Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/228



The May assembly at Liptov, St. Nicholas, was a mile stone in the development of the Slovak rebellion against the Magyars and their co-operation with the Czechs. There for the first time the Slovaks took courage to throw a challenge to their Magyar rulers; they issued a declaration that Slovakia was to form a free and independent republic together with the Czech lands.

Since then news from the Slovak counties of Hungary has been very scarce. This is easily understood. The Magyars received a real scare, when the Slovaks ratified the plan of the Czechs for a united state, plans that have caused so much disquietude in Budapest since May 1917. So now the Magyar rulers closed the boundaries of Hungary against Moravia and Galicia, doubled and tripled the number of frontier guards and took all possible means that no Czech from Bohemia or Moravia should cross the Hungarian boundary into the Slovak counties. In addition to that the Hungarian postoffice prohibited the admission of Czech newspapers into the Hungarian mails, and by all these various means the government of Dr. Weckerle hoped to separate their Slovak subjects from the Czech rebels.

In spite of all the means taken by the government the Slovak leaders were kept informed of what went on beyond the Chinese wall separating them from their brothers to the west. Above all they knew of the exploits of the Czechoslovak army and were proud that the Slovaks, just as much as the Czechs, fought against the Central Powers and their Bolshevik allies. Communication was kept up secretly with the leaders in Prague, and news of the Czech progress trickled in through reports in German newspapers which the Magyars were not able to prevent from entering Hungary.

After a while, when violent methods did not bring results, the Magyar oligarchs decided to use persuasion and offered to compromise. They sent to Slovakia political agents whose task it was to convince the Slovaks that they would be better off by adhering to the Magyars, than by joining the Czechs. As an inducement these agents promised the Slovaks wide autonomy and national self-government within the boundaries of the Hungarian state. But the Slovaks could place no confidence in the socalled democratic promises of Count Karolyi who took particular pains to convince them that he was an enemy of the exist ing arrangement and would be a friend of the Slovaks, if only they would let him. Unfortunately Karolyi is the son-in-law of Count Julius Andrassy, who is known as one of the biggest reactionaries and Magyar chauvinists, who at the outbreak of the war fanned into flame among the Magyar war sentiment, and who never would hear of any rights for the Slovaks. Now Andrassy openly backs the plan of his son-in-law.

Among the Magyars the only element whom the Slovaks would trust were the organized workingmen. For under the rule of Magyar counts the workingmen of Budapest and other Magyar cities were treated as serfs, just like the Slovaks and the other oppressed nationalities of Hungary. Neither the workingmen nor the Slav races had any real representation in the Hungarian parliament. And so the organized labor at their congress held in Budapest on October 12th made common cause with what is known in Hungary as the “nationalities”. In a resolution adopted at this convention it is declared that “the question of nationalities must be solved by mutual agreement and the application of a square deal.” Magyar workingmen hoped that by their efforts Hungary would be come democratic and in every way just, and they appealed to the nationalities to help them in this matter. This declaration did not go far enough, but Josef Diner-Denes, leader of Magyar socialists, wrote on behalf of his party in the Vienna “Arbeiter Zeitung”: “We, the Magyar socialdemocrats, declare plainly and openly that we shall never consent to use armed force against the Slovaks, in case they should decide to join the Czech state.”

All these facts—the government’s offer to the Slovaks, Karolyi’s negotiations with them and the statement of the Magyar workingmen—make it evident that in spite of the absence of all news the Slovaks must