Food Is a Political Weapon
Food Is a Political Weapon AN UNREVEALED EPISODE FROM HISTORY By H.N. Brailsford The language of the Atlantic Charter, which promise* **i it-determination to all the peoples of Europe, is...
...They hold in their hands the keys of work and eve* of life itself...
...The assistance tent to them by the Western...
...In the course of this war they have fought slone three times...
...Mr...
...Brailsford draws Is aa important reminder that strong power* cast deny pisilss their own democratic rights to erect the gevernmeat th*y pi—se...
...Allies has been insignificant—rather symbolic than anything else...
...Whst happened was Horthy's White Tenor, which cost the Hungarian Left Are thousand lives, to say nothing of tortures and imprisonments...
...This may seem to some rsaders a cynical and farfetched suggestion...
...Eastern Europe, normally the graaary of Europe, is devastated aad dependent upon th* AlBsa for feed and need...
...w HEN I was still on the territory of the Soviet Union (until August, 1042), I heard sgain and again appeals tent by a radio station titusted somewhere on the Volga and calling on the people of Poland to start an armed riling on Polish soil sgainst the Nazi invader...
...for they either would not or could not stop the attacks which the Czechs snd Rumanians were making on Hungary...
...Brailsford The language of the Atlantic Charter, which promise* **i it-determination to all the peoples of Europe, is as gener««m as it is explicit...
...i* * The food shortage gave Mr...
...Magyar patriotism rallied behind Kun, who raised an army, that fought well to defend its native land...
...WoRLD WAB II has givo* aa ironic twist to th* enreveeled story told here by H. N. Brailsford, prtsatasat British author aad laberit...
...Th* Allies had undertaken that there should be "no persecutions...
...Forty-eight hours before Agoston was due to seize power in Budapest, he sent for this Hungarian official in Vienna and told the unsuspecting man that he had changed his mind and was now ready to sell him food...
...Cynicism is an almost automatic product of every decaying system...
...By denying or stinting feed, raw materials and credits to popular er revolutionary parties, while reserving those fevers to conservative groan*, they can do much to buttress the eta class-stractar* throughout Baron...
...Every pound ef food and every pice* of materiel distributed was to be paid for...
...The Rumanian army, under instructions from Paris, occupied tha city, looted it systematically and put the Whites in power...
...Two or three times the assistant food administrator of Soviet Hungary had begged him to sell food...
...A NIGHTMARE haunted the Victors in the first winter after the armistice...
...Gregory, carried out his coup d'etat...
...On the contrary...
...as Mr...
...What chiefly concerned the Allies was to prevent the spread of Bolshevism to Vienna...
...It ought to moan that the* will be free to choose, not merely their form of government, but their economic system...
...There were tears in his eyes and I knew I could trust him...
...Gregory claimt that he procured their release, lite original idea of tetting up the Archduke Joseph as dictator was promptly abandoned...
...Get-many lay prostrate but "another greedy and menacing power," as Mr...
...Hoover and Lord Beading, which left the American in control of relief...
...Once sgsin there were appeals for s rising...
...were "beyond it...
...This dictatorship was to function until a government "representative of all claiiet could be formed...
...The wave of cynicism did not reach those fifilling in Warsaw, Pari* or Milan Thst is Why they are able to fight...
...Critics of the Polish Governmenl-in-Exile have said that, in spite o.f all this, the Poles should not have started the rising, thst they should hsve conducted some diplomatic negotiations, thst they should hsve wsited "until the Russian forces hsd advanced in strength beyond the Vistula...
...vow in London at a representative of the Jewith Underground in Poland...
...It was cheered vociferously...
...At that time food waa used aa aa teanjissJi weapon to pat down leftist revolutions -«nd the moral Mr...
...He used a promise of recognition and an offer of food, for which Bela Kun paid, to induce hit dupet to break up the Soviet Government...
...America, however, alone possessed * sarpla* of...
...Several times they were told to wsit...
...The food duly arrived...
...Marshal Foch drew up a military plan for hit overthrow, for which he demanded 250,000 men...
...But so far from recognizing the Agotton Government, th* Alliet let loose the Rumanian Army to upset it...
...The negotiations resulted in sn agreement which Hoover "backed and presented to the Supreme Council...
...He, therefore, demanded that the Hungarian should pay "in cold cash" and "real money" a sum of 11,000,000...
...The cynicism of a "lets ideological wsr" is supposed to psve th« wsy for a victory of reaction in a tired Europe...
...At thst time Soviet troops were sbout 800 miles away from those people and that soil, and were engaged in hard fighting against the then victorious hordes of .the invader...
...But on July 30, 1944, the victorious Soviet armies were only a few miles from Wsrisw...
...GREGORY now explains how Bela Kun, on 21st March, 1919, upset Count Karolyi's Government and created a short-lived Soviet system...
...He made the man promise not to "say anything to his government about this trade...
...Hoover's "conspiracy...
...In hit place came the Socialist, Dr...
...Aad already this weapon la being need against th* legitimate Polish government ia f sodas, headed by Peasants aad Soeialsts la favor ef the stock government created hi Lublin...
...But there were supplies of food in private hands in Trieste which he could command...
...The pledge of th* Allies was read...
...But a further development of the "plot" he was "hatching" now occured to Mr...
...But Warsaw lies on both tides of the Vistula...
...Gregory ordeed three train loads of fats to be mad* ready to lesve for Budapest on receipt of a wire from himself...
...For 60 years every generation of Warssw workers hst thed its blood on the barricades...
...He had surrounded the hall with his armed partisans and after a useless appeal from Bela Kun, If* proclaimed a temporary dictatorship under himself, Haubricht and Garami...
...On the tide of th* Alliet the "raiting of the blockade" wat promised and "immediate steps" were "to be taken by the Entente to supply Hungary with food and coal and to assist in opening up the Danube...
...Hit narrative appeared in three articles in the American periodical Th* WorWe Work (in April, Msy snd June, 1921...
...All the Great Powers were hsstening "to lay the foundations for economic penetration and political influence in the newly formed territories...
...He had, however, no intention of allowing them to teach the Government which had paid for them in advance in "cold cash...
...Today Russia controls the food distribution there, and food today is th* ssm* political weapon It was ia the last war...
...SOMETHING else, however, was on its way to Budapest just behind the food trains...
...In fact, on this day, July 28, he had neither food nor funds...
...The salvation of Central Europe" now depended, according to Mr...
...Economic pressure was used in precisely that* wsyt to stave off social change after the Isst wsr...
...Gregory had refused: "I told him from the first that we would have no dealings of any kind with Bolshevism...
...A straggle for prestige followed, agsiast "the experienced sad far-seeing British...
...Cynicism and Warsaw By Lucjan Blit Sorialiit Member of the Wartaw City Council...
...Gregory puts it, "all but succeeded where the Kaiser failed...
...In spite of several appealt the people of Warsaw did not receive any help from (hem, neither material nor even moral...
...The Allies in Paris had discredited Ksrolyi...
...Gregory, on destroying Kun...
...That may hsve been his way of sayiag thst •relief" waa ran from first to Isst on strictly commercial lines...
...Gregory, which had in it, he tells us, an element of "comic opera...
...Hoover pat it, " to keep oar allies oat of Unci* Kern's pockets snd I'm having a hall of a Job...
...The overwhelming majority of those fighting for the freedom of my city sre Socialist workers from Wola, Powisle and Zoliborz...
...Budspest was turned into a carnival city that night...
...Reliable reports from Washington indicate that Russia will control th* distribution of food hi Eastern Europe throagh UN BRA...
...I am trying...
...What is th* future and th* hop* for ¦* all if people railing them selves progressive sad Socialist, w hen having to choose between lighter* for freedom nod th* ¦ynirism of th* diplomacy of th* strong—choose the latter...
...A few miles awsy there ii a powerful Allied army...
...After their brief succest, which had lasted only a few dayt, Agotton and Haubricht were flung into jail...
...It was rampant in the ancient Roman Empire and in France before th* Great Revolution...
...That evening in Budapest, at a meeting of the Soviet, Agoston, by arrangement with Mr...
...member of the Sorialiit ) until International...
...A duel without smarter waa fought betwaeaa Mr...
...Next day in a clothes basket the "real money" wat duly handed over, and Mr...
...Bat thia tins* th* Soviet Government, which suffered ia tk* Mat war, is th* "aggreaanr...
...T. T. C. Gregory was the chief lieutenant of Mr...
...Gregory reports, his trains ' began to arrive and "within a few hours the people were eating the bread and the fats thst the Bolsheviki, all unknowing and certainly never conscious of the irony of the situation, had bought through me...
...Boehm, who had been for a time a general in the army of the Hungarian Soviet Republic...
...I tuggest that thit achievement waa more significant than the military repulses of the Red battalions in Poland, for the reason that it proved indisputably the power of food and economic factors at modern weapons for the curtailing of unconscionable political ambitions and for preserving international peace...
...Gregory gives a description of Boehm, the most modest and honorable of men, which none of hit friends will recognize...
...Hoover in his relief organisation and had charge of Central end Eastern Europe...
...will Hungarian peasants b* free to satisfy their lend hunger...
...nor can I accept the account he gives of the part he played in the "compiracy" which the Hoover Minion engineered...
...The editor introduced him as "one of the new rare of constructive American lawyers that has brought so much of genius and imagination to big business...
...And if her people were to rise at all they could not have waited until the Russian...
...la the interval, throagh AUG, the economic controls, and the distribution ef feed and raw materials, the twe EngHsh-speasrng Powers, linked in sn nneasy and distant relationship with Russia, have ample means to influence the electorates asd their leaders...
...Gregory acted throughput with th* British military commissioner, Colonel Cunningham, "a •portsmsn and a gentleman," and Prince Borghesi, "more like sn English squire than an Italian diplomat...
...prewar lecretary of the youth- organization, '/.itkuuft, part of the Socialist Bund...
...Mr...
...Its eight points msy be summsrlzed thus: Agotton, Haubricht snd their party colleagues were to assume the dictatorship, dismiss the Kun Government, repudiate Bolshevism snd put an end to the confiscation of property...
...Gregory tells *t that Herbert Hoover was the flrst to grssp the political importance of food...
...To paraphrase the fladage 'Bread it mightier than the sword...
...The Poles, he reminds ut, with French aid, flung back the Red Army in 1920, "but one year earlier without that ghastly sacrifice of blood and treasure that was required to tave Warsaw, a more dramatic and perhaps a more significant check was given Bolshevism in Hungary, where a handful of Americans, employing only economic weapons, brought down the Government of Bela Kun, snd put a sudden end to the dreamt of Lenin for immediate European domination...
...The Supreme Council agreed in principle, but pigeonholed his recommendations...
...So ended Mr...
...for the Hoover Mission was being wound up...
...I'srt of the story wss told toon after the events by the leading actor in it* Mr...
...Only a rather old-fashioned Liberal will be content with this assurance...
...The uaual answer that comes from the White Hjusc and Downing Street is that in do* course free elections will be held everywhere to ascertain the people's will...
...Now they fight sgain, fully and tragically aware of their being left alone...
...Will Italians and Crocks really be fro*, if they so wish, to depose their kings...
...But not once did they listen to voices of -opportunists...
...food...
...Gregory his chance...
...will Germans be allowed to socialise heavy Industry and break up the Junker estates...
...There it, however, a precedent which should put us on our guard...
...At ten o'clock next morning, Mr...
...It is my comrades from the Smocza Street, who have survived the massacre of the Ghetto...
...Kun's Minister to the Austrian Republic had been expelled for an attempt to foster revolution...
Vol. 27 • September 1944 • No. 39
