friends of democracy, all true European citizens, to work for the transformation of that state of mind which has allowed the restoration of feudalism in Hungary, into one capable of restoring the ideas of the democratic October Revolution of 1918, i.e. of Hungarian Democracy in the European sense of the word.

“_Finally, we desire to state that we are ready to prove all facts mentioned in this Memorandum, as well as many points connected with them, before the League of Nations or any other responsible international institution by means of sworn testimony and documents._”

The Memorandum is signed by its five authors.

No more damning evidence of the rottenness of Hungary and Hungarian institutions could be adduced. Karolyi and his associates, however much they may be maligned by the military clique in Hungary for their actions in the fateful days of October 1918, at least attempted to reorganise the Hungarian nation on modern democratic lines. That they failed does not alter their intentions or deprive their criticism of the present state of affairs of its value.[54]

FOOTNOTES:

[51] “This paroxysm of fury died down gradually, but still I have witnessed scenes like the following: It is evening in a Budapest café. One of those cafés which are always full, in which a large part of the life of the citizens is passed. Suddenly men are heard running in the street outside; carriages drive up at full speed; at the door appear various uniforms, belonging to the various officers’ _détachements_, and behind them about a hundred adherents of the anti-Semitic League of Awakening Magyars or __Awakened Magyars. A panic ensues in the café. Customers are to be seen crawling under the billiard table and the sofas, some run to the closets, others to the telephone. But an Awakened Magyar stops the latter with the words: ‘It’s no good trying to warn the police, all the wires are cut!’ Meanwhile the officers pass from table to table politely asking everyone to justify themselves, as they call it, that is to say, to show their identity papers. A Jew is recognised merely by the way in which he gets up before anything is even asked of him. He is immediately seized and passed from hand to hand, and by a magical process he has not reached the door before he has been relieved on the way of his pocket-book, purse, watch and cigar-case. Then he is thrown to the crowd, which receives him with howls and execrations, of which I remember this one: ‘Knock him on the head, in case he gets crippled!’ The café having been purged, the band of inquisitors salutes the remaining customers politely and goes on elsewhere to repeat its not over heroic exploit.

“One day, in the course of one of these affrays, a Jew urged in his defence that he had been baptized, and forthwith produced his certificate of baptism.

“‘All right,’ replied the officer. ‘Say the Lord’s Prayer.’

“‘Our Father, Who art in heaven----’

“The recent Christian knew no more. He was incontinently bundled into the street ‘to learn the rest.’”--(J. and J. Thiraud, _Quand Israel est Roi_.)

[52] In a “manifesto” published during the winter of 1921-1922, Hejjas and his fellow-ruffian Baron Pronay speak of the work of the National Assembly as “Two years of cockcrowing” in which “traitors and perjurers have talked the loudest.” The Manifesto goes on to say: “Till now we have watched with clenched fist the game of the National Assembly, though anger has choked us. Yet amid the sighs of our starving frost-pinched women and half-naked children we have proved that we too desire order--the Christian order. But we have waited long enough. We mean now to enter on paths of deeds.”

[53] See page 145.

[54] At the time of going to press the Budapest Parliament is about to consider two Bills introduced by the Government. The first deals with Public Order, and, among other things, provides for the internment in “Labour Institutes” of any person who by his political tendencies may prove obnoxious to the authorities. The second deals with Military Taxation, and ordains that every male Hungarian subject between the ages of 20 and 31 shall be liable to a poll-tax, unless he enrols himself in the army, the gendarmerie, the police or the customs or forestry services. This Bill is thus a thinly veiled measure of conscription, and is in any case contrary to the provisions of the Treaty of Trianon.