Triumph of Kun

When a man sprays himself with the perfume of wood violets and puts on a brilliant cravat he becomes the object of scorn. Such a man is the notorious, fat, spider-like Bela Kun. For 143 days during 1919 he was the atrociously cruel Communist Dictator of Hungary. Today he is mortally hated and feared by the whole Hungarian people and suspected of plotting to overthrow the present reactionary Hungarian Government and the conservative Government of Austria.

Two months ago Bela Kun was arrested in Vienna, Austria (TIME, May 7), and last week his trial began. He wore a red tie, the virile emblem of his militant Communism. Reeking with wood violets, he disconcerted his judges, drowned the musty odors of the courtroom, and recalled that Wilhelm II, onetime Kaiser and All Highest, esteemed wood violet as a second best perfume to his favorite Kolnisches Wasser or Eau de Cologne.

No sooner was the grave charge of “conspiracy against the state” read out to Bela Kun than he bounded to his feet and roared at the judges: “I am always conspiring for the welfare of the Soviet State, which is even now triumphing over your petty bourgeoise bureaucracy! . . . There is nothing criminal about my activities, which are always purely political. . . .”

Repeated efforts to quell Comrade Kun only fired him to a more spectacular flaying of the judges. In the press box reporters from Vienna’s numerous radical and communist papers grinned as they dashed off reams of lurid copy. They roared with mirth when Kun shouted at the Prosecutor, “Don’t try to bully me, or I’ll bully you!”

Finally the Court became so disconcerted that Comrade Kun’s examination was abruptly terminated, and he received a trifling sentence of one month’s imprisonment in addition to the two months he has already spent in jail awaiting trial. Loomed next the question of whether Kun can be extradited to Hungary, where he would be tried and unquestionably executed for ordering 144 executions during his 143 days of dictatorship. Portentously the Court of Justice at Vienna and the Court of Appeal of First Instances ruled, last week, that Comrade Bela Kun should be extradited to face certain Death.

At this point it is reasonable to assume that imperative secret messages have passed, during the last two months, between the mighty Union of Socialist Soviet Republics and the puny Republic of Austria. The Prime Minister of Austria, Monsignor Ignaz Seipel, is a conservative, and no fool. He knows that the Communists of Vienna unquestionably possess supplies of arms and that not long ago they staged murderous riots. All would not be well in Austria if Bela Kun, the most prominent agitator in the employ of the Moscow Third International, should come to harm.

Therefore Austrian Minister of Justice Dr. Franz Dinghofer revoked the decisions of the courts respecting Bela Kun’s extradition and ruled that after he has served his 30 days he will be deported to Russia—the land of his adoption, for he is Hungarian by birth. Herr Dinghofer next resigned as Minister of Justice, was appointed President of the Austrian Supreme Court by Monsignor Seipel, and immediately left Vienna to take the cure at Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia, once famed as Carlsbad. Prime Minister Ignaz Seipel then took upon his strong, slightly hunched shoulders all blame which might attach to Franz Dinghofer by personally assuming the portfolio of Justice, in addition to that of Foreign Affairs which he already holds. The red tie, the wood violets, and the Soviet Union had triumphed.