The street seemed dead, but it was only resting from the night’s revels. It must have been an hour later when steps interrupted the silence—a hunchbacked little monster was coming down the street with a sheaf of posters over his arm and a bucket in his hand. Now and then he stopped, smeared his paste over a wall, and when he went on red posters marked each of his stopping places. “Long live the Dictatorship of the Proletariat!” The town must be given no chance to regain its breath, to recover consciousness. When it wakes its whole body will be covered with the red eruption. It will be everywhere. It will cover the barracks, the royal palace, the very churches. I turned away from the window: it was useless looking out: everywhere it was the same thing. A morning paper was lying on the table. Yesterday’s compositors’ strike was over. Socialist compositors had set the papers of the Communists and the red was pervading the black print: “Unite, Proletarians of the World!” This was followed by Károlyi’s proclamation: “To the Hungarian people! The government has resigned. Those who till now have governed by the will of the people and with the support of the Proletarians have come to the conclusion that circumstances require a new orientation. Orderly production can only be secured by handing over the power to the Proletarians. Besides the danger of anarchy in the productive activities of the country there is the danger of foreign politics. The Peace Conference in Paris has secretly decided that nearly the whole of Hungary is to be occupied by armed forces. The mission of the Entente has declared that the lines of demarcation will be considered in future as political frontiers. The obvious reason for a further occupation of the country is that Hungary is to be made the battle ground of the war against the Russian Soviet troops, now fighting on the Roumanian frontier. The territories robbed from us are intended as the reward of those Czech and Roumanian armies which are to be used to defeat the forces of the Russian Soviet. I, the Provisional President of the Hungarian Popular Republic, am obliged by this decision of the Paris Conference to appeal to the proletariat of the world for justice and help; consequently I resign and hand over the powers of government to the Proletariat of Hungary.—Michael Károlyi.” I was filled with disgust. He admits that it was he who has handed it over! I felt with horror that this proclamation was nothing but the base documentary evidence of the sale of a betrayed nation.