Page:Diplomacy and the War (Andrassy 1921).djvu/316

 to obey the Government and not the party, the soldiers revolted, the Minister for War was made to resign, or, rather, he was chased from his office. The army organized itself on a social democratic basis, and only members of the party were accepted into the service. Militarism took its most dangerous form because the army directed our policy, formed Governments and defeated them, and used grenades and bayonets in place of arguments and discussion. By this method the dictatorship of the proletariat was prepared, whose first condition, according to the theory of Lenin, is the disarming of the bourgeoisie and the arming of the workmen.

From this moment on the catastrophe was inevitable. The country was unable to help itself. The only help that could serve any purpose would have been for the mission of the Entente, for their own protection, to concentrate so powerful a military force in Budapest as would be in a position to protect the National Assembly against the terrorism of the mob as well as to preserve law and order. I tried to do everything imaginable to point to the truth of this fact in Paris. In vain! Independent Hungary within its own narrow borders, which had been set up for it, was of little interest to the statesmen of the Entente, who were occupied with the great world problems. The first mutiny that was instigated in the interests of the Soviet caused the downfall of the Government. Forty-two leaders were arrested, but this victory was unable to arrest the process of disruption. Even in Russia,