BELA KUN

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 2613, 11 August 1928, Page 3

BELA KUN

NOTORIOUS COMMUNIST. CHARGED WITH TREASON. The arrest in Vienna a month or two ago of Bela Kun, and the cabled news this week that he has now been handed over to the Czeeho-Slovakian authorities with instructions that he should be later shipped to Leningrad by way of Germany, once more brings into the public eye one of the most mysterious protagonists of the Red regime' in Europe. Bela Kun, at one time head of Hungary’s short-lived Communist Government, is charged with high treason, and with being responsible for the deaths of three military officers. One account of the crimes he is charged with gives them as “236 murders, 19 robberies, 6 cases of grand larceny, forgery of banknotes, and complicity in the deaths of 200,000 Hungarian prisoners of war confined .in Russian camps.” Several countries have wanted him for his Communist operations and influences, but it appears that- he has weathered the storm to some extent, and is to be returned to Communist Russia, but it is stated that even there be is likely to stand trial for his life. Russia can lay claim to him as a citizen, but the matter is largely one for international law, for Ins offences are really of a political nature. Bela Kun, born m Kolozsvar, the principal city of Transylvania, is now about forty-five years old. Squat and stopky, with thick, pouting lips and thick bristling dark hair, he somehow or other managed to educate himself, even going to the University of Vienna to study law. He is therefore by no means the ignorant man some assert him to be. As a matter of fact, those who know him or have seen him, say that he is extremely intelligent, exceedingly shrewd, and a dynamo of energy. ADMIRED LENIN. When the Russian revolution came he fell in with M. Radek, and later came to know and admire intensely the Communist leader Lenin. Bela Kun was soon being used for propaganda purposes, in which»he proved himself to be particularly adroit. In 1918 he suddenly arrived at Budapest, where the revolution under Count Miphael Karolyi was but then starting. The Radicals were dissatisfied and so were the Moderates, and Bela Kun was immediately hailed and raised to a position of authority, but finally he was arrested after disorder had developed to such an extent that the position had become almost hopeless. Count Narolyi only remained in power for a month, and Bela Kun was then recused and eventually took control. It is alleged that during the period of his control many atrocities occurred, but the terror was confined principally to Budapest and the larger towns of Hungary. He had to rely on the peasants to keep the country going with food and wisely refrained from taking any action against them, but eventually his actions caused the peasants to give him the coup de grace. After the collapse of his regime Bela Kun found his way back to Russia, where .he was again employed in the propaganda department of the | Soviet Government, and in connection with these duties he recvetly visited Vienna and other large towns in South Europe, doing the work of his Russian masters, hut it is aJlegied that he was not even faithful to them, and it is to stand his trial l there that he is being returned to Leningrad.