“This afternoon at five o’clock the Hungarian Soviet Republic got into wireless communication with the Russian Soviet. The Hungarian Soviet called Comrade Lenin to the apparatus. Twenty minutes later Moscow answered: ‘Lenin speaking. Request Comrade Béla Kun should come to wireless station.’ But Béla Kun was at the meeting of the People’s Commissaries, so another comrade answered from the wireless station: ‘Last night the Hungarian Proletariat seized all powers, established the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and greets you as the leader of the International Proletariat. The Social Democratic Party has adopted the Communist point of view and the two parties have united. We call ourselves the Hungarian Socialist Party. We ask for instructions in this matter. Béla Kun is Commissary for Foreign Affairs. The Hungarian Soviet offers the Russian Soviet a defensive and offensive alliance. Fully armed, we turn against all the enemies of the Proletariat and ask for information concerning the military situation.’” At nine in the evening Moscow called again. “Lenin speaking.... Hearty greetings to the Hungarian Soviet’s Proletarian Government, in particular to Comrade Béla Kun. I have just communicated your message to the Congress of the Communist Party of Bolshevik Russia. Enormous enthusiasm ... we will send a report on the military situation as soon as possible.... A permanent wireless connection between Budapest and Moscow is absolutely necessary. With Communist greetings, Lenin.” ‘Lenin speaking’.... How terrible these two words sound; how terrible the deathly silence that follows them! ‘Lenin speaking’.... So he is there now, with his bald head bent sideways, his enigmatic smile frozen on his broad mouth, his Kalmuk eyes open wide and his nostrils expanded as though he smelt blood. ‘Lenin speaking’.... And Trotsky is there too, his bestial, cruel face peering over us; his mouth broadens and the red beard on his chin shakes. All the other Russian Jewish tyrants are there too, and they wave their bloody hands. They may give their orders; their lieutenants will obey, and we shall live or die according to their good pleasure and instructions. My brother Béla came into the room and I learned from him that I could not go home any more. In hasty excited sentences he told me that yesterday evening when he had gone to see our mother the glaring lamps of a big car had suddenly lit up the dark street. It stopped in front of the next house, though this has no entrance from our street. Three men dismounted from the car and kept our street door under observation.