Fraternity-Testvériség, 1952 (30. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1952-05-01 / 5. szám
TESTVÉRISÉG 17 Heading a well-equipped army of 60,000 men, Masaryk could have swept off the face of the earth Lenin’s Red rabble, rendering thereby signal service both to Russia and the West. Nothing was farther from him than even the contemplation of this move. These are his words, as quoted by Emil Ludwig: “The Bolsheviks had made several blunders; but, in the last analysis, they were also Russians. From the beginning they showed very well toward us, and assured me a free exit and armed neutrality.” 43) If there was any amount of defiance on the part of Masaryk’s legionaries, they wreaked it on the unfortunate Magyar war prisoners then held captive in Serbia. Herding them into railway boxcars, they drenched the wooden cars with petroleum, and shutting their doors tight, sent them up in flames. Sojourning in Russia, this was the only warlike action they had performed. Additional information may be gathered about Masaryk’s Czeh legionaries in a book published in German (Die Tschechischen Legionen in Siberien, Berlin, 1937) by Russian general Sakharoff, describing how the Czehs seized the coffers of the Russian State to found the Legion Bank at Prague with the money they seized in this operation; how they handed over Admiral Kolchak, the White-Russian anti-Communist military leader, to be put to death by the Bolsheviks, in order to get permission to take the stolen treasures to Russia and to Prague; and how they helped Bolshevism to victory in Russia. The Christian Science Monitor’s news report seems to be wide off the track as regards Masaryk’s brave legionaries, which is a strange phenomenon on the part of a usually excellently informed American daily paper. As to Masaryk’s errand boy, Eduard Benes, let us mention only a single fact proving his unswerving loyalty to the cause of Red Russia. No sooner did he return from Russia in 1944, initiating a reign of ruthless terror among Czeho- slovakia’s minority nationalities, than he handed over to his master, Stalin, the part of northern Hungary re-christened as Rusinsko, or Carpato- Russia, to serve as future bridgehead for Red Russia’s drive to the Adriatic Sea. The clumsily executed farce of the purge of Masaryk and Benes is in reality nothing else but a cheap theatrical performance for the benefit of the West, and is meant strictly for western consumption, particularly for simpe- minded Americans who, thanks to careful processing by a disloyal herd of American authors, newspapermen and radio commentators, are ready and willing to mistake Masaryk for Washington, and Benes for Lincoln. It suits Red Russia’s leading spirits eminently to lend all support to this farcical performance in view of the large number of unsuspecting Americans whose patriotism is shallow enough to allow them to be led astray by the artificies of Red damnation. (20) Lajos Kossuth delivered one of his greatest addresses in America before the Bar of New York City, on Dec. 19, 1851. Speaking of the American destiny, he gave voice to these superb words: “You know that in the eternal code of ‘nature and nature’s God’ which your forefathers invoked when they raised the colonies of England to the rank of a free nation, there are no petty-fogging subleties, but only everlasting principles: everlasting like those by which the world is ruled. You know that when artificial cunning of ambitious oppressors succeeds to pervert those principles, and when passive indifference submits to it, as weakness must submit: it is the noble destiny, let me say, duty, of enlightened nations, alike powerful and free, to restore those eternal principles to practical validity, so that justice, light and truth may sway, where injustice, oppression and error had prevailed. Raise high the torch of truth, cast its beams on the dark field of arbitrary prejudice, become the champions of principles, and your people will be the regenerators of international law.” What if the people of the United States fails in the fulfilment of its God-given destiny? What if, twice frustrated in its efforts to make the world safe for democracy, it lapses into a deadly state of laxity, and shirks in obeying its God- given duty? Kossuth answers these questions. In the enlarged perspective of a fateful century his words carry momentous weight. Here is his message to the people of the United States as given a century ago: "Keep off fhe icy blast which blows from the Russian snow, and the tree of freedom will grow up in the garden of Europe." (Concord, Mass., May 11, 1852.) "They (Russia) will, they must, do everything to check your glorious progress. Be sure, as soon as they command the forces of the continent, they will marshal them against you." (Salem, Mass., May 6, 1852.) "Russian absolutism and Anglo-Saxon constitutionalism are not rival bnt antagonistic powers. They cannot continue to subsist together. Antagonists cannot hold equal positions. Every additional strength of the one is a comparative weakness of the other. One or the other must yield. One or the other must perish, or become dependent to the other's will." (Salem, Mass., May 6, 1852.) "Russian diplomacy could never boast of a greater and more fatal victory, than it had a right to boast, would it succeed to persuade the United States not to care about her (Russia), accomplishing her aim to become the ruling power in Europe, the ruling power in Asia, the ruling power in the Mediterranean Sea." (Salem, Mass., May 6, 1852.) "The principle of evil on the continent is the despotic and encroaching spirit of the Russian power. There is the pillar which supports everyone who wishes to establish his ambitious sway on the sufferings of nations, raising himself on the ruins of their liberty. Russia is the rock which breaks every sigh for freedom . . . The encroaching spirit of Russia is that which every man in Europe relies on, who wishes to do wrong." (Lexington, Mass., May 11, 1852.) "Once more I repeat, a timely pronouncement of the United Slates would avert and prevent a second inter43) Emil Ludwig, Defender of Democracy, p. 153.
