222 THE CLASS STRUGGLE EDITORIALS 223 Hungary. We call upon the Tchecho Slovak peasants and workers to shake off the yoke of their oppressors. Although we are determined to defend our republic.
against all attacks, we hereby declare our firm desire to make peace as soon as it is possible to do so with the assurance that its conditions will secure to the working class of Hungary the possibility of a livelihood, a peace that will enable us to live in accord and in harmony with the peoples of the earth, and above all, with our nearest neighbors.
The determination expressed in this proclamation, to unite the forces of the Hungarian republic with those of Soviet Russia were put into immediate practice. On the 22nd of March the Hungarian Soviet Republic was directly connected with the Russian capital, and the following interesting exchange of messages ensued. The Hungarian Soviet Republic requests Comrade Lenin to come to the wire.
After 20 minutes the following answer came from Moscow. Lenin at the apparatus. Will you connect me with Comrade Bela Kun.
The following reply was sent from the Budapest station. Bela Kun is at present unavoidably detained in the Commissariat. Representing him at the wire is Ernest Por, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.
The Hungarian proletariat, which last night assumed the dictatorship in the Hungarian nation, sends greetings to you as the leader of the international proletariat. Through you we send to the Russian people the expression of our revolutionary solidarity and our greetings to the Russian proletariat. Comrade Bela Kun has been appointed People Commissar of Foreign Affairs. The Hungarian Soviet Republic requests a defensive and offensive alliance with the Russian Soviet Government. With weapons in hand, we will defy all enemies of the proletariat. We request immediate information as to the military situation.
At P. the following reply came from Moscow. Here Lenin. Submit my heartfelt greetings to the proletarian government of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, and particularly to Comrade Bela Kun. have just submitted your message to the Congress of the Communist Party of Russia. It was received with unbounded enthusiasm. We will report to you the decisions of the Moscow Congress of the third Communist International as rapidly as possible, as well as the report concerning the military situation. It is absolutely necessary to maintain permanent wireless connections between Budapest and Moscow. Communist greetings.
Lenin.
The following message which was received by the office of the Swiss Social Democratic Party on the 29th of March shows how wholeheartedly the new Hungarian government has entered upon its chosen course. As soon as we gained the power necessary to put our program into action, we proceeded without waiting a moment. Already we have felled the impregnable walls of the capitalist fortress, blow upon blow. The fetters of wageslavery are torn into a thousand shreds; and at the same time we have begun the creation of a new world. Industrial life is taking its normal course, indeed it is already functioning more smoothly than before. Only the parasites have been abolished, their life of idleness is at an end. What the country possesses of mental and physical energy has been put to work. Production and transportation are entirely in our hands. All supplies have been confiscated and will be in part equitably distributed, and partly used as material, with which we will build up the Communist organization of production. All those legal fetters that were invented by Capitalism for the oppression of proletarian existence have been swept away. Air, light, cleanliness, at one time the exclusive privilege of the children of the bourgeoisie, have been placed within the reach of the children of the proletariat. Theaters, hitherto exclusively the possession of the wealthy class, are being encouraged to devote themselves, more than ever before, to the propagation of a higher art, and have been opened to the proletariat. The Press, that mighty weapon of Capitalism, has been pressed into the service of the movement for a better future. Joyously, great masses of the proletariat are crowding into the Red Guards, ready to defend their liberation from capitalist slavery with their hearts blood. Heads up, brothers! The Götterdämmerung of capitalist society has come. The hour has struck for the expropriation of the expropriators of the world. Bela Kun, People Commissary.
Sparse as are the reports that reach us from the new revolutionary government, they all indicate that the above sweeping statements are based upon actual fact. In Budapest the revolu