.:ommonwealth and Foreign
SIX MONTHS OF SLOVAK AUTONOMY
By ALEC G. DICKSON THE first " autonomous " Government of Slovakia, which was dismissed last week, was set up on October 6th, after the Hlinka Autonomous Party had presented the Cabinet of General Syrovy with an ultimatum at a time when no resist- ance could be offered. It is one of the paradoxes of the pre- sent crisis that Monsignore Tiso has been regarded as a moderate, while Dr. Sidor, his successor for two days, has been regarded as the leader of the most radical elements, con- stantly in touch with Germany. On the death of the veteran agitator for Slovak independence, the Abbe Hlinka, last summer, a conflict ensued for control of the party between Tiso, representing the moderate Roman Catholic side, and Sidor, representing the violently Fascist elements. Had Sidor won control, it is very nearly certain that at that time, when the threat of May 2 I St had been triumphantly rebuffed, and when the successful Sokol Congress had increased Czech self- confidence, Prague would have dissolved the party.
Six months of autonomy in Slovakia have sufficed to destroy every vestige of the enlightened government which the Czechs had striven to impose for 20 years. While the Fascist element in the Tiso Government has concentrated on anti- Czech and anti-Jewi§h measures, the Catholic element has not let matters rest. There is indeed, all over the Republic, a resurgence of Catholic influence since Munich, strangely similar to what happened after the defeat at the Battle of the White Mountain. There is a " Catholic hour " regularly on the wireless ; the Cardinal Archbishop of Prague is now again permitted to drive down into Prague through the court- yard of the President's Palace—a privilege not conceded by Dr. Benes ; statues of the Holy Trinity and the Virgin Mary are being re-erected in Prague after 20 years' absence ; the Cross is now hung in all schools ; St. Wenceslas is pushing Hus into the background as the national hero.
But whilst in Bohemia this state of affairs is regarded with listless indifference by people to whom the Roman Church has too often been synonymous with the Vienna Government, in Slovakia the Church is on the offensive. The charge of atheism was one of the heaviest in the artillery that Hlinka, who used to start his political meetings with a prayer, could bring against the Czechs. It is not an exaggeration to say that the village priests in Slovakia have been the most influential agents for Hlinka's autonomy. It is somewhat ironic that of the three Slovaks whose names have become famous outside their own country—Masaryk, Stefanik (the brilliant general and aviator who was killed in an air smash in 1919) and Hodza—not one was a Roman Catholic. Indeed, it was the young evangelicals from Slovakia before the War who first propagated the spirit of nationalism which they encountered during their studies in Prague and Berlin, while the Catholic priesthood, who went to Budapest seminaries, were, with a few notable exceptions like Hlinka himself, staunch supporters of the established Hungarian regime. Most of the present
leaders of Slovak independence " spoke Hungarian until after the War. Slovak nationalism has only been allowed to develop since 1918 ; before the War the Hungarian police had on their list of Slovak nationalists only 526 names.
It is, however, the Fascist element, and not the Catholic, which has been most aggressively active in the last six months. When the Vienna Arbitration awarded a good third of Slovakia to Hungary it was only too clear that the new regime, within five weeks of its existence, had not been able to prevent an evil many times greater than all the ills attributed to 20 years of Czech administration.
In their rage the Hlinka Guard turned on the Jews, on the flimsy pretext that they had favoured a return to Magyar domination ; why they should wish to be joined to anti- Semitic Hungary is not clear. I myself saw pogroms in Eastern Slovakia which outdid in savagery, if not in subtlety, anything which has happened in Germany. Jews, old men, women and children, were pulled out of bed at night, allowed to take only a few crowns with them, thrust on to lorries, and de- posited in the fields at dawn on land that was to be occupied by Hungary. I saw nothing more moving than young Jews,
wearing the uniform of the Czechoslovak Army, searching for their parents in the annexe of the synagogue at Kosice ; whilst preparing to leave their barracks in Kosice, which was to be occupied by Hungarian troops, they had learnt that a pogrom had started, and begged leave from their command- ing officers to search for their parents. Their bitterness at this—their reward for serving their State in arms—was intense. The Jew plays an integral role in such com- merce as exists there, particularly in Eastern Slovakia. The Slovaks themselves have little aptitude for business, pre- ferring civil-service jobs. The Jews cannot be eliminated from commerce, without bringing business to a standstill, under five years.
The Hlinka Guard is so entirely fashioned on the storm- troop model that description is superfluous. Their greet- ing, " Na Straz " (on guard), they have borrowed from the Slovak Scouts, now suppressed in favour of a totalitarian youth organisation. It is unadvisable to give the Czech greet- ing " Nazdar." Czech police in Bratislava have been dis- missed and replaced by young Slovaks trained in the S.A. School at Vienna. Their hostility to everything Czech transcends all antagonism towards Hungary. Young Hlinka Guards have assured me that the Czechs shot down Stefanik in his 'plane in 1919 because they feared that he was in favour of autonomy in Slovakia, and some members of the Hlinka Party have demanded that the Czechs should pay " reparations " for their 20 years of control in Slovakia.
Relations between the Hlinka Guard and the Germans In Slovakia have been more sincerely cordial than relations be- tween the Slovak and the German Governments. In arro- gance the Nazis in Slovakia, particularly in Bratislava, exceed the Sudeten Germans. Notices which adorn the windows of shops—" This is an Aryan concern," bear the stamp of the Nazi party as well as of the Hlinka Guard. The Hlinka Guard, who always sympathised (with more logic than patriotism) with the Sudeten Germans' claim for autonomy, and who share the Nazi mentality, are apparently unaware of any anti-Catholic tendencies in National Socialism. What is really significant about the German minority, not only in Slovakia, but in the whole of the republic, is that they are being prevented from opting for German citizenship by the German Legation. It is quite apparent that Herr Kundt in Bohemia, and Dr. Karmasin in Slovakia are instructing members of the German minority that it is now their duty to remain in the Republic as " outposts of German culture." What before Munich was a German minority kept in Czecho- Slovakia against its will by the Czechs, is now still kept there by orders from the German Government.
But if the rank and file of the Hlinka Guard can fraternise with the Nazis, the reaction of the more responsible and moderate Slovaks towards German influence is not so happy. A great illuminated swastika blinks menacingly at night from across the Danube towards Bratislava. Bratislava's proximity to Vienna—less than 4o miles—is not reassuring. So long as three years ago, it was contemplated removing the capital to Zilina in the north. The German threat to build a port in the Danube opposite Bratislava, at Thehcn, and to make it play the role of a Gdynia to the Danzig of Bratislava, cannot give much satisfaction.
Economically Slovak independence cannot be anything but a fiasco. The agrarian policy of Hodza which bought corn from the Slovak peasantry at a price approximating almost to political bribery is gone, and eggs in the chief towns that are left in Slovakia, already cost almost twice as much as they did before Munich. No Czech industrialist will invest money today in Slovakia, and Slovak financiers do not exist. The laudable intention of making Slovakia a second Switzerland (not from the cantonal point of view this time, but as an attraction for tourists) can hardly succeed while the Czechs— who form over 8o per cent. of the tourists—are antagonised. In the economic sense, Bohemia and Slovakia are more per- fectly complementary than before Munich, for today Bohemia is a land of plains shorn of its mountains, while Slovakia is chiefly a land of mountains shorn of its plains.
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