Madarescu, the commander of the Rumanian troops in Transylvania, answered three days later. In his conditions he never mentions the Soviet but always speaks of Hungary. He insists on the disarmament of all Hungarian forces. He requires that the Hungarian Command shall acquiesce in the execution of the ultimate conditions whatever they may be. He requires the delivery of all arms, guns, ammunition, means of transport, equipment and provisions. He demands all railway material and armoured trains, and orders the return of all prisoners of war, hostages and civilian population carried off by the retiring army. This reparation is to be done without any obligation of reciprocity on Rumania’s behalf. That is how Hungary is spoken to to-day! And the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, which has helped the advance of the Rumanians from the Maros and Szamos to the Tisza, may count this humiliating tone among its achievements. It is we alone feel the pain. When on the 1st of May the Rumanians crossed the Tisza, Béla Kun prepared for flight. The families of the People’s Commissaries were packing up. Big sums were smuggled out of the country. Then the Rumanians were stopped by the Entente, so Béla Kun gained time. He organised the workers’ battalions and to-day he answers Madarescu’s armistice proposals by mobilisation. So we continue in agony. New orders have been posted up in the streets of Budapest: “To save the Proletarian Revolution we order the general mobilisation of the Proletariat. Budapest will from this date be under martial law. We appeal to the Proletariat to do its duty to the last. The Revolutionary Cabinet.” And the hated and persecuted middle classes are ordered to pay the blood tax for the salvation of their executioners: “Every officer of the reserve who is under forty-five years of age must report for active service. Those who refuse to obey this order....” If the middle classes do not obey, they are threatened with the Revolutionary Tribunal; the Proletarians, however, if they enlist, “will receive in addition to their pay the usual wages of workmen.” No, it is not yet over, indeed it is beginning once more. In Budapest the comrade Commissaries and their wives are reviewing the troops, and the electrician Commander-in-Chief is starting in the royal train from his Headquarters to inspect the troops in the provinces. The Galician Neros are now quite at home in their bloody and fantastic rôle. Their chronicle, ‘The People’s Voice’ which until lately has spent all its energies in undermining authority and in attacking militarism, now reports in rapture: “Comrade Böhm inspected the troops and expressed his complete satisfaction at their appearance. After the review the Commander-in-Chief travelled with his whole staff to the front, where he inspected the advance line and received the reports of his generals. Comrade Böhm has expressed his confidence....”