WHITE TERROR IN HUNGARY.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 September 1920, Page 10

WHITE TERROR IN HUNGARY.

A MURDEROUS CAMPAIGN, DIRECTED AGAINST JEWS. An article on the White Terror in Hungary appeared in a recent issue of the Manchester Guardian It was written by one of the People's Commissaries in the Bela Kun Government, and describes the terroristic activities of the present administration and of the share which falls to the newlyelected Recent of Hungary, Admiral IHortliy. Incident!}', the truth about the Red terror is established on the basis of documentary evidence prepared by the Whites. Since the events of the "bloody week," and perhaps the fall of the Sovieta in Finland, tfo people has undergone sufferings like those endured by the Hungarian proletariat after August 1918 (says the writer). And in this case '"proletariat" does not mean only industrial workers, but all the classes and social groups who have ever opposed feudalism in Hungary. ©uring the rule of the Soviets an army was organised by the Hungarian Admiral Horthy at Ezeged. The town> was then occupied by the French. They did not aid but neither did they impede, the formation of that army, composed mainly of detachments of officers. Two "death battalions" were created at the imme time, their members taking an j oath to devote themselves to revenge. After the collapse of the Reds on the Tlieiss that army wanted to march on Budapest together with the Roumanians and the French, but it was not allowed to do so. Admiral Horthy thereupon took bis troops across the Danube, and having established his headquarters at Siofok, on the lake Balaton, began to "clear" the country. In Tranadanubia most of the land was owned by great proprietors and various institutions. The provinces therefore contained a numerous rural proletariat.. During the Soviet regime these peasants, having taken possession of the estates of fugitive bishops, barons, and rich farmers, transformed these properties into agricultural co-operative societies and established in each village Peasants' Councils, thus laying with amazing swiftness the foundations of la. new system of proletarian administration. The army of Horthy set itself the task to destroy these village Soviets and restore the old system of property and nuthority. Incidentally, they also used the opportunity to annihilate the Jewish population. Their way of procedure was to send into the villages a patrol who arrested all the suspected individuals, and informed the inhabitants that a unit of the National army would enter the village on the following day. Should it find a Communist or a Tew alive, then the whole village was doomed to destruction. In that way came about in certain villages the socalled "people's judgments," as a'result of which, in addition to the Jews, several thousand peasants, teachers, etc.,; who had been members of the local Soviets, were massacred in Transdanubia. I THE WHITE ARMY'S CAMPAIGN. What happened at Siofok is described by one of the guards of the prison, Stephen Heyden, a sergeant major in the National army, who fled, not being able to stand the spectacle any longer. His statements appeared in the paper. In the first days of August forty-seven persons were brought to Siofok from veszprem and Balatonfured. On the night of their arrival certain officers, followed by a number of gendarmes and several cabs, entered the prisons and had the prisoners brought into the yard. The first to come out was a barrister from Veszprem, Dr. Edward Sagby, who had lost a leg at the war. The officers pounced upon the crippled man, shouting, "Here you are, you dirty Jew, ! ' find hit him with lashes provided with little lead balls till the man fell dead mi the ground. Following this example, the gendarmes set about the other prisoners. Those who dropped were thrown into a cab, which moved off at once, while the others wore made to follow on foot. On the way a bank clerk from Siofok, Baldsay, begged his torturers that they should rather make an end of liim. He was hanged on the first tree they met. In a small wood the procession halted, and there at the break of dawn forty-one of the prisoners ware bayoneted and were buried in a common grave. Sergeant ; Major Hayden offered to show the spot. Hut no legal inquirytook place. Several hundred Communists were confined in the prison at Papa. On September 2G, 91 of them were taken to Devecser to appear, it was said, before a military tribunal. Twenty-four of theße men were delivered, without any inquiry whatsoever, to the soldiery of Devecser. They were taken outside the little town, the soldiers soon afterwards returning with the empty chains. The Minister of the Interior" was nt once informed of the matter. But the head of the police Section of the Ministry replied that an inquiry could only take place u,non presentation of a, formal and written request to that effect. Similar occurrences took place in other towns.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE RED ■ TERROR. It can be safely asserted tliat the leading spirits of these punishing expeditions have always been officers of the White army, and that the criminals, though perfectly well known, were in no case punished. But let us look, in a more general way, at the Red Terror, and then at what might be called the legal White terror, as the Hungarian reactionaries view them. On the occasion of the first trial of the Red terrorists, at which sentence of deatii was passed upon 14 of them, the official prosecutor, basing his case upon authentic documentary material, presented a detailed description of the Bed terror. According to his statements the number of persons killed in Hungary iu the period of Soviet rule wan 224. Of these, ten to fifteen were the innocent victims of subordinate officials, Red soldiers, etc. Twenty to twenty-five were sentenced to death by the revolutionary tribunals, some of them for counter-revolutionary activities, most of them for ordinary crimes. But the Imlk of the persons who lost their lives ivere armed counter-revolutionaries, who fell in open fighting and with arms in their hand*. The official prosecutor classified them as "murdered," and their soldier adversaries as "murderers." while the revolutionary authorities who 'orinally ordered the fighting, were Immded as "instigators to murder." In ihe total number of victims are included, for instance, sixty-two townsmen and peasants who foil nenr Dunapataj in a hattle instigated by a band of about ;!0l)0 peasants, armed with cannons, machine guns, and rifles, who first besieged and occupied the town of Kalesea, I but were then rseulned and beaten hv

Soviet troops. To mention another case. On June 24, 1919, a group of' armed counter-revolutionaries succeeded in occupying the central telephone exchange in Budapest. Soviet troops were £.ent against them, and a regular battle ensued, with losses on both sides. The nine White soldiers who fell in this skirmish now appear in the official prosecutor's statistics as "murdered" and as an evidence of the Red Terror. THE "WHITE" LEGAL TERROR. That is the principle adopted by the counter-revolutionary tribunals as the basis of their activities. In their eyes the proletarian Revolution was an ordinary crime, or rather a complex of ordinary crimes, and not a political action. As a consequence some 15,000 persons have been imprisoned, and a few instances of the way in which they are being dealt with will illustrate the conceptions held by the new masters of Hungary. The revolutionary tribunal had sentenced to death a barrister of the name of Stengel, and a police official, Ni Kolehvi, for having attempted to cause an armed revolt. The Judges who composed that revolutionary tribunal have been hanged as guilty of instigation to murder, and the soldiers who executed the sentence as guilty of murder. During their trial one of the counsel for the defence proposed to read the regulations concerning the organisation of the revolutionary tribunal in order to establish whether its Judges acted in conformity with the lawfi then ruling. But the President of the Court cut him short with the remark that he might as well offer to read at a trial for murder the oath by which the responsible brigands may have tied themselves to one another. The People's commissary and Commander of Budapest, Haubrich, had ordered the proclamation of a state of siege. He is in consequence now being impeached for instigation to murder, and will no doubt be sentenced to death. On June 24, counter-revolutionary monitors bombarded Budapest. One of their crew having been killed in the scrap, the officer then in charge of a Red monitor, Stephen Mere, is now being tried for murder. All the persons who have had a share in the nationalisation of some institution or enterprise, and whom it was possible to arrest, stand now accused of crimes. Such is the fate of Bela Remit?., a woll-known composer, an artist of great merit, and an , idealist. He had been appointed commissary for the nationalisation of theatres, and as such had the funds of the theatres transferred to the Treasury. For that action he is now to be tried for plunder. And since the life and activities of the proletarian revolution were carried on on the basis of decrees issued by the People's Commissaries, they are now charged with murder, rapine, money forging, etc., and on those grounds their surrender is demanded from the Austrian Republic. The Communists, whom; it was not possible to catch even in this very wide legal net have been confined as enemies of the social order in the internment camp at Haimasker, where cold, hunger and disease, and the brutality of their guards, will gradually put them to death. A sad fact about this terrible situation is that the Hungarian Social Democratic Party had a share in the misdeeds of the counter-revolution. The Allied Powers insisted on their entering a Coalition Government, which they did, without first taking the precaution .to secure guarantees for the cessation of ihe White Terror. Afterwards any suggestion on their part that they would leave the Government was met with the threat that, should they do so, the terror would bo increased, and all the prisoners massacred. The way jn which the recent elections were corrupted by terrorism forced them at last to withdraw from the Government. But their action and their protest have not restrained the fury of the present rulers of Hungary, 7ior does it appear to have in any way disturbed the amazing equanimity of the Allied Governments.