Mark Imre Major : American Hungarian Relations 1918-1944

Hungary was prey to innumerable problems in 1920, some of which derived from the immediate past, others created, or at least greatly aggravated, by the present. Four years of exhausting war in which the nation had suffered very heavy casualties, two revolutions, and a predatory foreign occupation would have been enough to repair within intact frontiers; but on top of all this had come the dismemberment of the country. As a consequence of these events, industrial unemployment was high; capital fled from the country; the currency was inflated. The revolutions had greatly embittered the land-owning classes (including all of the peasants), who ascribed to them the blame for all Hungary's misfortunes. Feeling ran particularly high against the Jews, who had played a disproportionely large part in both revolutions, especially Kun's.⁽¹⁾ The Social Democrats had also compromised themselves by their alliance with Communism, and even Liberal democracy was tainted by its share in Karolyi's regime.

The inflation threw a large part of the fixed income middle classes into great poverty. Worse situated still were the families

who had fled or had been expelled from the Successor States, leaving all behind them. By the end of 1920 about 700,000 of these unfortunates, nearly all from middle-class families, had found refuge in dismembered Hungary, where many of them were existing under lamentable conditions, camped in old railway carriages and supported by American relief. That was all that the government could provide for them. These men were even more embittered than the land-owning classes against the revolutions and their authors, whom they regarded as responsible for their misfortunes.⁽²⁾

In any case, the violent days of the Communist rule and its aftermath left bitter hatreds behind. As noted in a preceding chapter, there were atrocities during the months following the collapse of Hungarian Bolshevism. While the Allies were still negotiating the formation of a government to allow representation to the Liberal elements, the mob lynched more than one local dictator who had not been fortunate enough to escape in time. With so much confusion the government was too weak to control the situation. The real strongholds were the patriotic associations, secret or otherwise, which were a power in the land in the early 1920's. These groups were the self-appointed avengers of the nation's sufferings. First among them was the Awakening Hungarians. They appointed themselves chief executors of the White Terror, although other bodies shared the work with them. The Ragged Guard, after beginning as an internal counter-revolutionary movement, was a guerilla group organized to prevent the Austrians from taking possesion of West Hungary (Burgenland) in 1921. The MOVE (Magyar Orszagos Vedero Egyesulet - Hungarian Association of National Defense) was called into being by a group of military officers. It was an anti-Habsburg but also strongly counter-revolutionist and anti-Semitic movement. Later on it developed into a second-line defense force which controlled sports organizations. There were many other organizations which spread over the whole

country and which catered to every sort of interest. The official statistics show twenty-two patriotic associations as having been founded after World War 1. Furthermore, it must be noted, that the government itself turned sharply against the Social Democrats and Trade Unions and imprisoned hundreds of alleged revolutionaries.

All these events were carefully watched by the political refugees who left Hungary after the collapse of the Communist regime. Among those who did not or could not return to "White Hungary" were some prominent people; the chief figure among these was Karolyi's right-hand man, Dr. Oscar Jaszi. Others were adventurers, politicians, and journalists.

The refugees were not unanimous in their political opinions. First of all, there were the followers of Karolyi who called themselves "Octobrists" and declared themselves bourgeois liberals. The second group was the left wing of the Social Democrat Party, co operating openly with Bela Kun during the Bolshevik regime. Finally, there were the Communists who, despite Moscow's orders, did not go to Russia. Although neither the Octobrists nor the Social Democrats desired another Dictatorship of the Proletariat in Hungary, all of the different groups agreed that the home government which had raised a barrier against their return must be blackened. During the fall of 1919, a merciless press campaign against "White Hungary" was begun in Vienna where the refugees had their headquarters. A small Hungarian weekly paper in Vienna, Az Ember (The Man), edited by Francis Gondor, an adventurer journalist and once Bela Kun's commissar, was the center of this campaign. Fearful tales were printed daily-over-colored reports full of disgusting and revolting details. Although it happened, now and again, that the supposedly butchered Bolshevik appeared later in good health, these lapses did not disturb Gondor. Truth was not what he was after. The awakening of antipathy against Hungary was his aim.

Written in Hungarian, the sensational stories would not reach the ears of Europe, nor influence the opinion of the cultural wvorld. Therefore, Gondor established a powerful organization to spread

them in other tongues. In his confessions in 1922, he described his activities as follows:

I translated the news from Az Ember and with the help of press agencies I placed it in the German papers in Vienna and in the foreign press. In a comparatively short time the whole world was full of the particulars which I had published in Az Ember. German, French, English and even American papers cited the disclosures of Az Ember and in a few months' time the whole world, shuddering, was convinced that black mailers, robbers, and murderers were ruling in Hungary.⁽³⁾

As a result of this press campaign, a whole literature arose in Europe which those with normal sensibilities could not have read without horror. Details were given of a very regular, persistent persecution of the workers; any-one suspected of holding Democratic views was placed under arrest in "White Hungary". The European press no longer remembered any Hungarian Red Terror and it did not write of Communist terror in Russia; but it made noise about Hungarian "White Terror". After several years had passed, Sigismund Kunfi, once minister of Karolyi's cabinet, stated with satisfaction that although Finnish White Terror had been more bloody, more unmerciful, and more dreadful than the Hungarian White Terror, yet, thanks to the propaganda of the refugees, the world had heard incomparably more of the latter.⁽⁴⁾

Indeed, the propaganda of the refugees succeeded beyond expectation. Hungary was defamed by this methodical, well-organized, and calumnious press campaign. A large section of European workers and statesmen adopted a point of view which not only offended the Hungarian nation but endangered its very existence. The Labor Party members of the European Parliaments, under the in fluence of reports and personal appeals, put questions to their governments. Did the governments know about the state of affairs

in Hungary and were they prepared to intervene? Those questions were asked in the Hague, in the Italian Camara, in the Swedish Parliament, and in the House of Commons and House of Lords. What was worse, Trade Unionists all over the world, and particularly the marine-transport laborers, boycotted Hungary. Furthermore, the Rote Fhane, a Vienna Communist paper, stated that the boycott was only the first step against "White Hungary": a "Workers Army" was already assembling in Austria and an invasion of Hungary was under way.⁽⁵⁾ It seemed that the case of the refugees could triumph over White Hungary by the favor of western democracies.

Meanwhile, however, the social and political reconstruction of Hungary proceeded. As early as December, 1921, the government had concluded a formal treaty with the Social Democrat leaders under which they had been granted an amnesty, the cessation of persecution, and the same right of association as was enjoyed by other parties. The Trade Unions had had their confiscated funds restored to them with recognition of their right to pursue their legal activities. The workers' spokesmen were able to send represent atives to Parliament. The White Terror was liquidated quietly, but effectively, and it became not much easier to preach active anti-Semitism than Marxian revolution. Mainly because of these facts, a large part of the European press, especially in England, Sweden, Switzerland, and Bavaria, became pro-Hungarian. The refugees had to realize that the fate of Hungary no longer depended on their politics but had developed into a problem of European interest for all the Great Powers: namely, to maintain order and peace on the European Continent after so many troublesome years. It also meant that, after so many successes, the refugees lost their case in Europe.

After their fiasco in Europe, the refugees turned to the United States. They judged that the majority of the population was ignorant of the political circumstances of Central Europe; conse-

quently, they, the "champions of Freedom and Democracy", hoped with well-chosen catchwords to make a great impression on the Americans. Dr. Oscar Jaszi, the most prominent leader of the refugees, devoted all the energies at his disposal to affect American public opinion. He himself undertook to direct the work in America. He even decided to send the greatest name among the refugees, Count Michael Karolyi, to America. According to Jaszi's calculation, Karolyi's name would serve to mislead the unsuspecting population of America.⁽⁶⁾

Jaszi was attracted by two other things; one was the hope of winning over to their cause several hundred thousand Hungarian emigrants who, although naturalized Americans, still spoke their mother-tongue; the other was the chance to prevent America from subscribing to the loan applied for from the League of Nations, a loan necessary to the economic reconstruction of Hungary.

Economic reconstruction of Hungary was possible only by means of a foreign loan and, because of tlhe unsettled question of reparation, the agreement of the League of Nations was necessary to obtain it. The League of Nations, however, though it could vote for a loan, had no money. Only the United States could give money for the Hungarian cause, through the channels of the League. The refugees hoped to provide against that eventuality by influencing public opinion in America against Hungary.

Perhaps the first question was how could the refugees, many of them Progressive Radicals or even Communist, reach the United States at all. It was no easy task for a Hungarian to reach America in the early 1920's. Strictly enforced emigration laws and the coldly reserved behavior of the American authorities towards revolutionary agitators presented insurmountable obstacles. In fact, the State Department refused to grant immigration licenses to several leaders of the refugees. Many of them, however, evaded the emigration law and the vigilance of the authorities. Most of these

had come over first to South America with Austrian passports and South American visas, and had gradually crept up from South America to the United States. They never openly called themselves Communists or even Radicals. They formed organizations in New York, St. Louis, Chicago, and other cities, organizations such as "The Hungarian Engineers' Social Organization" and the "Octobrist Republicans' Circle". Others reached the United States with Czechoslovak, Rumanian, and Yugoslav passports.

The first among the political refugees who appeared in America was a man of no real political standing. His name was Dr. John Torok, who in 1921 represented himself as a Roman Catholic priest. According to some reports, he managed, upon landing, to evade in some mysterious manner the vigilance of the American authorities. According to others, a Yugoslavian passport had secured him a free entrance.⁽⁷⁾ However that may have been, his past life was evidence that the emigrants had done well in choosing him as the most suitable pioneer of their cause. His father, John Toch, had been a traveling merchant. He himself was twenty years of age when, in 1910, he was baptized and chose a Hungarian name. He became Roman Catholic and even took Orders, but in a short time became a convert to the Greek Catholic religion because he thought that it would be easier to carve a career in the hierarchy of that church. In 1917 he turned Roman Catholic again and became chaplain in the Army. He was arrested for embezzlement after he had been for some time under suspicion of spying for the enemy. Revolution threw open the doors of his prison. Subsequent to the downfall of the Soviets, he made his living in Vienna by trading and smuggling. After such a chequered past it would have been a surprising thing had he not managed to enter America.

On January 7, 1921, the Radical Hungarian New York paper, the Elore (Forward) published a long article on the results of his endeavors. According to the paper the workmen of New York at

the meeting where Dr. John Torok, Roman Catholic Priest, was the speaker, had made a demonstration against White Terror in Hungary. Dr. Torok was able to mislead people with impunity. His ecclesiastical vestments surrounded him with a halo in their eyes. They could not know that in 1921, the Holy See in Rome had ordered all American bishops to forbid his wearing a soutane. This did not disconcert him. He continued professing to be a bishop, sometimes a Protestant bishop, sometimes a Greek Catholic one. It would seem the latter Church appealed to him as being particularly suited to his impostures. Once a Ruthenian bishop, once a Greek bishop, in 1925 he had the audacity to return to Europe with the intention of procuring a real bishopric for himself in Czechoslovakia. On March 17, 1925, the New Yorski Dennik, a Slovak Journal in New York, strongly protested against that attempt and stated that Torok was a Jew and had belonged to various other denominations as well. In spite of these disclosures the refugees did not break with him. On the contrary, he was provided with money by the Czechoslovak Government and sent back to Cleveland in 1926 with a Czechoslovak passport.⁽⁸⁾

The pioneer work of the emigration was done by this man whose life was but sketchily described in the few foregoing sentences. His work was well done, too. He knew how to organize demonstrations against the White Terror as well as how to get anti-Hungarian articles into various newspapers and journals. Moreover, amidst his other activities, he was a real estate agent in Pittsburgh.

This adventurer, who stuck at nothing, was followed by another man in clerical garb. Although the name of the second was well known at home and by the Hungarians of America, he was not the most conspicuous of the emigrant politicians. John Hock had really been an ordained Roman Catholic priest in Budapest. He was a famous orator and had been a Member of the Hungarian Parliament before the War. As a bosom friend of Karolyi's and Jaszi's he had become one of the leaders of the revolution in 1918

and out of respect for his vestments was elected chairman of the Revolutionary National Council. During the first few years of exile he had lived more or less in retirement. He wished to come to the United States in 1921, but the State Department had refused to grant him an emigration license. It was only in the following year that he managed to reach the United States with a Czechoslovak passport. Arriving there, he was joined by John Torok who accompanied him on his journeys in the role of secretary and helped him to arrange public meetings. John Hock spoke only at secular meetings, for the American Catholic clergy had unanimously protested against his using the pulpits of the churches as a medium for his agitation. The churches were therefore closed to him. His tour did not result in the success he hoped for either from a financial or from a political point of view. The Hungarian settlements showed but little sympathy for Hock's speeches. At a meeting in Chicago, on January 21, 1923, only about 250 to 300 people turned up, and the results in the Eastern States, Los Angeles, and San Francisco were still poorer. Cleveland, for instance, convinced that his visit would be a failure, did not even invite him. Because of this lack of sympathy, Hock could not realize the fantastic plan of the refugees, which was to organize an elite group of miners and workers of Hungarian origin in the United States and afterwards induce the American Hungarians to proclaim a Hungarian Republic in the hope of creating an upheaval at home and in Hungary.

That scheme was not successful, however, partly because the laboring classes belonging to Social Democratic and to Communist organizations did not consider the plan radical enough, and partly because the other factions turned their backs on such a fantastic plan. Even the small number of men who participated in the public meetings were not willing to make financial sacrifices for such an unreasonable plan. The results of extemporary collections taken at banquets were, at the most, sufficient only to defray current expenses. In New York, for example, the takings were less than the expenses. The Hungarians of America had learned a lesson

from the events at home and refused pecuniary assistance to those revolutionists who had proved unworthy of their confidence. The State Department, too, carefully watched Hock's every step. Such agitation could not be permitted in the United States where, at that time, bombs were mailed by leftist radicals to prominent American persons.⁽⁹⁾ John Hock was forced to leave the United States, returning to Europe in June, 1923, with no financial or political success at all.

Jaszi and the leading staff of the Emigration believed that Hock's failure was not the final defeat. He was ordered to turn his attention more to the workers--to establish better cooperation with them. In the autumn of that year, 1923, Hock returned to New York with these instructions, using a Czechoslovak visitor's passport went to New York also, and the fact that he possessed a Rumanian diplomatic passport and a letter of introduction from Thomas Masaryk, President of the Czechoslovak Republic, shows in whose interest he undertook the journey acros the ocean.

Before starting, Jaszi gave Count Karolyi all the instructions necessary for him to go to England, take advantage of any social connections he had there, and busy himself with the affairs of the Emigration until the time should come for him to come to America also. In June, 1923, Krolyi left for London from the port of Gravos on a cargo-boat. On presenting his Czechoslovak passport, he received permission to land in England and was issued a license to remain there for two weeks on condition that he leave for Canada at the expiration of that time. He was lodged in London by a Czechoslovak banker named Panast and, through the intervention of Eduard Benes, at that time Minister of Foreign Affairs in Czechoslovakia, his permission to stay in London was extended to the end of the year. Karolyi was anxious to prove himself worthy of Czechoslovak support. He kept up contacts with Czechs, with Seton-Watson, and with publicists known to be closely connected with the Little Entente. While Karolyi was in England, a Labor

Party Government came into power. This government would insist on a change in the existing Conservative Hungarian regime as a condition for granting the Hungarian loan.

Meanwhile Hock and Jaszi were busy working in the United States. Jaszi delivered about fifty speeches to English-speaking people while Hock addressed the Hungarian masses. Jaszi "exposed" the terrible sufferings of Hungary and the great menace to the peace and culture of Central Europe lurking in the present rule of terror".⁽¹⁰⁾ Besides this he openly admitted that he was a herald of the Danube Confederation, proposed at that time mainly by Czechoslovak politicians. Success did not attend his footsteps, for he was a poor orator. His scientific, abstract lectures were listened to, but not understood by the students of universities in St. Louis and in Chicago. Jaszi was not able to reach an agreement with other factions of the emigration; for, while he was easily able to reach a complete agreement with the Socialists in New York, the Communist faction hesitated. They, strictly true to their principles of class-conflict and a dictatorship of the proletariat, refused to entertain the idea of a formal alliance, insisting that it was all the same to them whether Horthy or Karolyi ruled. They stated themselves willing, howeves, to render financial aid to the movement of the emigrants. These leftist radicals of the Hungarian emigrants hoped that with the help of the so-called Burgher (bourgeois socialist) emigrants it would be easier to send their agents to Hungary with American passports.

The hesitation of the Communists confined itself to principles rather than to deeds. In practice they worked shoulder to shoulder with the Emigres. This was quite evident when non-Communist and Communist emigrants appeared on the platforms of public meetings. At such a meeting in Chicago on January 27, 1924, Hock was able to announce publicly their agreement and cooperation. In his speech he announced that the Socialists were ready to support the movement to the best of their ability and concluded that

the Democratic, Progressive Radical, Socialist, and Communist shades of color blended in a harmonious whole. For his part he was not prepared to go the length of the Communists, but the latter would be sure to continue the work begun by Karolyi's party popularly known as the Octobrists. With the following parable he showed how important it was for the Communists to assist the bourgeois emigrants also:

If a man wishes to scale a ladder he must do so step by step.

It is impossible to reach the top at one step. We must unite

forces in order to overthrow the Hungarian government, and,

setting our feet on this lower rung, climb slowly.⁽¹¹⁾

Armin Loevy, leader of the Communists, also spoke at that meeting and admitted that the Communists had shaken hands with Hock and his followers. He insisted, however, that they were not willing to cry a halt there, but intended to go further. This co-operation of the Emigration with the Communists was further evidenced at the public meeting held in St. Louis. In an article on February 8, 1924, in the Saint Louis es Videke (Saint Louis and District), a Hungarian newspaper published there, appeared the following:

It was an uplifting experience to see how the various shades

of color, the Democrats, the Progressive Radicals, and the

Communists, were blended together in one harmonious whole

to the lasting glory of the Hungarians of Saint Louis.⁽¹²⁾

The article made special mention of that part of Hock's speech where he explained that every section could take part in the republican movement without having to give up its own special principles and proudly referred to Hock as "The Apostle of the October Movement."

The price paid for the alliance with the Communists, however, was a heavy one: the loss of the more moderate elements. Many of the Hungarian-Americans who had shown sympathy for the cause of the refugees in former times turned away from the movement.

Hock's trip to Los Angeles ended in a fiasco, as did his visit to San Francisco, and when he went back to Chicago in the spring of 1924, the Chicago Hungarian Tribune, which had espoused his cause, took no more notice of him, and only a few men appeared at the banquets arranged for him.

The struggle to prevent the financial reorganization of Hungary proved abortive. It was a failure both in the United States and in Europe. On the New York stock exchange the shares of the Hungarian loan were over-subscribed in a few days' time. This fact definitely proved that an anti-Hungarian propaganda was power less to mislead American public opinion. A faint hope remained that the refugees would still be able to win over some of the Hungarian-Americans: Karolyi's journey to the United States

Before the war, when Karolyi was but the leader of a small political faction in the opposition, he had been taken on a tour of the United States to collect money for a campaign against the Conservative Hungarian Government of that time. A considerable sum was collected from the Hungarian-Americans for the purpose of covering electoral expenses. The greater part of that was still lying in an American bank under Karolyi's name. The chief reason for sending Karolyi to the United States was to make a new collection and at the same time to persuade the United States to remove the embargo from the sum already collected but sequestered since the War.

In fulfillment of Jaszi's instructions, Madame Karolyi came over to the United States first to prepare the way for her husband. Jaszi's supposition was that the wife of the President of the People's Republic, the democratic Countess, with her arresting personality, would easily be able to gain the sympathy of the American masses (famous for their worshipful attitude towards women) for the cause of the refugees. In this he was mistaken. H. L. Menken, president of the anti-Communist American Security League, demanded Madame Karolyi's deportation because of her connection with the Communists. This was a very bad letter of introduction for her. Madame Karolyi's entourage served only to strengthen Americans'

suspicions against her. Besides Simon Szerenyi, a represent ative of the emigrants' leftist journalists, her most zealous adherent among the pressmen was John Lekai-Leitner whose drama entitled "Man" had deified Bela Kun. At this time he was collaborator of the radical journal New Forward, and he wrote under the name of Lassen. Becoming advised of this, Mrs. Gerard, wife of the American Ambassador to Germany, cancelled her name on the list of the reception committee, and her example was followed by many others. The memory of her connection with Communism hampered Madame Karolyi all along her journey. For instance, at a public meeting in Chicago on November 29, 1924, only one hundred and fifty people were present.

If Madame Karolyi's journey had ended in failure, the one of Karolyi himself, following on it, seemed a lost cause. His permission to land in the United States was qualified by a condition restricting his freedom of speech, not on the grounds of his behavior in Hungary, but because of deeds perpetrated by him in other lands. Upon his arrival in the United States, the Hungarian Conservative newspaper, Amerikai Magyar Nepszava (American-Hungarian Voice of the People), published in New York, put the following questions to him:

Is Count Karolyi willing to take this opportunity of rendering an account through the medium of the press of the money collected for the purposes of the Independent Party in Hungary? Count Karolyi had $37,004 banked in his name. He extracted $20,694 before the war. What became of that sum? What induced Count Karolyi at the time when the money was collected to make over $5,000 of the sum subscribed to Sigsmund Kunfi, Radical Social Democrat? What induced him to grant $1,000 to the Elore, a Hungarian newspaper, published in New York, which even at that time was extreme? What is the Count's answer to the charge that he and the rest of the refugees are receiving pecuniary aid from the Czechoslovak Government. ⁽¹³⁾

To these questions Karolyi refused to give any answer. His journey proved to be a failure. The pre-War money-making tour was not repeated. Karolyi returned to Europe and settled in Paris, being regarded as a traitor to his nation.⁽¹⁴⁾ Dr. Oscar Jaszi also realized the failure of the refugees' propaganda and, ceasing his extensive activities after so many failures, worked to retire quietly. In October, 1925, he became assistant professor of Sociology at Oberlin College in Ohio.

In spite of all of this, the work of the refugees was not altogether without results. As was noted before, the most prominent man among the refugees was Dr. Oscar Jaszi. An effective publicist, he was able to inflict enormous damage on post-War Hungary's international reputation. Jaszi's articles appeared in many periodicals, and his books, Revolutlon and Counter-Revolutlon in Hungary and, even more, The Dissolution of tbe Habsburg Monarchy went through several editions in different languages.

It might be asked why a man like Dr. Oscar Jaszi insisted on castigating the government and political system of his country when, he hurt his political foes, he also did a great disservice to his nation as a whole. The fact was that Jaszi, who possessed all the sensivity of a proud and high-strung intellectual, left Hungary as a greatly disillusioned and offended man. He could not forgive the "Whites" their treatment of the Jews; he could not forgive the aristocrats, who ruled the country, their stifling of progressive leftist political movements; and he could not forgive his compatriots their rejection of his dream of a federated Hungarian state. Thus for many years Jaszi heaped invectives upon Hungary and her regime. In his anger he extolled the political systems of her enemies: Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Rumania. He contrasted the

"liberalism" and "pacifism" of the governments of these states with the "militant nationalism" of that of his own country.

With the passage of time, however. Jaszi's bitter resentments gradually dissipated. After a visit to his favorite successor states in 1935, he admitted that these were plagued with the same nationality problems as Austria-Hungary had been only two decades ago. What went on in Eastern Europe at the time, according to Jaszi, was a "hidden bellum omnium. contra omnes." By this time he saw that no one in Eastern Europe was immune from the bacilli of chauvinism. After 1945 Jaszi went even further in admitting how unfair he had been to his country and countrymen during the early years of his exile. All this, however, could not undo the damage which he and his colleagues had inficted upon Hungary in the early 1920's.

Other political refugees of the 1920's, however, could not reconcile themselves to "white Hungary" at all. Some of them were still active when World War II came. They endeavored once more to rally western statesmen, and American-Hungarians too, for their political goals. New Left-wing Hungarian organizations appeared in the United States (and elsewhere too) such as the Hungarian-American Council for Democracy under the chairman ship of Bela Lugosi, the film actor, and The New York Council of Hungarian-Americans for Victory under the chairmanship of Professor Louis Toth, a recognized authority on accounting.

One of the more serious organizations was the Movement for a New Democratic Hungary, founded by Armin Rusztem Vanbery, leader of the Left-radical group of the Hungarian political refugees at that time. This movement attempted to create an official representation for Hungary, a representation in exile. It failed to achieve that object, but it prepared memoranda for American government agencies and published an informative periodical Harc (Fight). Vanbery also reached the ears of the Hungarians at home by the Voice of American broadcasting. This propaganda line of the Voice of America, however, was the most unfortunate possible

for the cause of democracy in Hungary: it advised Hungary, probably through Eduard Benes' inspiration, that her road to democracy led through Prague and Moscow; thus it was only natural that the Hungarians went in fear of such a democracy. On the whole, their fear was not unfounded. After so many years fighting against "White Hungary", the "New Democratic Hungary" did not give a home to many of the political refugees of the 1920's, or, still worse, the refugees found it unsuitable for themselves. And, as a result of the new war, their one-time political foes were also forced to go into exile, with hundreds of thousands of their countrymen, in spite of the fact that these did not concern them selves with politics at all.

1 Although Jews numbered 909,500 or roughly 5 percent Or the total population, Jewish radicals had formed almost the whole of Karolyi's intellectual General Staff Nearly 95 percent of the active leaders of the Communist revolution under Kun were Jews. U. S., National Archives, Mic. copy no. 708, Roll 3, Doc. 0498.

2 C. A. Macartney, Hungary (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1962~, p. 212.

3 Francis Gondor, Confessions (Vienna: Arbeiter, 1922) p. 24

4 Sigismund Kunfi, "Our campaign," Ember (Vienna daily in Hungarian), November 18, 1923.

5 "Workers' Solidarity," Rote Fhane (Vienna daily), May 20, 1920.

6 For details see Elemer Malyus, The Fugitive Bolsheviks (London: Grant Richards, 1931), pp. 183 204.

7 Ibid., p. 195.

8 U. S., Nat. Arch., Micr. No. 708, Roll No. 10.

9 The "Red Scare" radical movement after World War I.

10 Az Ember (Vienna Hungarian daily), June 29, 1924.

11 Chicago Hungarian Tribune (Hungarian daily), p. 1.

12 "The Triumph of the October Idea," p. 1.

13 Amerikan Magyar Nepszava January 9, 1925.

14 Karolyi returned to Hungary after World war II where he served as a diplomat untll 1949, when the increasingly totalitarian character of the Communist regime made him return once more into exile.

John Hock appealed for amnesty to the Hungarian Government in 1931. He died some years later as a broken man.

Mark Imre Major : American Hungarian Relations 1918-1944