What Will Liberation Mean for Hungary?
Jaszi, Oscar
What Will Liberation Mean for Hungary? By Oscar Jaszi THE gay and picturesque city of Budapest, the queen of the Danube, is in ruins. It was an hldoredo of distinguished foreigners. Nowhere vert...
...Since the passing of the great generation of 1848-1887, the feudal ruling class (beginning with th* dark decades of the Tisxa's) had regarded the country as an object of exploitation...
...OUT what will happen later...
...Nowhere vert governmental favors so abundant, women so beautiful and complaisant, gypsy music and wine so bewitch-bsj- a»d all so inexpensive...
...Th* author who *f*fed the Horthy Nazi hell gi»«» here a vivid picture •fjthe life of Hungarian feudal society...
...I or expelled...
...in private conversations it was aaid that Hungary will avoid participation in this war, that Germany would permit Hungary to be th* "granary" of th* Axis—and will let her have a share of the booty...
...always one of the worst examples of unscrupulous feudal rule in Europe, one of the lowest areas of social pressure, a clinical case of the forcible assimilation of national minorities with a tremendous emigration of her strongest and most intelligent workers...
...It is also evident—in spite of the declamations of professional pacifists—that future Hungary will necessarily belong to the Russian "sphere ef infiuanee," both militarily and diplomatically...
...Per sap* the seWers •/ Hviia WM »« Uol t«dulg*nt with th* refined count* and thormiHf count***** who tupporttd th* Horthy readme Which tea* tho fnl Fatciot eytfem in Kurop...
...Adding those small proprietors who could not live on their tiny farms, but eked out a atarvation wage as occasional workers on th* large estates, one can say that 80 percent of the total agrarian population lives on the outer fringe of proletarian existence...
...And later when Hungary became more aad more involved in the politics of Fascist Italy and Nasi Germany, they said...
...I even dare te ssy thst the whole underground Hungary prefers a Russian occupational army to one from a Western democracy...
...a real one and not the internationally known smart boulevard plays) and in the 1840'* there were Hungarian statesmen comparable to the liberal leaders of th* Wast Bat Horthy, Bethlen, t; umbos and their sue ceasers destroyed the liberal-democratic Republic of Michael Karolyi, the heir of those great traditions, with the help of French and English diplomats...
...most of them are honest men with sincere democratic intentions...
...Then are a number of unknown factors in the general situation...
...Far olSBCBt twenty yeara he waa editor of Twentieth Centers, the leading sociological review ef Hangary...
...None of the ministers were real leaders of puSlic opinion...
...And do you not see that Hungary is the only small country in the Nazi •sod which maintained her thou*and-years-old Constitution...
...a few are unknown Communists...
...Looking at the situation from this perspective I am inclined to think (even if the propaganda of th* Communists is discounted) that the Russian occupation of Hungary has been welcomed not only by the ¦mall group of Bolsheviks, but also by th* millions ef landless peasantry and proletariat, and by thousands ef intellectuals...
...Th* chief difference from the Badoglio regime is thst there is not a single man of the caliber or the reputation of a Sforsa, Crocs or Bonomi...
...If Russia will b* satisfied with th* sam* Influence over Hungary a* Great Britain exercises over her dominions end th* smaller democratic countries of Western Europe, or the United States over th* Western hemisphere—that means keeping hands-off the cultural, national, inner political life of the Balkans: th* new period of history could mean real liberation for the Hungarian people...
...They hoped to avoid final decisions...
...Ohcak JASZI, .Hungarian by birth,ha* been aa American citizen sine* 1911...
...More than 100,000 Hungarian soldiers perished on the Russian front by Hitler's ordei At least two-thirds of the Hungarian Jewry was tutu...
...As th* United Nation* are still a nebula, as Germany will be a vacuum for the next twenty years and as Hungary cannot become a British dominion or a dependency of the United States, she will be necessarily a part of the Russian "orbit...
...It m true that the Treaty of Trie mm was an unjust !*»*ty...
...Around this militsry nucleus the usual "popular front" was established, from the extreme left to the moderate right...
...This partly happened with the annexation of Slovakia and parts of Transylvania...
...And when the grumbling of the wretched people of the putzta* and the villages became too articulate even for the ears ef the lords, Regent Horthy'* former white terrorist friends organized the National Defender Alliance— 15,000 strong—against "internal enemies" and similiar formations which followed the Gestapo model.*) FoREIGN correspondents of a better type, especially Baafllah and American, have often unveiled the facie* rftppecratioe ef this talented people which has produced eaate a lesaaiislil* literature for each a small country...
...But be sure, Hungary remains * peace-loving nation and w* shall never embark on warlike adventures...
...The Hungarian masses have leached starvation level...
...Among his books connected with the present srticle are: "Revolution and Counter Revolution in Hungary" (London, 1922) and "The Dissolution of the Hapsburg Monarchy" (Chicago, 1929...
...As Minister of National Minorities ef the Karolyi government, in 1918, he attempted to rebuild the state on a federal basis, hat had to leave Hungary as a result ef the coup ef the Bolsheviks...
...I do not blame the Russians for this, because without firm control over the Horthy army the responsibility for the armistice could not be placed...
...A pair of shoes on the black market cost more than the earnings of a ljmdworker's family of five for a whole year, whereas in the night clubs of Budapest elegant esralie'S, native and foreign, paid 100 pengoet for a package of smuggled American cigarettes...
...It is true that Hungary maintained almost to the end a democratic facade on her Constitution, but it was an open secret that the owners of the large estates and heir satellites had a complete monopoly in the country, both in the legislation and the administration...
...Will Russia not Sov-ietiss Hungary, which for thousand years has been a country of Western orientation, whose best representatives have been dominated by liberal thought and the idea of the Bill of RightsT I think that no honest person can answer this question definitely at the present time...
...And when the Horthy press bureau, the diplomats aad ether emissaries) of the system were too much pestered by disagreeable criticism, their answer was: . • Tree, the social and economic condition of Hungary i* very sad, but this ii a result of the Treaty of Trianon which dismembered and impoverished the proud and prosperous country...
...And even later when noisy Fascist and arrow cross •laments, under demagogic slogans, pushed the magnates into the back of the political arena, the feudal character of the country remained unaltered, because 40 percent of the agricultural population has no landed property at all...
...We know the Baltic and the Polish experiences and ,we hear some bad rumors coming from Bulgaria, Rumania, even from Czechoslovakia, We shall not hear anything authentic from Hungary as long as the small countries are not open to the international press...
...You see, ours is still a democratic liberal world and we ¦ade a very moderate anli Semitic policy in order to avoid the excesses of snti-semltlsm...
...We do not know the men who grew up in the last twenty-five years...
...flP .IHIS is a carious amalgam of truth and deception...
...1 A reliable witness reports that in the rural districts #400,000 went barefoot during the winter of 1942-43...
...From a historical point of view, Horthy and his gang were not the only criminals...
...white dictatorship...
...I could easily fill a vast volume with our diagnoses, admonitions and prophesies, but they were never heeded either by the beati potident** in Hungary, or by their French, English and American friends whom we also tried to convince...
...He waa connected with the Universities at Ketosavar and Budapest...
...Later, in exile, he attacked the white terrorism of Admiral Horthy He became head of the Department of Political Science of Oberlin College in 1936, after teaching there from 1925...
...It is easy to understand this attitude...
...but old, solid, integral, ''wealthy'* Hungary was kwi...
...I' *«* other interesting particulars consult th* w*ll !?**•*» little book of G. Paloeay-Horvath In Dark**t •wasr...
...with an introduction of Micha*l Karolyt iLondon, Victor Gollancs, 1»44...
...What can ws est The attraction of the dictators is very great, because our poor and-humiliated nation can hope for help •nly from the Fascist countries when the great democ-tmcies have abandoned u...
...What we can say in good faith is that the Miklos experiment is a Soviet version of the Badoglio experiment, ss in Italy military power remained in the hand of the old military caste...
...After the pact of "eternal friendship" with Yugoslavia in December 1940, the Horthy army invaded that weakened country, in April, 1941...
...In 1942 th* Bev.ridge plan, Wfllkie's 0n# World, th* Minion to Moteow, and The Moon H Dow circulated freely...
...Who can forget that Western diplomacy waa chiefly instrumental in crashing the democratic republic in 1919 and establishing th...
...And when liberals, Socialists, and independent intellectual* told them for half a century in speeches, articles, memoirs and books that they would destroy Hungary if they did not introduce universal suffrage, if they did not dismember the latifundia, if they did not give equality to the national minorities, the answer was always that we were traitors, reds or visionaries...
...As to the much advertised cooperation of socialists and liberals, the troth i* that th* Horthy system intentionally tolerated, even encouraged, a moderate amount of leftist opposition because they kept always (almost until the SsAlaai episode) two irons in the Are: to the West they displayed the liberal traditions of the Deak-Eotvos period, to the Fascists they made it clear that they were their enthusiastic followers...
...New developments must be watched without credulity but also without dogmatic distrust by th* Hungarian and other friends of free democracy...
...Though pao-¦en and past suffering obscure occasionally his p*r-nevertheless he presents th* **s*ntial truth •» fbe situation...
...We have even Social Democrats of genuine Marxist hue sitting In the Parliament and most of our dailies are antt-Naxj in their .political lin...
...After his retirement in 1942 he lectured extensively and is now a visiting prefeasor at Clark University...
...TldS was the Hungary which collapsed like a house of cards under the blows of the Russian armies...
...They were adamant in preserving their economic and political privileges...
...Even an American Jewish colonel tried to hide the white terror aad the persecution of the Jews from public opinion...
Vol. 28 • April 1945 • No. 14
