Prager Tagblatt
- Jesaias Aberbach.
- Horthy — Palatine?
- Lenin's Political Testament.
This reading of the Prager Tagblatt of 19 October 1926 covers three front-page pieces. An editorial headed with the name Jesaias Aberbach mocked Austria's Christian Socials. It claimed that at the party-founded Lower Austrian Peasants' Bank the franc had been sold short in Paris, party functionaries had held speculation accounts under aliases or in their wives' names, and the speculation department had kept no fewer than fifteen hundred accounts. It also claimed that the bank's speculation department was advised by an unbaptized Jew, despite the party's antisemitic anti-corruption rhetoric, and it named Provincial Governor Buresch among the account holders. A Budapest dispatch reported that Prime Minister Bethlen told the reconvened National Assembly why his cabinet had resigned, a resignation Regent Horthy had refused amid the franc-forgery affair; its headline asked whether Horthy might become Palatine. The paper also printed passages from Lenin's 'Testament', including the January 1923 postscript urging that Stalin be removed as General Secretary.
Translation
Jesaias Aberbach.
[?] carried, but [?] shunted off onto the provinces. Things went even more splendidly at the Lower Austrian Peasants' Bank, a purely Christian Social foundation. There the franc was merrily sold short in Paris, and all manner of party functionaries had a speculation account, made out either under an alias or in the name of that popular figure, the wife. The adviser to the antisemitic gentlemen fighting corruption, however, was Jesaias Aberbach, a man who, as the name rightly leads one to suspect, had not been baptized with Danube water; indeed, had not been baptized at all. This Jesaias Aberbach, then, was the counsellor of the speculation department of the Lower Austrian Peasants' Bank, which numbered no fewer than fifteen hundred speculation accounts. When Provincial Governor Buresch, a man who also stood on the lists of the speculation accounts, in the committee of the National Assembly, on account of his partnership with Mr. Jesaias
Horthy — Palatine?
Horthy – [?] Bethlen before Parliament. – [?] of the head of state. – [?] campaign for the pardon [?] Budapest, October 18. The National Assembly has reconvened after the summer recess. Prime Minister Count Stefan Bethlen, in a short speech, gave the reasons for the government's resignation, which took place last week and was rejected by the Regent. The majority of the National Assembly, he said, had already declared in a resolution that the government bore no responsibility whatsoever for the franc forgeries [?]
Lenin's Political Testament.
…assumption that the said able and loyal men might perhaps find no opportunity to supplement their knowledge and correct their one-sidedness." This document, dated December 25, 1922, has a postscript dated January 4, 1923, which reads as follows: "Stalin is too rude, and this fault, which is entirely bearable in the relations among us Communists, becomes unbearable in the holder of the office of General Secretary. I therefore propose that the comrades find a way to remove Stalin from this position and to put in his post someone else who in every respect has this one advantage over Stalin, that he is more tolerant, more open-minded and more courteous toward the comrades, and less capricious. This circumstance may seem an insignificant trifle, but I believe that from the stand- [?] of avoiding a split and
Context
The Christian Social banks behind the Aberbach editorial
The bank the editorial attacked, the Niederösterreichische Bauernbank, was one of several institutions close to the Christian Social Party that were in difficulty by the mid-1920s. According to the biography of Jakob Ahrer, finance minister in Rudolf Ramek's first cabinet, troubled institutions close to the Christian Socials, among them the Lower Austrian Peasants' Bank and the Steirerbank, were loaded onto the Centralbank der deutschen Sparkassen, controlled by Viktor Wutte, at the finance minister's urging. Five months after Ahrer left office the Centralbank itself was ready for bankruptcy, and the Ramek government had to rescue it at the beginning of July 1926. In September 1926 the Postsparkasse scandal broke: the state savings institution had run into heavy losses through speculation meant to avoid inflation losses. The editorial's specific charges are the paper's own polemic: franc speculation, no fewer than fifteen hundred speculation accounts, functionaries' accounts held under aliases or wives' names, Aberbach's role as adviser and Buresch's name on the lists. The paper made the most of the irony that a party campaigning against corruption in antisemitic terms took its advice from an unbaptized Jew. The biography supports the bank's troubles and its closeness to the party, and goes no further.
Why the Ramek government fell the next day
The editorial appeared on the eve of a change of government in Vienna. Chancellor Rudolf Ramek resigned on 20 October 1926, during the crisis around the state-owned Postsparkasse, and was again succeeded by Ignaz Seipel. The attack on the Peasants' Bank thus came when banking scandals tied to the governing Christian Social camp were threatening the cabinet itself. Responsibility was being shifted onto people who were absent: Ahrer, the former finance minister, had been in New York and Havana since the autumn of 1926, and his absence made him a scapegoat even for his own party friends. Read against this background, the editorial's opening fragment about something being 'shunted off onto the provinces' may belong to the same dispute over who would bear the costs and the blame, though the legible text does not say what was shifted.
What a Palatine meant in Horthy's Hungary
The headline's question rests on a distinction in Hungarian constitutional tradition. Hungary knew two kinds of regent: the Nádor, or Palatine, a regent of the ruling house, and the Kormányzó, or governor. Because the Allied Powers barred the legitimate Nádor, a member of the House of Habsburg, from taking his place, the National Assembly in 1920 elected Admiral Horthy as governor-regent. To make Horthy Palatine would therefore have moved him from that provisional post into a dignity tied to the ruling house; the legible dispatch does not say what was actually proposed, so the question remains the paper's. Horthy's powers explain the scene in parliament: they included appointing and dismissing prime ministers and convening and dissolving parliament, which is why he could refuse Bethlen's resignation. How Horthy would be succeeded was never officially settled; parliament might have chosen a new regent or tried to restore the Habsburgs under Crown Prince Otto. Bethlen's assurance that the majority had already cleared the government of responsibility for the franc forgeries reflects his hold on parliament: under him the open ballot was reintroduced outside Budapest, and his Party of Unity won repeated elections.
Lenin's Testament and the defeat of the United Opposition in October 1926
The paper printed Lenin's postscript demanding Stalin's removal as General Secretary at the very moment the opposition inside the Soviet party was being beaten. In October 1926 Stalin's supporters voted Trotsky out of the Politburo, and by the same month Kamenev and Zinoviev had also been removed from it; Zinoviev lost his position as head of the Comintern. A text in which Lenin called Stalin too rude for the general secretaryship was therefore explosive. The document had been kept from the public, and its authenticity has been disputed; in it Lenin allegedly expressed distrust of Stalin and support for Trotsky. Members of the United Opposition later distributed it illegally in their 1927 campaign, without winning more than minority support. The Prager Tagblatt printed it as Lenin's genuine, dated text.
Original
Jesaias Aberbach.
[?] getragen, sondern [?] auf das Land abgeschoben. Noch schöner ging es bei der Niederösterreichischen Bauernbank, einer rein christlichsozialen Gründung, zu. Da wurde lustig der Franc in Paris konterminiert und alle möglichen Parteifunktionäre hatten ein Spekulationskonto, das entweder auf einen Decknamen oder auf die beliebte Figur der Gattin lautete. Der antisemitischen Herren Korruptionsbekämpfer Berater aber war Jesaias Aberbach, ein Mann, der, wie der Name richtig vermuten läßt, nicht mit Donauwasser; ja überhaupt nicht getauft war. Dieser Jesaias Aberbach nun war der Ratgeber der Spekulationsabteilung der Niederösterreichischen Bauernbank, welche nicht weniger als fünfzehnhundertSpekulationskonti zählte. Als der Landeshauptmann Buresch, ein Mann, der auch auf den Listen der Spekulationskonten stand, im Ausschuß der Nationalversammlung wegen seiner Kompagnonschaft mit Herrn Jesaias
Horthy — Palatin?
Horthy - [?] Bethlen vor dem Parlament. - [?] des Staatsoberhauptes. - [?] Aktion für die Begnadigun [?] Budapest, 18. Oktober. Die Nationalversammlung ist nach den Sommerferien wieder zusammengetreten. Ministerpräsident Graf Stefan Bethlen begründete in einer kurzen Rede die in der Vorwoche erfolgte und vom Reichsverweser abgelehnte Demission der Regierung. Die Mehrheit der Nationalversammlung habe schon in einem Beschlusse ausgesprochen, daß die Regierung keinerlei Verantwortlichkeit für die Francfälschungen trage [?]
Lenins politisches Testament.
nahme, daß die genannten fähigen und loyalen Männer vielleicht keine Gelegenheit finden sollten, ihre Kenntnisse zu ergänzen und ihre Einseitigkeit zu korrigieren. " Dieses vom 25. Dezember 1922 datierte Schriftstück hat einen Nachtrag, der vom 4. Jänner 1923 datiert ist und wie folgt lautet: " Stalin ist zu schroff und dieser Fehler, der durchaus erträglich in den Beziehungen von uns Kommunisten untereinander ist, wird unerträglich bei dem Inhaber des Amtes eines Generalsekretärs. Ich schlage daher vor, daß die Genossen einen Weg finden, Stalin aus dieser Stellung zu entfernen und auf seinen Posten jemanden anderen zu setzen, der in jeder Hinsicht vor Stalin das eine voraus hat, daß er duldsamer, offensinniger und höflicher den Genossen gegenüber ist und weniger launenhaft. Dieser Umstand mag als unbedeutende Kleinigkeit erscheinen, aber ich glaube, vom Gesichts - [?] der Vermeidung einer Spaltung und