Hungarians are now reorganizing themselves as a nation. Old Hungary has collapsed. Hungarians lie no more on the Procrustes bed of the historic empire of the Habsburgs. We are left alone, separated from other nations. Hungary is on her own, by her own will. From now on our goals are in no conflict with the goals of others. We aren't enemies of anyone. We have no claims on any of our brother nations. We too feel rejuvenated, rising to new life from the ruins of the Monarchy, just like our brother nations. It is a great relief to know that we do not have to support any oppression. The freedom of our fellow nations is a pledge for our own freedom. Who can be free as long as his neighbors aren't free? Let us be free, all of us! Let us live together in peace as free nations should. But the time is also over for nations to live in rigid isolation. We are all interdependent. The smaller a nation is, the more it is in her interest to be protected geographically and economically against the dangers of isolation. We are now witnessing the birth of many nations.

But like individuals, nations are born to live in societies. Hungarians! We have to confederate with our fellow nations! This is our interest, as it is theirs. And this federation should not endanger or restrict the freedom of any of its members, by any other nation. This must be mutually guaranteed and we are ready to grant it just as it must be granted to us. There is not a great state among us. Not a single one of those to be federated has a population over ten million. None of us will endanger the others. And this federation must be made by free choice, based on self-determination according to the Wilsonian principles. Historical boundaries must not hinder selfdetermination, nor language barriers: there can be more than one

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state with the same language. And we request that plebiscites be held in each controversial case, controlled by unbiased international authorities. We consider the Czech, Slovak, Polish, Transylvanian Rumanian, southern Slav, Austrian, Austrian German and Ukrainian nations-all those living in the territory of the former Monarchyas independent nations, equal with Hungarians, to their right of selfdetermination. They can join the federation or they can stay out, by their free choice. This confederation must me based on the independence of the individual states. Their finances, defense, interior and foreign affairs, or their cultural-educational systems must be their own affair, unless they prefer to act cooperatively. No restrictions shall spoil their free trade, free economic exchange. Traffic and communication must be arranged according to their mutual interests. Any people living in any state as a minority group shall have the right to receive material or spiritual support from their mother state. They can maintain schools of their own in any of the member states; they can help their kinfolk by all means. And there shall be no quarrel about languages. Public authorities must use any language of the member nations according to the expressed wish of citizens from any of the confederate states.

Such a federation would create a society of nations within its framework. Societies in which the existence of moral law cannot be denied by any member. Moral law binds nations as well as individuals. This principle means the very essence of a free confederation. A confederation based on moral law is the best guarantee for free democratic development of the individual states. Where no nation wants mastery over other nations, there cannot be any servitude!

Hungarians! We have spoken out. We have expressed our hearts desire. We request that the National Council contact immediately the national councils of the brother nations to form a federation and to take the first steps necessary towards complete democratic establishment, without delay..."

This document was signed by Endre Ady, Mihaly Babits, Dezso Kosztolanyi, great poets, who started in our century a new epoch in Hungarian literature. Other signers: Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly became world famous composers; Gyorgy Lukacs still lives in Budapest, although secluded after 1956; was the author of many books and is the most eminent Marxist esthetician and Moscow-trained theoretician; Eugene Varga later became the greatest authority in economics in the Soviet Union; Rustem Vambery was a famous criminal lawyer and Hungarian Minister in Washington in 194849; Bela Balazs, Andor Gabor, Lajos Barta and B. Fogarasi were outstanding Communist writers; Marcel Benedek, Aladar Schopflin, Gyorgy Bolony, Sandor Hevesi, Gy. F_ldessy, as non Communists, have great merits in art criticism, theater, literature. Lajos Kassak, a social democrat poet, was persecuted under the Rakosi regime, but later rehabilitated. He

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was also honored by the Communists. All who signed the Manifesto are also acknowledged by the present Hungarian regime and their Manifesto was republished in the review "Helicon" (Budapest, no. l, 1967).

The Manifesto and the proposition of the Hungarians went unheeded. Their ideas, like similar ideas of Slovak and Rumanian federalists, were completely disregarded in a political climate of upsurging ultranationalism and chauvinism at the "peace conference" of 1919. The Manifesto was printed and circulated as a leaflet in Budapest and was later published in Vienna ( 1921 ) by Oscar Jaszi in his booklet "Targyalasaim a roman nemzeti komiteval" (My Negotiations with the Rumanian National Council). Oscar Jaszi was a member of the Hungarian National Council, and he later became a minister in the cabinet. In the United States he was well known among American sociologists. As professor at the Oberlin University, he published his main work "The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy" (Chicago, 1929).

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Toward a New Central Europe