Page:Alice Riggs Hunt - Facts About Communist Hungary (1919).djvu/15

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THE ORGANISATION
OF INDUSTRY.

Budapest, Hungary, May 28th.—Bela Kun's policy of selecting "intellectuals" for some of the highest offices in the new Communist Government of Hungary has placed Gyula Havesi, the former secretary of the Hungarian Civil Engineers Society, in charge of the department of Social Production. These "intellectuals" are bourgeois men and women, experts in their particular line, who had supported the cause of Communism before the revolution, or after the revolution had signified their willingness to help in establishing Communism on a firm basis. The question of Communist policy towards such "intellectuals" was put to a vote of the Party after thorough discussion at Party conferences. Some members were of the opinion that no "intellectuals" could be trusted, but the great majority decided that as the "intellectuals" had never had an opportunity to practice the Communist system they should be encouraged to work for it and could be "trusted." The head of the Co-operative Society was selected as Food Commissary; a young engineer was put in charge of the socialisation of factories; and a young philosopher was made Commissary for schools.

Another policy, not followed in the second Russian Revolution, but pursued by all the People's Commissaries in Hungary, is that of retaining every useful man or woman in his or her former occupation, provided each consents to fit into the new scheme of things. Bela Kun told me himself that he thought the realization of the value of the "intellectual" by the Hungarian Revolution, was perhaps the greatest step in advance made, in comparison to the Russian attitude towards them a year ago. Charles Renyi, a writer on economics and ethics for many years, and now attached to the Foreign Office as one of Bela Kun's advisers, was assigned to me as my interpreter for all the time I was in Hungary. His clear