ORGANISING TO SOLVE
FOOD PROBLEMS.
Budapest, Hungary, May 29th.—If the Communist Government of Hungary can weather the dirth of food for one more month until the harvest comes, and can continue its advance into regained territory, there is every sign that it will become the permanent government of Hungary. Although 63 per cent. of the population are peasants who, according to the People's Commissaries themselves, are not in favour of Communism, these peasants are inarticulate, and the only real counter-revolutionary activity, comes from the bourgeois in the cities, and from the women of the working class, who now have to stand in line for hours with their food cards, in order to obtain the meagre supply allowed for their families.
COUNTER-REVOLUTIONISTS.
Of these three groups the most active seems to be the women who are influenced by the priests. The peasants are more or less inarticulate except for their withholding of food. The wealthy bourgeois, according to a prominent ex-statesman with whom I had a three hours' talk, are either thoroughly disorganized, or are waiting for the Government to fall under the weighty problems of food distribution. The ex-statesman, whose name is known throughout the world, as recently one of Hungary's most powerful citizens and politicians, told me that while his house was visited by the Red Guards immediately after the Communist coup in March, no member of his family was harmed, and all property seized by the State was preserved. This gentleman's attitude towards the new Government can be expressed in the one sentence by which he answered my query as to his opinion of Bela Kun. "They are all robbers and nothing but common Jews," he said. This gentleman applied the same terms to Karolyi for his part in
