The heckler swore. One man lit a cigarette and several cried, “Shut up,” but Comrade Soma Vass went on talking. Nobody paid any attention to him, the people chatting among themselves. “He will grow gallows ... a nursery of them ... grow them, shape them.... Well, at least he has a programme of a sort.” And thus, after all the destruction, Béla Kun’s spokesman has nailed down the only creative policy of Hungary’s Socialist production. They are going to grow gallows. * * * * * _July 14th–20th._ Béla Kun has sent a note to Clemenceau asking for the evacuation of the Tisza as promised in compensation for the abandoned offensive against the Czechs; he received the following answer: “Béla Kun, Budapest. In answer to your wireless which you sent on the 11th inst. to the President, the Peace Conference declares that it cannot negotiate with you as long as you fail to observe the conditions of the armistice.” For a time I stared at the text of the telegram. How much blood, shame and suffering would have been spared to humanity if the victorious powers, instead of sending propositions through General Smuts to Béla Kun’s band of murderers and dangling before the Soviet’s eyes the possibility of its admission to the Peace Conference, had sent from the start a reply to this effect. Let the spilt blood and the inhuman tortures fall on the heads of those who wanted to bargain when conscience, honour and charity forbade any bargaining. It is all clear now. The victorious Great Powers did not enter into negotiations with Béla Kun because they were pressed to do so by their own Proletariat, for that pressure would still exist, but simply because he made light of the integrity of the country to which he had not the slightest title. This shame can never be wiped out. The frigid, tardy note cannot restore the lowered dignity of the victorious States. Béla Kun answered, his reply couched in provocative, ironical terms. He made little attempt to disguise the doubt he had of Clemenceau’s veracity and derided his impotence to impose his will on the Rumanians and Czechs.