VANQUISHED HUNGARY

Evening Star, Issue 25620, 22 October 1945, Page 3

VANQUISHED HUNGARY

TRAGEDY OF WAR-SHATTERED BUDAPEST i CONTRASTS IN LUXURY AND POVERTY (London ' Times ’ Special Correspondent in Budapest.) Budapest in the aftermath of war is a strange city. The rich man dines well in its restaurants, and can enjoy the gaiety of night clubs and such places. . The worker in heavy industry also lives well, for he is fed well and has many amenities “ laid on ” for him, as army people say. Real povertyhunger, distress, uncertainty—abounds among the people of the middle classes, the whole range of black-coated workers, and bourgeosie. A visitor in this strange city may enjoy himself only so long as he shuts his eyes to all that is beneath the surface and has no thought for that shaping of the new world which can alone recompense the sacrifices of war. Budapest has scintillating gaiety for salo for dollars', with pounds as second preference; but there are poverty and misery beyond the noisy scene.

One sees this city in starkest tragedy by looking down on it from the Fishers’ Bastion beside the Coronation Church, high on the Castle Hill in Buda. Here, in other days, was one of the pleasantest and most fascinating views in all Europe, for Budapest was rightly acclaimed Queen of the Danube' Today the prospect is melancholy. The Danube flows lifeless, bereft alike of the busy traffic of commerce and the gay pleasure steamers. Five of the six bridges that linked Buda with Pest lie broken and shattered. Gaunt pillars with tangled wreckage sagging in the waters of* the Danube are all that remain of the Saechenyi chain bridge, the Elizabeth suspension bridge, and the Margaret bridge, which all used to be things of superb beauty in the illuminations that decked them by night. Only the Franz Josef bridge remains intact, and the Russians have constructed a temporary wooden bridge linking Margaret Island with Buda and Pest.

■The Danube embankments are deserted and almost desolate, with many of their buildings in ruins; they have ceased to be a promenade and the Corso is no more. The Parliament, as one looks down on it from the Castle Hill, .is still a brave affair of dome and minarets, though some of them are knocked sideways, but inside the building is gutted. The scene is more tragic still as, ceasing to look across the Danube, one turns to the Castle Hill itself. THE‘ FISHERS’ BASTION. The Fishers’ Bastion, a place of happy memories for .innumerable visitors to this city, ,is to-day almost ghostly even in the bright sunshine of late summer. Heaps of rubble and wreckage are lying around, burnt and blasted buildings stand on all sides, and in the centre of the melancholy scene is the Coronation Church, battered but not wholly destroyed. Farther on, the Royal Palace is in the same plight. Here there is no life. One must return down the hill again, past the deserted and desolate houses which the affluent aristocracy of Hungary had to abandon .in the siege, to find the first signs of life trickling back to devastated Buda. The 11 weeks of siege and fighting which Budapest endured have reduced whole areas of the city to desolation, and the worst area of all is in the neighbourhood of the Castle Hill, in Buda. On the same side of the Danube tremendous damage was wrought during the six weeks of fierce fighting that raged round the Vermezo. which a century and a-lialf ago had become known as the field of blood and in these modern days was bloodier still. The bitter struggle of last April spread all along the Margit Kornth, leading towards Margaret Island, which itself lies devastated and forlorn. The same picture of destruction is seen along the southern slopes of Gelert Hill, where the statue of St. Gelert. like that, j of St. Stephen, near the Coronation Church, stands unscathed, a lonely survival among the havoc. Across the river in Pest one could continue the catalogue of destruction and damage along dozens of streets like the once elegant Baozi Utca and in squares like Kalvin Ter, finding here and there something of note that has survived, like the basilica of St. Stephen. But Pest is more interesting for its human picture. It is here that the lifeblood of the Hungarian capital lias begun to flow again. In its cafes and restaurants men and wopien forgather, and all the world is their field of discussion. The general scene is admittedly drab and untidy, giving one an impression not so much _ of sitting among the ruins as of being in that atmosphere of “business as usual” with which English shopkeepers invite their customers to make a virtue ol discomfort. There is a great deal of complaining about the harshness of

Russian occupation, but it wears a trifle thin over roast goose, paprika chicken, almas retes, tokai, and all the other elegant dishes and wines that are available for the greater stimulation of table talk. After that, a quite modest wad of dollar bills, at 1,400 pengos to the dollar, will enable the visitor to get all the wrist watches, cameras, radio sets, silk stockings, and so on that he can only dream about in other cities of Europe-. A little juggling with dollars and pengos, a little interallied trading in wrist watches (which Russians prefer to be loud ticking and with luminous dial), and Budapest can considerably enrich a not too scrupulous spectator. The anti-social aspect of using to personal advantage certain limited facilities in rates of exchange must be ignored. A HABSBURG RELIC. It is- a small proportion of the population that has a direct part in this side of - Budapest’s life. The ordinary Civil servant, for instance, is excluded from it by the smallness of his'salary; even the Prime Minister is paid only 6,000 pengos a month. The Hungarian aristocracy have an indirect part through selling jewellery and other valuables in order to fortify the diminished purchasing power of their incomes. The aristocracy, still a very wealthy class, on the whole, and much more a relic of the old Habsburg empire than any corresponding group in Austria, live on in Budapest like exiles in their own country. Some even go into business in an amateurish way, and the cafe with five countesses as waitresses is to-day among the minor show places of Budapest. The measure of, land reform introduced into Hungary since the capitulation has deprived many landowners of vast estates. But, on the whole, there is little ill-will against the former landowners, who are not entirely wrong when they tell one that the Hungarian peasant is not really ready for democracy. There is, moreover, in the countryside now under Rusisan control and Russian Influence, the same problem that the Russians found in their own country a generation ago in dealing with the prosperous peasants. Communism has come to the fore in Budapest with the glory conferred on it by the triumph of Soviet arms, but its success among the people is probably almost as artificial and unreal as in Austria. Having, however, come to Hungary under the aegis of the Rod army, it has not been accompanied by those excesses which, after the last war, made Bela Kuii’s reign of terror one of the bloodiest episodes of the period. POLITICAL OUTLOOK.

The Hungarian Government of General Miklos, though it is as much under the control of the Russian occupying authority as that of Dr Renner in Austria, exercises much greater power. This is explained by the fact tlnft in Hungary the Russians are the sole occupying Power and the country has accepted definite armistice terms* the ful-

filiuent of winch, on the economic side, involves a (programme of reparations that it pays both victor and vanquished —Russia and Hungary—to facilitate. Life i v s hard, but it has at least emerged a good stage beyond chaos. Elections in Hungary are not likely to take place as soon as was predicted in many quarters some weeks ago. Mr Bevin’s speech of August 20, and the subsequent postponement of the Bulgarian elections made a profound impression in Hungary. Some of the restrictions in the electoral systems as proposed before that date have since been removed, in particular that which would have debarred from voting all persons “ under police surveillance ” —a term capable of ‘very wide interpretation and abuse. The Social Democratic Party probably commands more real support than any other in Hungary, and of the three other nonFascist parties which have their own Press (including the Communist), two are seeking support mainly from the peasants.