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 My life. 
 
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MY LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 AUGUST BEBEL 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
 
 Agents 
 
 THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO. 
 
 33-37 E 17TH STREET 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
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 (All rights reserved.) 
 
 
PREFACE 
 
 To my English Readers 
 
 It is with pleasure that I accede to the request 
 of my English publishers, that I should address 
 a few words to my English readers by way of 
 introduction to the English version of my Recol- 
 lections. 
 
 I imagine the purpose of memoirs is to make 
 plain to the public the motives and circumstances 
 which influence a man who comes to play an 
 influential part in a certain period and sphere of 
 action, and to contribute to a clearer compre- 
 hension of certain contemporary events. 
 
 It is my personal conviction that even the most 
 remarkable and influential of men is more often 
 the thing driven than the driving power ; that he 
 can do little more than help into being that which 
 in a given state of society is pressing onward to 
 the realisation and recognition which are essen- 
 tially its due. This being my belief, I have been 
 saved from regarding my own activities as anything 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 more than those of a willing helper at a birth of 
 whose origin he is entirely, innocent. 
 
 Into the role of an assistant at a historical 
 process of evolution I was thrust by the conditions 
 of my life and as a result of my experience. Once 
 driven into the movement that originated in the 
 'sixties of the last century, among the German 
 working-classes, it was my duty, and my interest, 
 not only to take part in the conflict of opinions 
 born of this movement, but also to examine the 
 ideas which were then newly emerging, and as 
 judiciously as I could to decide for or against 
 them. It was thus that in the course of a few 
 years from being a convinced and decided opponent 
 of Socialism I became one of its most zealous 
 adherents. I was a Saul, and became a Paul ; and 
 a Paul I have remained even unto the evening 
 of my life, more than ever convinced of the justice 
 of my beliefs, and so I shall reniiain to the end, 
 as long as my strength is left me. 
 
 What I must call the proletarianisation of the 
 masses, which is steadily progressing, and resulting 
 in a continually aggravated class antagonism, being 
 the result of the industrial development of the last 
 fifty, years, with capitalism on the large scale as 
 its basis, has produced that class of humanity, 
 whose interests, becoming ever more sharply 
 opposed to the existing economic order, drive 
 
PREFACE 7 
 
 them into the ranks of Social-Democracy— the 
 modern working-class. But for this gigantic 
 economic development and its consequences I 
 myself, with others who share my convictions, 
 might have spoken with the tongues of angels, but 
 we should have produced no effect whatever. As 
 a result of this development, however, I — and I 
 will not deny ail personal merit in the matter- 
 became, with the help of certain others, the leader 
 of the German Social-Democratic party, which is 
 at present the strongest party of that colour in 
 the world ; a party which, directly and indirectly, 
 influences both the internal and external policy of 
 the German Empire, and that to a greater extent 
 than its opponents care to own. The late 
 Chancellor of the Empire, Count Caprivi, was the 
 only statesman of his time honest enough to confess 
 that the Government carefully considered every Bill 
 it laid before the Reichstag in the light of its 
 possible influence on Social -Democracy. And no 
 one familiar with German conditions will doubt 
 that, failing the existence of a strong Social- 
 Democratic party, the foreign policy of Germany, 
 would have been far more aggressive than it 
 has been. 
 
 It may interest the English reader of these 
 Recollections to learn something of the manner 
 in which the German Social-Democratic party 
 
8 PREFACE 
 
 attained its present powerful position. The 
 present instalment of my Recollections stops at 
 the autumn of 1878 : at which time, after the two 
 attempts on the life of the Emperor William, Prince 
 Bismarck thought it expedient to force a strong 
 Coercion Bill through the Reichstag : a measure 
 which, directed against the Social-Democratic 
 party, after remaining in force for twelve years 
 (until 1891), proved utterly ineffectual, and cost 
 the Chancellor his oflBce. 
 
 Prince Bismarck had hoped by this Coercion 
 Bill, if not to suppress, at least to retard the 
 development of the party. Yet he was to see this 
 party, after the suppression of its Press and 
 organisation, increase the number of its votes from 
 312,000 in 1881 to 1,427,000 in 1890, by which 
 time it had become the strongest party in Germany. 
 This increase of power conclusively demonstrated 
 that his coercive legislation was ineffectual and 
 superfluous. Not Social-Democracy but Bismarck 
 was vanquished, and his defeat was sealed by his 
 dismissal. 
 
 It was thus manifest that the same forces which 
 had crowned our propaganda with success after 
 success before the passing of the anti-Socialist laws 
 continued to operate even mOre powerfully after 
 those laws were put into force. And they are 
 still operating at the present day, as is proved by 
 
PREFACE 9 
 
 the last elections to the Reichstag, those of January, 
 1912, when the party obtained no less than 
 4,250,000 votes and sent 110 members to the 
 Reichstag, a success unique in the light of the fact 
 that 99 per cent, of the members of the party, 
 are working-men. The characteristic point in this 
 development is the fact that from 1881 onwards— 
 that being the date of the first election fought under 
 the anti-Socialist laws — although the number of 
 seats won by the party fluctuated, the number of 
 votes steadily increased : a point to which the party 
 attaches decisive importance as a measure of real 
 growth and a sure sign that it is striking root 
 more deeply than ever amidst the lower classes. 
 
 This success was possible only at the price of 
 an intensive and uninterrupted propaganda with 
 the object of enlightening the masses ; a labour 
 which demanded enormous sacrifices of time, 
 energy, and money, and the creation of a magni- 
 ficent organisation, which, in its turn, could only 
 have resulted from the co-operation of a multi- 
 plicity of forces. That I have to the best of my 
 power contributed to this success I will not deny. 
 
 A. BBBEL. 
 Schonbbeeg-Beelin, 
 June, 1912. 
 
OHAFTEB 
 
 PAOB 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. Childhood and Youth . . . .15 
 
 II. Apprentice and Jouenbyman . . .32 
 
 III. I ENTEB THE WoBKMEN'S MOVEMENT AND PuBLIC 
 
 Life . . . . . .44 
 
 IV. Lassalle's Manifesto and its Consequences . 53 
 
 V. The Congeess oe Geeman Woekinq-men's Societies 58 
 VI. The Congeess at Stuttgaet : Wuhelm Libbknbcht 68 
 
 VII. The Oatabteophb of 1866. The Wae and Aftee 80 
 
 VIII. Peogebss of the Association of Geeman Woekees' 
 
 Societies. Peivate Affaies . . .99 
 
 IX. The Congeess at Nubemberg . . . 108 
 
 X. The Teades Union Movement . . . 119 
 
 11 
 
12 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XI. My Pibst Sentence — The International — 
 
 Trouble with the Lassalleans . . . 127 
 
 XII. Jean Baptist von Schweitzee and his Leader- 
 ship OP THE Proletarian Labour Movement: 
 
 1. Biographical ..... 131 
 
 2. The Sozialdemokrat Newspaper . . 138 
 
 3. Schweitzer as a Parliamentarian and Dictator 
 
 of the General Labour Union . . 148 
 
 4. Congress at Barmen-Blberfeld. Eevolt 
 
 against Schweitzer .... 155 
 
 5. Congress at Eisenach. Foundation of the 
 
 Social-Democratic Party . . . 162 
 
 6. After Eisenach. The End of Schweitzer . 171 
 
 XIII. In Parliament : 
 
 1. The North German Constituent Eeichstag . 186 
 
 2. The North German Reichstag and the 
 
 Customs Diet .... 195 
 
 XIV. The Franco-German War : 
 
 1. Preliminaries to the Declaration of War . 204 
 
 2. Arrest of Party Committee at Brunswick . 211 
 
 3. Annexation of Alaaee-Lorraine. The Ger- 
 
 man Empire .... 217 
 
 4. Arrested I . . . . .223 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 13 
 
 CHAPTER pjiQj, 
 
 XV. FuKTHEE Paeliambntabt Aotivitt. Trial fob 
 High Teeason: 
 
 1. First Session of Eeiehstag . . . 232 
 
 2. The Dresden Congress. Second Session of 
 
 Eeiehstag ..... 238 
 
 3. Trial for High Treason at Leipzig . . 244 
 
 4. Third Session of Eeiehstag. Trial for 
 
 Ldse-majesU . . . 249 
 
 XVI. In the Fobtrbss and Prison : 
 
 1. Hubertusburg 
 
 2. Konigstein 
 
 3. Zwickau 
 
 . 254 
 . 262 
 . 264 
 
 XVII. From 1871 to the Gotha Congress : 
 
 1. Governments and Social Democracy . 268 i/ 
 
 2. The two Social-Democratic Parties . . 271 
 
 3. The Session of 1874 . . . .275 
 
 XVIII. The Work op Unification and After : 
 
 1. The Congress at Gotha . .283 
 
 2. My Attitude towards the Commune . 287 
 
 3. More Prosecutions .... 295 
 
 4. The Party Congress at Gotha, 1876 . . 298 
 
 5. The Election Campaign, 1876-7 . 302 
 
 6. The Congress at Gotha, 1877 . 306 
 
 7. Eipe for Prison once more . . . 310 
 
 8. Internal Affairs. In Prison at Leipzig . 315 
 
14 CONTENTS 
 
 OHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 XIX. The Eve of the Anti-Socialist Laws : 
 
 1. The First Attempt on the Life of the Emperor 321 
 
 2. The Krst " Exceptional" or Coercion Law . 323 
 
 3. The Second Attempt on the Life of the 
 
 Emperor. Elections of 1878 . . 327 
 
 Index ...... 337 
 
MY LIFE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 
 
 Every one is born somewhere. I enjoyed this 
 advantage on the 22nd February of 1840, when 
 I saw the light in the casemlates of Deutz- 
 Koeln. My father, Johann Gottlob Bebel, was 
 a non-commissioned ofiicer of the 3rd company 
 of the 25th Regiment of Infantry. My mother 
 was Wilhelmina Johanna, nie Simon. 
 
 It is not superfluous, because essential to the 
 comprehension of my character, to say something 
 of my father and mother. My father, who was 
 born in Ostrowo, in the Province of Posen, was 
 the son of a cooper. I think I am right in assuming 
 that the Rebels migrated eastwards from the south- 
 west of Germany about the time of the Reforma- 
 tion. I know for certain that a Rebel lived in 
 Kreuzburg, Silesia, as early as 1625 ; but they are 
 still more numerous in south-west Germany. The 
 explanation of my father's return to the west of 
 Germany was that he, together with his twin^ 
 
 15 
 
16 MY LIFE 
 
 brother August, my godfather, had enlisted in one 
 of the Prussian-Polish regiments ; but the Prussian 
 Government, when the Polish insurrection broke 
 out in 1830, thought it best to remove these regi- 
 ments from the Province of Posen. Thus my 
 father's regiment became attached to the then 
 Federal fortress of Mayence. This move enabled 
 my father to make my mother's 0.cquaintance. 
 
 My mother came of a not unprosperous family 
 of the lower middle class, which had been settled 
 for a long time in the formerly free imperial city 
 of Wetzlar. Her father was a baker and peasant- 
 farmer. As the family was large my mother went 
 into service in Frankfort. From Frankfort she 
 went to Mayence, and there came to know my 
 father. When later on my father's regiment was 
 again stationed at Posen my father, to please his 
 future wife, and perhaps also because he liked the 
 Rhineland better than the country of his birth, 
 procured an exchange into the 25th Regiment of 
 the line, in garrison at Koeln-Deutz. His twin- 
 brother August, my godfather, followed his example, 
 exchanging into the 40th Regiment of the line, then 
 stationed at Mayence. 
 
 The family of a Prussian non-commissioned 
 officer of that time had la live under miserable 
 conditions. The pay was more than scanty. All 
 the military and official classes of Prussia had in 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 17 
 
 those days to exist on very narrow means ; almost 
 every one had to go hungry, tightening his belt 
 for God, king, and country. There is truth in 
 the saying that Prussia became great by hunger. 
 My mother had some sort of canteen licence— that 
 is, she had a permit to sell a variety of miscel- 
 laneous goods and provisions to the soldiers. The 
 counter was in our one and only room. I still 
 see her by the light of her rape-oil Ijamp filling 
 the earthenware bowls of the soldiers with steaming 
 hot potatoes at the price of one halfpenny a portion. 
 For us children— I had in the meantime acquired 
 a brother — life in the casemates was full of enjoy- 
 ment. We ran in and out of the rooms, petted 
 and teased by sergeants and soldiers. I used to 
 go, when the men were out, to the room of Sergeant 
 Wintermann, who was my godfather, where I would 
 take his guitar from its peg ; indeed, I practised 
 until all the strings were broken. To give these 
 unbridled exercises a less destructive direction my 
 godfather cut from a plank of wood a guitar -shaped 
 instrument fitted with strings. Then I would sit 
 for hours, together with my brother, at the entrance 
 to a courtyard in the Haupstrasse of Deutz, mal- 
 treating the strings in a way which so delighted 
 the daughters of a squadron commander, who lived 
 in a house across the road, that they used to regale 
 us at times with cake and sweetmeats as a reward 
 
 2 
 
18 MY LIFE 
 
 for my performance. Naturally, military drill was 
 nat allowed to suffer to the profit of these musical 
 exercises ; the whole environment incited to it ; 
 it was literally in the air. 
 
 But my father gradually came to look at soldier- 
 ing with very different eyes. He was, indee'd, as 
 my mother often told us, a quite exceptionally, 
 smart, punctual, and conscientious soldier ; but he 
 had by then seen twelve years or more of military 
 service, and had had enough of it and to spare. 
 Evidently he did not lack the independence and 
 the spirit of opposition which in those days found 
 such a favourable soil in the Province of the 
 Rhine. More than once he returned home to our 
 dull casemate chamber in raging anger and with 
 curses on his lips. When after fifteen years of 
 service he was prostrated for many months in the 
 military hospital suffering from a serious illness, 
 with death and the subsequent destitution of his 
 family staring him in the face, he warned our 
 mother repeatedly and most earnestly not to send 
 his boys, after his death, to the military orphanage, 
 because entrance therein imposed the obligation 
 of nine years' active service in the army. Fearing 
 that our mother might yet act thus from sheer 
 necessity, in his excitement, intensified by, his 
 illness, he repeatedly cried out, " If you do it, I 
 will stab the boys in front of the company," quite 
 forgetting that he would then be dead. 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 19 
 
 In a sense my father found salvation when, in 
 the opening of 1843, he was offered the post of 
 frontier-guard. He accepted, and, with his family, 
 travelled sometimes afoot, sometimes on the wagon 
 which carried the household furniture, for in those 
 days there was no railway, to Hertzogenrad, a town 
 on the Belgian frontier. 
 
 But there was no abiding for us. Before the 
 a^nd of the three months' probation my father 
 became seriously ill, as a result of the hard night 
 watches. My mother called his malady inflamma- 
 tion of the muscles ; I suppose it was rheumatism ; 
 at all events, consumption supervened. As my 
 father had not finished his period of problation, 
 he had not yet attained his discharge from military 
 service, and we had to return to Cologne, making 
 the journey back as we had come, with my father 
 suffering severely. These were hard times for my 
 mother. 
 
 In Cologne my father was sent to the military 
 hospital, while my mother was given a casemate- 
 room. After thirteen months my father died, at 
 the age of thirty-five, leaving my mother without 
 a claim to a pension. Soon after his death we had 
 to leave the casemate, and my mother would have 
 been forced to return to her birthplace, Wetzlar, 
 but for my father's twin-brother, August Bebel, who 
 took care of her and us boys. The better to fulfil 
 
20 MY LIFE 
 
 this duty, he determined, in the autumn of 1844, 
 to marry my mother. My stepfather had obtained 
 his discharge in September, 1841, on account of 
 a loss of voice resulting from inflammation of the 
 larynx, which later developed into consumption. 
 He received a " compassionate grant " of twio 
 thalers (about six shillings) per month. After that 
 he was for two years a constable to the military 
 hospital at Mayence, and aftei^ards a warder in 
 the reformatory of Brauweiler, near Cologne. We 
 settled in Brauweiler in the late sumtoer of 1844. 
 The reformatory formed a large aggregation of 
 buildings and yards and gardens, surrounded by 
 a high wall. Men, women, and juvenile offenders 
 were separated. To get to the prison building, 
 where we had our lodgings, we had to cross several 
 of the yards, opening several heavy bolted doors. 
 The prison was completely shut off from all outside 
 humanity. At night, as soon as dusk set in, dozens 
 of owls of all sizes would fly round the buildings, 
 screeching and hooting, to the terror of my brother 
 and myself. These owls nested in the churchyard 
 near by. Apart from that, this home was far from 
 pleasing to us children ; it was, I should imagine, 
 no more acceptable to our parents. For the 
 prisoners were cruelly treated ; their groans and 
 screams rang through the whole building, naturally 
 terrifying my brother and myself. 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 21 
 
 Here in Brauweiler I was sent, when only some 
 five years of age, to the village school. 
 
 Life was very monotonous, confined, as it was 
 for the most part, within the prison walls. Our 
 father, by nature severe, was easily irritated, a 
 tendency aggravated by his increasing illness— con- 
 sumption. Mother and children both suffered 
 much from this cause. More than once my mother 
 had to stay his hands when he, beside himself with 
 exasperation, had commenced to thrash us. If 
 corporal punishment were the highest emanation 
 of educational wisdom, I should have become a 
 paragon. But who would dare to assert as much? 
 Whatever I am, I am in spite of caning. 
 
 On the other hand, our father really did his best 
 for us, for he was at bottom a good-hearted man. 
 For example, to make us happy at Christmas, New 
 Year, or Easter, he would go as far as our modest 
 means would allow ; and these were very modest 
 indeed. In addition to free lodgings (two rooms), 
 fuel, and light, my father received eight thalers 
 (twenty-four shillings) monthly pay. This had to 
 provide for five persons. 
 
 My father's malady made rapid progress, and 
 he died on the 19th of October, 1846. My brother 
 and I felt the death of our stepfather as a deliver- 
 ance from oppression. The terrible severity with 
 which he punished every expression of self which 
 
22 MY LIFE 
 
 he thought improper made us tremble as soon as 
 he came in sight. He made us fear him. Love 
 for him we never felt. Howi my mother took the 
 loss of her second husband I do not knowi ; bilt 
 hers was not a happy marriage. From this second 
 marriage again she derived no claim' to a pension. 
 Nothing remained but to return to her birthplace, 
 Wetzlar. In the beginning of November we once 
 more loaded our possessions on a wagon, and set 
 out for Cologne. The weather was severe, cold, 
 and rainy. In Cologne our furniture was put on 
 the roadway, close to the river front, to be trans- 
 ported by ship as far as Coblenz, and hence again 
 by wagon up the valley ' of the River Lahn to 
 Wetzlar. We arrived there the fifth or sixth day. 
 In Wetzlar there lived our grandmother and 
 three sisters and a brother of my mother'si — all 
 married. It was there that we spent our later 
 childhood. I was first sent to the Poor Law School, 
 which occupied a house that had once belonged 
 to the Knights of the Teutonic Order. In the court- 
 yard there still stands the one-storied house where 
 dwelt Charlotte Buff, the , heroine of Goethe's 
 "Werther." Later on, as it happened, I several 
 times slept in this house, as one of my cousins 
 was the cicerone attached to the Charlotte Buff 
 room. I well remember the celebration of the 
 anniversary of, Goethe's hundredth birthday in 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 23 
 
 1849, near the Wildbach fountain, which was 
 thenceforth called the Goethe Fountain. Ten years 
 later I was present at the celebration of Schiller's 
 hundredth birthday in the Municipal Theatre of 
 Salzburg. 
 
 Some years later the Poor Law School was 
 incorporated with the Citizen School (Public 
 Elementary School). We— the former Poor 
 Law boys— were then called Freischuler (free 
 scholars). \4 ' , i 
 
 At school I got on well enough with my teachers. 
 I was among the best scholars, so that my geometry 
 teacher, an excellent little man, undertook to 
 initiate me and two other boys into the secrets of 
 mathematics. We even learned to use logarithms. 
 Next to arithmetic and geometry, my favourite 
 studies were history and geography. Religious 
 instruction, which had no meaning for me, I did 
 not much care for, and my mother — an enlightened 
 and liberal-minded woman — did not bother us with 
 it at home. I learned only because I had to. 
 Though amongst the best pupils, I sometimes gave 
 our Ober-Pfarrer (head pastor) answers which did 
 not fit into his philosophy and earned me friendly 
 reprimands. While I was a good scholar, and in 
 all subjects amongst the foremost, I was also the 
 first at playing all sorts of pranks, and thus I 
 earned the reputation of being a moral reprobate : 
 
24 MY LIFE 
 
 especially with our Kantor (singing master), whose 
 task it was— I know not why, if not on account of 
 his large girth, or his seniority, or by reason of 
 some customary right— to avenge upon the 
 miscreants all the pranks that were denounced 
 in school to the headmaster. 
 
 My bad reputation with the Kantor became 
 gradually so firmly rooted that he took my par- 
 ticipation in every kind of devilry for granted. 
 If to save a comrade from unjust punishment I 
 undertook to plead for him, I at once became 
 suspect and shared in the punishment, even though 
 absolutely innocent. Later on, in party matters, 
 this characteristic trait of mine— to be just at any 
 cost — got me the nickname of Gerechtigkeitsmeier 
 (J ust-at-any -price-man). More often than not our 
 Kantor was quite justified in passing judgment 
 on me. 
 
 Yet for me, too, the day of knowledge came, 
 when I told myself, " Now you must begin to be 
 a sensible fellow." It happened thus : The son of 
 the major of the Rifle Battalion stationed at Wetzlar 
 was my comrade in many an escapade. The day 
 of the examination came round, the public con- 
 sisting solely of my friend's father, who was a 
 veritable giant. The examination came to an end, 
 and the marks obtained were read out. These 
 depended, curiously enough, on good conduct alone. 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 25 
 
 All the scholars heard their marks announced, 
 except my friend and myself. We alone obtained 
 five marks apiece— that is, the minimum. The 
 Major did not wince, but I knew that my chum 
 would get no soft words at home. Since that day 
 I have never seen him again. He was immediately 
 sent to the Military School. Later on I heard 
 that he had attained high military rank, so that 
 being a bad boy at school had done him as little 
 harm as it did me. But from that hour I was a 
 good boy— that is, I did nothing that would be 
 punishable. At the next examination I took the 
 third place, and at the next and last the first place. 
 By the verdict of my form I should even have 
 secured one of the prizes that were given away. 
 When the headmaster was on the point of 
 announcing the name of the second prize-winner 
 the whole class shouted my name. The rector said 
 I had reformed, but not enough to deserve a prize ; 
 so I stepped out into life unrewarded. "- 
 
 Our circumstances could not improve in Wetzlar. 
 My mother had no claim to a pension : the only 
 grant she received from the Government at a later 
 date was some eighteenpence per month for each 
 of us two boys. This was granted her because, 
 in spite of the warning of her first husband, she 
 had sent in our names to the Military Orphanage 
 at Potsdam. It was poverty that forced her to 
 
26 MY LIFE 
 
 do so. To enable us to live she had already sold 
 several of the small plots of land which she had 
 inherited from her mother. It was very hard for 
 her to bring herself to this, for she had set her 
 heart upon leaving us intact what still remained, 
 so that we should not be quite penniless after her 
 death. What sacrifices a mother will make for 
 her children I learned from my own mother. For 
 a time she sewed white military gloves for her 
 brother-in-law, a glovemaker, at the rate of about 
 twopence the pair. She could not finish more than 
 one pair a day — not enough to live on, yet too 
 much to die on ; but even this work she had to 
 give up after two years, for she, too, in the mean- 
 time had contracted consumption, which in her 
 last years made any and every work impossible. 
 I, the eldest boy, had to do the housework, make 
 the coffee, clean the rooms, and scrub them every, 
 Saturday. I had to clean the pewter plates and 
 the kitchen utensils, and make the beds, and so 
 on, an experience which stood me in good stead 
 in later days when on the road in search of work 
 and as a political prisoner. When my mother 
 had even to give up cooking we used to take our 
 dinner with an aunt ; for our mother we fetched 
 what little food she needed from several families 
 better off than our own. I then resolved to earn 
 some money, and obtained employment as boy in 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 27 
 
 a skittle-alley. After school I used to go to a 
 skittle-alley in a garden restaurant, where I set 
 up the skittles after every throw. I did not reach 
 home till nearly ten o'clock, and on Sundays not 
 until much later. The stooping made my back 
 ache so much that I used to go home groaning, and 
 in the end I had to give it up. Another occupation 
 for us boys in the autumn was loading potatoes 
 into sacks in the fields belonging to one of our 
 aunts. It was not very pleasant work — from seven 
 in the morning until dusk, in cold, wet, and foggy 
 weather ; we obtained in payment a big bag 
 of potatoes to tide over the winter, and every 
 morning before going to the fields we were given 
 as a stimulant a big slice of plum-cake, of which 
 we were passionately fond. 
 
 When I was thirteen, and my brother twelve, 
 my brother was notified that he could enter the 
 Military Orphanage. I had not passed the military 
 inspection, and was declared unfit for service. But 
 now my mother lost courage. Feeling her end 
 near, she would not take the responsibility of 
 allowing my brother to enlist for nine years, after 
 two years' free military education. " If you wish 
 to be soldiers, do it later on voluntarily ; I will 
 not be responsible now," she said. So my brother 
 did not go to the Orphanage. As for myself, I 
 was sorry to have been rejected. 
 
28 MY LIFE 
 
 My childish ' imagination was stirred by the 
 revolutionary years of '48 and '49. The majority 
 of the citizens of Wetzlar, in accordance with the 
 traditions of the town, had republican sympathies. 
 These sympathies were shared by the school- 
 children. Once, I remember, when a number of 
 boys were disputing after their fashion on matters 
 political, it happened that only two boys, of whom 
 I was one, declared themselves Monarchists, a 
 luxury which earned us a sound thrashing. When 
 next my political opponents wax indignant over 
 my anti-patriotic views, because in their opinion 
 the Monarchy and the Fatherland are identical, 
 let them remember that I suffered for the Father- 
 land when their fathers and grandfathers were still, 
 in the innocence of their youth, anti-patriots. In 
 the Rhine Province of that period the majority 
 of the population was republican. 
 
 We boys were greatly interested in the peasant 
 revolts which broke out in those years in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Wetzlar. The peasants were then still 
 subject to all sorts of servitude, the relics of the 
 feudal ages. Now, when all men were full of 
 thoughts of liberty and equality, the peasants, too, 
 wanted to free themselves from this oppression. 
 They gathered in their thousands and marched to 
 the castle of the Prince of Solms-Braunfels. They 
 marched, as a rule, under a large black and white 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 29 
 
 flag— the Prussian colours— as a sign that they were 
 willing to be Prussians, but never Braunfelsians. 
 Some of the mob were armed with guns, but the 
 great majority had only scythes, pitchforks, axes, 
 and so on. Behind the processions, which were 
 several times repeated but never resulted in blood- 
 shed, marched the garrison of Wetzlar, to protect 
 the Prince. As to the town militia, which during 
 these years made its appearance in Wetzlar also, 
 I regarded it with undisguised contempt, on account 
 of its utter lack of military, smartness. 
 
 The year 1853 made us orphans. My mother 
 died in June. She looked death in the face with 
 calm heroism. When on the afternoon of the day 
 of her death she felt that her end was near she 
 asked us to call her sisters, without giving us any 
 reason for her wish. When her sisters came we 
 were sent out of the room. Sorrowfully we sat 
 for hours on the staircase and waited for some- 
 thing to happen. At last, towards seven o'clock, 
 her sisters came out of the room and told us that 
 our mother was dead. The same evening we had 
 to pack our things and follow our aunts, without 
 having seen our dead mother. Poor woman ! she 
 had few happy days, either as wife or widow ; 
 and yet she was always bright and of good cheer. 
 In the space of three years she had buried two 
 husbands and had lost two children. She had many 
 
30 MY LIFE 
 
 anxieties on account of illness. In 1848 I fell ill 
 with typhoid fever, and for many weeks hovered 
 between life and death. Some years later I was 
 threatened with lameness, but escaped with straight 
 limbs. My brother, when he was nine years of 
 age, fell from the top of a ladder, and suffered 
 from concussion of the brain as well as a severe 
 scalp wound. He escaped death by the skin of 
 his teeth. My mother suffered from consumption 
 for at least seven years. Few mothers can have 
 suffered more sorrow and tribulation. 
 
 I now went to an aunt of mine, who held in 
 fee-simple a water-mill ; my brother to another 
 aunt, whose husband was a baker. I had to make 
 myself useful in the mill. I liked best to drive 
 our two donkeys to the peasants in the country, 
 taking them flour and bringing back grain. In 
 addition to the donkeys my aunt had a horse, 
 two cows, a number of pigs, and some dozen 
 fowls. She did a little fjarming, so there was 
 no lack of work, though there was a son to help 
 her, and two servants were kept, a man and a 
 woman. When the men had no time for the 
 purpose I had to groom the horse and the donkeys, 
 and sometimes to ride the horse to water. The 
 poultry -yard was left to my sole care ; I had to 
 feed the fowls, collect the eggs, and clean out the 
 fowlhouse. Amid these occupa,tions the Easter of 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 31 
 
 1854 approached. I was at the end of my, school- 
 days, a fact which I regarded with very mixed 
 feelings. I should very greatly have preferred to 
 remain at school. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 APPRENTICE AND JOURNEYMAN 
 
 "Now, what do you want to do?" my guardian 
 asked me — he was one of my uncles. 
 
 " I should like to be a mining engineer." 
 
 " What ! have you the money for your studies? " 
 
 This question dispelled my dream. 
 
 I had answered " a mining engineer " because 
 ironstone mining had lately been developed in the 
 neighbourhood of Wetzlar. As this was out of 
 the question I decided to become a turner, for no 
 better reason than the fact that the husband of a 
 friend of my mother's was a master -turner of 
 good repute, and willing to take me as an 
 apprentice. Although I was by no means a block- 
 head, I never, to tell the truth, became an artist at 
 the lathe. As a matter of fact, I was hampered 
 by physical inefBciency ; as a boy I was always 
 very weak and insufficiently nourished. For many 
 years our supper used to consist of a fair -sized 
 piece of bread smeared with a little butter or jam. 
 
 32 
 
APPRENTICE AND JOURNEYMAN 33 
 
 When we complained of hunger— and that we did 
 every day— our mother would always reply, " One 
 has sometimes to close the sack even if it is not 
 quite full." It will thus be understood that for 
 years my highest ambition was just once to eat 
 my fill of bread and butter. 
 
 Mj' master and his wife were very decent and 
 respectable people. The food was good, though 
 not very plentiful. The work was hard and the 
 hours long ; I started at 5 a.m. and worked until 
 7 p.m., with hardly any break ; from the bench 
 we went to a hasty meal and back again to the 
 bench. The first thing in the morning I had to 
 fetch water from a distant well, and for this I 
 received from the mistress some three-halfpence 
 a week — the only pocket-money I ever had during 
 my apprenticeship. I was out of doors rarely 
 during the week, hardly ever in the evening, and 
 never without special permission. It was the same 
 on Sundays, because Sunday was our principal 
 day of business, for then the farmers came to town 
 to make their purchases and to get their repairs 
 done ; only towards evening was I at liberty for 
 two or three hours. On Sunday mornings I was 
 allowed to go to church ; but as I did not care 
 for the privilege I used to play truant, taking good 
 care to discover the number of the hymn to be 
 sung and the name of the preacher for the day, 
 
 3 
 
34 MY LIFE 
 
 so that I should not be entrapped by questions. 
 However, in the end I was caught, and my master 
 said dryly that as I did not seem to care for church 
 I had better stay at home. Losing thus another 
 slice of liberty, I turned all the more eagerly to 
 the reading of books, which, as there was no one 
 to guide my reading, were naturally for the most 
 part romances. I had read " Robinson Crusoe " 
 and " Uncle Tom's Cabin " while still at school. 
 Now my favourite author was HacklSnder, a writer 
 of stories of military life in peace time. My 
 enthusiasm for things military was greatly cooled 
 by his books. I also read the novels of Sir Walter 
 Scott, and of certain German historical novelists. 
 From my home days I had saved a few historical 
 works, such as a short history of Greece and Rome, 
 and some volumes of Prussian history, from 
 which I learned by heart the dates of all the 
 Prussian kings, famous generals, battles, and so 
 forth. 
 
 I impatiently looked forward to the end of my 
 apprentice days, for I longed to see the world. But 
 I did not see it as soon as I had hoped. On the 
 last day of my bondage my master died, and as his 
 wife had no one else to look to, and had decided 
 to liquidate the business, I determined to stay 
 with her and help her, for she had always been 
 very good to me. I worked hard from May until 
 
APPRENTICE AND JOURNEYMAN 35 
 
 August, from sunrise until nine o'clock at night. 
 At last, towards the end of January, 1858, the busi- 
 ness was sold, and I was able to set out on my 
 travels. My mistress gave me a present of 3s. 
 as well as my wages of Is. 6d. per week. On the 
 1st of February I set out on foot, my brother giving 
 me his company for a few miles of the way. When 
 we parted he wept bitterly, which was quite unlike 
 him. I never saw him again ; he died in the 
 summer of 1859, after a short illness. I was left 
 alone, the last of the family. 
 
 I went first to Frankfort, where I spent two 
 days, thence by railway to Heidelberg. Artisans 
 on the tramp had in those days to carry passports, 
 which had to be stamped by the police at the 
 various stations on the road, and evasions of this 
 rule were punished. In many cities — in Heidel- 
 berg, for example— they had to attend at the 
 police-station in order to submit to a medical 
 examination, more especially for contagious affec- 
 tions of the skin. From Heidelberg I went to 
 Mannheim, and thence to Spires, where I found 
 work. I was well treated, and the food was good, 
 but I had to sleep in a corner of the workshop. 
 It was then the general custom for the journey- 
 men to lodge and board with the master. The 
 wages were low— some 2s. per week— but when I 
 complained the master told me that he himself had 
 
36 MY LIFE 
 
 started life on the same wages. That, however, 
 was fifteen years earlier. 
 
 It was at Spires that, being foolish enough to 
 sit down to a game of cards, I lost at one sitting 
 a sum of 18 kreuzers, or some six pence — nearly 
 a quarter of my weekly wage ! I swore never 
 again to play for money, and have kept this pledge 
 all my life. 
 
 Spring saw me on the road again. I tramped 
 all through the Palatinate, passing through Landau 
 and Karlsruhe, and many another city, until at last 
 I came to Freiburg, in the south of Baden ; there 
 I spent a very agreeable summer. Freiburg, as 
 regards its position, is one of the most favoured 
 of German towns, surrounded as it is with magni- 
 ficent forests and many beauty spots which invite 
 excursions. But I greatly missed the society of 
 young people in circumstances similar to my own. 
 The trade guilds had been dissolved, and as yet 
 the trades unions had not come into existence ; 
 neither were there any political clubs which 
 a workman might join. For clubs of a purely 
 social nature I had neither money nor inclination. 
 It was at this time that I first became aware of the 
 existence of the so-called Catholic Artisans Union 
 (Katholische Gesellenverein), which had its own 
 clubhouse in Freiburg. After making sure that the 
 club v/as open to non-Catholics, I became a member. 
 
APPRENTICE AND JOURNEYMAN 37 
 
 As long as I lived in South Germany and Austria 
 I was a member of these Catholic Unions, and I 
 never had cause to regret it. There was no 
 intolerance in respect of members of a different 
 religious persuasion. The presidents were every- 
 where priests, and the members elected a senior 
 member as their own representative. Lectures 
 were given and classes held in various subjects — 
 French, for instance — so that these Unions were to 
 a certain extent educational institutions. In the 
 reading-room a number of papers and journals 
 were available ; although these were exclusively 
 Catholic, I was glad to read them, for I was greatly 
 interested in politics. The need of the society of 
 decent young people was equally satisfied. These 
 clubs derived a characteristic tone from the 
 presence of the chaplains, who, being yoimg and 
 full of animal spirits, were on their side glad to 
 mix with men of their own age. I have spent many 
 a merry evening in the company of these young 
 curates. To this day I have preserved my book 
 of membership, having on its first page a picture 
 of St. Joseph, the patron saint of the Union. 
 
 In September, 1858, I left Freiburg, and walking 
 through the Black Forest, I came to Schaffhausen, 
 in Switzerland. Prussian subjects were at that 
 time forbidden by their Government to enter 
 Switzerland— firstly, on accont of political dif- 
 
^8 MY LIFE 
 
 ferences, and, secondly, lest they should absorb 
 republican ideas. I therefore left Schaffhausen 
 immediately, taking boat across the Bodensee 
 — where I was seasick !— and after journeying 
 through many cities came finally to Munich. In 
 Munich I remained a full week, but finding no 
 work there, decided to leave for Ratisbon. The 
 first part of the journey I travelled down the 
 River Isar, on a raft, working my passage. 
 
 Nothing of much interest befell me at Ratisbon, 
 but I quarrelled with my master and left the city 
 on the 1st of February, notwithstanding the intense 
 cold. With a companion, I first returned to 
 Munich, intending to proceed into Austria. The 
 passing of the Austrian frontier was in those days 
 a matter of some difficulty— you had to prove to the 
 frontier guards the possession of at least five gulden 
 (about 8s.); as we had not so much money we 
 hit on the expedient of using the railway, travelling 
 from the last station on the Bavarian side of the 
 frontier into Austrian territory. To look, as far 
 as possible, our part as " gentlemen," we gave an 
 extra polish to our boots, and brushed our clothes 
 with especial care, while each assumed a white 
 collar. iWe were entirely successful, passing the 
 frontier guards unsuspected. In severe cold and 
 deep snow we tramped through the Tyrol, finally 
 arriving at Salzburg during a spell of beautiful 
 
APPRENTICE AND JOURNEYMAN 39 
 
 sunshine, enchanted by the view of the town, with 
 its many churches and houses in the Italian style. 
 
 In later years, looking back on these periods of 
 tramping, during which I repeatedly got wet 
 through to the skin and chilled to the bone, I 
 have always wondered that I was never seriously 
 ill. I never possessed any woollen underclothing, 
 an overcoat remained an unknown luxury, while 
 an umbrella, in the hands of a journeyman on the 
 road, would have been an object of derision and 
 contempt. Often of a morning I would don my 
 clothes, still wet from the day before and fated 
 to get still wetter during the day. Youth triumphs 
 over many things. 
 
 In Salzburg I found work, and there I remained 
 up to the end of February, 1860. T<he summer of 
 1859 was beautiful ; but it was a time of war — war 
 between Austria on the one hand and Italy and 
 France on the other. Masses of troops passed 
 through Salzburg, singing and jubilant, to return 
 a few months later defeated and depressed. I was 
 so excited by these political events that I spent all 
 my Sundays — on weekdays I had no leisure — ^in 
 the cafes, reading the papers. Prussians were then 
 not greatly beloved in Austria, as Prussia's hesita- 
 tion to come to the aid of Austria was regarded 
 as a betrayal. But later on, when the Tyrolean 
 Volunteer Rifles opened a recruiting office in Salz- 
 
40 MY LIFE 
 
 burg, the lust for adventure seized me, and I offered 
 my services, only to be told that foreigners were 
 not wanted. However, when I heard from home 
 that Prussia was mobilising her troops, I resolved 
 to enlist as a volunteer in the Fatherland. I wrote 
 at once to my guardian asking for money to 
 defray the expenses of the journey ; but when 
 the money arrived — six thalers, or about 18s. — peace 
 was declared, and the war was at an end. The 
 money, nevertheless, came in handy when in 
 February, 1860, I resolved to return home. 
 
 I will close my reminiscences of Salzburg with 
 a confession. Fruit-stealing was always a weak- 
 ness of mine ; I suppose I was the victim of 
 some hereditary predisposition. It was not other- 
 wise in Salzburg. The splendid peaches in the 
 garden of the Prince-Bishop tempted me, and I 
 fell. I do not suppose the Bishop suffered ; and 
 certainly the peaches did me no harm. And my 
 scruples vanished when I read that St. Ambrose, 
 who lived towards the end of the fourth century, 
 and was Bishop of Milan, had somewhere stated: 
 " Nature gives all goods to all men in common ; 
 for God has created all things so that all men may 
 enjoy them in common. Thus it was Nature 
 that gave the right to common enjoyment, while 
 it was unjust usurpation that originated the rights 
 of property." 
 
APPRENTICE AND JOURNEYMAN 41 
 
 Could my action be more splendidly excused, 
 even justified? 
 
 It was in March, 1860, when, after an absence 
 of more than two years, I found myself back in 
 Wetzlar. When I presented myself for military 
 service I was put back for a year on account of 
 general debility. The same thing happened the 
 following year, and finally I was rejected as unfit. 
 
 In Wetzlar I got work with a Jewish master of 
 my craft ; but when the fine weather came and 
 three of my old schoolfellows urged me to take 
 the road to Leipzig with them, I could not resist 
 the temptation. So far I had never felt the least 
 inclination to go to Leipzig or to Saxony, jand 
 if left to my own devices might never have gone 
 there at all ; yet in more than one respect this 
 journey had a decisive influence on my whole 
 future. The arbiter of a man's destiny is often 
 no other than chance. 
 
 At this point I should like to indulge in a 
 digression. Most emphatically I do not agree with 
 the proposition that a man is master of his o,wn 
 fate. He is impelled to action by circumstances 
 and his environment. So-called freedom of will 
 is mere moonshine. In most cases a man cannot 
 conceive of the consequences of his actions ; only 
 afterwards does he recognise the results to which 
 they lead. A step to the right instead of to the left, 
 
42 MY LIFE 
 
 or vice versa, might have brought him into the 
 grasp of quite a different set of conditions, which 
 might have been better or w^orse than those which 
 he actually experiences. Whether he has taken the 
 right or the wrong turning he can only tell after- 
 wards, by the ensuing consequences. Very often, 
 having no standard of judgment, he is not even 
 aware of the alternative. The self-made man 
 exists only in a very limited degree. Hundreds 
 of others, men of far better qualities than the man 
 who comes to the top, live and perish in obscurity, 
 because unfavourable circumstances have kept 
 them down — that is, have prevented the best 
 application and exploitation of their personal 
 excellences. It is favouring circumstance that lifts 
 a man to a privileged position in life. For the 
 very many who do not reach such a position there 
 is no seat at the table of life ; and, even if cir- 
 cumstances be favourable, a man must show the 
 requisite adaptability to make use of them. But 
 -there is no personal merit in that. 
 
 We travelled afoot to Weimar, and thence to 
 Leipzig by train, arriving in that city on the 7th 
 of May, 1860, at eleven o'clock at night. I was 
 lucky enough to find work at once, and just of the 
 kind by which I afterwards built up a business 
 of my own. If I had arrived in Leipzig twenty- 
 four hours later some one else would have got 
 
APPRENTICE AND JOURNEYMAN 43 
 
 my billet. Thus once more a lucky chance decided 
 my future. For the second tinie I worked in a 
 shop on a rather larger scale than usual. We were 
 five journeymen and an apprentice. I liked the 
 master and my comrades, and also the work, which 
 was an excellent training for me. What I did 
 not like was the morning coffee, which was bad, 
 and the dinner, which was deficient in quantity as 
 well as quality. Breakfast, afternoon coffee, and 
 supper we had to provide ourselves. We lodged 
 with the master, all seven together in a roomy 
 garret. I soon began to rebel against the food. 
 In a few, weeks' time I got so far as to induce my 
 comrades to lay a common complaint before the 
 master, threatening to lay down our tools if he did 
 not give way ; in short, although none of us had 
 ever heard the word, we threatened a strike. After 
 protracted negotiations the master granted us the 
 right to buy our own food, making us a money 
 allowance as an equivalent. Later, by remaining 
 obstinately abed in the morning, we also obtained 
 the right to start work at 7 a.m. instead of 6 a.m. 
 Still later we induced our master to put us on 
 piece-work, although at first he would not hear of 
 it, as he feared that " scamping " would be the 
 result ; but in that he soon learned he was mis- 
 taken. Finally, we obtained the privilege of 
 "living out." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 I ENTER THE WORKMEN'S MOVEMENT AND 
 PUBLIC LIFE 
 
 Towards 1860 the Conservative reaction, which had 
 oppressed the people since 1849, began to decline, 
 more especially by reason of the pressure of the 
 middle-class Liberals, who, having developed their 
 economic forces and having acquired wealth, began 
 to take an interest in political affairs. At the same 
 time the " German question " acquired a new 
 vitality, and was supported with the greatest 
 enthusiasm. The Nationalverein demanded the 
 convocation of a German Parliament. The more 
 far-sighted of the Liberals quickly, recognised the 
 importance of securing the support of the workers, 
 and to this end lent themselves to the promotion 
 of workers' unions, and sought to put trustworthy 
 men at the head of them. 
 
 The German workman of those days knew next 
 to nothing of politics. During the years of the 
 reaction political activity was dead. There were 
 
I ENTER THE WORKMEN'S MOVEMENT 45 
 
 a few workmen's clubs, but they did not meddle 
 with politics. In some of the German States such 
 clubs were prohibited, as they were supposed to 
 propagate Socialism and Communism. As a matter 
 of fact, these words meant nothing to us of the 
 younger generation. Some of us, perhaps, may 
 have read Weitling's writings on Communism, but 
 these were the exception. I don't remember any ,^ 
 one at that time in Leipzig who was acquainted | 
 with the Communist Manifesto or with Marx's and ] 
 Engel's part in the revolutionary movement. It will f 
 be gathered from this that the workers of that time 
 were not conscious of their class interests, nor of 
 the existence of a " social question." They eagerly 
 joined the societies which the Liberals helped them 
 to form, and regarded the Liberal leaders as their 
 most devoted friends. 
 
 Leipzig was then looked upon as the princi-i 
 pal centre of Liberalism and Democracy. On thei 
 19th of February, 1861, I attended my first public 
 meeting. It was convoked by the President of the 
 Polytechnical Society, a University professor, who 
 proposed to found a " Workers' Improvement 
 Society" (lit. Culture-Union) as a branch of the 
 Polytechnical Society, workmen's clubs properly so 
 called being then forbidden in Saxony. The pro- 
 posal was opposed by another professor and by 
 some of the workmen present, who demanded full 
 
46 MY LIFE 
 
 independence, considering that the principal aim 
 of the new society should be political, and that 
 education ought to be relegated to the schools, and 
 should form no part of the programme of a society 
 of adults. While I did not agree with this theory, 
 I greatly admired these workmen for daring to 
 oppose the learned professors, and heartily wished 
 that I had the power of speaking as they had done. 
 
 The Society was founded, and I joined the same 
 evening. The lectures and lessons were mostly 
 given by professors and university men. There 
 were courses in English, French, shorthand, book- 
 keeping, German, and arithmetic, as well as classes 
 in singing and gymnastics. In the second year I 
 was elected a member of the executive of twenty - 
 four, and president of the library and the amuse- 
 ment section. My ambition to speak in public was 
 soon gratified, as I found an opportunity in the 
 debates of the executive. A friend of mine told 
 me later that when I spoke for the first time for 
 a few minutes in succession those seated at the 
 table looked at one another and asked, " Who is 
 this, that he should dare to speak like this ? " 
 
 The fight for independence and the introduction 
 of politics continued within the Society. The 
 tactics of this opposition were not particularly 
 skilful. For the great majority of the younger 
 members the educational programme was of para- 
 
I ENTER THE WORKMEN'S MOVEMENT 47 
 
 mount interest, and they did not wish for its 
 abolition. Finally the opposition seceded and 
 founded a new Society— " Vorwarts." I did not 
 join it, though many tried to persuade me 
 to do so. 
 
 The new Society, "Vorwarts," did not restrict 
 itself to club meetings, but also convened workers' 
 and general meetings for the discussion of labour 
 topics and questions of the day. The speakers 
 at these meetings were still rather uncertain of 
 their aims. Among the subjects of discussion were 
 invalidity insurance for workers, the question of 
 a universal exhibition in Germany, universal suf- 
 frage, a German Parliament for the discussion of 
 the labour question, and, above all, the convoca- 
 tion of a German Labour Congress. As the same 
 idea had been broached in Berlin and Nuremberg 
 a committee was formed, of which I was elected 
 a member. The Nationalverein was also con- 
 voking meetings at which the German question, 
 the creation of a German fleet, the Schleswig- 
 Holstein question, and the Prussian parliamentary 
 conflict were subjects of discussion. 
 
 Whatever the internal condition of Prussia, the 
 Liberals regarded that country as the only State 
 which could bring about the unification of Ger- 
 many and protect them against the domination of 
 the masses. Bismarck knew his Liberals when he 
 
48 MY LIFE 
 
 said of them, " More than they hate me they dread 
 a revolution." He, indeed, took his instruments 
 where he found them. He took many former 
 Democrats of 1848 into his service ; he tried to 
 enlist Liebknecht, who was then in London ; he 
 did enlist Lothar Bucher, who in turn tried to 
 secure Karl Marx as a contributor to the Prussian 
 Government Gazette. These methods were those 
 of Louis Napoleon, who in a masterly way ex- 
 ploited class antagonisms so as to prop up his 
 system, even at the price of universal suffrage. 
 It soon became obvious that Bismarck intended to 
 exploit the Labour movement as against the Liberal 
 bourgeoisie. A committee meeting was held in 
 Leipzig to discuss matters in relation to the General 
 Labour Congress with a delegate from Berlin — one 
 Eichler. This man Eichler at once went the whole 
 hog ; the workers, he said, had nothing to expect 
 from the Liberals and the Nationaluerein ; but 
 he was certain — and in so saying he unmasked 
 himself as an agent of Bismarck's — that Bismarck 
 was in favour of a universal, direct, and equal 
 suffrage, and was even ready to advance some 
 £9,000 or £10,000 to the Engineers' Union of 
 Berlin to found a productive co-operative society. 
 Now, these very same engineers were then regarded 
 as the chief support of the Progressive Liberals. 
 The same idea was at a later date put forward by 
 Lassalle, whose name was then unknown to us, 
 
I ENTER THE WORKMEN'S MOVEMENT 49 
 
 although he had already published' what became 
 known as the Workers' Programme. The idea of 
 universal, direct, and equal suffrage had already 
 been popularised by one of Bismarck's colleagues, 
 Privy Councillor Wagener. The suggestion was to 
 introduce it by an Order in Council. The Liberals 
 did not at all relish the plan, thinking that it 
 savoured too much of the methods of Napoleon III. 
 At a later period— in September, 1878— when 
 Bismarck's anti-Socialist measures were being 
 debated in Parliament, I alluded to these 
 manoeuvres, and accused Bismarck, who was then 
 doing his best to destroy the Social-Democratic 
 party, of having formerly attempted to exploit it 
 for his own political ends. Bismarck admitted 
 that Eichler had been in the pay of the police. 
 As to Lassalle, he stated that not he, but Lassalle, 
 had expressed a desire to open negotiations with 
 him, though he had put no obstacles in the way 
 of his doing so, which fact he did not regret. As 
 a matter of fact there had been no negotiations, 
 for what could a poor devil like Lassalle have 
 offered him? He had felt greatly attracted by 
 Lassalle, for he was one of the most spiritual and 
 lovable men he had ever known. Moreover, 
 he was no republican ; his ideal was the restora- 
 tion of the German Empire, an ideal in which 
 he shared. 
 
 4 
 
50 MY LIFE 
 
 This rather jejune attempt to claim Lassalle as 
 a monarchist needs no refutation : Lassalle's 
 writings and letters sufficiently disprove it. Still, 
 Lassalle's attitude to Bismarck was rather peculiar. 
 Supported by his confidence in himself and his 
 consciousness of his independent position, he 
 thought to negotiate with Bismarck as one power 
 with another, though in reality he had no power 
 at his back. Which would have got the better of 
 the other in the end we need not inquire, as the 
 death of Lassalle in August, 1864, removed one of 
 the parties. 
 
 Bismarck also denied that he had intended to 
 introduce universal suffrage. I could not prove 
 the contrary, yet Lassalle said, in his defence before 
 the courts : " I declare to you on this solemn 
 occasion that before another year is out Herr von 
 Bismarck will have played the part of a Robert 
 Peel in that he will have introduced universal 
 suffrage." 
 
 It is hardly credible that Lassalle shoul4 have 
 spoken thus if the matter had not been discussed 
 during his conversations with Bismarck. It was 
 seriously debated at the time in Conservative 
 circles, and Bismarck was not the man to be 
 deterred by constitutional scruples from introduc- 
 ing universal suffrage by an Order in Council if 
 he thought it expedient. The masses, who had 
 
I ENTER THE WORKMEN'S MOVEMENT 51 
 
 practically no political rights whatever, would 
 assuredly not have resented it. 
 
 Rut I have anticipated the course of events, and 
 ijiust return to my narrative. We sent delegates 
 to Rerlin, and the date of the German Labour 
 Congress, to be held at Leipzig, together 
 with its programme, was quickly settled in con- 
 sultation with the Rerlin labour leaders ; but our 
 delegates returned much disappointed with their 
 negotiations with the Liberal leaders. When the 
 Nationalverein held its various meetings in Leipzig 
 it became evident that the workers were not 
 wanted as members. A second delegation to Rerlin 
 left no doubt in our minds that the leaders of the 
 Liberal party were completely out of sympathy with 
 the Labour movement. It was then that young 
 Ludwig Lowe, the founder of the famous arms 
 factory of Lowe & Co., arranged a meeting with 
 Lassalle. There our party found what they were 
 looking for — understanding of their demands and 
 readj' sympathy. It was arranged with Lassalle to 
 postpone the Congress until he had published his 
 ideas as to the position of the workers in State and 
 society in the shape of a pamphlet which was 
 to be distributed by the Leipzig Central Committee. 
 
 I myself had left the Central Committee in 
 November, 1862. My position in the Workers' 
 Improvement Society absorbed all my time, interest. 
 
52 MY LIFE 
 
 and energies. As I passed all my evenings in the 
 rooms of the society I soon got to know the needs 
 and desires of its members far better than the 
 presidents could. I was most assiduous in propos- 
 ing motions, which were almost always carried, 
 at the sittings of the executive and the monthly 
 meetings. This considerably increased my in- 
 fluence. At that time I was still a worker ; I 
 worked at the lathe from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., with 
 an interval of only two hours for meals. Moreover, 
 the debates of the Central Committee and the 
 speeches at the meetings seemed to me rather hazy 
 and aimless, so that I left it without any great 
 regret. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 LASSALLE'S MANIFESTO AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 
 
 At last, in May, 1863, Lassalle published his 
 Manifesto.* A few days earlier, on the occasion 
 of the second anniversary of our Society, I had 
 spoken against universal suffrage, arguing that the 
 workers were not yet ripe for it. This action of 
 mine had greatly shocked some of my friends, 
 although my speech mightily pleased ray future 
 wife, who was among the audience. 
 
 The Manifesto by no means produced the effect 
 upon the workers which had been anticipated by, 
 Lassalle and his friends. This was unavoidable, 
 as the workers were still very backward in the 
 economic as well as in the political sense. Liberty 
 of trade, unrestricted movement, freedom of occu- 
 
 * " Open Letter to the Central Committee in regard to the 
 convocation of a General German Labour Congress at Leipzig." 
 This Manifesto is generally regarded as the starting-point of 
 German Social Democracy, 
 
54 MY LIFE 
 
 pation and settlement, the abolition of passports, 
 rights of association and meeting— these were de- 
 mands Which the workers understood, but of 
 " productive associations with State help " they 
 could make neither head nor tail. The idea of 
 association or co-operation was only just evolving. 
 Universal suffrage even was not regarded as indis- 
 pensable by the majority of the workers. 
 
 It was precisely the Liberal Press which attacked 
 Lassalle with the greatest vehemence, while the 
 Conservative organs, such as the Kreuzzeitung, 
 treated the matter more objectively, as they were 
 not at all displeased by Lassalle's attacks on the 
 Liberals. This Conservative support made us in 
 Leipzig suspicious. But if we remember that even 
 to-day, after more than fifty years of intensive 
 efforts to enlighten the working classes as to their 
 true interests, there are still millions of workers 
 who follow the various bourgeois parties, it is not 
 to be wondered at that the majority of the workers 
 in the 'sixties regarded the new movement with 
 sceptical eyes. 
 
 At Leipzig the effect of the Manifesto was a split 
 in the Central Committee. The effect was almost 
 everywhere the same ; Berlin completely failed to 
 respond ; the movement gradually gained ground 
 in Hamburg, and some half-dozen German cities, 
 such as Hanover, Cassel, Diisseldorf, and Frank- 
 
LASSALLE'S MANIFESTO 55 
 
 fort. Lassalle had hoped in a short time to obtain 
 a hundred thousand members for a " General 
 German Labour Union " to be reckoned with as 
 a great political power. As a matter of fact a 
 good many years were to elapse before the whole 
 Socialist movement could number as many regular 
 adherents. The Leipzig Committee, at a great 
 public meeting, resigned its mandate, and a new 
 Committee was elected to draw up a programme 
 for the formation of a " General German Labour 
 Union." 
 
 On the 16th of April Lassalle came to Leipzig. 
 At a meeting of some four thousand people he 
 expounded his ideas in a speech which later 
 appeared in print as *'The Labour Question." 
 There were a good many Liberals present, who 
 continually interrupted the speaker. In the sub- 
 sequent discussion a leader of the Progressive 
 Liberals protested against Lassalle's attacks on his 
 party, and also against the proposal to form a 
 special Labour party outside the Liberal party. 
 Lassalle replied with great moderation, for he 
 wanted for his movement not only the applause of 
 the masses, but even more the assistance of influen- 
 tial leaders of the bourgeois parties, which he still 
 hoped to win over to his side. 
 
 Lassalle's Manifesto and the formation of the 
 General German Labour Union on the 23rd of May, 
 
56 MY LIF^ 
 
 1863^ led to violent disputes in the labour world, 
 which lasted for many years. The exasperation 
 increased with time, and more than once came to 
 a head, resulting in blows and physical violence. 
 The only good outcome of these disputes was that 
 both factions made the greatest efforts to increase 
 the number of their adherents, especially when a 
 few years later the faction to which I belonged 
 was converted to Socialism, but created its own 
 organisation and continued to fight against the 
 General Labour Union. But the amount of time, 
 money, and energy expended upon internecine strife 
 was wholly wasted, to the great satisfaction of our 
 opponents. 
 
 In Leipzig Lassalleanism resulted in the amalga- 
 mation of the two Societies — my own and the 
 Vorwarts Society— into a new Society known as 
 the Arbeiterbildungsverein (Society for the Pro- 
 motion of Knowledge among the Working Classes). 
 Though the Society was in fact illegal, the Saxon 
 Government took no steps against it. Our experi- 
 ence in this matter was one often since repeated — 
 that all laws and measures of suppression miss 
 fire and indeed become inoperative as soon as a 
 movement proves to be according to nature and 
 therefore unconquerable. I was elected vice- 
 president of the new Society, a position which I 
 held up to 1872, when I was condemned to deten- 
 
LASSALLE'S MANIFESTO 57 
 
 tion in a fortress on account of attempted high 
 treason against the German Empire. 
 
 Our Society received from the municipality an 
 annual subvention of £75, but this was reduced 
 to £10 when the Society became more Radical in 
 its policy, in this instance following on the 
 political development of its president — myself. The 
 subvention was wholly withdrawn in 1869, when 
 the Society, after a three-nights debate, resolved 
 to adopt the programme of the German Social- 
 Democratic party then just founded at Eisenach. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CONGRESS OP GERMAN WORKING-MEN'S 
 SOCIETIES 
 
 The number of Working-men's Societies (Arbeiter- 
 vereine) had greatly increased, not only in Saxony 
 but throughout the whole of Germany. Their 
 objects were mostly educational ; some were just 
 reading clubs. The energy and unity of purpose 
 displayed by our adversaries, the Lassalleans, made 
 us decide upon a closer union of our several 
 societies. This union must necessarily be a very 
 loose one, as we had no common and settled 
 purpose as had the Lassalleans, a purpose for 
 which they fought with self-sacrificing enthusiasm. 
 The one thing the societies had in common was 
 their hostility to the Lassalleans and their nominal 
 exclusion of politics ; as a matter of actual fact 
 the directors of most of these societies, or those 
 who actually pulled the wires, did their best to 
 make them serve party interests. All shades of 
 the bourgeois party were represented, from the 
 
GERMAN WORKING-MEN'S SOCIETIES 59 
 
 Republican Democrats to Liberals of the Right- 
 afterwards the National Liberal party. The 
 members managed to rub along in spite of their 
 political differences ; as for the " German question," 
 the societies had adopted no definite line of action. 
 
 The Labour movement had spread to the West 
 of Germany ; and on the occasion of a Labour 
 Congress in Frankfort, in May, 1862, a violent dis- 
 pute arose over the attitude of the working-classes. 
 The barrister J. B. von Schweitzer — who was to 
 play a very prominent part in the movement- 
 advocated, evidently under the influence of Las- 
 salle, the independent political organisation of the 
 workers. A result of this dispute was the issue of 
 a manifesto inviting the German Working-men's 
 Societies to attend a Congress in Frankfort on the 
 7th of June, 1863. The Congress was attended by 
 110 delegates, representing 54 different societies 
 established in 48 different towns. I was present 
 as a delegate of the Workers' Improvement Society 
 of Leipzig. 
 
 I give the first resolution in full because it 
 expresses more clearly than a long disquisition the 
 standpoint of the Congress :— 
 
 " The first Congress of German Working-men's 
 Societies commences its proceedings with the 
 proposition that in the opinion of the Congress 
 it is the first duty of all Working-men's Societies 
 
60 MY LIFE 
 
 in general and of the working classes as a whole 
 to act in mutual unity in the prosecution of their 
 endeavours to improve the status of the working 
 class in the intellectual, political, civil, and 
 economic sphere, and to act in concord with 
 all those who work for the liberty and greatness 
 of the Fatherland and with all those who labour 
 for the improvement of mankind." 
 
 Although this resolution was obviously directed 
 against the Lassalleans, the name of Lassalle was 
 not mentioned, probably because no one believed 
 that the movement instituted by Lassalle had a 
 future before it. 
 
 Another resolution, which asked the societies to 
 have their members instructed in political economy 
 and constitutional theory, was rejected. To the 
 working-men of to-day such backwardness will 
 seem hardly credible. Other resolutions demanded 
 the liberation of labour from all reactionary fetters, 
 and the institution of workmen's banks, savings 
 banks, co-operative stores and co-operative pro- 
 ductive associations, and co-operative societies, pro- 
 viding workshops fitted with power for the common 
 use, as the best means of promoting national 
 prosperity and the economic independence of the 
 workers. All these were the ideas of the Liberal 
 leader, Schulze-Delitzsch. The Congress recom- 
 mended the co-operation of employers and 
 
GERMAN WORKING-MEN'S SOCIETIES 61 
 
 employed as the best means of accomplishing 
 the above aims — a pious wish which was signi- 
 ficant of the essentially lower -middle-class atmo-j 
 sphere of the meeting. Finally, invalidity and 
 old-age insurance were recommended as capable 
 of at least partially alleviating social distress. In 
 the matter of organisation the Congress recom- 
 mended provincial federation and monthly meetings 
 of delegates, in order to promote the formation of 
 new societies and to keep those already established 
 in close touch with one another. The organisation 
 finally adopted included an annual Congress, when 
 the executive for the year would be elected, and 
 a contribution of two thalers (six shillings) per 
 society per annum. The means at the disposal 
 of the executive were thus extremely modest — many 
 societies failing to pay even the trifling subscrip- 
 tion demanded. These anii;;SO^,5Jistic.^. workers' 
 societies were by no means eager to make sacrifices 
 for the common good ; a comparison with the 
 Lassalleans in this respect was by no means in 
 their favour. The executive therefore applied to 
 the NationnlUerein for assistance, and obtained 
 some £75 annually for a term of three years. Large 
 employers of labour were privately approached, 
 but gave very little ; antipathy for anything in 
 the shape of working-men's clubs was already a 
 bourgeois characteristic. 
 
62 MY LIFE 
 
 At Leipzig it was felt that the propaganda of 
 the Lassalleans must be countered by energetic 
 action. I was instructed to ask Schulze-Delitzsch 
 to speak at one of our meetings. He consented, 
 adding that we ought to be on our guard in Leipzig, 
 as the workers of Saxony had evinced a leaning 
 towards communistic and socialistic ideas as early 
 as 1848. The meeting took place in January, 
 1864. 
 
 It was arranged that I was to welcome Schulze- 
 Delitzsch, and was then to be elected chairman. 
 I was unfortunate. When I opened the meeting 
 some four thousand to five thousand people were 
 present, and I broke down miserably in the middle 
 of my speech, although I had carefully rehearsed 
 it. I longed for the earth to swallow me. Some 
 one else was elected chairman ! I vowed never 
 again to rehearse a speech, and I was right. 
 
 Schulze-Delitzsch was not a success. His speech 
 was dry, and incapable of evoking enthusiasm. To 
 many it was a disappointment ; and it did nothing 
 to stop the movement towards the Left. 
 
 We attempted to create a league of our societies 
 in Saxony, and as it was as a matter of fact illegal 
 to do so we applied to the Ministry for special 
 permission. The Ministry gave the permission on 
 the condition that the societies undertook not to 
 meddle in political and social matters or public 
 
GERMAN WORKING-MEN'S SOCIETIES 63 
 
 affairs of any kind. In response I proposed the 
 following resolution at a public meeting :— 
 
 " The Working-men's Societies gratefully acknow- 
 ledge the favour accorded them by Herr von 
 Beust,* but prefer not to proceed with the matter." 
 
 A second resolution was put :— 
 
 " The delegates present urge the working-men 
 of Saxony to work with all their might for th6 
 abolition of the existing laws of association." This 
 resolution was objected to by the supervising 
 police officer because it was "political." I pro- 
 tested, but had to desist, as he threatened to dissolve 
 the meeting. 
 
 On the 31st of August, 1864, the telegraph in- 
 formed the world that Ferdinand Lassalle was dead. 
 He died at Geneva from a wound received in a 
 duel. The resulting impression was profound. 
 Most of his adversaries breathed freely, again, as 
 if relieved of an incubus ; they hoped his death 
 would mean the end of the movement he had insti- 
 gated. At first it seemed that they were right ; 
 for the Labour Union, in spite of stupendous efforts, 
 had only a few thousand members at the time of 
 his death, and even these had begun to quarrel 
 among themselves. Moreover, the man whom Las- 
 
 * Herr Ton Beust, the well-known Chancellor of Austria- 
 Hungary of later years, was then Prime Minister of the 
 kingdom of Saxony. 
 
64 MY LIFE 
 
 salle had appointed to be his successor was quite 
 incapable of filling his place and entirely unfitted 
 for the post. In a letter from a friend of mine, 
 written at the time of Lassalle's death, it was 
 suggested that we of the Working-men's Societies 
 should not refuse the last honours to the dead ; 
 for although Lassalle was our opponent, his chief 
 aim— the uplifting of the masses — was one with 
 ours. Yet many a weary year had to elapse before 
 this opinion became general. 
 
 The standing committee had decided upon Leipzig 
 as the place of the next Congress. There was some 
 opposition at first on account of the difficulties 
 presented by the Saxon laws of association. Herr 
 von Beust could make rain or sunshine as he 
 pleased. To avoid the rain we decided to omit 
 from the agenda the question of military service 
 as being pre-eminently political. Finally, after 
 much delay, von Beust gave the desired permission. 
 The Congress was convened for the 23rd and 24th 
 of October. I was elected chairman. The agenda 
 was as follows : — 
 
 1. Right of free migration (abolition of the laws 
 of settlement). 
 
 2. Co-operation : co-operative stores and co- 
 operative production. 
 
 3. The standardisation of the courses of instruc- 
 tion provided by the societies. 
 
GERMAN WORKING-MEN'S SOCIETIES 65 
 
 4. Money grants for workers on the road (de- 
 manded especially by the young journeymen). 
 
 5. Old age insurance. 
 
 6. Life insurance. 
 
 7. Regulation of the labour market— i.e., by 
 means of Labour Exchanges. 
 
 8. Housing of the working classes. 
 
 9. Election of the executive. 
 
 Rather a long programme for two days of 
 discussion ; but as the reports and resolutions 
 were published beforehand we managed to go 
 through with it, although not perhaps very 
 thoroughly. 
 
 There were delegates from forty-seven societies 
 and three provincial federations, and from several 
 trades unions as well, some of them created for 
 the occasion by the Lassalleans. There were also 
 present Dr. Friedrich Albert Lange, of the Co- 
 operative Society of Duisburg ; Dr. Max Hirsch, 
 representing the Improvement Society of Magde- 
 burg ; and as a guest a Conservative advocate of 
 co-operation. Professor V. A. Huber. 
 
 The Congress saw some very turbulent scenes, 
 the Lassalleans making some extremely violent 
 speeches, to the disgust of the other delegates. 
 Otherwise nothing of much note occurred. I was 
 elected to the standing committee. 
 
 Here I will say a few words respecting Dr. 
 
 5 
 
66 MY LIFE 
 
 Lange. As members of the standing committee he 
 and I were a good deal thrown together. He was 
 one of the most lovable men I ever met, and con- 
 quered all hearts at the first meeting. He was a 
 man of strong character, not influenced by threats. 
 When he openly sided with the workers he became 
 one of the outcasts of the industrial town of 
 Duisburg. I was greatly indebted to him in the 
 matter of the outcome of a newspaper quarrel — 
 a paper insinuated that I was in the pay of Beust— 
 in which he warmly defended me. After the war 
 of 1866 he had to give up his post as Secretary, 
 to the Chamber of Commerce at Duisburg, and 
 emigrated to Winterthur, in the canton of Ziirich, 
 in Switzerland, where he played a leading part in 
 the agitation for a democratic reform of the 
 1-eactionary Constitution of the canton. Later on 
 he became a professor in the University of Zurich. 
 In 1872 he was called to the University of Mar- 
 burg by the Liberal Minister of Education of 
 Prussia, Dr. Falk. There, in 1875, he died, at 
 the early age of forty-seven. He was one of 
 our best. 
 
 In the spring of 1865 the first German Women's 
 Congress sat at Leipzig, and a General Association 
 of German Women was founded. I was present 
 at the debates as a guest. When the Leipzig 
 Women's Educational Spciety asked us to lend 
 
GERMAN WORKING-MEN'S SOCIETIES 67 
 
 them our rooms for a Sunday School for girls we 
 willingly consented. 
 
 The year 1865, a year of prosperity, was also 
 a year of many strikes for higher wages. At 
 Leipzig the printers struck work. There were then 
 no strike funds. An effort at conciliation on the 
 part of a high official had failed, and Sonnemann * 
 asked me to offer both sides the mediation of the 
 standing committee. In spite of frequent consulta- 
 tions with both masters and men my efforts were 
 not successful. But the attitude which a number 
 of well-known Liberals had assumed toward the 
 strikers prompted me to say, in No. 8 of the " Pro- 
 ceedings " of the standing committee, that the very 
 men who had fawned on the people and protested 
 their friendship for the workers had offered the 
 most decided resistance to the demands of the 
 workers. It was not therefore to be wondered at 
 that even those workers who were most hostile to 
 Lassalleanism should condemn those Liberals in 
 the most unflattering terms. 
 
 * Proprietor of the Frankfurter Zeitung. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE CONGRESS AT STUTTGART: WILHELM 
 LIEBKNECHT 
 
 The third Congress of the Working-men's Societies 
 was to be held at Stuttgart on the 3rd, 4th, and 
 5th of September, 1865. Sixty societies sent 
 delegates, among whom were Hermann Greulich, 
 Professor Eckhardt, Eduard Pfeiffer, a Stuttgart 
 banker, and Professor Wundt, of Heidelberg, the 
 famous physiologist and at present Professor of 
 Physiological Psychology at the University of 
 Leipzig. Greulich shortly afterwards went to 
 Zurich, where he was, almost simultaneously with 
 myself, converted to Socialism, and by the same 
 teachers. Professor Eckhardt belonged to the 
 extreme left wing of the Democratic party. 
 
 On the local committee there sat, besides Pfeiffer 
 the banker, a barrister of the name of Holder, who 
 was later Minister of the Interior in Wurtemburg. 
 My duty was to report on the co-operative kitchen 
 societies of Switzerland. My report was v>^y^;„ 
 
 68 ^ 
 
THE CONGRESS AT STUTTGART 69 
 
 meagre, and my printed speech in support of it 
 very short. Max Hirsch contributed a report on 
 the universal direct and equal suffrage, and put 
 forward a resolution to the effect that the societies 
 should devote all their energies to furthering it. 
 Professor Wundt opposed the resolution, and put 
 the previous question, in spite of general discon- 
 tent. Finally the resolution was amended and 
 accepted unanimously, only substituting the words 
 " all German working-men " for " the societies." 
 
 Moritz Miiller, a jewellery manufacturer, of 
 Pforzheim, reported on the feminist question. 
 In his printed report he recommended the complete 
 social equality of women and men, the provision 
 of continuation schools for women workers, and 
 the formation of Working-Women's Societies. The 
 debate on this resolution was the longest. The 
 resolutions were carried, it being expressly under- 
 stood that the social emancipation of women was 
 to include women's suffrage. 
 
 The resolutions of the Stuttgart Congress were 
 proofs of a further and a decisive movement 
 towards the Left. On all questions of prac- 
 tical politics the so-called " Self-helpers " stood 
 on a common platform. Our organisation was also 
 somewhat improved. So long as the annual sub- 
 scriptions were restricted to the absurd sum of 
 six shillings from each society the standing com- 
 
70 MY LIFE 
 
 mittee was condemned to financial impotence. I 
 proposed a subscription of one penny per member 
 per annum, the president to be paid a salary of 
 £45. My first proposal was voted by the Congress, 
 and I was again elected to the standing committee. 
 
 The desire of the leaders of the bourgeois parties 
 to obtain a preponderating influence over the 
 societies was more in evidence than ever before. 
 All felt that the German question was approaching 
 a definite decision. The quarrels between Right 
 and Left became more and more acrimonious. The 
 antagonism between Prussia on the one hand and 
 Austria and the smaller States of Germany on the 
 other became more and more embittered. The 
 German people was slowly working itself into a 
 fever of excitement. This excitement was expressed 
 even in the toast of the evening at the Congress 
 banquet — which, by the way, was held in the very 
 hall that forty-two years later, in August, 1907, 
 witnessed the assembly of the first International 
 Labour Congress held on German soil. While some 
 of the delegates were covertly in favour of a 
 Prussian hegemony, the Democrats spoke in favour 
 of a radical solution of the problem, which we 
 younger members understood to mean a German 
 Republic, though the word was never uttered. 
 
 Just about this time a pamphlet had appeared, 
 entitled " Germany's Liberation from Deepest 
 
THE CONGRESS AT SJUTTGART 71 
 
 Disgrace," which openly advocated a German 
 Republic, which, of course, implied a revolution. 
 But the word " revolution " had then no terrors for 
 us. Memories of the revolution of 1848-9 had been 
 revived by the speeches and writings of active 
 participants therein. The possibilities of a suc- 
 cessful revolution were then everywhere recognised. 
 Even Bismarck and Miquel had taken the con- 
 tingency into consideration. The opinions of 
 Lassalle, Marx, and Engels are plainly expressed 
 in their letters. The Memoirs of Prince Hohenlohe 
 prove that personages of very high standing in 
 South Germany had accustomed themselves to the 
 possibilities of a revolution. If those in high \ '$ 
 places, why not those below? 
 
 The debates and resolutions of the Congress on 
 the rights of combination constituted a reply to 
 the debates on the same question in the Prussian 
 Parliament. Schulze-Delitzsch and Faucher — the 
 latter, a so-called political economist, seriously 
 undertook to prove, at a great public meeting in 
 Leipzig, that the social question would best be 
 solved by every workman learning book-keeping 
 by double entry and possessing a reliable time- 
 keeper in order to ensure making the best use of 
 his time — proposed certain amendments in the laws 
 of association, but significantly enough they did 
 not touch upon those clauses by which combina- 
 
72 MY LIFE 
 
 tions of workmen were dependent upon the permis- 
 sion of tlie police, nor on those prohibiting strikes. 
 This greatly angered us, and the Conservative 
 super -demagogue. Privy Councillor Wagener, ex- 
 ploited this Liberal timidity by proposing a motion 
 which recommended, not only the abolition of all 
 legal restrictions affecting the rights of the workers 
 to form combinations, but also the formation on 
 the part of the State of some sort of compulsory 
 trades unions. The Conservatives at that period 
 stopped at nothing that might have the effect of 
 " dishing " the Liberals. 
 
 In 1865 and the beginning of 1866 it seemed 
 likely that the contending parties of the Labour 
 movement might unite. Thus, at a meeting in 
 Mayence a motion was put that " as this division 
 was contrary to the interests of labour in general, 
 the members of the Working-men's Improvement 
 Societies and those of the General German Labour 
 Unions in the meeting assembled would do their 
 utmost to bring about a union." A similar motion 
 put to a meeting in Leipzig was defeated, but it 
 was agreed that the parties should join forces in 
 the fight for the universal, equal, direct, and secret 
 suffrage. Another public meeting at Dresden, con- 
 vened by the two Labour parties in conjunction, 
 demanded a Constituent Assembly elected by 
 universal suffrage, and the constitution of a 
 
THE CONGRESS AT STUTTGART. 73 
 
 universal militia under popular control for its 
 protection and support. The same demands were 
 made at a meeting in Berlin. 
 
 In August, 1865, Bismarck placed an interdict 
 on the Labour Gazette of Coburg. One of those 
 who fell a victim to his regime in Prussia, because 
 he opposed his policy and denounced its true 
 character to the workers, was Wilhelm Liebknecht. 
 
 Liebknecht was expelled from Prussia in Jul4 
 1865. He had returned in 1862, after thirteert 
 years of exile, in consequence of the amnesty of 
 I860.* He was invited by August Brass, an old 
 revolutionary who had founded the Norddeutsche 
 Allgemeine Zeitung f in Berlin, as a Greater German 
 democratic journal, to take charge of the foreign 
 news department. As Brass had been an ultra- 
 Radical revolutionary Liebknecht trusted him 
 absolutely. But in 1862, when Bismarck formed 
 his Ministry, his suspicions were aroused. A 
 manuscript was sent from the Minister with 
 instructions to print it at once ; Liebknecht 
 immediately gave notice and left. He then, 
 having a wife and two children to support, 
 made a living as a free-lance journalist, also 
 giving lectures before meetings of workmen's clubs, 
 in which he attacked the policy of Bismarck. He 
 
 * The occasion of the coronation of William I. 
 
 I Now a semi-official Government (Conservative) organ. 
 
74 MY LIFE 
 
 accused by J. B. von Schweitzer, then editor of the 
 Socialdemokrat, of being one of Bismarck's hench- 
 men. After his expulsion from Prussia he came 
 to Leipzig, where I made his acquaintance ; having 
 read in the newspapers of his activities and his 
 expulsion from Prussia, I was greatly interested in 
 his personality. He was then in his fortieth year, 
 but had the vivacity and fire of a youth of twenty. 
 We began a discussion on politics as soon as we 
 were introduced. His vehemence and his condem- 
 nation of the Liberal party, and of their leaders 
 in particular, greatly startled me, though I myself 
 was already aware that they were by no means 
 impeccable. However, he was a man of the first 
 class, and though he was rather abrupt in his 
 manner we soon became friends. 
 
 Liebknecht was very welcome to us in Saxony. 
 We had resolved to send travelling speakers about 
 the country, but had no men suitable for the 
 purpose. Liebknecht at once engaged in the work. 
 He also lectured in the Workers' Improvement 
 Societies, and his lectures drew more auditors than 
 any. As well as lecturing he took classes in French 
 and English. He gradually succeeded in making 
 a modest competence, yet was obliged, as I learned 
 later on, to sell many a choice volume from his 
 library to the second-hand booksellers in order to 
 provide adequate nursing for his wife, who was 
 
THE CONGRESS AT STUTTGART 75 
 
 consumptive. But he made no parade of his 
 straits ; indeed, those who met or listened to him 
 gained the impression that his circumstances were 
 quite satisfactory. 
 
 As I often accompanied him during his political 
 tours, appearing on the same platform with him, 
 our names were continually coupled, and the public 
 regarded us as two inseparables. This was so far 
 the case that when in the 'seventies I entered into 
 partnership with a friend of mine, Issleib, I often 
 received business letters addressed to not Issleib and 
 Rebel but Liebknecht and Rebel, much to the 
 amusement of my partner and myself. 
 
 Liebknecht's was the true fighter's temperament, 
 supported by the unshakable optimism without 
 which no great purpose can be achieved. No 
 misfortune, whether private or affecting his party, 
 ever for a moment dashed his spirits or discon- 
 certed him. He could not be bluffed ; he could 
 always find a way out of difficulties. The attacks 
 of opponents he always met on the principle that 
 the correct move is always to go one better. 
 Rrusque and inconsiderate to opponents, he was 
 always helpful to friends and comrades, and always 
 eager to smooth away their difficulties. 
 
 In his private life he was a good husband and 
 father and devoted to his family. He was a true 
 lover of Nature. A group of beautiful trees in 
 
76 MY LIFE 
 
 otherwise unattractive surroundings would move 
 him to enthusiasm and persuade him that the place 
 was beautiful. He was unassuming in manner and 
 simple in his tastes. An excellent soup which my 
 young wife put in front of him soon after our 
 marriage moved him to such enthusiasm that he 
 did not forget it all his life. He was fond of a 
 glass of beer or wine and a good cigar, but was never 
 extravagant in such matters. When he appeared 
 in a new suit — a thing that did not happen often 
 — if I did not at once notice it and compliment him 
 on the fact he would invariably, before many 
 minutes had passed, call my attention to it, and 
 ask for my approval. He was a man of iron, but 
 his heart was the heart of a child. When he died, 
 on the 7th of August, 1900, it was thirty -five years 
 to a day since I had made his acquaintance. 
 
 In party matters Liebknecht had a way of 
 meeting opposition to his plans with accomplished 
 facts. At first I suffered from this propensity of 
 his, for as a rule I had to swallow the brew of 
 his mixing. In consequence of his deficiency in 
 practical business ability others had to see to the 
 execution of the measures he proposed. Finally 
 I summoned up courage to free myself from his 
 somewhat dictatorial influence, but though we occa- 
 sionally fell out the public never knew it, and our 
 friendship was never long disturbed. 
 
THE CONGRESS AT STUTTGART 77 
 
 Much has been written of the extent to which 
 I was influenced by Liebknecht ; thus it has been 
 said that it was due to him that I became a Socialist 
 and a Marxist. Liebknecht was fourteen years my 
 senior, and therefore had the advantage of me in 
 political experience ; he was also a University man, 
 which I was not. He had lived for twelve years 
 in England, and there, in the course of intimate 
 intercourse with men like Marx and Engels, had 
 learned much. I had never enjoyed such advan- 
 tages, so that it will be understood that Liebknecht y 
 was bound to influence me greatly. If he had not 
 done so it would have reflected on him, that he 
 was unable to influence me, or upon me, that I 
 was unable to learn from him. But I should have 
 become a Socialist had I never known him, for 
 I was well on the road when we first met. Having 
 continually to fight the Lassalleans, I had to read 
 their writings in order to grasp what it was that 
 they really wanted. It was in this way that my 
 conversion was brought about. 
 
 My principle throughout life has been to abandon 
 any standpoint which I have taken up in respect 
 of any question so soon as I recognise it to be 
 untenable, and without reservation to adhere to 
 the newly won conviction and to stand up for it 
 manfully, both in public and private. To go back 
 to the earliest instance of the kind, the attitude 
 
78 MY LIFE 
 
 of the Liberal leaders, in respect of their general 
 policy as well as Labour questions, forced me to 
 abandon my old position and to cross over to the 
 Socialist camp. I did not suffer any particular 
 pangs in so doing, and although I had to sacrifice 
 many old and dear personal relations I took that 
 as a natural consequence of my action. I have 
 always, I venture to say, put causes before persons, 
 and have never allowed myself to be diverted from 
 my course by consideration of friends or relatives 
 once that course was unavoidable in the interests 
 of the cause I had embraced. 
 
 My friendship with Liebknecht certainly accele- 
 rated my conversion. It is the same with the story 
 that Liebknecht was responsible for my becoming 
 a Marxist. I listened to many a fine speech and 
 lecture of his during those years. He lectured on 
 trades unions, the English and French Revolutions, 
 the German democratic movement, and political 
 topics and questions of the day. When he referred 
 to Marx and Lassalle he did so as a polemist ; 
 I never heard from him, to the best of my recollec- 
 tion, any coherent exposition of their economic 
 theories. We both lacked time for private study, 
 and the day's political battles left us no opportunity 
 for private theoretical discussion. Further, by 
 temperament Liebknecht was far more a politician 
 than an exponent of theories. "High" politics 
 were his preference. 
 
THE CONGRESS AT STUTTGART 79 
 
 No ; like most of us who then became Socialists, 
 I went from Lassalle to Marx. Lassalle's writings 
 were in our hands before we knew anything of 
 Marx and Engels. My first pamphlet, " Our Times," 
 which appeared towards the close of 1869, clearly 
 proves Lassalle's influence on my political develop- 
 ment. It was only then that I found leisure to 
 study Marx's first volume—" Capital " — in prison. 
 Five years earlier] I had tried to study his " Political 
 Economy," but had ignominiously failed ; over- 
 work and the struggle for existence made it impos- 
 sible for me inwardly to digest this difficult book. 
 The Communist " Manifesto " and other writings 
 became known to our party only late in the 'sixties 
 and in the early 'seventies. The first work of Marx 
 which I really understood and enjoyed was his 
 " Inaugural Address " advocating the formation of 
 the " International Working Men's Association " ; 
 that was in 1865. In 1866 I became a member 
 of the " International." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CATASTROPHE OF 1866. THE WAR OF 1866 
 AND AFTER 
 
 The working-classes, becoming more and piore 
 conscious of the highly unsatisfactory state of 
 public affairs, were growing increasingly restive. 
 They were unanimous in demanding a change ; but 
 they had no leaders certain of their aims and able 
 to inspire confidence, nor had they any powerful 
 organisation capable of consolidating their forces, 
 so that their revolutionary temper was completely 
 inefficient in action. Never has a movement at 
 heart so sound proved so ineffectual. All the 
 meetings were packed to overflowing, and the more 
 violent a speaker the more he was applauded. 
 
 At lectures given on the premises of our Society 
 I as chairman was in the habit of adding some 
 critical remarks and stating my own opinion. In 
 this way differences of opinion were ventilated and 
 difficulties explained. This method of thoroughly 
 exploiting a lecture in the interests of the audience 
 
 80 
 
THE CATASTROPHE OF 1866 81 
 
 was extremely popular. But other methods were 
 necessary in order to obtain definite results. As 
 the federation of societies was illegal we were much 
 hampered in our work ; and as we had no news- 
 paper the frequent personal interchange of opinion 
 was all the more essential. We again applied to 
 the Ministry for permission to form a provincial 
 federation of our societies. The conditions imposed 
 upon us were such as we could not accept ; yet 
 we decided to call a general meeting of all the 
 societies and to draft a programme just as if there 
 had been no legal prohibition. Although by order 
 of the Director of Police we had effected certain 
 modifications in our Society, it was shortly after- 
 wards subjected to the laws of association — that is, 
 treated as a political society, and therefore, of 
 course, still more hamipered in its work. 
 
 But all these questions were soon submerged by 
 the political situation. In the spring of 1866 the 
 antagonism between Prussia and Austria had come 
 to a head. The gravity of the German question 
 completely overshadowed all other questions and 
 movements. The various sections of the Labour 
 world agreed to act together. Numerous meetings 
 were convened. The Saxon laws of association, 
 which prohibited the federation of societies for 
 political purposes, were completely disregarded, and 
 a permanent co-operation of the Labour organisa- 
 
 6 
 
82 MY LIFE 
 
 tions was generally demanded. The parliamentary 
 question was thenceforth the subject of the liveliest 
 agitation among the working-classes. We asked 
 for a Constituent Parliament for Germany as a 
 whole (this, remember, was before the unification 
 of Germany under the Empire), and the institution 
 of a general " Citizen Army " for the protection 
 of such Parliament. This demand was just 
 then being put forward in all democratic circles 
 as a matter of course ; for it was said that a 
 Parliament without such protection would always 
 be subject to a coup d'etat. Even the Liberal 
 Schultze-Delitzsch declared, on the occasion of the 
 meeting of the Association of German Rifle Clubs, 
 in July, 1862: "The question of a permanent de- 
 velopment of a liberal Constitution could not be 
 solved under existing conditions, unless the National 
 Army,* being, in fact, the nation armed, were to 
 stand behind this Parliamemt." Later developments 
 have proved the correctness of this opinion. A 
 public meeting in Dresden even elected a delega- 
 tion to lay its wishes and resolutions before the 
 King. It was, of course, not received. But the 
 ball had been set rolling, and it rolled in quite 
 another direction from that generally anticipated. 
 To justify the attitude of my political friends 
 
 * The " National Army" was to be a militia controlled by 
 Parliament. 
 
THE CATASTROPHE OF 1866 83 
 
 and myself in respect of the war of 1866 I must 
 give a brief summary of the events that led up 
 to it. By the war, which was the culmination of 
 the long-drawn-out diplomatic struggle between 
 Prussia and Austria for the supremacy in German 
 affairs, the German question was solved in a 
 manner which so far no political party had worked 
 for nor desired. Afterwards the great majority 
 of the Liberals acquiesced in the new order of 
 things ; as the political representatives of 
 capitalism they expected therefrom a marked 
 improvement in their material interests, and made 
 their peace with the powers they had formerly 
 opposed. But their defection did not in the least 
 affect our standpoint. 
 
 By the death of Frederic VII., King of Denmark, 
 in November, 1863, the Schleswig-Holstein ques- 
 tion once more came to the fore. The people 
 of those provinces refused to recognise the new 
 King, Christian II., as their ruler, and decided in 
 favour of Prince Frederic of Augustenburg. Thus 
 the provinces once more became German, amidst 
 universal approval. Denmark resisted, and the 
 German Confederation decided on war. But this 
 did not suit the schemes of Bismarck. He induced 
 his " Crown Jurists " to declare the claims of the 
 Prince of Augustenburg to be invalid, a decision 
 which greatly incensed public opinion. People 
 
84 MY LIFE 
 
 feared that Bismarck could not be trusted to settle 
 the question in accordance wife the wishes of the 
 people of the affected provinces. 
 
 "The executive of the Nationalverein published 
 a manifesto asking all parishes, corporations, 
 societies, and associations, and, lastly, all patriots, 
 to provide men and arms and money to assist their 
 German brothers of Schleswig-Holstein in the 
 defence of their liberties. This manifesto was 
 of course absolutely illegal, but there was no public 
 prosecution. Public opinion was in sympathy with 
 the lawbreakers. The branch Society of Schleswig- 
 Holstein even admonished the youth of Germany 
 to employ the probably short interval before the 
 outbreak of hostilities in arming and drilling. It 
 will be seen that the Liberal leaders of that time 
 regarded the foundation or a people's army as a 
 quite possible measure and one that need entail 
 no great delay. Woe to the Social Democrat who 
 should dare to publish a similar manifesto to-day ! 
 Here is progress with a vengeance ! 
 
 From that time onwards many public meetings 
 were convened all over Germany, with the object 
 of advancing the cause of the Duchies. Thus at 
 Leipzig a Labour meeting pledged itself to defend 
 the honour, rights, and liberty of the Fatherland 
 wherever threatened. But the people were against 
 the annexation of the Duchies by Prussia. Finally, 
 
THE CATASTROPHE OF 1866 85 
 
 however, Bismarck had his way ; Prussia and 
 Austria made war upon Denmark, and the latter 
 was defeated and had to cede the provinces at 
 stake, which were administered by the victoribils 
 Powers as a co -dominion. By this step Bis- 
 marck succeeded in widening the gulf between 
 Austria and the German Confederation. 
 
 The new order in the Duchies could not last. 
 The final settlement between Prussia and Austria, 
 Bismarck considered, could only be attained by 
 war, and he was systematically working to this end. 
 
 He tried to secure the neutrality of Napoleon 
 by " dilatory negotiations," as he called them later 
 on, and made arrangements by which Italy would 
 attack Austria in the south while Prussia advanced 
 upon the north. In the Parliament of the Con- 
 federation at Frankfort he brought in a motion to 
 convene, at a date to be determined, an assembly 
 elected by the whole of Germany by universal 
 suffrage and the secret ballot. Austria would not 
 assent, and the Governments of the other States 
 and public opinion in general viewed Bismarck's 
 proposal with the greatest distrust. Bismarck as 
 a Radical reformer seemed too inconsistent with 
 the unconstitutional Prussian Bismarck. 
 
 One consequence of Bismarck's policy was a split 
 in the Liberal party. Some supported Bismarck 
 and Prussia ; others opposed him. But when 
 
86 MY LIFE 
 
 war became imminent the Liberals tried at least 
 to ensure the neutrality of the smaller States. 
 
 In Saxony, on the contrary, the Liberals made 
 their Government responsible for the eventual out- 
 break of war ; thfey demanded disarmament and 
 alliance with Prussia. The municipality of Leipzig 
 carried a resolution to the same effect, against 
 which a public meeting convened by the Democrats 
 and the Lassalleans, to which the Workers' 
 Improvement Society acceded, protested. I pro- 
 posed a strongly worded resolution condemning the 
 Prussian policy, protesting against any hereditary 
 central power in Germany, and recommending' a 
 Parliament elected by universal suffrage and secret 
 ballot. My resolutions were carried unanimously. 
 I spoke to the same purpose at a great democratic 
 meeting at Frankfort, which was organised as a 
 counter-demonstration to that of the members of 
 the Frankfort Diet, who were favourable to the 
 demands of Prussia. In my speech I protested 
 against the idea of setting Prussia at the helm of 
 Germany — Prussia which, save for the brief period 
 from 1807 to 1810, when she was down in the dust, 
 had never known a Liberal Government, and never 
 would do so. The present war was due to Prussia, 
 and if civil war should result the whole people 
 ought to march against Prussia, the peace- 
 breaker. 
 
THE CATASTROPHE OF 1866 87 
 
 An executive was elected, of which I was a 
 member, which drafted the following programme : — 
 
 1. The constitution and administration of the 
 German States on democratic principles. 
 
 2. The voluntary confederation of the States. 
 
 3. A Federal Executive and Parliament, but 
 neither a Prussian nor an Austrian predominance. 
 
 4. The Duchies to be self-governing. 
 
 5. Armed resistance against the Prussian war 
 policy. 
 
 6. No cession of German territory to foreign 
 Powers. 
 
 But before this programme could be published 
 the war had commenced. 
 
 On the 10th of June the Standing Committee of 
 the Working-men's Societies met at Mannheim to 
 discuss the political conflict. The German ques- 
 tion gave rise to heated debates. One member 
 affirmed that a Prussian hegemony would greatly 
 assist the industrial development of Germany, which 
 another member denied. Finally it was decided 
 that the societies should join the existing Populist 
 (Radical) party, and accept the Frankfort pro- 
 gramme, with the following amendment : " Every 
 popular Government should promote the gradual 
 adjustment of class antagonisms so far as consistent 
 with individual liberty and the economic interests 
 of the people as a whole ; and the material and 
 
88 MY LIFE 
 
 moral improvement of the working-el ass is an 
 interest common to all classes and an indispensable 
 pillar of civic liberty." 
 
 As the political difficulties of the time had already 
 greatly increased unemployment, it was resolved 
 to ask the employers to work shorter hours in 
 place of discharging workmen. The report of the 
 treasurer was very unsatisfactory ; the Labour 
 Gazette, we were told, would shortly expire for 
 want of funds and supporters. 
 
 The war took a course much more favourable to 
 Prussia than had been anticipated by many. In 
 a few weeks Prussia was at the gate of Vienna. 
 Austria was victorious in the south against Italy, 
 but consented to a truce, which was concluded at 
 Prague on the 22nd of August. The cession by 
 Austria of Venice to Napoleon roused the German 
 Liberals to a storm of indignation. Austria was 
 accused of treason towards the Fatherland, a 
 reproach which Prussia had to share. Had not 
 Prussia made an alliance with Italy, a foreign 
 Power, in order to crush a German State? Had 
 not Bismarck opened negotiations with Klapka, the 
 revolutionary general of Hungary, with a view to 
 inciting Hungary to rise against Austria? Did not 
 Bismarck stretch out a protecting hand over the 
 Saxon Liberals, who had voted a resolution in 
 favour of the annexation of Saxony by Prussia, 
 
THE CATASTROPHE OF 1866 89 
 
 by stipulating, in the treaty of peace, for an amnesty 
 for all concerned in such actions? But these same 
 Liberals did their utmost in 1870 to secure the 
 conviction of Liebknecht and myself for high 
 treason ! 
 
 Liebknecht and I have often in later years been 
 asked what we thought would have happened had 
 Austria been victorious. It is in all truth sad 
 enough that there was only that alternative— that 
 to side with the one Power meant to side against 
 the other— but that could not be helped. My 
 personal opinion is that for a people which is not 
 free defeat is rather favourable than otherwise to 
 its internal development. Victories result in a 
 Government the reverse of democratic in type, 
 haughty and exacting in quality, while reverses 
 force the Government to approach the people and 
 to win its goodwill. Thus it was in Prussia after 
 1806-7, in Austria after 1866, in France after 1870, 
 and in Russia after the Japanese victories of 
 1904. The Russian Revolution would never have 
 broken out except for the Russian looses. A few 
 victories on the part of the Tsar's troops would 
 have made it impossible for years to come. And 
 although the Revolution failed, old Russia dis- 
 appeared for ever just as old Prussia disappeared 
 after 1847-9. On the other hand, history tells us 
 that when the peoples of Prussia had, at the cost 
 
90 MY LIFE 
 
 of enormous sacrifices of blood and treasure, de- 
 feated tlie first Napoleon's foreign tyranny and 
 saved the dynasty from ignominy, the dynasty pro- 
 ceeded to forget all theiine promises it had made the 
 people in the hour of danger. It was only in 1848 
 that the people' at last obtained the payment of 
 what had been justly due to it for decades. And 
 did not Bismarck at a later date refuse all really 
 Liberal demands in the North German Diet, acting, 
 indeed, like a dictator? Had Prussia been de- 
 feated, would not the ministry of Bismarck and 
 the domination of the Junker party, which 
 oppresses Germany to this day, have been swept 
 away together? The Austrian Government would 
 never, even in the event of victory, have been as 
 strong as the Prussian Government became. Austria 
 was, and is still, a weak State because of its 
 structure ; the reverse is true of Prussia. But 
 the Government of a strong State is much more 
 dangerous to its democratic development. In no 
 democratic State is there what is called a strong 
 Government. As against the people it is powerless. 
 If victorious, the Austrian Government would prob- 
 ablj^ have resorted to reactionary measures. It 
 would in that case have found ranged against it, 
 not only the whole Prussian people but also a 
 great part of the rest of Germany and even of 
 its ovm population. A revolution against Austria 
 
THE CATASTROPHE OF 1866 91 
 
 would have had very great chances of success, in 
 which case the unification of Germany on a demo- 
 cratic basis would have been possible. But the 
 victory of Prussia put an end to these speculations. 
 It also had another result. The exclusion of 
 German Austria from the Confederation condemned 
 millions of Germans to an almost hopeless con- 
 dition. Our " patriots " fall into a frenzy of 
 nationalistic fury if a German is badly treated 
 anywhere abroad ; but they do not protest against 
 the spiritual assassination, if I may so call it, of 
 the ten millions of Germans in Austria. 
 
 I learned later on that the great personalities 
 of our movement had discussed these questions 
 before 1866. Thus Lassalle wrote to Marx in June, 
 1859 : " In a war against France I do see a misr 
 fortune — only if it be a popular war. In an ur/- 
 popular campaign I foresee an immense advanta|e 
 to the Revolution. A victory over France would 
 damage the revolutionary idea immensely. It is 
 still the fact that France, in spite of all her; 
 Napoleons, stands for revolution, and that a defeat ^ 
 of France means a defeat of the revolution." And 
 in March, 1860, Lassalle wrote to Engels : " I hope 
 I was not misunderstood when I wrote last year 
 in my pamphlet on the Italian war (1859) that I 
 most ardently desired a war between Prussia and 
 Napoleon. I desired it only on condition that the 
 
92 MY LIFE 
 
 war should be conducted by the Government and 
 should be unpopular with the people— indeed, as 
 much hated by the people as is possible. Then 
 and only then such a war would be a piece of the 
 greatest good luck." In a lecture given in October, 
 1862, he stated : " And finally the existence of the 
 Germans is not so precarious that a defeat of their 
 Governments would really jeopardise the national 
 existence. If you, gentlemen, will consider history 
 intelligently and scrupulously, you will see that 
 the works achieved by our people are so vast and 
 significant, we broke so much new ground, and are 
 responsible for so much intellectual progress that 
 our existence is beyond a doubt both necessary 
 and inevitable. If we have to undertake a great 
 external war, some of our States— Prussia, Bavaria, 
 or Saxony— may be destroyed, but even as the 
 phoenix from its ashes there would arise, in- 
 destructible, that which alone matters— the German 
 people." 
 
 The results of the war seemed likely to benefit 
 us by an unexpected success, Liebknecht came 
 to my workshop beaming with delight one day to 
 inform me that he had just bought a newspaper 
 which had been abandoned by the Liberals on 
 account of its increasing deficit. He had even 
 undertaken to pay some £120 of debts. I was 
 very greatly perturbed, for we had not a penny 
 
THE CATASTROPHE OF 1866 93 
 
 in our chest, and it was quite hopeless, under the 
 circumstances, to think of developing the paper. 
 Moreover, we had to reckon with the Prussian 
 occupation. But Liebknecht tried to console me. 
 The proprietor did not ask for cash down, and 
 we could easily provide for the necessary expenses. 
 Liebknecht was overjoyed at the idea of having 
 a paper in which he could write whatever he liked. 
 And that he did with a vengeance, as though he, 
 and not Prussia, were the master. His pleasure 
 was not of long duration. His paper was sup- 
 pressed, and I was not at all sorry ; but I did not 
 tell him so. We were saved from considerable 
 embarrassments ; for Liebknecht's scheme for 
 selling five thousand shares at a thaler (three 
 shillings) apiece to the German Working-men's 
 Societies would certainly have been a total failure. 
 One consequence of the war was the rise of 
 the North German Confederation, in which Prussia 
 the giant dominated the other lesser States. As 
 the convocation of a North German Diet elected 
 by universal suffrage became probable, we found 
 ourselves in need of a more permanent political 
 organisation and a programme around which the 
 new party could rally. The programme could not 
 be openly Social -Democratic, as some of the leading 
 elements of the party were antagonistic, and some 
 of the workers' unions were still rather backward 
 
94 MY LIFE 
 
 in political matters. It was essential to avoid a 
 split at this stage of developments, and having 
 regard to the profoundly excited condition of large 
 portions of the bourgeois classes, due to the events 
 of the war and the disintegration of Germany into 
 three parts (North Germany, South Germany, and 
 Austria), it was important to concentrate all our 
 energies on the democratisation of Germany. 
 
 We therefore called a meeting at Chemnitz, 
 attended by the members of the General German 
 Labour Union, for the purpose of establishing the 
 new Democratic party. The following programme 
 was voted : — 
 
 Demands of Democracy. 
 
 1. Unrestricted right of the people to determine 
 its own form of government. Universal, equal, 
 and direct suffrage by secret ballot in -all branches 
 of public life (Parliament, the Diets of the several 
 States, and local government bodies). Militia in 
 place of standing armies. A Parliament with com- 
 plete sovereignty, and especially the right to 
 determine on peace and war. 
 
 2. The unification of Germany under democratic 
 government. No " Little Germany " under a 
 Prussian hegemony ; no Prussia augmented by 
 annexations ; no Greater Germany under Austrian 
 hegemony ; no Triad State (South, North, and 
 
THE CATASTROPHE OF 1866 95 
 
 Austria). These and other similar " dynastic- 
 particularist " experiments, which would inevitably 
 result in loss of liberty, disintegration, and foreign 
 interference, are to be opposed to the utmost by 
 the Democratic party. 
 
 3. Abolition of all privileges of birth, caste, and 
 religion. 
 
 4. The improvement of the people in a physical, 
 intellectual, and moral sense. Secularisation of 
 schools, separation of Church and State. The 
 transformation of the Elementary Schools into a 
 public institution supported by the State, with 
 gratuitous instruction. Free Continuation Schools. 
 
 5. The furtherance of the commonweal and the 
 liberation of labour and labourers from all oppres- 
 sion and restriction. Improvement of the condition 
 of the working classes, liberty of settlement, free- 
 dom of occupation, rights of universal German 
 citizenship, and the assistance and promotion of 
 co-operation, especially productive co-operation, in 
 order to allay the antagonism of capital and labour. 
 
 6. Local self-government. 
 
 7. The fostering of an increased respect for the 
 law among the people by means of independent 
 courts and the jury system, especially in political 
 and Press trials, with public and orlal procedure. 
 
 8. The promotion of the political and social 
 education of the people by means of a free Press, 
 
96 MY LIFE 
 
 the right of meeting and association, and the right 
 of coalition. 
 
 Certainly this programme left nothing to be 
 desired on the score of Radicalism. Although the 
 members of the General German Labour Union 
 (the Socialists) accepted it they did not join the 
 party. 
 
 The imminence of the elections to the North 
 German Diet necessitated an intensive organisa- 
 tion and propaganda, which imposed many sacri- 
 fices upon all of us. The Social -Democratic 
 propagandists are often pilloried by their bourgeois 
 opponents as people who thrive on the miserable 
 earnings of the working-man. While this charge 
 had never any substratum of truth in it, at the 
 time of which I write it was particularly absurd. 
 A really stupendous amount of enthusiasm, per- 
 severance, and self-sacrifice was requisite in those 
 who undertook the work of agitation. The agitator 
 had to content himself with the repayment of his 
 bare out-of-pocket expenses, and those he had to 
 keep as low as possible. Any invitation from a 
 political friend who offered house-room was 
 accepted as a matter of course, although these 
 friends were mostly poor devils whose accommo- 
 dation was of the most modest description. Our 
 experiences were sometimes unusual. More than 
 once I had to sleep in the same room as man 
 
THE CATASTROPHE OF 1866 97 
 
 and wife ; once it happened that the household 
 cat was delivered of kittens under the sofa which 
 served me as bed, to the accompaniment of much 
 mewing and lamenting. Another time a friend and 
 I were quartered in the garret where our host, 
 who was a weaver, kept his yarn. When I was 
 awakened in the morning by the sun shining on 
 my face I discovered myself lying on a mass of 
 yellow yarn, while my friend's pillow was a heap 
 of scarlet yarn. Similar experiences were the lot 
 of all who then and later worked as agitators for 
 the party. Liebknecht, too, was very active, but 
 his work was unexpectedly interrupted. Trusting 
 to the amnesty granted in Prussia after the war, 
 he went to Berlin to deliver a lecture, when he 
 was arrested and condemned to three months' im- 
 prisonment. He was treated as a common 
 criminal ; for instance, he had no light after 
 6 p.m., which was a great hardship. 
 
 The elections took place in February, 1867. 
 As our means were restricted we put up only three 
 candidates, in divisions where our organisation was 
 strongest. I was elected in Glauchau-Meerane 
 and a barrister friend in Zwickau-Crimmitschau ; 
 Liebknecht was defeated. I had four opponents, 
 and was victorious in the second ballot by 7,922 
 votes against 4,281. 
 
 Already many of the elections were fought by 
 
 7 
 
98 MY LIFE 
 
 very dishonest means. Travelling by rail I had 
 often to listen to violent abuse. On one occasion 
 a traveller in the next compartment stated that I 
 had promised the weavers double wages and an 
 eight -hour day if I was elected. Incensed by these 
 lies and his abuse of me, I went up to the man and 
 asked him whether he had these facts from Babel 
 himself. When he said yes I called him an 
 impudent liar, and gave my name as he became 
 offensive. This silenced him, and amid the jeers 
 and laughter of his fellow-travellers he hurriedly 
 left the carriage at the next station. 
 
 There was a second election in 1867. Four of 
 us were elected, including Liebknecht. The Las- 
 salleans were successful in three divisions, and 
 another branch of the General German Labour 
 Union which had seceded from the Lassalleans 
 won one election and later on a second. There 
 were thus altogether nine of us Labour members. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PROGRESS OF THE ASSOCIATION OF GERMAN 
 WORKERS' SOCIETIES. PRIVATE AFFAIRS 
 
 The political events of the year 1866 had been 
 disastrous to our societies. We had no money, 
 our newspaper had ceased publication, two others 
 which we started had fared no better, and until 
 a third was founded— the Democratic Weekly, edited 
 by Liebknecht— we had no^ organ by which we 
 could express our views and enlighten our adherents 
 in political and social matters, a task of the greatest 
 importance, nor any defence against the attacks of 
 our opponents. -We had to make the greater 
 sacrifices to keep the paper going, but we did so 
 willingly, for the paper was our most effective 
 weapon. I was, of course, a frequent contributor. 
 X"was dissatisfied with the weakness of our 
 executive. In a letter I protested against the con- 
 tinued endeavour to keep the societies divorced 
 from politics, and proposed to get into touch with 
 the "International," and to improve our organisa- 
 
100 MY LIFE 
 
 tion in view of the evident hostility of the North 
 German Confederation to the cause of Labour. 
 
 Our fourth Congress sat on the 6th and 7th of 
 October, at Jena, and at last accepted my proposals 
 as to organisation, which I had pressed on them 
 for years. The president of the Association for 
 the year was to be elected by the Congress, while 
 the Society to which the president belonged was 
 to elect an executive of six, its domicile becoming 
 the headquarters of the Association for the time 
 being. The president was to receive 300 thalers 
 (about £45) for his services. In addition to the 
 executive sixteen " confidential agents " were to be 
 elected for the whole of Germany, to control the 
 financial business of the executive and advise it in 
 important matters. I was elected president by 
 nineteen votes out of thirty-three, so that Leipzig 
 became our headquarters. The "new policy" had 
 gained the day, and at last we had obtained what 
 I had striven for : the Association was at last in 
 the way of efficiency. 
 
 This was the first German Labour Congress to 
 demand an Employers' Liability Act. The occasion 
 of the demand was a great disaster in a coalpit, 
 in which 101 miners had been killed. Our 
 demand was granted in 1872 by an Imperial Act, 
 which did not, however, satisfy us. 
 
 The new organisation put a new spirit into the 
 
PROGRESS OF WORKERS' SOCIETIES 101 
 
 Association. Our first business was to awaken the 
 majority of the societies from their indifference, 
 and stimulate them to energetic action. To this 
 end we had to set them tasks worthy of exertion. 
 Every number of our paper was headed by some 
 manifesto claiming the activities of the societies 
 for the most varied business. Success was almost 
 immediate. The societies awoke to life, and their 
 contributions were paid with quite unknown regu- 
 larity. The business of the executive had almost 
 entirely to be discharged by myself ; I was presi- 
 dent, secretary, and treasurer all in one. The 
 business to be transacted with the Societies 
 increased enormously ; from 253 inquiries and 
 543 replies in 1867-8 to 907 inquiries and 4,484 
 replies in 1868-9, the replies mostly taking the form 
 of newspapers and reading matter, but all the rest 
 were letters, written by my own hand, and fre- 
 quently very long letters. 
 
 I had also to preside at the meetings of the 
 executive. I was still president of the Workers' 
 Improvement Society ; I was a member of the 
 North German Diet, and of the Customs' Diet also. 
 I undertook numerous journeys in the interest of 
 the party propaganda, and was a permanent con- 
 tributor to the Democratic Weekly, for which I 
 wrote the " Labour column " in its entirety. It 
 will be understood that in consequence of so much 
 
102 MY LIFE 
 
 work I neglected my young wife and my small 
 business in the most inexcusable manner, so that 
 financially I was in a very bad way, and very often 
 could hardly see my way ahead. It came to this 
 for most of us : either we had to give up active 
 politics or go out of business. If our opponents 
 to this day say that there is, for instance, not one 
 genuine workman among the members of the 
 Social-Democratic party in the Reichstag, this is 
 very easily explained : any workman who openly 
 works for Social-Democracy is instantly dismissed. 
 Either he keeps a quiet tongue or the party, requir- 
 ing agitators, editors, and other active workers, has 
 to provide for him. It is still worse for men who 
 are in trade for themselves. Our opponents often 
 complain of the terrorism of the Social -Democratic 
 party. But that is rank hypocrisy. Their own 
 terrorism is worse. I have ^een many a good 
 friend slowly bled to death by the terrorism of his 
 political adversaries. It is easy to understand why 
 we have so many cigar and tobacco dealers and 
 restaurant keepers among our Members of Par- 
 liament ; they had to take to these callings 
 because they had been dismissed by their 
 employers on account of their political ideas, 
 and these were almost the only trades in which 
 their party, friends could assist them by their 
 custom. I myself, in the course of the twenty- 
 
PROGRESS OF WORKERS' SOCIETIES 103 
 
 five years during which I was in business, had 
 often to suffer loss of custom and damage by the 
 conflict of public and private interests. 
 
 Repeatedly friends of mine who did not meddle 
 with politics and did not understand my work for 
 the Labour movement told me I was a silly fellow 
 to sacrifice myself for the working-people. If I 
 would only devote myself to local politics and the 
 interests of the middle classes, I should certainly 
 prosper and might even eventually become an 
 alderman. I used to laugh at this ; my ambitions 
 did not lie in that direction. 
 
 How I contrived to get through all this work— 
 the years 1867-72 were the most laborious of 
 my life— may be a riddle to many. To a certain 
 extent it was a riddle to me, for I had to struggle 
 with poor health as well as other disadvantages. 
 I was of small stature, hollow-cheeked, and pale. 
 Friends of my wife who were guests at our wed- 
 ding were wont to say, " Poor dear, she'll not have 
 him for long ! " 
 
 But as luck had it they were mistaken. 
 
 Here I may conveniently insert some account of 
 my private affairs. To the man who has in his 
 public life to encounter a host of enemies the choice 
 of the woman who is to share his life is by no 
 
104 MY LIFE 
 
 means a matter of indifference. She may be a 
 helpmate and support him in his aims through 
 life, or she may be a dead weight and a hindrance. 
 I am happy to be able to say that my wife was one 
 of the former category. She was the daughter of a 
 railway navvy who died before we met. She worked 
 in a millinery shop. We became engaged in 1864, 
 shortly before the death of her good mother, and 
 were married in the spring of 1866. I never had 
 cause to regret it ; I could not have found a more 
 lovable, loving, and self-sacrificing wife. What- 
 ever I have achieved has been due to her ready help 
 and indefatigable care. And before the sun of 
 quieter times shone upon us we had to pass through 
 many days, months, and years of trouble. A 
 daughter who was born to us in January, 1869, 
 was a source of consolation and happiness in many 
 a dark hour. 
 
 My share in the Labour movement and my 
 engagement made a permanent settlement in 
 Leipzig desirable. Although Saxony had in 1863 
 established liberty of trades and crafts, every non- 
 Saxon was regarded as a foreigner and had to be 
 " naturalized " before setting up in business on his 
 own account. But this cost money, some £7 10s., 
 including the freedom (citizenship) of the city of 
 Leipzig. From home I could count on about £50. 
 My master having dismissed me, I was obliged to 
 
PROGRESS OF WORKERS' SOCIETIES 105 
 
 set up for myself. I went to Wetzlar to get together 
 as much ready money as possible, and hired a 
 workshop in Leipzig, in a house that had been 
 transformed into business premises, having pre- 
 viously been a stables. It w^as an extremely un- 
 comfortable place, not even boasting a fireplace, 
 and for want of means we had to use it as a dwell- 
 ing ; on winter nights I was miserably cold. As 
 I could not afford to pay for " naturalization " I 
 first used the name of a friend of mine, becoming 
 " naturalized " on borrowed money only when I 
 mari^ied. I began business in a very small way, 
 with only one apprentice. A few months later I 
 was able to engage a journeyman. I encountered 
 all the difficulties that beset the small business. 
 I had to give long credit, yet I had to provide cash 
 for wages and household expenses. I had to sell 
 my work to a middleman for little more than the 
 cost price. Moreover, I lost on the paper money 
 with which the small German States were flooding 
 the country. Eventually my public work brought 
 me into notoriety with the employers, and I was 
 boycotted. Had I not succeeded in building up a 
 certain trade with other towns (I made door and 
 window handles of buffalo horn), I must have gone 
 bankrupt. Business went from bad to worse in 
 the years of the war, 1870-1, when trade came to 
 a standstill. My wife wrote to me while I was 
 
106 MY LIFE 
 
 in prison with Liebknecht during the time of my 
 trial for high treason that for 102 days not an 
 article had been sold, while the man and appren- 
 tice had to be paid their weekly wages. But 
 things improved during the boom that followed the 
 war, which lasted till 1874 ; I then got more orders 
 than I could execute. iWhen in the spring of 1872 
 Liebknecht and I began to serve our sentences— 
 twenty-two months' detention in a fortress, and in 
 my case nine months of prison to follow— I was 
 able to leave the business to my wife, who employed 
 a foreman, six workmen, and two apprentices. 
 Though my wife did her best she did not coin 
 money. I did the necessary correspondence from 
 the fortress or prison. Another crisis followed 
 when the boom collapsed, when my specialities 
 were put on the market at prices I could not com- 
 pete with, made by machinery. I was thinking of 
 giving up business in order to become an official 
 of the party, when by chance I met a political 
 friend, Ferdinand Issleib, who in addition to the 
 necessary business experience had sufficient means 
 to set up a small factory with steam power. We 
 became partners and soon acquired a good repu- 
 tajtion. It was now my duty to visit the customers 
 and solicit orders— in short, to act as " traveller "— 
 an occupation which at a later date, when the law 
 against Socialism was introduced, enabled me to 
 
PROGRESS OF WORKERS' SOCIETIES 107 
 
 do the party valuable service. When I was expelled 
 from Leipzig and once more had to go to prison, 
 we dissolved the partnership and I became simply 
 the traveller for the business. Finally, in 1889, 
 I gave up this position to devote my whole time 
 to writing. 
 
 It is curious to note that most people had formed 
 a mental picture of my person very different from 
 the reality. My partner resembled this picture 
 exactly. He was a big, strong man, with red hair, 
 and a red beard which swept his breast. When 
 anj'^ one came to the office to see me who 
 had not met me before he would begin by address- 
 ing my partner. It often happened that I would 
 enter a railway carriage unrecognised by my fellow- 
 travellers, and find myself listening to the most 
 blood-curdling stories about myself. In most 
 circles I was regarded as a sort of Robin Hood, 
 and a man who wanted to subvert the whole social 
 order. People I met in the ordinary way of society 
 were often heard to exclaim : " Why, this Rebel 
 is quite a respectable sort ! " This was intended 
 as a compliment. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE CONGRESS AT NUREMBERG 
 
 In July, 1867, after lengthy negotiations, a treaty 
 was concluded between Prussia and the South 
 German States creating the so-called Customs Diet, 
 an assembly to consider questions relating to the 
 Customs duties and the indirect taxation common 
 to both halves of Germany. This assembly was 
 to be composed of the members of the North 
 German Diet and specially elected deputies from 
 South Germany. The South German People's party, 
 which demanded full admission to the North 
 German Confederation, a demand which Bismarck 
 refused to consider, decided to abstain from voting, 
 in spite of our urgent advice. However, we 
 succeeded in getting some South German Democrats 
 elected to the Diet. 
 
 In Bavaria and Wurtemburg the Workers' Unions 
 were agitating for the introduction of the militia 
 system. The Wurtemburg Government had con- 
 sented to reduce the term of military service to 
 
 108 
 
THE CONGRESS AT NUREMBERG 109 
 
 nineteen months only, while in Bavaria the term 
 was only nine months. But this success was 
 annulled by the Franco -German War and the 
 entrance of the South German States into the 
 Confederation. 
 
 We of the executive were convinced that the 
 political divergence of the two parties in the Asso- 
 ciation of Workers' Societies ought not to continue. 
 Having obtained the supreme power since the last 
 Congress, I was anxious to wield it to the best 
 advantage. It was essential that a definite pro- 
 gramme should be adopted, whatever the conse- 
 quences to the unity of the League. We therefore 
 asked Robert Schweigel— who was then co-editor 
 with Liebknecht of the Democratic Weekly — to pre- 
 pare a draft programme, on the same basis as 
 that of the International Working Men's Association, 
 and to report on it at the next Congress. 
 
 As soon as it became known that we proposed 
 to lay a programme before the next Congress, there 
 was great excitement among those societies which 
 were directed by the Liberals. We were assailed 
 by the Liberal Press of both north and south. 
 I received many letters of protest and warning, 
 prophesying defeat. I answered that social reform 
 could not be separated from politics ; they were, 
 in fact, complementary. In his own interests 
 the working-man ought to be a Democrat. The 
 
110 MY LIFE 
 
 nebulous condition that then obtained must not con- 
 tinue. In another letter I added that if the majority 
 of the societies should reject a Social-Democratic 
 programme, the executive and the majority of the 
 members of the Saxon societies would probably 
 secede from the League. 
 
 To prevent a split I started a vigorous campaign, 
 writing to all those whom we thought favourable 
 to our plan. But as I myself was not quite certain 
 of the position taken by some of the members of 
 the Association, I received a certain number of 
 rebuffs. This did not, however, affect the final 
 result. 
 
 Meanwhile Moritz Miiller, of Pforzheim, had 
 recommended the formation of trades unions, and 
 initiated a campaign whose object was to exclude 
 professors and doctors (that is. University men) 
 from the leading positions in the movement. I 
 wrote agreeing with him. The printers and cigar- 
 makers had already followed the example of the 
 English workers, and the bootmakers of Leipzig 
 and bookbinders of Dresden were about to follow 
 suit. I also was of opinion that the workers should 
 choose their leaders from their own ranks ; we 
 knew from experience that the doctors and 
 professors were of no use to us. 
 
 J. E. Becker, the president of the German branch 
 of the " International " at Geneva, wrote to me 
 
THE CONGRESS AT NUREMBERG 111 
 
 asking if we would join the " International." I 
 replied, that for the present it was impracticable, 
 but promised to ask the Congress to declare itself 
 in agreement with the aims and objects of the 
 " International " and to establish the closest 
 relations with it. At the same time I asked 
 him to send a delegate to Nuremberg. 
 
 As had been expected, the Congress, which sat 
 from the 5th to the 7th of September, was very 
 well attended ; there were 155 delegates from 93 
 societies. As invited guests there were present : 
 Eccarius, from London, representing the General 
 Council of the " International " ; two delegates from 
 the Vienna Workers' Improvement Society ; two 
 delegates from Swiss societies ; Dr. Ladendorf, 
 from Zurich, a revolutionist who had served a term 
 of penal servitude in Germany, from the German 
 Republican Society ; a delegate from the German 
 branch of the " International " in Geneva ; one 
 from the French branch ; two delegates from the 
 executive of the German People's party (Demo- 
 cratic) ; a member of the General German Labour 
 Union— the Lassallean Society — was also present, 
 though not officially. He was, so to speak, the 
 first swallow that ventured to nest with us ; and 
 his action was a crime in the eyes of the leader 
 of the Lassalleans, J. B. von Schweitzer. 
 
 The Congress held its meetings in the great 
 
112 MY LIFE 
 
 historic hall of the municipality, which the Town 
 Council had lent us in the hope that the Liberals 
 would be victorious. I opened the meeting with 
 a speech of welcome to the foreign delegates, and 
 proceeded to the election of a chairman. Out of 
 ninety-four votes I received sixty-nine. From that 
 moment the final decision was no longer in doubt. 
 The two vice-chairmen elected were also of our 
 party ; our opponents were defeated all along 
 the line. They tried to move the previous ques- 
 tion, but with shouts of " No compromise ! " 
 the order of the day was voted by a great 
 majority. 
 
 The debates of the Congress shaped excellently ; 
 it was really one of the finest meetings I ever took 
 part in. As reporter of the general business of 
 the Association I was able to say that the new 
 organisation had worked admirably and that the 
 Association was in a splendid position compared 
 with former times. The associated societies had 
 now 13,000 members. The debate on the pro- 
 gramme was followed with breathless interest. The 
 final result of the voting was 69 societies with 
 69 votes for the programme and 32 with 46 votes 
 against. The minority protested, left the hall, and 
 took no further part in the debates. Their attempt 
 to form a new organisation, under the title of " The 
 Labour Alliance," was unsuccessful. The societies 
 
THE CONGRESS AT NUREMBERG 113 
 
 lost all political significance and became appendages 
 of the several Liberal parties. 
 
 Our programme was as follows :— 
 
 " The Fifth Congress of German Workers' 
 Societies in session at Nuremburg declares its ad- 
 hesion to the programme of the International "Work- 
 ing Men's Association on the following points : — 
 
 " 1. The emancipation of the working-classes 
 must be effected by those classes themselves. The 
 struggle for the emancipation of the working- 
 classes is not a struggle for class privileges and 
 monopolies, but for equal rights and equal duties 
 and the abolition of all class -domination. 
 
 " 2. The economic dependence of the worker 
 on the monopolists of the instruments of labour 
 is at the root of every kind of servitude, social 
 misery, intellectual degradation, and political 
 dependence. 
 
 " 3. Political liberty is the indispensable instru- 
 ment for the establishment of the economic emanci- 
 pation of the working-classes. The social question 
 is therefore inseparable from the political question, 
 its solution depends on it, and is possible only in 
 a democratic State. 
 
 " Further, in consideration of the fact that all 
 attempts in the direction of the economic emanci- 
 pation of the workers have so far been wrecked 
 by the want of solidarity between the many 
 
114 MY LIFE 
 
 branches of labour in the same country and the 
 non-existence of a fraternal bond of union between 
 the working-classes of the several countries : 
 
 " And that the emancipation of labour is not 
 a local or national but a social problem common 
 to all countries with modern societies, the solution 
 of which depends upon the practical and theoretical 
 co-operation of the more progressive nations : 
 
 "Be it resolved by the Fifth Congress of German 
 Workers' Societies to adopt the aims of the Inter- 
 national Working Men's Association." 
 
 These resolutions left no doubt as to the attitude 
 assumed by our societies. Yet the General Meeting 
 of the People's party (Democratic), which was 
 called a few days later, behaved as if nothing had 
 really happened ; it even declared its agreement 
 with the Nuremburg resolutions. In this they gave 
 proof of a degree of discernment which was con- 
 spicuous by its absence among our latter-day 
 Radicals. It was more especially Sonnemann who 
 tried at all costs to prevent the secession of the 
 Workers' Societies from the People's party. 
 
 By the secession of the minority the agenda of 
 the Congress broke dov^m, as several of the reporters 
 on questions to be discussed were among the 
 seceders. Sonnemann reported on the foundation 
 of the Old Age Pensions Funds under State con- 
 trol. But his proposals were rejected, especially 
 
THE CONGRESS AT NUREMBERG 115 
 
 on the grounds that State control would tend to 
 make the workers unconsciously Conservative with 
 regard to the existing State, which was quite un- 
 worthy of confidence ; a conviction shared by Bis- 
 marck, who declared later that small pensions for 
 the worker were the best means of reconciling him 
 with the existing order of the State— a conviction 
 underlying his invalidity and old age insurance 
 laws. Other resolutions recommended the forma- 
 tion of old age and sickness funds by centralised 
 trades unions. 
 
 I was again elected president by fifty-seven votes 
 out of fifty-nine, so that Leipzig remained our head- 
 quarters for another year. 
 
 The Commission elected to report on the manage- 
 ment of the executive gave us high praise. (The 
 remuneration for the work done was something 
 under £8.) All books and papers were found to 
 be in the best possible order, calling for the 
 warmest possible thanks. 
 
 I was attacked in the Opposition Press for trying 
 to pervert the workers by a "social-communistic 
 programme." I replied that the words " Socialist " 
 and " Socialism " had now grown too tame. The 
 workers had gradually discovered that Socialism 
 was, after all, nothing so terrible ; the word " com- 
 munism " had to be employed to terrify the 
 Philistines. 
 
116 MY LIFE 
 
 The resolutions of the Nuremburg Congress 
 created a new situation. It was impossible for 
 Schweitzer any longer to make us suspect by the 
 Lassallean party and to brand us in his Socialde- 
 mokrat as a lower-middle-class bourgeois party. 
 It could no longer be contested that the Sa^on 
 People^sji^ty and the J^ague^of Workers' S ocietie s 
 were Socialist parties standing on the same plat- 
 form as the "International." 
 
 Our poor financial position was still our most 
 serious weakness. Although we had ten thousand 
 members, a penny per member per year did not 
 go far. 
 
 Our Democratic Weekly required a considerable 
 subsidy. We had started it with some ten thalers 
 (thirty shillings) in our pockets. Many party 
 papers were founded on a very similar basis ; they 
 were really bankrupt when their first numbers came 
 out. But the enthusiasm and willingness to make 
 any sacrifices for such papers were unlimited. Of 
 course, the editors had to be content with very 
 little remuneration. The present generation can 
 hardly conceive of the wretched poverty of our 
 conditions, or the amount of unpaid work which 
 was demanded of us. Thus Liebknecht, as editor 
 of the Democratic Weekly, received some £6 
 monthly, and later, as editor of the tri-weekly 
 Volksstaat (the People's State), some £9 15s. I 
 
THE CONGRESS AT NUREMBERG 117 
 
 contributed the labour column of the former paper 
 without receiving any remuneration, and only 
 received about 36s. monthly for the distribution 
 of the paper, out of which I had to provide 
 an ofHce ! When the war of 1870 broke out I 
 even chose to forego this small payment. Rises 
 in salary were quite unknown. Thus when Vor- 
 warts, the successor of the Volksstaat, was sup- 
 pressed, in 1878, Liebknecht was receiving the same 
 salary as nine years earlier. As far as financial 
 conditions go, we are to-day really a "bourgeois" 
 party as compared with the party of those 
 days. 
 
 But our party had always wonderfully good luck, 
 which made me tell my friends : " If there is a God, 
 He seems to be very fond of Social-Democracy ; 
 for our extremity is always His opportunity." 
 This was seen in the matter I am about to relate. 
 I was just confiding our money difliculties to a 
 friend of mine when the postman brought me a 
 registered letter. Opening it, I found it came from 
 Dr. Ladenburg, of Zurich, who informed me that 
 from funds entrusted to him and his friends, the 
 so-called " Revolutionary Fund," I was to receive 
 3,000 francs (£120) in three instalments, concern- 
 ing the application of which I was to account to 
 him. More than once this " Revolutionary Fund " 
 came to our rescue. The source dried up when we 
 
118 MY LIFE 
 
 no longer saw eye to eye with Ladenburg in respect 
 of the resolutions of the International Labour Con- 
 gress at Basle, as affecting questions of land reform, 
 and further differed from him in our attitude 
 towards the war of 1870. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE TRADES UNION MOVEMENT 
 
 I SHALL write of the Trades Union movement only 
 in so far as I helped to bring it into the world. 
 The year 1868 may be given as the year of the 
 birth of German trade unionism, although organi- 
 sations of workers similar to the unions existed 
 before that date, such as a Union of Cigar -makers 
 and a Printers' Union. In 1865, a year of 
 prosperity, there were numerous strikes ; but in 
 most of these the workers had to give in for want 
 of organised resistance and funds. This taught 
 them the necessity of both. 
 
 So far the political leaders had done little for 
 trades unionism. It was Liebknecht, with his 
 lectures on English trades unionism, who did most 
 to clear the way. We of the executive considered 
 the matter, but pressure of work prevented us from 
 taking any active steps. 
 
 In the summer of 1868 Max Hirsch went to 
 England to study the English unions. He pub- 
 lished an account of his experiences in the Berlin 
 
 ug 
 
120 MY LIFE 
 
 Volkszeitung, and Schweitzer, of the Socialdemo- 
 krat, who was of opinion that Hirsch wanted to 
 establish unions simply in order to keep the 
 workers within the fold of the Progressive (Liberal ) 
 party, endeavoured to forestall him. He proposed, 
 at a meeting of the General German Labour Union, 
 to convene a General Congress of German Workers 
 for the purpose of forming trade unions. His 
 proposals, however, were rejected. We members 
 of the Association of Workers' Societies had voted 
 without debate, at the Nuremburg Congress, for 
 the formation of unions. Schweitzer none the less 
 set to work, and a Congress of 206 delegates at 
 Berlin, representing 190,000 workers, decided on 
 the formation of so-called Arbeiterschaften 
 (workers' associations), under a central execu- 
 tive, the direction of which remained entirely in 
 the hands of Schweitzer. He would not allow the 
 slightest degree of independence to any part of 
 the movement. The organisation was condemned 
 root and branch by Marx, on whose sup- 
 port Schweitzer had. counted. Soon afterwards 
 Schweitzer tried to modify this organisation and 
 to amalgamate it with the General German Labour 
 Union. The Lassalleans generally were hostile to 
 trades unionism. They regarded it merely as a 
 means to an end, the end being to get the unions 
 into the party and then dissolve them. 
 
THE TRADES UNION MOVEMENT 121 
 
 The standing committee at Leipzig immediately 
 got to work on a schedule of standard rules for 
 trades associations. I was the author of these rules. 
 As soon as prepared they were sent out to all the 
 societies with a recommendation to proceed forth- 
 with to the foundation of " International Trades 
 Associations," for such was the title we had decided 
 upon. I spoke in support of the measure at 
 numerous meetings. The word "International" 
 was a little ambitious, for we could hardly hope 
 to extend our organisation beyond the German- 
 speaking countries. But we chose the title as a 
 demonstration of our purpose. A number of 
 similar associations were indeed formed, such as 
 the International Trade Association of factory 
 hands and other manual labourers, of masons and 
 carpenters, metal-workers, wood-workers, tailors, 
 furriers, and capmakers, bootmakers, bookbinders, 
 miners, and iron -workers. 
 
 It cannot be denied that while the political move- 
 ment was greatly impeded by dissensions the 
 trades union movement suffered even more. None 
 of the political fractions of the Labour party 
 would renounce the formation of its own special 
 union, hoping thereby to obtain an accretion of 
 power. 
 
 At Leipzig we did our best to prevent dissension 
 within the movement, and with this object called 
 
122 MY LIFE 
 
 a meeting in October, 1868, in conjunction fwith 
 the members of the General German Labour Union. 
 It was resolved at this meeting to promote with 
 energy the formation of trades unions, and a com- 
 mittee was elected to take the requisite steps. 
 I Liebknecht and I were on this committee, together 
 
 / with members of the General Union. We invited 
 
 t 
 
 ' members of all trades to appear before the com- 
 mittee in order to discuss the organisation of 
 unions. It was resolved to call a joint general 
 meeting for the purpose of amalgamation, and that 
 pending such amalgamation both bodies should 
 agree to give mutual assistance, especially in respect 
 of finances, but that neither should under any 
 circumstances enter into relations with the 
 " Hirsch-Duncker Unions," " which, founded by the 
 enemies of labour, had no other aim than to prevent 
 the adequate organisation of labour, and to degrade 
 the workers into instruments of the bourgeoisie." 
 
 But our advances were rejected by the other 
 side. Schweitzer^^aftd his„Ggiieral Union dissented 
 from our proposals. The extreme Lassalleans were 
 even more hostile. They regarded the creation 
 of trades unions as a violation of Lassalle's prin- 
 ciples and organisations, and these were sacrosanct. 
 
 The question of trade unionism was once more 
 discussed at our Congress at Eisenach in 1869. 
 The practice of making admission conditional on 
 
THE TRADES UNION MOVEMENT 123 
 
 the political faith of the applicant was especially- 
 condemned. Greulich spoke in favour of inter- 
 national organisation in order to bring the masses 
 into the unions. The capitalist, he said, is not 
 afraid of our few miserable pence ; it is the masses 
 he fears. 
 
 The question of conciliation was again discussed 
 at Stuttgart in 1870, but no solution was achieved. 
 From 1871 onwards, in the years of the great boom, 
 the unions developed rapidly, and began to take 
 rather an independent line. This season of 
 prosperity resulted in numerous strikes, which led 
 to a good deal of trouble on account of the quite 
 insufficient strike funds of the unions. As early 
 as March, 1871, this unsatisfactory state of affairs 
 was discussed by the Social Democratic Society 
 of Leipzig, which published the following resolu- 
 tions : — 
 
 " 1. Strikes are only palliatives, and no per- 
 manent remedy. 
 
 " 2. The aim of Social-Democracy is not merely 
 to procure higher wages under the present mode 
 of production, but altogether to abolish capitalistic 
 production. 
 
 " 3. That with present methods of production 
 wages depend upon supply and demand and cannot 
 be permanently lifted above the standard even by 
 the most successful strikes ; 
 
124 MY LIFE 
 
 " 4. That lately several strikes have been con- 
 trived by the manufacturers in order to obtain a 
 plausible excuse for raising their prices, and that 
 such strikes do not profit the w^orkers, but only 
 the employers, who raise their prices much more 
 than is justified by the rise in wages. 
 
 " 5. That unsuccessful strikes encourage the 
 manufacturers and discourage the workers — a two- 
 fold blow to the Labour party ; 
 
 " 6. That the large manufacturers have some- 
 times made an additional profit, the smaller 
 employers finding it impossible to keep their 
 works open, so that the larger firms have been 
 able to sell their stocks at increased prices. 
 
 " 7. That it is at present impossible for our party 
 to give financial aid to large bodies of strikers. 
 
 " We therefore urge the friends and supporters 
 of our party not to start a strike without urgent 
 necessity and ample means ; and, further, not to 
 proceed heedlessly, but according to a scheme of 
 organisation embracing the whole of Germany. As 
 the best means of providing funds and organisa- 
 tion the foundation and fostering of trades unions 
 is recommended." 
 
 This advice was excellent, but was not 
 followed. 
 
 In mid -June, 1872, the first Trade Union Con- 
 gress met at Frankfort. The matter most discussed 
 
THE TRADES UNION MOVEMENT 125 
 
 was the creation of a centralised executive and 
 of a trade union newspaper. I had developed my 
 programme for the Congress in a newspaper article, 
 in which I said : " The future of the working- 
 classes lies in trade unionism ; it is through trades 
 unions that the masses become class-conscious, 
 learn to fight capitalists, and so naturally become 
 Socialist." 
 
 When, after long incarceration in fortress and 
 prison, I was once more at liberty, in the spring 
 of 1875, I was offered the editorship of the Central 
 Trade Union journal, the Union, at a salary of 
 £7 10s. per month. I had to refuse, as my business 
 affairs and my political work left me no time to 
 work for trade unionism. But I continued, of 
 course, to give my attention to the movement and 
 to assist it, especially by speaking at meetings. 
 After 1890 it seemed to me that its development 
 was considerably outstripped by that of the 
 Socialist party, principally on account of the 
 insurance laws, which greatly diminished its use- 
 fulness. I spoke in this sense at the party Con- 
 gress in Cologne in 1873. But my pessimism was 
 not justified ; the facts proved me wrong ; the 
 opinion I had from the first formed of trades 
 unionism was magnificently justified, and I was 
 encouraged to renew my efforts to further the 
 movement. 
 
126 MY LIFE 
 
 But to return to 1870. The trade union move- 
 ment was passing through a very difficult time. 
 The Prussian Government, or rather Bismarck, 
 regarded trade unionism, together with the Social- 
 Democratic party, as the deadly enemy of State 
 and society. He found it necessary to take pro- 
 ceedings against them. In Public Prosecutor Tes- 
 sendorf he found a worthy instrument. The party 
 organisation and a number of trades unions were 
 suppressed. Then came the year 1878, the year 
 of the attempt on the life of the Emperor, and the 
 anti-Socialist laws, which destroyed at one fell blow 
 all that had been built up by years of labour and 
 enormous sacrifices of time, money, energy, and 
 health. But not for ever. Even the strongest 
 power cannot permanently resist the pressure of 
 jevplution and the needs of the times. Even 
 Bismarck had to learn this lesson, much to his 
 astonishment. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 MY FIRST SENTENCE. THE "INTERNATIONAL." 
 TROUBLE WITH THE LASSALLEANS 
 
 The misgovernment of Queen Isabella of Spain, 
 and the favouritism for which she was notorious, 
 had finally driven the parties of the Opposition into 
 open rebellion. When the provisional Government 
 established by those parties found itself unable to 
 agree as to the nature of the government to be 
 permanently adopted, the democracies of several 
 foreign countries thought fit, by resolutions and ad- 
 dresses, to recommend the Spanish people to adopt 
 the republican form of government. Naturally 
 we thought fit to go one better, and to recom- 
 mend the establishment of a Social -Democratic 
 republic. Now, Spain lacked almost all the con- 
 ditions necessary to such a venture. Of the 60,000 
 members who had, according to the newspapers, 
 joined the "International," at least 50,000 had no 
 existence, but were merely the product of a lively 
 fancy. It was a season of exaggera,tion, greatly 
 to the advantage of the "International." According 
 
 137 
 
128 MY LIFE 
 
 to the bourgeois journals, the " International " had 
 millions of members scattered over Europe, and 
 funds in proportion. The worthy citizen was 
 terrified at reading in his paper that the treasurer 
 of the " International " had only to open his safe 
 in order to dispatch millions of money to any 
 point where a strike was in progress. I myself was 
 present at a social gathering of the Berlin Press 
 Society when Prince-Smith * told a neighbour in 
 confidence that the General Council of the " Inter- 
 national " had just placed a sum of two million 
 francs (£80,000) at the disposal of the coalminers 
 of Belgium. I found it difiicult to refrain from 
 laughter, for the General Council would just then 
 have been glad to possess two million centimes. 
 It had great moral influence, but money was always 
 scarce. Even Bismarck was deluded by the exag- 
 gerated reports of the power of the " International " 
 at a period shortly after the insurrection of the 
 Commune. He even thought of convoking an Inter- 
 national Conference destined to combat the " Inter- 
 national," but the English Government would have 
 nothing to do with this delightful plan. 
 
 Our "Address to the Spanish People," which 
 
 Liebknecht had seconded at a public meeting while 
 
 I as chairman read it and put it to the vote, 
 
 brought us into conflict with the law. Finally we 
 
 * Leader of the Free Trade party in Germany. 
 
MY FIRST SENTENCE 129 
 
 wei-e both condemned to three weeks' imprisonment 
 for the propagation of ideas dangerous to the State. 
 We served this term of imprisonment in Leipzig 
 prison, but only towards the end of 1869, as the 
 case was taken to the higher courts. 
 
 In addition to the charge of propagating doctrines 
 dangerous to the State we had also to meet an 
 indictment of libelling the Emperor Napoleon. 
 This charge had to be abandoned, as Napoleon had 
 not personally applied to the court as by law 
 demanded, but had made application through his 
 minister at Dresden. 
 
 With the year 1868 our quarrel with both wings 
 of the Lassalleans became even more violent. In 
 March, 1869, we convened, in conjunction with the 
 two sections aforesaid, a General Meeting of Saxon 
 workers at Hohenstein. A meeting of our partj'^ 
 was called the day before. On my arrival— it was 
 a Sunday morning— I encountered a number of 
 grimy -looking men, who looked as if they had been 
 up all night, running towards the station. I learned 
 that these were Lassalleans (of the Hatzfeldt-Mende 
 wing), who had come, to the number of some eighty 
 to one hundred on the previous evening from 
 Chemnitz, with the avowed intention of breaking 
 up our meeting. Disorder and even violence had 
 ensued, and the mayor of the city had called out 
 the fire-brigade, as the police seemed powerless. 
 
 9 
 
130 MY LIFE 
 
 The excitement was intense, and it had been decided 
 to abandon the General Meeting. This, I think, 
 was a blunder, but it could not be helped. I was 
 congratulated upon my absence, as many of the 
 rioters were looking for me— so I was told— uttering 
 threats of violence. Six months later I spoke with 
 striking success at a great demonstration, when 
 some of the men who had taken part in this affair 
 came to me and begged my forgiveness ; they had 
 been set against me, they declared, but greatly 
 regretted their mistake. 
 
 For a long time both Liebknecht and I had greatly 
 wished to arrange a personal meeting with von 
 Schweitzer, and a public discussion. So when at 
 a Lassallean meeting at Leipzig the proposal was 
 made to invite Liebknecht and Schweitzer to con- 
 front one another in a public meeting in order to 
 discuss their mutual dififerences and indictments 
 Liebknecht a,t once accepted, and stated in his 
 Democratic Weekly that he would prove that 
 Schweitzer, either for money or from inclination, 
 had systematically obstructed the organisation of 
 the Labour party, thus working in the interests 
 of Bismarckian Cjesarism. Schweitzer at first 
 accepted, then retracted, and finally stated that 
 he would meet us at the General Meeting of the 
 General Union, which was shortly to be held at 
 Barmen-Elberfeld. This meeting I shall refer to 
 in another chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER AND HIS LEADER- 
 SHIP OF THE PROLETARIAN LABOUR MOVEMENT. 
 
 1. BIOGRAPHICAL 
 
 Among the notabilities who, after the death of 
 Lassalle successively took over the leadership of 
 the General German Labour Union, Jean Baptist 
 von Schweitzer was by far the most able. 
 
 Schweitzer was well endowed with many of the 
 qualities which are of value to a man in such a 
 position. He was well grounded in theory, his 
 political outloiok was wide, and his judgment cool. 
 As a journalist and agitator he had a gift of making 
 the most difficult problems clear to the most simple 
 of workmen, and he understood as well as any one 
 how to fascinate the masses and rouse them to 
 fanaticism. He published in his paper, the Sozial- 
 demokrat, a number of popular articles of a scien- 
 tific nature which are to this day among the best 
 things in Socialistic literature— such, for example, 
 as his criticism of Marx's "Capital." As a par- 
 
 131 
 
132 MY LIFE 
 
 liamentarian he was adroit, always quick to seize 
 an advantage or exploit a situation. Finally, he was 
 a good speaker, calculating to a nicety how to 
 impress the masses and his opponents alike. 
 
 But beside these fine and even brilliant gifts he 
 had many defects which made him a dangerous 
 leader for a Labour party as yet in the first stages 
 of development. The movement, which he joined 
 after many failures, was for him only a means to 
 an end, and this end was his own advancement. 
 He came into the movement only after and because 
 he saw no future in his own class and set, being 
 early in life an outcast therefrom, by his own 
 fault, so that his last hope of satisfying his ambition 
 of playing a " star " part such as his gifts demanded 
 lay in his joining the Labour movement. He 
 wanted to be, not only its leader but its dictator, 
 and to exploit it for his own selfish purposes. For 
 a number of years he had studied under the Jesuits 
 in one of their institutes ; he had been through 
 the University, and had read for the law. The 
 Jesuitical casuistry and legal craftiness thus 
 obtained, joined to his inborn cunning and 
 shrewdness, made him a politician capable of 
 going straight for his purpose without any scruples^ 
 and that purpose was the satisfaction of his ambi- 
 tion at any cost and the indulgence in the life of 
 a " man about town," for which he lacked the 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 133 
 
 means. But it is an old story, illustrated by all 
 democratic movements, that leaders who have 
 expensive habits and are sybarites in their lives, 
 yet lack the means to satisfy their tastes, sooner or 
 later become the prey of the tempter, and all the 
 more readily when they seem to obtain a certain 
 amount of apparent success. 
 
 The dictatorial power with which the organisa- 
 tion of the General German Labour Union endowed 
 its leader was very favourable to the ends 
 Schweitzer had in view. His domineering position 
 was fortified by the fact that the only paper of 
 the Union— he did not tolerate a second one — was in 
 his hands and edited by him, the Sozialdemokrat. 
 Thus the power was in his hands, and he used it 
 without scruple to exercise an absolute intellectual 
 domination over the members of the Union, and 
 forcibly to suppress every contradiction, every 
 expression of opinion inconvenient to him. Yet he 
 had a knack of flattering the masses, whom he 
 really despised, which I have never seen in greater 
 perfection in any man. He spoke of himself as 
 their instrument, bound to do the sovereign will 
 of the people, the " sovereign people " who read 
 nothing but his own paper, and on whom he 
 imposed his will by suggestion. "Whosoever dared 
 to kick against the pricks was taxed with the lowest 
 motives, branded as an idiot, or as an "intellec- 
 
134 MY LIFE 
 
 tual " who despised the brave, honest workers, and 
 wanted to exploit them in his own interests. 
 
 The dominance which Schweitzer gradually 
 attained was only possible while the movement 
 was in its infancy. This must serve as some excuse 
 for his fanatical adherents. Any one attempting 
 to-day to play the part of a Schweitzer would very 
 soon be suppressed, no matter who he might be. 
 Schweitzer was a democrat in the grand style ; 
 had he been head of a State he would have been 
 a worthy disciple of Macchiavelli, whose principles 
 he adored. The despotic power which he exercised 
 over the Union for so many years can only be 
 compared to certain phenomena in the Rom^n 
 Catholic Church. He had not in vain sat at the 
 I feet of the Jesuits. 
 
 j What Liebknecht and I accused him of was thai 
 
 I he directed the General German Labour Union— 
 
 of course against the will and without the know- 
 
 I ledge of the majority of the members— in the 
 
 , interests of the Bismarckian policy, which we 
 
 regarded, not as a German but as a Greater Prussian 
 
 policy, devised in the interests of the HohenzoUern 
 
 dynasty, which was endeavouring to establish its 
 
 domination over the whole of Germany, and to 
 
 imbue it with the Prussian spirit and principles 
 
 of government— and these are the deadliest enemies 
 
 of democracy 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 135 
 
 As matters stood, and considering the great 
 political fight against the Liberal bourgeoisie in 
 which Bismarck was then engaged, he used any, 
 and every means, however trivial, which could 
 serve his purpose. In a former chapter I have 
 told of his negotiations with Lassalle. No intelli- 
 gent and clear-sighted man— and both Lassalle and 
 Schweitzer were such— could have the slightest 
 doubt as to what a Social-Democrat could and 
 could not obtain from Bismarck ; and if Bismarck 
 entered into relations with the Social-Democrats; 
 it was only to exploit them in his own interests, 
 and to throw them away afterwards as one throws 
 away a sucked orange. There was, of course, the 
 explanation that Bismarck bought the Democrat 
 leaders ; but that at least was impossible in the 
 case of Lassalle. 
 
 The attempts to exploit the General German 
 Labour Union in the interests of Bismarck's 
 Greater Prussian policy were both prompt and 
 tenacious. I am going to prove that Schweitzer 
 was aware of this plot of Bismarck's and actively 
 worked for it. 
 
 Schweitzer was born on the 12th of July, 1834, 
 at Frankfort-on-the-Main. His family was of the 
 so-called Old Patricians of old Frankfort. 
 
 He came to Berlin to study law in 1850, and 
 was introduced to leading members of the Prussian 
 
136 MY LIFE 
 
 "Reaction," among them to Friedrich Julius Stahl. 
 But his family connections led him to favour the 
 Greater German policy of a united Germany under 
 Austrian hegemony. This he advocated in several 
 pamphlets. Later he became a Republican, and 
 recommended a revolution to bring about the unifi- 
 cation of Germany on a democratic basis. After 
 making the acquaintance of Lassalle he went over 
 to Bismarck's policy of a Prussian Germany. While 
 up to the year 1863 he had wrritten and spoken 
 against Prussia and had even said that both Prussia 
 and Austria must be destroyed to make room for 
 a united German Republic, there now came a 
 sudden change. Two very grave scandals had made 
 life in his own class and set impossible. When 
 he met Lassalle at Frankfort in 1863 he promptly 
 recognised that here was an opportunity to assure 
 his future and to satisfy his ambition. In a 
 speech delivered in October, 1863, entitled " The 
 Party of Progress," he violently attacked the Liberal 
 bourgeois parties and maintained that the attacks 
 of the Social-Democratic party ought in the first 
 instance to be directed against the Liberals and 
 not against modern absolutism with its castes of 
 priests and nobles. 
 
 According to this theory it was not the sup- 
 porters of feudalism, to whom every kind of social 
 and political progress was an abomination, who 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 137 
 
 were the chief enemies of the workers, but the 
 Liberals, the least radical of whom were yet be- 
 lievers in modern development and advocated a 
 certain degree of progress, without which the capi- 
 talistic order of things could not exist, an order 
 which holds out to the proletarian at least the 
 possibility of rising, by his own efforts, to a state 
 of freedom, and of abolishing the oppression of 
 man by his fellows. Schweitzer knew that the 
 doctrine he preached was ultra-reactionary, and 
 a betrayal of the interests of the workers, but 
 he advanced it in order to recommend himself to 
 the ruling powers. 
 
 Bismarck the Junker of course accepted this 
 help from the extreme Left (the Radical wing) 
 with the utmost pleasure, and was even willing to 
 assist the man who gave it. Was not this playing 
 with the forces of Socialism and Communism— 
 and no sane man could take it for more than play- 
 ing—an excellent way of scaring out of their wits 
 the Liberal bourgeoisie, who never had a super- 
 fluity of courage, and of ensnaring it in the meshes 
 of Bismarckian Csesarism? The more radical the 
 Socialism the more it scared the bourgeoisie. I 
 need hardly emphasise the fact that this policy 
 is the very antithesis of Democracy and Socialism. 
 
138 MY LIFE 
 
 2. The " Sozialdemokrat." 
 
 In July, 1864, Schweitzer came to Berlin to edit 
 a party organ, the Sozialdemokrat. The money 
 to start the paper he got from his friend von 
 Hofstetten, who had married a Countess Strachwitz. 
 
 The programme which headed the first number 
 —solidarity of democracy all over the world, a 
 unified and powerful Germany on a democratic 
 basis, abolition of the rule of capital, and the pre- 
 dominance in the State of labour — secured him 
 many influential contributors, including Liebknecht, 
 Marx, Engels, Colonel Riistow, Georg Herwegh, Jean 
 Philip Becker, and Moritz Hess, and would, had he 
 adhered to it, have been of the greatest assistance 
 to the party ; moreover, it would have prevented a 
 split. 
 
 But the correct attitude of the Sozialdemokrat did 
 not last .long. Even in the sixth number there 
 was an article on the Bismarck Cabinet, containing 
 passages which betrayed, if as yet very cautiously, 
 a sympathetic attitude towards Bismarck's policy. 
 
 In No. 14 and the following issues appeared 
 the series of articles on "The Bismarck Ministry," 
 in which Schweitzer dropped the democratic mask, 
 and in consequence lost most of the above- 
 mentioned contributors. In these articles he 
 attacked parliamentarianism as the rule of 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 139 
 
 mediocrity, extolled Frederic the Great and 
 Prussian and Hohenzollern royalism, and quite 
 correctly stated the then existing condition of the 
 Prussian State to be " unfinished, and calling for 
 further annexations," and in its very essence the 
 adversary of any form of parliamentarianism. In 
 this series he finally reached the conclusion that the 
 only two factors that really counted in Germany 
 were Prussia and the German nation as a whole— 
 " Prussian bayonets and German proletarian fists ! " 
 It seems incredible that he should have found it 
 possible to support such a policy, for did it not 
 mean the complete defeat of Democracy? However, 
 he carefully avoided stating a clear issue ; he left 
 it to the reader to draw his own condusions. He 
 wanted to capture his readers for Bismarck's policy, 
 by his special pleading for Prussia. In the whole 
 German Press, Bismarck had no abler apologist 
 for his policy. 
 
 "When Schweitzer's contributors resigned and 
 attacked him in the Press, he pleaded that he had 
 only continued the policy of Lassalle. That may 
 be so ; but Lassalle, who was a wealthy man, could 
 stand up to Bismarck, while Schweitzer, who was 
 deeply in debt, became simply, one of Bismarck's 
 tools.* 
 
 * Herr Bebel describes the curious double dealing of 
 Schweitzer at great length, with documentary evidence. 
 
140 MY LIFE 
 
 The policy of the Sozialdemokrat quickly brought 
 forth the desired fruits. As early as February, 
 1865, a member of the General German Labour 
 Union made a speech in which he stated his prefer- 
 ence for the existing Prussian Reactionary 
 Ministry over a Ministry of Progressive Liberals. 
 A Congress of the Workmen of Rhenish Westphalia 
 adopted a resolution recommending the policy of 
 the Sozialdemokrat and approving its attitude 
 toward the Prussian Government, which had 
 promised measures to improve the condition of 
 the working-classes, and might even introduce uni- 
 versal suffrage. This resolution was nothing less 
 than a vote of confidence in Bismarck and the 
 Prussian Government. 
 
 The opposition which soon found voice against 
 the dictatorial attitude of Schweitzer was con- 
 demned as sacrilegious to the mernory of Lassalle. 
 This worship of Lassalle, which, of course, suited 
 Schweitzer's plans, gradually became almost idiotic, 
 and developed into a sort of religious orthodoxy. 
 The subject of " Christ and Lassalle " was for years 
 the stock subject of discussion in public meetings. 
 F. W. Fritsche, who spoke on this subject in Berlin 
 in the year 1868, was even tried for blasphemy, 
 but was acquitted, criminal intent not being proven. 
 
 When Schweitzer found he had shown his hand 
 too openly he would write as a Radical. He could 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 141 
 
 also write as a Reactionary, as when he published 
 a long report on the celebration of the King's birth- 
 day, by the members of the General German Labour 
 Union, who even sent the King a telegram of con- 
 gratulation as the "friend of the workers." 
 
 The circulation of the Sozialdemokrat was at 
 this time very small : there were only a few 
 hundred subscribers. The paper accordingly 
 needed a considerable subvention, and could pay 
 no salary to its two editors, who were yet 
 dependent on it. lYet in spite of its miserable 
 financial outlook, it became a daily paper from the 
 1st of July, 1865. This nearly doubled its deficit, 
 without apparently promising an increased circu- 
 lation. The question was natural : Who provides 
 the money? The General Union did not require 
 or profit by the enlargement of the paper ; but 
 the Conservative Press reprinted, with the utmost 
 delight, the SozialdemokraV s violent attacks upon 
 the Liberal party and its policy, which forced the 
 Liberal Press to pay an amount of attention to the 
 Sozialdemokrat which was out of all proportion 
 to its real influence. One Liberal paper openly 
 accused the Sozialdemokrat of keeping in close 
 touch with Bismarck, in order to obtain the neces- 
 sary funds from ultra-Conservative sources. When 
 requested by Schweitzer to retract, it absolutely 
 declined to do so, and defied Schweitzer to go to 
 
142 MY LIFE 
 
 law. Schweitzer threatened to do so, but of course 
 did not dare. 
 
 In those days one Preuss, a man claiming to be 
 a worker, made himself notorious. He was sus- 
 pected of being in the service of the Government, 
 and more especially in that of Privy-Councillor 
 Wagener, who was Bismarck's right hand in all 
 social and political matters. This man Preuss was 
 a frequent speaker at the meetings of the General 
 German Labour Union. The chain was thus com- 
 plete— Preuss, Schweitzer, "Wagener, Bismarck. 
 Schweitzer never met Bismarck personally. He 
 was no Lassalle. I shall never forget how one 
 day when Schweitzer mounted the tribune of the 
 Diet to make a speech, Bismarck, with assumed 
 curiosity, held up his eye-glasses and examined him 
 from top to toe, as much as to say : " So this is 
 the man that hangs to my coat-tails ! " 
 
 The Berlin police probably knew of his relations 
 with the Government, for the Doktor, as he was 
 familiarly called, was always most cordially 
 received by them. 
 
 Countess Hatzfeldt, the intimate friend of 
 Lassalle, in whose opinion Schweitzer by no means 
 went far enough in his advocacy of Bismarck's 
 policy, thought to justify his support of it in a 
 letter written in 1864 to the wife of Herwegh :— 
 
 "There is a world of difference between these 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 143 
 
 two things : to sell oneself to an opponent^ and to 
 work for him secretly or openly, or, as a great 
 politician to grasp the opportunity, to profit by 
 the mistakes of an opponent, to make your enemies 
 destroy one another, to drive your adversary on to 
 slippery ground. . . . Mere honest minds, such as 
 regard things always from an ideal standpoint of 
 a future State, a standpoint suspended in mid-air, 
 may be very good people in their own way, and 
 privately, but they, are of no account in action, they 
 cannot direct the course of events ; they are good 
 enough in the mass to follow their leader, who 
 knows better." 
 
 The gracious Countess here developed a pro- 
 gramme which would have shipwrecked a Lassalle, 
 because he had not behind him the driving power 
 to carry such a policy through. It is my firm' 
 conviction that if Lassalle had joined issue with 
 Bismarck he would have been beaten ; an attempt 
 to play Bismarck at his own game must have ended 
 in a pitiable fiasco. To believe that a Bismarck 
 could or would make real concessions to Social- 
 Democracy, the deadliest enemy of bourgeois 
 society, while it was of the utmost importance that 
 he should seek an understanding with the modern 
 forces of capitalism, to which end he might even 
 exploit Social-Democracy— to believe such a thing 
 would be a proof of blindness disastrous to one 
 
144 MY LIFE 
 
 engaged in " Realpolitik." Social-Democracy is not 
 a flock of sheep to follow its bell-wether blindly or 
 a pig to be led by the nose. Countess Hatzfeldt 
 may have thought as much at the time, under the 
 influence of her surroundings, but to-day a demo- 
 cratic policy is impossible without the conscious 
 co-operation of the masses and an adherence to 
 honest and open tactics. The masses will not put 
 up with any diplomatic finessing ; a leader wfho 
 should think otherwise would soon learn his lesson. 
 When opportunity offered Schweitzer again 
 turned ultra -Radical. This was his usual method 
 of disarming criticism and silencing his opponents 
 in the union. For some days his Sozialdemokrat 
 was confiscated. Finally he was condemned, on a 
 charge of lese-majesty and other offences, to sixteen 
 months' imprisonment. But this sentence did not 
 interrupt his journalistic work. He edited his 
 paper from prison ; his correspondence was not 
 restricted ; he received numerous visitors. It had 
 been said that his former terms of imprisonment 
 were proof that he was no agent of Bismarck. 
 This is not the case ; a Government does not reveal 
 its relations with its political agents to the Courts. 
 A temporary imprisonment of a political agent is 
 even a very useful means of disarming suspicion. 
 Thus at a time when Lassalle was having long and 
 frequent political conversations with Bismarck as 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 145 
 
 " an agreeable country neighbour," he was, never- 
 theless, condemned by the Berlin courts to a 
 number of sharp terms of imprisonment. In the 
 months which preceded the war of 1866 the 
 Sozialdemokrat worked consistently in the interests 
 of Bismarck's policy. Quite forgetting his former 
 confession of faith, Schweitzer openly preached the 
 overthrow of Austria. " Austria," he said, " should 
 be reduced to the thirteen millions of inhabitants 
 who belonged to the German Confederation. Only 
 thus could a United Germany be constituted, when 
 Prussia would be in possession of the field." 
 
 On the 9th of May, 1866, he was released from 
 prison on account of his bad health. Yet immedi- 
 ately after his release he took a most active part 
 in politics, proving not only that the " state of 
 health " was a pretext, but also that the Govern- 
 ment was not averse to his activities ; for, as a 
 rule, if a political prisoner is released, it is on 
 condition that he does not continue the course 
 of action which led to his imprisonment. 
 
 After what has been said it is hardly necessary 
 to contradict the contention, lately renewed, that 
 Schweitzer and his Union exerted any real influence 
 on the course of events— that is, in the matter of 
 obtaining universal suffrage. Of course Bismarck 
 accepted help for his reforms where he could find 
 it. As early as 1863, when the General Union 
 
 10 
 
146 MY LIFE 
 
 had just been formed, he had, as a counter -move 
 against the Austrian Reform proposal, demanded 
 a German Parliament elected by universal suffrage. 
 Thus he wrote, in 1866, in a circular dispatch :— 
 
 " Direct elections and universal suffrage I hold 
 to be a greater safeguard for a conservative atti- 
 tude (of the masses) than some "fancy franchise" 
 designed to produce preconceived majorities. 
 According to our experience, the masses are more 
 honestly interested in the preservation of good 
 order than the leaders of those classes to which 
 some kind of property qualification would give a 
 privileged status." 
 
 And in the same year he wrote to Count 
 Bernsdorff, then Prussian Ambassador to the Court 
 of St. James : — 
 
 " I may state the conviction, based on long 
 experience, that the artificial system of indirect 
 elections and by classes of electors is much more 
 dangerous, because it prevents the supreme power 
 from getting into touch With the healthy elements 
 which constitute the heart of the populace. . . . 
 The makers of revolutions are the electoral 
 colleges, which (provide the revolutionary party 
 with a net stretching all over the country, which is 
 easy of manipulation, as was seen in the case of 
 the " electors " of Paris in 1799. I do not hesitate 
 to declare that indirect elections are a most 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 1^7 
 
 important aid to revolution, and I think I have 
 gathered a good deal of practical experience in 
 these matters." 
 
 This clearly reflects the annoyance which the 
 Prussian three-class electoral system caused him. 
 This system had twice returned a formidable 
 majority against the Government. Again, in the 
 conglomeration of States which constituted the 
 North German Confederation, no other electoral 
 basis than universal suffrage was possible. The 
 Radical Labour Societies 'of Leipzig had demanded 
 it as early as 1862, and since 1865 it had been 
 on the programme of all Labour organisations. 
 
 Schweitzer once went so far as to defend 
 Bismarck, when the latter, fearing that the dele- 
 gates would again refuse money to carry on the 
 war (1866), adjourned the Prussian Diet. 
 
 On the 1st of April, 1866, the Sozialdemokrat 
 ceased publication as a daily paper and returned 
 to its three issues a week. It had then 500 
 regular subscribers. When, after the war, Austria 
 ceded Venetia to France, Schweitzer took the oppor- 
 tunity of deserting to the Prussian camp, " the 
 astonishing organising power of Prussia having 
 proved that Germany could look for salvation ob1>' 
 from that quarter." 
 
 But when the draft of the Constitution of the 
 North German Confederation was at last published, 
 
148 MY LIFE 
 
 even Schweitzer, in a fit of belated pessimism, con- 
 fessed in his paper that the German people had not 
 looked for a German unity of that particular type. 
 Bismarck, the thorough -going " Realpolitiker," had 
 struck the iron while it was hot, creating a Constitu- 
 tion which was decidedly less liberal even than that 
 of Prussia. Schweitzer, who was so well aware 
 of the character of the Prussian State and of 
 Bismarck, ought to have foreseen the event. We, 
 who cherished no illusions, were not disappointed. 
 
 3. Schweitzer as a Parliamentarian and as a 
 Dictator of the General Labour Union. 
 
 At the time of the elections to the Constituent 
 North German Diet, in February, 1867, Schweitzer 
 made it abundantly clear in his Sozialdempkmt 
 that the Conservatives would not find him inclined 
 to be disobliging. He evidently counted on making 
 a bargain with them against the Liberals, whom 
 he once more attacked with the utmost violence. 
 He was a candidate in the constituency of Barmen- 
 Elberfeld ; his opponents were Bismarck and a 
 Liberal. But he did not survive the first ballot ; so 
 the second ballot lay between Bismarck and the 
 Liberal. In one of his Macchiavellian speeches 
 he counselled his supporters to " follow the call 
 of the heart," and almost all the Social-Democratic 
 votes went to Bismarck, who was duly elected. 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 149 
 
 Schweitzer sought to justify his advice by declaring 
 that he had intended to give the Liberal bourgeoisie 
 a lesson. The votes given to Bismarck by the 
 workers were given to him, not as a Conservative 
 candidate, but rather as the Minister who had of 
 his own accord granted the people a right— the 
 right of universal suffrage— which the Liberal 
 Opposition had persistently neglected to demand. 
 Schweitzer also opposed my election at Glauchau- 
 Meerane, because, to a pure Lassallean, I was 
 " a traitor to the cause." When a second election 
 became necessary at Elberfeld through the with- 
 drawal of Bismarck, who had been elected to a 
 second constituency, Schweitzer was again a candi- 
 date, and went to the second ballot against the 
 Liberal, who was the well-known Professor von 
 Gneist. But he was again rejected, although he 
 openly claimed the votes of the Conservatives as 
 a quid pro quo for his services to Bismarck in the 
 previous election, stating that the Labour party 
 and the Conservatives could very well work together 
 
 in the cause of social reform. 
 
 A 
 At last Schweitzer was duly elected, in August, ji 
 
 1867, by the help of Conservative votes, and made \ 
 
 his entrance into the first North German Reichstag. 
 
 The leader of the Conservative party had even 
 
 paid some £60 towards his election expenses. 
 
 Schweitzer was duly grateful, and promised that 
 
150 MY LIFE 
 
 although he would always vote with the extreme 
 Left in matters touching the freedom and welfare 
 of the people, he would always, with all his might, 
 support the King of Prussia and his Government 
 in all questions of foreign policy or when danger 
 threatened the Fatherland, and this inside and out- 
 side the Reichstag. 
 
 Schweitzer's election very naturally evoked great 
 enthusiasm among his supporters, which he ex- 
 ploited by driving a four-in-hand with a team of 
 white horses in triumphal progress through the 
 two cities of Barmen and Elberfeld. Schweitzer 
 delighted in such triumphal progresses, the like 
 of which would certainly terminate the career of 
 any Labour leader who should indulge in them 
 to-day. He repeated them on various occasions ; 
 for example, the four-in-hand with the white team 
 was prominent during the whole time of the meet- 
 ing of the General Union at Cassel. But when 
 he presented the bill — by no means a moderate one 
 — the meeting agreed to pay the cost of his progress 
 from the station to the town, but no more ! 
 
 In the debates in the North German Reichstag, 
 Liebknecht and I had not a few personal encounters 
 with Schweitzer, he surreptitiously defending the 
 policy of Bismarck, while attacking us as standing 
 outside the Fatherland in its new, form. 
 
 In May, 1867, Schweitzer had at last reached the 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 151 
 
 goal of his ambition, and was elected President 
 of the General Union. The Union was in a bad 
 way, especially in respect of its finances. Against 
 his election it was argued that he was generally 
 distrusted, and that the combination of the presi- 
 dency and the editol-ship of the organ of the Union 
 in one person was unsatisfactory. After being 
 elected he solemnly shook hands with each dele- 
 gate and promised to do everything in his power 
 to advance the cause of the General Union, while 
 the delegates promised with equal solemnity to 
 stand by the Union and its president. Thus a 
 kind of " Oath of the Tennis Court " was taken,, 
 like that of the National Assembly of France in 
 1789, with the difference that in this case the chief 
 actor in the scene knew that he was playing a 
 comedy. 
 
 His Sozialdemokrat at this time had a circula- 
 tion of some 1,200 copies, and as he had recently 
 broken with his friend von Hofstetten, in a manner 
 not much to his own credit, Hofstetten having lost 
 all his money in the venture, the question was once 
 more heard, where did he get the money for his 
 paper and his rather luxurious way of living? We 
 knew from information gathered in Berlin that 
 he led a dissolute life. During the sessions of the 
 Reichstag he kept a coach with liveried servants, 
 and gave champagne dinnerjs to his intimates. As 
 
152 MY LIFE 
 
 he had on a previous occasion embezzled money 
 from the funds of a rifle club, so he now, as Presi- 
 dent of the General Union, embezzled money from 
 the funds composed of the pence of ill -paid work- 
 ing-men in order to satisfy his appetites. The 
 sums were small, but that was not Schweitzer's 
 fault ; the Union was far from wealthy. Schweitzer 
 was more than once publicly accused of this shame- 
 ful action, but he never dared to defend himself. 
 A man capable of such mean conduct is certainly 
 capable of selling his political services, the only 
 toletably profitable business open to him. It is 
 impossible to prove such things ; one can only 
 judge by circumstantial evidence. Bismarck at this 
 time had the handling of the inteirest of a capital 
 sum of some £2,400,000, the private property of 
 the King of Hanover, which had been sequestrated 
 in 1866. The manner in which Bismarck 
 employed this money for political purposes gained 
 it the title of the " Reptile Fund." It is a charac- 
 teristic fact that while the whole Opposition Press 
 denounced this political corruption, Schweitzer 
 never so much as mentioned it in the Sozial- 
 demohrat. 
 
 It is no less characteristic of Schweitzer that he 
 never in his paper mentioned our journal, the 
 Democratic Weekly, by name, but always spoke of 
 it as " Herr Liebknecht's paper." He did this lest 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 153 
 
 any of his readers should conceive the idea of 
 taking in the Democratic Weekly. This was a 
 petty an<d ridiculous method of fighting us. 
 
 At the next General Meeting of; the Union, 
 Schweitzer made an announcement which was in 
 a way a denunciation of himself. "This will be 
 our last General Meeting," he said. " The hostility 
 of the Prussian Government will declare itself. The 
 Union will be dissolved." And, in fact, the Union 
 was dissolved, three weeks later, by the Leipzig 
 police, the Union being then domiciled in that city. 
 Can there be any doubt that the dissolution of the 
 Union was agreed upon by Schweitzer in concert 
 with the Berlin police? Naturally Schweitzer 
 made no protest, and the Union ceased to be. 
 Now, if it had been by the hostility of the 
 Prussian Government that the Union was destroyed, 
 would it not have been Schweitzer's duty to with- 
 draw it as far as possible from the hostile influence 
 of that Government, and to select as its domicile 
 some city outside Prussia— such as Hamburg, for 
 instance? For in Hamburg no law against associa- 
 tion was in existence. No ; instead of this he 
 chose Berlin, thereby proving conclusively his 
 relations with the Berlin police. 
 
 The new Union was formed in " secret conclave," 
 and the new statutes gave the President almost 
 despotic power. Meanwhile, Schweitzer had once 
 
154 MY LIFE 
 
 more to serve a three -monttis term of imprison- 
 ment, but was liberated after less than a month, 
 "on account of family matters." But he was at 
 once deeply engaged in political work, and although 
 the term of his sentence would not be at an end 
 by then, he fixed the date' of the next General 
 Meeting of the Union for the 27th of March, the 
 place to be Barmen-Elberfeld. But he knew before- 
 hand that the authorities would release him. 
 
 His attitude towards us beqame more violent than 
 ever. He accused us of working, consciously or 
 otherwise, for the Austrian policy. I will admit 
 that Liebknecht, in his Democratic Weekly^ had 
 lately adopted an attitude towards Austria which 1 
 had protested against, and Schweitzer, of course, ex- 
 ploited this weakness of Liebnecht's to the utmost. 
 
 Six weeks before the meeting at Barmen- 
 Elberfeld, Schweitzer was duly elected President 
 by 5,000 votes against 54. But it was a moral 
 defeat : the Union had then some 12,000 members, 
 so that the majority had not voted at all. 
 
 In the Reichstag I was the involuntary witness of 
 a meeting between Schweitzer and Prince Albrecht, 
 brother of the King, who was a member. When 
 the Prince saw Schweitzer approaching him, he 
 beckoned to him, shook him vigorously by the hand, 
 and said in a most amiable tone : — 
 
 " How do you do, my dear Schweitzer ! " 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 155 
 
 Schweitzer : " Thank you, your Royal Highness." 
 The Prince : " And why have you not been 
 present at the sitting? " 
 
 Schweitzer : " I was there, your Royal Highness." 
 Prince: "Why did you not speak? You were 
 expected to do so. . . ." 
 
 I went oflf, not wishing to be caught eaves- 
 dropping. But the few words I heard conclusively 
 proved that Schweitzer was well known to the 
 Prince, and that those on the right side of the House 
 knew exactly what even his most Radical speeches 
 really meant. 
 
 4. The Congress at Barmen-Elberfeld. Revolt 
 AGAINST Schweitzer within the General 
 Labour Union. 
 
 When we arrived at Barmen-Elberfeld on the 
 27th of March we were welcomed by a number 
 of friendly members of the "International." 
 
 Schweitzer had previously announced in the 
 Sozialdemokrat that the enemy had on two occa- 
 sions dared to raise its head against the president 
 (who was also the most prominent and important 
 person in the Union), and that the General Meeting 
 was expected to repel all attacks upon the organi- 
 sation. 
 
 At the preliminary meeting it was decided, con- 
 trary to the advice of Schweitzer, to admit us at 
 
156 MY LIFP 
 
 once. On the following afternoon Liebknecht and 
 I entered the crowded hall under the fire of the 
 furious glances of Schweitzer's fanatical adherents. 
 Liebknecht spoke first for an hour and a half ; I 
 followed with a much shorter speech. Our speeches 
 contained a summary of all the accusations we 
 had levelled against Schweitzer. There were 
 several violent interruptions, especially when we 
 accused him of being a Government agent ; but 
 I refused to withdraw anything. The Sozialdemo- 
 krat published a very greatly condensed and con- 
 fusing report of our speeches. Liebknecht, from 
 motives of exaggerated loyalty, restricted himself 
 to a mere statement of facts in his Democratic 
 Weekly, adding that he would publish no more 
 attacks upon Schweitzer, as there was still some 
 hope of coming to an understanding with the 
 other wing. 
 
 Schweitzer, who sat behind us when we spoke, 
 did not utter a word in reply. We left at once, 
 some of the delegates guarding us against assault 
 from the fanatical supporters of Schweitzer, amid 
 a storm of imprecations, such as " Knaves ! " 
 "Traitors!" "Rascals!" and so forth. At the 
 doors our friends met us and took us under their 
 protection, escorting us in safety to our hotel. 
 
 Schweitzer obtained a vote of confidence from 
 the delegates by a majority of 6,500 votes, 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 157 
 
 delegates representing 4,500 votes abstaining from 
 the vote. But he had to pay dearly for his victory. 
 The organisation of the Union, which, after its dis- 
 solution by the Leipzig police, had been imposed 
 upon it by Schweitzer, and which gave him dicta- 
 torial power, was now remodelled, the meeting 
 adopting a thoroughly democratic organisation in 
 its place, which greatly restricted the power of 
 the president. 
 
 Deprived of the absolute power, Schweitzer tried 
 to come to an understanding with us in Berlin. He 
 invited us to dinner, and even took us to the play 
 in his carriage and pair. We negotiated a truce, 
 agreeing not to attack one another's organisations, 
 and to co-operate in the Reichstag. Identical 
 declarations to this effect were published in our 
 respective papers. 
 
 All seemed for the best ; but Schweitzer chafed 
 under the democratic constitution of the Union 
 which had been voted at Barmen-Elberfeld, and 
 the restrictions under which it placed him. It was 
 political extinction for him, as it effectively pre- 
 vented any further double-dealing. He made up 
 his mind to escape from the situation. Like a bolt 
 from the blue the Sozialdemokrat published a pro- 
 clamation, under the title " Restoration of Unity 
 in the Lassallean Party." In bombastic terms it 
 proclaimed the restoration of the old Lassallean 
 
158 MY LIFE 
 
 organisation and the re-combination of the two 
 wings, Schweitzer's contingent and that founded 
 by the Countess Hatzfeldt, the intimate friend of 
 Lassalle. With the utmost precipitation the two 
 separate Unions were dissolved, and Lassalle's 
 organisation reinstituted. This coup d'itat was de- 
 signed to restore Schweitzer's old predominance. 
 At the same time it was declared that the truce 
 with our organisation was at an end, as we had 
 been the first to break it. I was supposed to be 
 the culprit ; and my offence consisted in the fact 
 that I had poached upon the preserves of the 
 General Union by speaking at meetings presided 
 over by members of that Union, claiming that 
 Social-Democratic principles were the sole means of 
 improving the conditions of the workers, and that 
 the several branches of the Labour party should 
 work together in alliance. 
 
 I may add that although I gained success and 
 applause as a propagandist I wrote to my wife 
 about this time that I was sick of the work. Yet 
 how long I had to continue it ! But it was my 
 duty, and that was enough. 
 
 The coup d'etat on the part of Schweitzer greatly 
 incensed a considerable section of the General 
 Union. Some of the more intelligent members 
 recognised that Schweitzer was impossible, and that 
 he was the main obstacle to unity. A member from 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 159 
 
 Hamburg, Bracke, asked Liebknecht and myself to 
 appoint a meeting. We met, with other members, 
 at a third-rate hotel at Magdeburg. Some were 
 in favour of immediate action, others of reform 
 from within. We replied that the meeting at 
 Barmen-Elberfeld had proved that that was impos- 
 sible so long as Schweitzer was president. We 
 talked all night, and finally Bracke, bent over the 
 billiard-table, wrote a proclamation. We went to 
 bed at 3 a.m. The proclamation, addressed to 
 all friends of the party, stigmatised Schweitzer's 
 action as hypocritical and insulting to the sovereign 
 people, and as tending, not to unite all Social- 
 Democratic workers in one party, but to increase 
 the gulf between the different sections. It asked all 
 workers to rise in revolt against the rule of a 
 single man, and promised at once to call a Congress 
 of all the Social-Democratic workers of Germany, 
 in order to found a Social-Democratic party on 
 a democratic basis, in conjunction with the " Inter- 
 national." The proclamation was signed by twelve 
 members of the General Union, who made a 
 declaration of their secession at the time, and was 
 published on the 26th of June in the Democratic 
 Weekly. As we laid particular stress upon our 
 honesty of purpose, against the dishonest methods 
 of Schweitzer, we soon earned the nickname of 
 " tlie honest men." 
 
160 MY LIFE 
 
 The standing committee of our Association re- 
 solved unanimously (on a motion of mine) to accede 
 to the proclamation and to circularise our societies, 
 urging them to do the same, and to call for a 
 General German Social-Democratic Labour Con- 
 gress. I also wrote to the German section of the 
 Central Council of the " International " at Geneva, 
 asking them to approve of our work of unification. 
 
 Schweitzer, of course, opposed us by his usual 
 methods in the Sozialdemokrat. He maintained 
 that ours was not a party of working-men, but 
 of literary men, schoolmasters, and other " bour- 
 geois." He also claimed that Lassalle's organisa- 
 tion, which had been restored, must be kept intact. 
 We, on the other hand, published in the Democratic 
 Weekly daily lists of secessions from the Union, 
 which included many trades -union leaders. 
 
 Schweitzer was re-elected president with an 
 absolute majority ; but the figures were not pub- 
 lished. He stated that the General Union would 
 send delegates to the Social-Democratic Congress 
 and published a number of resolutions to be moved. 
 At the same time he maintained that behind our 
 Congress stood the whole of the Liberal bourgeoisie 
 of every shade. We replied by asking him not to 
 send his tools, but to come himself. But he pre- 
 ferred to go to prison once more. 
 
 I will offer the following facts to the reader's 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 161 
 
 consideration : At the end of November, 1869, 
 Schweitzer went to prison for three months. At 
 the end of December he was released— for a week 
 — in order to settle certain family affairs conse- 
 quent upon the death of his father. He was free 
 for seven weeks, which he spent in the most intense 
 political activity, under the very eyes of the police, 
 until he returned to prison on the 18th of February. 
 On the 4th of March he was again released for 
 the Session of the Reichstag. The Session ended 
 on June 22nd ; but Schweitzer was free until the 
 19th of July, and was actively agitating all the 
 time. He returned to prison only when he found 
 it convenient. 
 
 Now, in no other case were the Prussian police 
 so considerate. On the contrary, it was their brutal 
 custom to pull those sentenced to imprisonment 
 out of their beds at six in the morning. Schweitzer 
 never saw this side of the police. Was not our 
 distrust of him justified? 
 
 Just before the Congress of Eisenach one of the 
 Lassalleans sought to damage my political reputa- 
 tion. He maintained, in the Sozialdemokrat, that 
 I received an annual pension of 600 thalers (about 
 £90) from the ex-King of Hanover. The accusation 
 was a silly one, yet members of the General Union 
 believed it. I therefore decided to go to law and 
 to prosecute my accuser for malicious libel. I con- 
 
 11 
 
162 MY LIFE 
 
 suited one Hirsemenzel, then the first advocate in 
 Berlin. But he declined to take up my case ; the 
 court, he said, would not find that there was any- 
 thing derogatory in the contention that I was in 
 the pay of a prince, and would find my traducer 
 guilty of libel merely. This would not satisfy me. 
 Further, if the Minister of the Household of the 
 ex-King were called as a witness he would certainly 
 refuse to attend, which would tell against me. In 
 the end I wrote to my accuser, challenging him 
 to publish his proofs. Instead of withdrawing his 
 accusation he repeated it, and defied me to bring 
 an action against him. I then called him a low 
 slanderer, and challenged him to bring an action 
 against me in the Leipzig courts, as I had no faith 
 in the Berlin courts. In the end it all came to 
 nothing, my accuser asserting that he himself had 
 no proofs, but that a high Government official had 
 declared that the accusation was true ; he, however, 
 would give proof of it only in court. 
 
 5. The Congress of Eisenach. The Foundation 
 OF the Social-Democratic Labour Party and 
 THE Dissolution of the League of Working- 
 men's Societies. 
 
 After it had been agreed among us that the 
 Congress should be convened at Eisenach, on the 
 7th of August, a manifesto was published in the 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 163 
 
 Democratic Weekly on the 17th of July, signed by 
 66 ex -members of the General Union, 114 members 
 of the Association of German Working-men's 
 Societies, some members of the Lassallean (Hatz- 
 feldt) Union, the Central Committee of German 
 Labour Unions in Switzerland, the German Repub- 
 lican Society of Zurich, some Austrian Labour 
 representatives, and by J. P. Becker for the 
 German branch of the " International." 
 
 The manifesto was addressed to the German 
 Social -Democrats. After recalling the internal dis- 
 sension in the Labour party caused by the necessity 
 of opposing the selfish and malignant tactics of 
 certain individuals, and expressing the hope that 
 the party would emerge from this healthful revolu- 
 tion with increased purity of principles and unity 
 of organisation, on the same basis as the " Inter- 
 national," it called for a General German Social - 
 Democratic Labour Congress, to be held at Eisenach, 
 from the 7th to the 9th of August. The agenda 
 included: (1) Organisation of the party. (2) Pro- 
 gramme of the party. (3) The relation of the party 
 to the "International." (4) The party, organ. 
 (5) Federation of trades unions. The delegates 
 were asked to arrive without fail on the 7th, in 
 order to elect a committee and agree as to the order 
 of business. 
 
 At the same time I called a Congress of the 
 
164 MY LIFE 
 
 German Working-men's Societies for the 9th of 
 August, also to be held at Eisenach, to discuss the 
 attitude of our Association towards the new 
 organisation of the Social -Democratic party, and 
 eventually its own dissolution. The conveners of 
 the Eisenach Congress also gave me the mandate 
 to make all necessary arrangements at Eisenach, 
 and to elaborate a draft programme and plan of 
 organisation for general discussion. 
 
 It is not without a certain glee that I turn over 
 the old letters in which the Royal Saxon Railway 
 and the then private Thuringian Railway granted 
 my request that they would allow the members of 
 the Social -Democratic Congress the reduced fares 
 generally granted to Congress visitors. We should 
 not be so lucky as to get such terms to-day ! 
 
 At the outset J. Ph. Becker caused me some 
 embarrassment by an article which he contributed 
 
 to. his Vorboten (Forerunner) dealing with the 
 
 organisation of the new party. Now, Jean Philippe 
 was a splendid old fellow, devoted to the cause, 
 ready for any sacrifice, indefatigable day and night, 
 an old stager who in the revolution in Baden in 
 1848 was a colonel of Irregulars, and would have 
 liked nothing so well as once more to have found 
 himself in the saddle. He used to tell any amount 
 of amusing stories of his full and rather stormy life ; 
 I have listeiaed to him for hours at a time. But 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 165 
 
 he did not know very much about party organisa- 
 tion, and his long absence from Germany had left 
 him a stranger to contemporary German conditions. 
 Instead of a compact, centralised, yet democratic- 
 ally organised party capable of energetic action, 
 Becker proposed a loosely knit association which 
 was to « propagate democratic principles, but was 
 to have no party organisation ; it was to be 
 governed by an organisation of a changeable 
 character, capable of all developments and de- 
 pendent upon Geneva. As a result of this article 
 the General Council of the " International " wrote 
 to me from London that they knew nothing of it 
 and did not aipprove of it. I replied that I was 
 glad to hear as much, as I should have to oppose 
 it in the Congress as impracticable. 
 
 The Congress was exceedingly well attended. 
 There were 262 delegates, representing 193 different 
 localities, among others Becker (Geneva), Greulich 
 and Dr. Ladendorf (Zurich), Oberwinder and Schoen 
 (Vienna), and Hofstetten (Berlin). Sonnemann 
 (Frankfort) was also present, but this was the 
 last Labour Congress he attended ; his hope 
 that the Labour party and the People's (Radical) 
 party would come to an understanding was 
 never fulfilled. The class characteristics of our 
 party were repellent to him. The Schweitzerians, 
 as we thenceforth called the members of the 
 
166 MY LIFE 
 
 General Union, were much less numerous, not 
 exceeding half our numbers. They foregathered 
 in the "Ship," we in the "Golden Bear." 
 As we had learned from several quarters that 
 the Schweitzerians intended to break up the 
 Congress by violent means, I went to the Burgo- 
 master and the police, and asked them what they 
 would do in such a case. They assured me that 
 we could do as we liked ; there were no restric- 
 tions as to the right of association and meeting 
 in Saxe-Weimar ; but if the other parties attempted 
 to disturb our arrangements by a display of violence, 
 the police were ready to intervene on our behalf. 
 
 About seven in the evening the Schweitzerians, 
 over a hundred strong, marched into the " Golden 
 Bear." When they came to the staircase, which 
 was strongly occupied by our men, they preferred 
 to obtain peaceful admittance by showing their 
 cards. We had arranged beforehand that should 
 any disturbance occur the chairman was to adjourn 
 the Congress until the following day, a Sunday, 
 when the Schweitzerians would be excluded. 
 
 It was as we had expected : violent altercations 
 commenced at the very outset at the election of 
 the officers of the Congress. As the lighting was 
 miserable, we at the committee table had stuck a 
 number of candles into bottles, 'which we had to hold 
 on to with both hands to prevent their toppling 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 167 
 
 over. Finally the assembly became so uproarious 
 that the chairman adjourned it, announcing that 
 it would be resumed on the following morning at 
 10 a.m. in the " Moor," when only members with 
 yellow cards would be admitted. 
 
 Our coup succeeded. All night we sorted out 
 the cards belonging to the Schweitzerians and sent 
 them back. Thenceforth the Congress proceeded 
 with its business without further disturbance. 
 
 draft programme and plan of organisation 
 proposed by the conveners of the Congress were 
 voted with very slight modification. The new party 
 was named the Social-Democratic Labour party. 
 The programme adopted was as follows : — 
 
 " 1. The Social -Democratic Labour party aims 
 at the establishment of a free Democratic State 
 (freier Volksstaat). 
 
 " 2. Every member of the party pledges himself 
 to insist with ail his might on the following 
 principles : — 
 
 " (a) The present political and social conditions 
 are in the highest degree unjust and therefore to 
 be opposed with the utmost energy. 
 
 " (b) The struggle for the emancipation of the 
 working-classes is not a struggle for class privi- 
 leges and prerogatives, but for equal rights and 
 equal duties and for the abolition of all class 
 domination. 
 
168 MY LIFE 
 
 " (c) The economic dependence of the worker 
 on the capitalist is the basis of his servitude in 
 all its forms, and the Social-Democratic party aims, 
 by the abolition of the present method of produc- 
 tion (the wages system) at assuring, by means of 
 co-operative labour, that every worker shall receive 
 the full product of his work. 
 
 " (d) Political freedom is the indispensable basis 
 of the economic emancipation of the working- 
 classes. The social question is therefore insepar- 
 able from the political question ; its solution 
 depends upon the solution of the political question 
 and is only possible in a democratic State. 
 
 " (e) In consideration of the fact that the 
 political and economic emancipation of the working- 
 class is only possible if this class wages war in 
 common and united, the Social -Democratic Labour 
 party adopts a united organisation which yet 
 makes it possible for every one of its members 
 to make his influence felt for the benefit of the 
 whole. 
 
 " (/) Considering that the emancipation of labour 
 is neither a local nor a national but a social ques- 
 tion, which embraces all countries in which there 
 is a modern society, the Social-Democratic Labour 
 party regards itself, as far as the laws of associa- 
 tion permit, as a branch of the " International," 
 and adopts its aims. 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 169 
 
 3. The following are to be regarded as the most 
 urgent questions of propaganda:— 
 
 " (a) Equal universal and direct suffrage by 
 secret ballot for all men over twenty, in the elections 
 for the Reichstag, the Diets of the several Federal 
 States, the provincial and local assemblies, and all 
 other representative bodies. The deputies are to 
 be paid salaries. 
 
 " (b) The introduction of direct legislation 
 (Initiative and Referendum) by the people. 
 
 (c) Abolition of all privileges of class, property, 
 birth, and creed. 
 
 " (d) Substitution of a National Militia for 
 standing armies. 
 
 " (e) Separation of Church and State and 
 secularisation of schools. 
 
 " (/) Compulsory education in Elementary 
 Schools and gratuitous instruction in all public 
 educational establishments. 
 
 " (g) Independence of the Courts, introduction of 
 the jury system, industrial courts, public and oral 
 procedure, and gratuitous jurisdiction. 
 
 " (h) Abolition of all legal restriction of the 
 Press, the right of association and combination, 
 the introduction of a normal working day, the 
 restriction of female labour, and the abolition of 
 child labour. 
 
 " (?) Abolition of all indirect taxation and the 
 
170 MY LIFE 
 
 introduction of a single direct progressive income 
 tax and a tax on inheritance. 
 
 " (/) State help for co-operative undertakings 
 and State credit for free productive co-operative 
 associations, with democratic guarantees." * 
 
 In the course of the transactions I was able to 
 announce that Dr. Ladendorf had promised us, 
 from the Revolutionary Fund (Zurich), a sum of 
 900 thalers (some £45) for purposes of propa- 
 ganda. This was the source of our means, and 
 not a grant from the King of Hanover. The party 
 organ, the Volksstaat, was to be published twice 
 a week. 
 
 WolfenbMtel, in Brunswick, was to be the 
 
 * The rest of the Eisenach programme lays down the 
 rules for the organisation of the party. The membership fee 
 was fixed at one penny per month, which was not required 
 from those who were regular subscribers of the party organ. 
 A General Congress was to be held annually ; the Executive 
 to be elected annually, and to consist of a chairman, vice- 
 chairman, secretary, treasurer (to deposit guarantees), and 
 an assistant. A committee of eleven was to be elected as 
 a committee of control, its duties being : to supervise the 
 financial conduct of the executive, and to hear complaints 
 against the same. It had the power to suspend members of 
 the Executive or the Executive as a body. The Democratic 
 Weekly was to be the party organ, and was to be known 
 as the Volksstaat ; it was to be under the control of the 
 Executive, with power of appeal to the Committee of Control, 
 and finally to the Party Congress. 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 171 
 
 headquarters of the executive committee, and 
 Vienna that of the committee of control. I 
 protested against the choice of Leipzig, as we in 
 Leipzig were sure to rub along smoothly enough 
 with the executive, while the Brunswick members 
 had mostly belonged to the General Union and re- 
 quired looking after. Stuttgart was selected for 
 the next Congress. Liebknecht would represent us 
 at the next meeting of the "International" at 
 Basle. 
 
 The splendid success of our Congress greatly 
 depressed the Schweitzerians. As they had 
 been excluded, they voted a number of resolu- 
 tions at their own meeting, but nothing came of 
 that. 
 
 At the meeting of our Association, which followed 
 directly upon the Congress, the dissolution of the 
 Association and its incorporation with the Social- 
 Democratic party was unanimously voted. After 
 six years' existence the Association had 119 
 branches (associated societies) and a member- 
 ship of 10,000. The books, letters, proclamations, 
 &c., were entrusted to my safe keeping. 
 
 6. After Eisenach. The End of Schweitzer 
 
 After the Congress of Eisenach the fight between 
 the two Social-Democratic factions was waged more 
 fiercely than ever before. Even the two Lassallean 
 
172 MY LIFE 
 
 sections, that led by Schweitzer and the Mende- 
 Hatzfeldt section, were again at loggerheads. 
 Within our own ranks we had some difficulty on 
 account of a resolution touching the land question 
 which had been adopted by the International 
 Labour Congress at Basle. Liebknecht was one of 
 our delegates at this Congress, and the two resolu- 
 tions which he supported were, firstly, " that society 
 has the right to abolish private property in land 
 and to nationalise the soil," and secondly, "that it 
 is necessary to nationalise the soil." These resolu- 
 tions caused great excitement in Germany, especi- 
 ally in the ranks of the Progressive Democratic 
 party, which condemned them as an enormity. 
 Liebknecht tried to smooth matters over by declar- 
 ing, in his Democratic Weekly, that it was not a 
 party principle, and that every member of the party 
 could hold his own opinion on the matter. This, 
 of course, did not improve the state of affairs, and 
 gave a handle to the Lassalleans, who branded us 
 as half-baked Socialists and political log-rollers. 
 And when later on Liebknecht radically changed 
 his opinion, and stated in his paper— which since 
 the Eisenach Congress had become the Volksstaat— 
 that the Basle resolutions were party principles, 
 he may have been correct, but he was absolutely 
 repudiating his former opinion. I had occasion to 
 defend the Basle resolutions during a journey 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 173 
 
 which I made through the south of Germany for 
 purposes of agitation. In twenty days I spoke at 
 eighteen public meetings in as many towns. At 
 Stuttgart the whole staff of the Progressive (Radical ) 
 Democratic party was among the audience, and 
 their leader asked me how our party stood with 
 regard to the Basle resolutions. I replied that our 
 next Congress would define its position, and would 
 doubtless accept them, but I added, to console him, 
 that he need not take it too hardly, as the execution 
 of the resolutions would not be possible until public 
 opinion had been converted. This was gilding the 
 pill. 
 
 In the beginning of 1870 a fourth Social-Demo- 
 cratic organisation came into being, but had only 
 a short life. Already there was our organisation 
 and the two Lassallean parties. Schweitzer had 
 used every means at his command to suppress a 
 separate Bavarian organisation, whose organ was 
 the Proletarian, published at Augsburg. When this 
 party convened a Congress at Augsburg for the 
 purpose of founding a separate organisation I was 
 sent as a delegate to dissuade them from their 
 purpose, to dispel their suspicions— for they took 
 us for an annexe of the Progressive party— and to 
 persuade them to join our own organisation. 
 Although I did my best I did not then succeed ; but 
 at the following Stuttgart Congress an understand- 
 
174 MY LIFE 
 
 ing was arrived at, and the Bavarian section then 
 joined our party. At a meeting w^hich I subse- 
 quently addressed at Munich, Georg von Vollmar, 
 then a young man of twenty, was among the 
 audience, as he told me later on. 
 
 The second Congress of the Social -Democratic 
 Labour party was held at Stuttgart, on the 4th to 
 7th of June, 1870. In accordance with the con- 
 stitution of the North German Confederation the 
 general elections to the Reichstag— which, as it 
 happened, were postponed by the outbreak of the 
 Franco -German War— were to be held by, the end 
 of August. The tactics to be observed at the 
 elections were, therefore, the chief subject of dis- 
 cussion at the Congress. Liebknecht and I, who 
 held different opinions as to the scope of practical 
 parliamentary activity, had finally agreed on the 
 following resolution :— 
 , " The Social-Democratic Labour party shall par- 
 '' ticipate in the elections from the purely tactical 
 standpoint of agitation. The representatives of the 
 i party in the Reichstag shall act, as far as possible, 
 in the interests of the working-classes, but shall, 
 ;on the whole, assume a purely, negative attitude and 
 ■' use every occasion to prove that the debates are 
 1 absolutely futile and farcical. 
 
 i " The party shall not enter into any alliance or 
 ; compromise with any other pai'ty, but the Congress 
 
 ! 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 175 
 
 recommends that in constituencies where the party 
 has no candidate of its own, members should give 
 their votes to those who most nearly approach our 
 political standpoint, especially if the candidates are 
 genuine Labour candidates." 
 
 Although our resolution was opposed in favour 
 of complete abstention, it was finally adopted. 
 
 As to the Basle resolutions, I, as the reporter, 
 proposed the following resolution :— 
 
 " Considering that the necessities of production 
 as well as the laws of agronomy (scientific agri- 
 culture) demand working on a large scale, and, 
 as in modern industry, the introduction of 
 machinery, and the organisation of rural labour, 
 it is evident that on the whole the modern economic 
 development of agriculture tends in the direction 
 of large holdings ; considering that in agriculture 
 the small and moderately large owners are being 
 gradually supplanted by the owners of large estates, 
 and that the misery and servitude of the majority 
 of the rural population continually increases to 
 the profit of a small minority, which is against 
 all humanity and justice ; considering that the pro- 
 ductive potentialities of the soil, which do not 
 depend upon the application of labour, form the 
 raw material of all products and all useful things. 
 
 " The Congress gives it as its opinion that the 
 economic development of modern society renders 
 
176 MY LIFE 
 
 the transformation of all agricultural property into 
 collective property a social necessity, and that the 
 State should grant leases to co-operative agricul- 
 tural societies obliged to exploit the land by 
 scientific methods and to distribute the returns of 
 labour among the co-operators according to a 
 system of contract. In order to make possible 
 a rational and scientific exploitation of the soil it 
 is the duty of the State to spread, by means of 
 technical schools and institutes, the necessary 
 knowledge among the agricultural population." 
 
 As the Austrian Government had then commenced 
 its action against the working-man Oberwinder, 
 whom it accused of high treason, while Johann 
 Most and the Sozialdemokrat still continued to 
 accuse Liebknecht of being the tool of the Austrian 
 Government, the following resolution was adopted 
 amidst a storm of applause :— 
 
 "This Congress declares that the Austrian 
 Government, in its attitude towards the Labour 
 movement and its treatment of the incarcerated 
 workmen, which is a mockery of all humanity, 
 has earned the hatred and contempt of the workers 
 of all nations." 
 
 The next Congress was to meet at Dresden in 
 1871. 
 
 When the elections to the Reichstag drew near, 
 in 1870, Schweitzer's watchword was "Down with 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 177 
 
 ' the honest men ' ! "—that is, the Social -Democratic 
 Labour party. In the event of second ballots 
 between our candidates arid reactionaries, he 
 recommended abstention, but in second ballots 
 between our men and Liberals he recommended 
 his followers to vote Liberal. We were greatly 
 incensed by this infamous behaviour, and quite 
 believed the statement that Schweitzer was acting 
 under the orders of the Government, because 
 our party was of all parties the most hostile to 
 the Bismarckian policy. Yet notwithstanding this 
 treachery we decided unanimously to support any 
 candidate of any of the several Labour parties, 
 with the personal exception of Schweitzer, who 
 was to be opposed at Barmen-Elberfeld, in order 
 to purge the Labour movement of a man who, 
 under cover of Radicalism, had done all that was 
 in his power to damage the movement. 
 
 In July both the Sozialdemokrat and our paper, 
 the Volksstaat, were forced to announce a reduc- 
 tion in size ; the Franco -German War had sud- 
 denly broken out ; many of our readers had to 
 rejoin the colours, while others were thrown out 
 of employment. 
 
 As to the causes and the course of the war I 
 shall have something to say later on. Liebknecht 
 and I considered Napoleon and Bismarck equally 
 to blame for the outbreak, and when the war-loan 
 
 12 
 
178 MY LIFE 
 
 was voted we abstained, an attitude which we 
 explained in a declaration published in the Journal 
 of the Reichstag. But for Schweitzer the war was 
 not merely a war against the German people, but 
 a war against Socialism, and every German who 
 fought against the peace -breakers was at the same 
 time fighting against the arch-enemy of the ideas 
 of the future, fighting for liberty, equality, and 
 fraternity. Such was the prevailing state of 
 excitement that the most bombastic fustian was 
 believed, and was sufflcient to arouse a prejudice 
 against us. 
 
 In the midst of the war -fever came the news 
 from Vienna of the condemnation of the Austrian 
 workers who had taken part in the Eisenach 
 Congress to long years of penal servitude and 
 banishment. One of the condemned was Johann 
 Most. 
 
 The entire Press attacked Liebknecht and my- 
 self on account of our behaviour in the Reichstag. 
 The Sozialdemokrat was not behindhand, calling 
 us traitors and worse. Schweitzer even sent 
 emissaries to Leipzig to incite the masses against 
 us. They met with no success. Once, while at a 
 meeting, we were informed that the Schweitzerians 
 had marched to Liebknecht's house in order to 
 break the windows. We ran thither at the double, 
 but arrived too late. Some windows had already 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 179 
 
 been smashed, greatly to the distress of Frau Lieb- 
 knecht, who was just nursing her baby. We ran 
 off again angrily, and on overtaking the miscreants 
 gave them a sound drubbing. Some days later a 
 number of students had intended a similar ovation 
 for me, which was to be enlivened by a Katzen- 
 musik (cat's music, Charivari), but they were frus- 
 trated by my landlord, who locked the door of 
 the inner court above which I lodged. 
 
 All these attempts, and many others not worth 
 recording, so enraged my electors that they, poor 
 though they were, subscribed among themselves and 
 sent me a silver laurel wreath, accompanied by a 
 poem of Uhland's. Had I suspected their intention 
 I would have prevented its execution. 
 
 The Sozialdemokrat now suddenly executed a 
 volte-face. The strings which connected Schweitzer 
 with those in high places had evidently broken. 
 The war, with its uninterrupted series of victories, 
 had brought South Germany and almost the whole 
 of the middle classes of North Germany as well 
 to Bismarck's feet. Even in the ranks of South 
 German democracy Chauvinism was in the ascen- 
 dant ; there was a veritable orgy of patriotism. 
 Bismarck could now dispense with men of 
 Schweitzer's stamp. 
 
 Thus the Sozialdemokrat wrote in disapproval 
 of the "compulsory annexation of Alsace Lorraine, 
 
180 MY LIFE 
 
 and the reinstatement of Napoleon," just as we 
 did in the Yolksstaat. 
 
 When the executive of our party in Brunswick 
 were arrested and sent in chains to the fortress of 
 Lotzen, the Sozialdemokrat maliciously remarked : 
 " Liebknecht and Bebel, the arch -instigators, are 
 safe ; they send others to the firing-line." But 
 it had not 'to wait very long to see its desire 
 accomplished. 
 
 The Beichstag assembled again on the 24th of 
 November. The Sozialdemokrat announced that the 
 deputies of the party would vote against a further 
 loan ; the war, originally a defensive campaign, 
 had become a war of conquest. Here again 
 Schweitzer approached our standpoint ; yet in all 
 the debates on this subject which Liebknecht and 
 I were constantly provoking, Schweitzer and his 
 friends remained silent. 
 
 On the 17th of December Liebknecht and another 
 editor of the Yolksstaat and myself were suddenly 
 arrested in our homes by the police, our rooms 
 were searched, and we were taken into custody. 
 We were thus paralysed during the elections ; but 
 Schweitzer did not scruple to remind the members 
 of his Union of their pledge to defeat the "honest 
 men." And this when we were in prison, treated 
 with the utmost severity, while the Public Prose- 
 cutor and the judges were concocting an indictment 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 181 
 
 for high treason ! However, the Leipzig members 
 of the General Union had too much common 
 honesty and class-consciousness to take his part, 
 but made common cause with our members, and 
 put me up as their joint candidate for Leipzig. 
 
 On the 3rd of March, 1871, the Sozialdemokrat 
 published a leader full of vainglorious boasting ; 
 yet Schweitzer was beaten in the second ballot by 
 the Conservative, the very man who in 1867 had 
 contributed £60 towards Schweitzer's election 
 expenses ! This defeat increased Schweitzer's in- 
 clination to retire from public life. He announced 
 his irrevocable decision to retire from the presi- 
 dency of the Union. Friends and opponents were 
 equally surprised. He may have intended to resign 
 eventually, but his real motive probably resided 
 in the fact that he despaired of ever regaining the 
 full confidence of the Union, which he had lost by 
 so many acts of commission and omission, while 
 he felt that his campaign against the Social-Demo- 
 cratic Labour party had no chance of permanent 
 success. For our party, in spite of weakness of 
 organisation and lack of unity, was gaining ground 
 daily. The time was approaching when Schweitzer 
 would have been forced to seek alliance with us, 
 which would have meant the repudiation of all 
 his previous tactics. He preferred to go of his 
 own free will ; he had already prepared the way 
 
182 MY LIFE 
 
 for his return to bourgeois society by the pro- 
 duction, in January, 1871, of a three-act drama, 
 " Canossa," which gave evidence of considerable 
 dramatic power. 
 
 As early as April 30th a section of the Hatzfeldt 
 organisation had resolved upon union with our 
 party. At the General Meeting of the Labour Union 
 held on the 19th of May Schweitzer announced that 
 the Sozialdemokrat had ceased publication. It had 
 never paid its way, he stated ; it had never even 
 paid its editor's salary. The Union resolved to 
 revive it under the title of the Neue Sozialdemokrat. 
 Although Schweitzer was violently attacked in this 
 very meeting, it eventually passed a unanimous vote 
 of thanks for his energetic leadership of the party, 
 and expressed its regret at learning of his retire- 
 ment. But this unanimous vote of thanks was in 
 violent contrast to the proceedings of the next meet- 
 ing, which was held in 1872. Schweitzer was then 
 accused, by a former confidant, of embezzling the 
 money of the Union, and of being the confidential 
 agent of the Berlin police. Finally Schweitzer, who 
 was present at the meeting, was asked to leave, 
 and a resolution was passed by 5,595 votes against 
 1,177 excluding him for ever from the Union. 
 
 This was the end of Schweitzer's political career. 
 He was abandoned and condemned even by those 
 who had for years given him their unbounded 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 183 
 
 confidence. He was a man who must have 
 remained the eminent leader of his party if to his 
 other qualifications he had added those which are 
 indispensable in a Labour leader : unselfishness, 
 honesty, and complete devotion to the cause. He 
 would then have been the right man in the right 
 place, and many years of fierce and internecine 
 conflict, in which time, money, health, and energy 
 were squandered, to the satisfaction of our enemies, 
 would have been avoided. It is to his credit that 
 he had the faculty of spreading the ideas of 
 Socialism among the masses^ and of expressing 
 them with a rare lucidity and vividness ; but his 
 political double-dealing sowed the tares of fanaticism 
 and discord among the workers and kept them 
 permanently divided. 
 
 And it is my conviction that this was his real 
 intention. The true purpose of his activities— in 
 Bismarck's eyes the only purpose— was to create 
 a Labour movement which should be subservient 
 to the Government. There can be no doubt that 
 Schweitzer was in Bismarck's service. 
 
 Schweitzer often complained of the ingratitude of 
 the working -classes. This is quite consistent with 
 the facts. He came into the movement with an 
 erroneous conception of the part he was to play. 
 The leader of a party becomes a real leader only 
 by giving the party of his best, like an honest man ; 
 
184 MY LIFE 
 
 to give his best is the duty and obligation of any 
 man who plays a part in the democratic movement. 
 By his services he acquires the confidence of the 
 masses, who accept him as their leader. But only 
 as the man they most trust : not as a master whom 
 they must blindly, obey. He is the chosen prota- 
 gonist of their demands, the interpreter of their 
 longings, their hopes, and ambitions. So long as 
 he is this the party accords him its confidence. 
 But once the people see that they have been tricked 
 and deceived, it is not only their right but their 
 duty to deprive him of the leadership and of 
 their confidence alike. The party does not exist 
 for the leader, but the leader for the party. And 
 as every position of authority contains the possi- 
 bility of misuse, it is the duty of the party to 
 control the actions of its leader and to supervise 
 them. 
 
 Schweitzer saw things differently — upside-down, 
 as it were. He saw himself as a kind of bene- 
 factor, and the party was to be the pedestal which 
 he was to ascend, the means of satisfying his 
 ambition and indulging his expensive tastes. When 
 he did not succeed he complained of ingratitude. 
 The masses are never ungrateful, so long as they 
 have faith in the honesty of their leader ; and once 
 they have given him their confidence it is not easy 
 to convince them that they are being deceived. 
 
JEAN BAPTIST VON SCHWEITZER 185 
 
 History abounds in examples. Whoever accuses 
 the masses of ingratitude should accuse himself, 
 for the fault is his. 
 
 When Schweitzer had lost the game he suddenly 
 recommended his friends of the Union to join our 
 party ; that is, he recommended what he had fought 
 against for all these years. He asked us to publish 
 in the Volksstaat a manifesto to that effect. But 
 we, suspecting a trap, refused. I think his action 
 was prompted only by a desire to make things 
 difficult for his successor in the presidency of the 
 Union. For at this time, while he was asking 
 us to publish his manifesto, a farce of his was 
 produced, entitled " Our Great Citizen," in which 
 the chief actors in the General German Labour 
 Union were mercilessly caricatured and derided. 
 Even the bourgeois Press censured him severely 
 for this breach of good taste. 
 
 Schweitzer died on the 28th of July, 1875, of 
 tuberculosis. He was buried in the family vault 
 in Frankfort. None of his former admirers and 
 supporters followed the hearse. For the Social - 
 Democrats he was extinct before he died. There 
 were no obituaries to testify that the former leader 
 was not quite forgotten. This was the end of one 
 of the most remarkable leaders of the German 
 Labour movement, an end for which no one but 
 himself was to blame. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 IN PARLIAMENT 
 
 1. The North German Constituent Reichstag. 
 
 As soon as the official conflrmation of my election 
 to the Reichstag was in my pocket, I started for 
 Berlin, on the 5th of March, 1867, not without 
 a certain palpitation of the heart. The Session 
 had opened on the 24th of February. I was about 
 to enter upon political activities of quite a new 
 kind ; I was a total stranger to parliamentary 
 life, and had no one to introduce me or initiate me. 
 My colleague, Schraps, a barrister, was no better 
 off in this respect. But I had to take the plunge. 
 When I went to the Chamber and was about to 
 open the door, it was suddenly opened from the 
 inside, and out came Prince Frederick Charles, who 
 was a member — a meeting of the two extremes 
 on the social scale. Having handed in my paper 
 to the Secretary, I went to call on some people 
 to whom I had introductions from a friend at 
 Leipzig. They complained of the Prussian 
 
 186 
 
IN PARLIAMENT 187 
 
 supporters of the party— they belonged to the 
 Progressive party— the best among them being 
 unable to rise to a really free and democratic 
 ideal. 
 
 I was assigned to the first division— that is, I 
 became a member of the first of the seven divisions 
 into which the Chamber was divided, for business 
 reasons. This is why the numbers of the com- 
 mittees composed by members of the Reichstag 
 must always be divisible by seven. 
 
 About this time I wrote to my wife : " W., my \ 
 colleague, and I form the extreme Left of the \ 
 Reichstag, and our seats are placed accordingly, j 
 We cannot well move farther to the left on account ! 
 of the walls, for we do not intend to run our heads j 
 against them." 
 
 The Deputies at this time included the fine flower 
 of the North German politicians ; von Bennigsen, 
 who had presided over the previous year's meet- 
 ing of delegates at Frankfort ; Dr. Karl Braun, 
 of Wiesbaden, the licensed jester of the Chamber, 
 known also for a famous connoisseur of vintages ; 
 the red-headed Becker, whom I knew of old ; Max 
 Duncker, proud of his " lion's mane " ; von 
 Forckenbeck, who was to become President after 
 Simson, and the most prejudiced President the 
 Chamber ever knew ; Gustav Freytag, the well- 
 known novelist ; Rudolf von Gneist, whom the 
 
188 MY LIFE 
 
 Minister of War, von Roon, once paid the doubt- 
 ful compliment of saying that he was a man who 
 could prove anything and everything ; little Lasker, 
 who used to look like a weasel as he ran to the 
 rostrum with his short little legs ; Dr. Planck, 
 later on the principal draughtsman of the German 
 Civil Code ; Eugen Richter, still as sour -looking 
 as when I first knew him in Frankfort, in 1863 ; 
 Dr. Simson, once President of the Frankfort 
 Parliament, now first President of the Reichstag, 
 whose dignified manner as he presided or rang 
 his bell earned him the sobriquet of Jupiter 
 Tonans ; von Schwerin, once a Minister in a 
 Prussian Liberal Ministry, who gave his name to 
 the so-called " Schwerinstage "—the days, usually 
 Wednesdays, reserved for the motions of private 
 Members ; the well-known supporter of co- 
 operation, Schulze-Delitzsch ; Twesten, celebrated 
 for his duel with von Mannteufel ; von Unruh, a 
 Liberal Junker; Waldeck, the real leader of 
 the Progressives ; Windthorst und Malinckrodt, 
 future leaders of the Centre ; and Privy Councillor 
 Wagener, the real leader of the Conservatives, and 
 confidant of Bismarck. 
 
 Another personage of some importance in the 
 Reichstag was Karl Mayer von Rothschild, the 
 Memberfor Frankfort, which had been annexed after 
 1866. He was a squat, broad-shouldered man, with 
 
IN PARLIAMENT 189 
 
 well-groomed jet-black hair and beard ; he wore 
 a heavy gold chain over his ample paunch, and 
 was always most elegantly dressed. I recognised 
 him at once, although I had never seen his por- 
 trait. There were also two generals among the 
 Deputies— Vogel von Falckenstein and von Stein- 
 metz, who were elected in recognition of their 
 victories in the Austrian campaign of 1866. 
 
 But above all these I was interested in Bismarck, 
 whom I had never seen before. He almost always 
 attended the Reichstag wearing a black frock-coat, 
 a black waistcoat, and a black stock so high that 
 only the narrowest rim of white collar was visible 
 above it. His hair, or as much as was left of it, 
 was dark, as was his moustache. I looked in vain 
 for the famous triad of hairs standing upright, like 
 poplars on a plain, in the midst of an otherwise 
 bald cranium, as shown in all the caricatures. I 
 was very anxious to hear him speak, and was 
 greatly disappointed to find that, giant though he 
 was, he did not roar like a lion or speak with the 
 voice of Stentor ; his voice was actually a high 
 treble. He made use of long and involved sen- 
 tences, and was sometimes hesitating, but all he 
 said was of interest and to the point. 
 
 Although Bismarck had made his peace with the 
 Liberals, he still feared their parliamentary in- 
 stability, and had devised the Constitution accord- 
 
190 MY LIFE 
 
 ingly. He made some slight concessions to them, 
 but remained firm upon two points : no payment 
 of Members, and the establishment of the Military 
 Budget on the Consolidated Fund. But he defended 
 universal suffrage, which was proposed for the 
 Constitution, against the attacks of the National 
 Liberals. Sybel, the historian, declared that uni- 
 versal suffrage would mean the tyranny of 
 democracy, Bismarck, on the contrary, said he 
 knew of no better electoral system. It was a sort 
 of heirloom to us Germans, a legacy from the 
 struggles for German unity ; it was part and parcel 
 of the Constitution of the Empire adopted at 
 Frankfort ; it was proposed by Prussia in opposi- 
 tion 'to the Austrian proposals of 1863. No other 
 common basis was possible in a league of twenty- 
 one States. The three-class system he regarded 
 as the most miserable and illogical electoral system 
 imaginable. 
 
 My first action in Parliament was to induce the 
 Chamber to comlnit an illegal action. In one of 
 the first Sessions of the division (committee) to 
 which I belonged, the election of the Member for 
 Leipzig was to be verified. Now, the Town Council 
 of Leipzig, who were responsible for the electoral 
 arrangements, and had to keep the registers, had 
 committed some irregularity which should have 
 rendered the election void. I made a speech in 
 
IN PARLIAMENT 191 
 
 which I asserted that even if the irregularities had 
 not occurred, the candidate would have been elected 
 (it was simply a question of distributing the 
 electors over the various electoral districts). So 
 much I could say from my six-years experience 
 of the political conditions of the city. My view, 
 although absolutely illegal, was adopted, and the 
 election was declared valid. Such a thing could, 
 of course, only happen while affairs were in a 
 state of unstable equilibrium, as they were during 
 the first Session of the new Chamber. 
 
 Of course, I had the most ardent desire to make 
 a speech during a ftdl -dress debate, and numerous 
 appeals to the same effect reached me from my 
 constituency. Although I could not, on account 
 of the closure, speak in the debate on the First 
 Reading of the Constitution Act, I was at last able 
 to make my speech on the 14th Article, which 
 dealt with the relation of the North German Con- 
 federation to the States of South Germany. In my 
 speech I attacked the policy of Prussia, and main- 
 tained, in the face of many interruptions, that the 
 unification of Germany, as intended by Prussia, 
 was not in the interests of Germany as a whole, 
 but only in those of a Greater Prussia, and the 
 Hohenzollern Dynasty. Prussia did not want the 
 South German States to enter the Confederation, 
 because it was feared that the Prussian Government 
 
192 MY LIFE 
 
 might be outvoted. Such a policy, I added, was 
 not a German policy ; it would not result in unifica- 
 tion, but the disruption of Germany. It would 
 turn Germany into one great military barracks, and 
 destroy the last remains of liberty and popular 
 rights. 
 
 In the debate that followed we were denounced 
 for our support of the South and as allies of the 
 Ultramontane party — that is, the new Centre — and 
 these denunciations continue to the present day. 
 
 My maiden speech made a considerable stir, both 
 inside and outside the House. It greatly pleased 
 my constituents. The Gartenlauhe was then 
 publishing a series of articles on " Remarkable 
 Personalities in the Reichstag " ; I was accorded 
 the honour of a particular mention in these articles, 
 the author saying of my speech that " it was as 
 if the throbbing of the wings of the stormy petrel 
 of revolution was heard throughout the House." 
 This seemed to the editor to be praise of an in- 
 discreet or extravagant kind ; the number was 
 withdrawn from circulation, and the phrase was 
 altered. 
 
 My opening speech had yet another sequel. 
 Some weeks later two gentlemen of aristocratic 
 appearance came to my workshop while I was 
 at work. They asked for Rebel, the master -turner. 
 When I replied that I was Rebel, they looked at 
 
IN PARLIAMENT, 193 
 
 me in some surprise, one of them saying, " I mean 
 Deputy Bebel." I repeated, a little piqued, that I 
 was Bebel ; he surveyed me from top to toe, and 
 gave his name as Baron von Friesen. He was the 
 brother of the Saxon Minister. He had read my, 
 speech, and was delighted with certain portions 
 thereof ; I thanked him for his compliments. The 
 Particularists of that time were animated by the 
 most ungovernable hatred of Bismarck ; they would 
 have entered into an alliance with the devil in order- 
 to destroy him. 
 
 Towards the end of the Session the King invited 
 the entire Reichstag to a banquet in the palace. 
 Liebknecht, myself, and certain others did not 
 attend. Next morning I met my good friend the 
 red-headed Becker, and asked him : " Well, 
 Becker, how did you enjoy your dinner-party at 
 Wilhelm's?" 
 
 He laid both hands on my shoulders— I think he 
 was still a trifle vinous— and replied : " Magnifi- 
 cent, my dear Bebel ! Such delicious wines, and 
 a fellow behind you who fills your glass as soon 
 as it is empty ! " 
 
 I laughingly asked him : " Then I suppose you 
 will accept the invitation to the palace? " 
 
 " Well, my friend, you may be sure of that ! " 
 
 Now, Becker and Miquel had in their youth been 
 members of the Communist League. Some of the 
 
 13 
 
194 MY LIFE 
 
 metaibers of this league had quite notable careers ; 
 Miquel became Chief Magistrate of Frankfort, and 
 later Prussian Minister of Finance, and was finally 
 ennobled. Becker became Chief Magistrate of 
 Cologne and a member of the Prussian House of 
 Peers. Others were equally successful. 
 
 We, as well as the Radicals (Progressives), voted 
 against the Constitution Act, which was, however, 
 passed into law by a majority of 230 votes against 
 53. We took this course because it did not give 
 the representatives of the people the rights to which 
 they were entitled. It contained no fundamental 
 or organic laws, no rights of the purse, no minis- 
 terial responsibility, no payment of Members. On 
 the other hand, it settled the Army Budget on the 
 Consolidated Fund, and gave too great a share 
 of power to the Chancellor of the Confederation, 
 who, from 1871, became the Chancellor of the 
 Empire. 
 
 At the close of the Session I made a tour of my 
 constituency, in order to speak at various meet- 
 ings, and report to my constituents on the work 
 of the Session and the part I had taken in it. 
 The meetings were very well attended, and I was 
 much interested in the fact thfat from the very 
 outset women constituted a not inconsiderable por- 
 tion of my audiences. These women became 
 most zealous agitators. As we had no newspapers 
 
IN PARLIAMENT 195 
 
 at our disposal, these meetings were an absolute 
 necessity. I continued this work after the close of 
 every Session, and gradually succeeded in building 
 up relations of mutual confidence between my 
 electors and myself that stood me in such good 
 stead that my opponents were never able to oust 
 me from my seat. When, after ten years, I had, 
 for tactical reasons, to change my constituency, I 
 did so with great regret. 
 
 2. The North German Reichstag and the 
 Customs Diet. 
 
 The first session of the first North German 
 Reichstag opened on the 10th of September, 1867. 
 Among the new Deputies were Rarons von Hover - 
 beck and von Kirchmann. Each had a democratic 
 record, and each belonged to the Radical party. 
 Von Kirchmann had been a Prussian judge, hold- 
 ing a high position, from which he was dismissed 
 on account of the " immorality " of a lecture given 
 by him, in which he advocated the voluntary limita- 
 tion of the birth-rate, in the interests of the 
 higher development of civilisation. Field-Marshal 
 von Moltke was also a Deputy ; so was the famous 
 Strousberg, the notorious company -promoter, who 
 contrived to get the most aristocratic names on 
 his prospectuses. He was the typical parvenu. His 
 parties made a sensation by their extravagance, and 
 
196 MY LIFE 
 
 received columns of description in the Press, a 
 thing hitherto unknown in Berlin. It was the era 
 of capitalism with a big " C " that Strousberg's 
 advent announced— the unholy union of aristocracy 
 with plutocracy. 
 
 My first speech was on the Address. I protested 
 that the Reichstag had no right to call itself the 
 representative of the German nation. Ten millions 
 of Germans in Austria and eight millions in South 
 Germany, to say nothing of Luxemburgh, had been 
 sacrificed. Bismarck interrupted me by asking 
 whether I would have gone to war with France 
 for the sake of Luxemburgh. I, of course, answered 
 in the negative, but that Luxemburgh had been 
 sacrificed to Napoleon ; its retention would have 
 been of great political value to Germany, for, as 
 the Grand Duke of Luxemburgh was also King of 
 Holland, it would have bound the latter country 
 firmly to Germany, which would have been a great 
 advantage in all international complications. 
 
 My second speech was in connection with the 
 law of universal military service. As it was im- 
 possible, on account of the great expense, to enrol 
 all citizens capable of bearing arms while the term 
 of service was at all protracted — it was then three 
 years with the colours— I asked for a return to the 
 system introduced by, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, 
 proposing a term of nine months with the colours. 
 
IN PARLIAMENT 197 
 
 Our proposals were, of course, rejected, but I 
 received many congratulatory comlnunications from 
 all parts of Germany. Our Leipzig friends sent 
 us a token of their approval in the shape of a 
 nine-pound ham, which was very welcome to 
 unsalaried members as we then were. 
 
 The Session was adjourned in the spring of 1868, 
 in order to make room for a session of the Customs 
 Diet, which was to sit for the first time in Berlin,, 
 on the 27th of April. The people responsible for 
 the distribution of seats had— rather disingenuously, 
 and maliciously — placed Rothschild side by side 
 with Liebknecht. The House roared with laughter ; 
 but Rothschild soon deserted this dangerous neigh- 
 bourhood and had another seat allotted to him'. 
 
 The majority of the South German Deputies 
 found it extremely difficult to resign themselves to 
 the new order of things. TJie Customs Diet was 
 the outcome of the fratricidal war of 1866, and 
 South Germany was still suffering from the wounds 
 then inflicted. The feeling of defeat had not yet 
 vanished. Moreover, the Diet was a makeshift, 
 being neither flesh nor fish. The Liberals, as the 
 rej^resentatives of capitalistic development, wanted 
 to make the Diet a true German Parliament ; a 
 measure resisted by Bismarck on the grounds of 
 French jealousy and the state of feeling in the 
 south, and also by the other parties of South 
 
198 MY LIFE 
 
 Germany, who did not recognise their cherished 
 ideal in the North German Confederation, with its 
 Constitution and its Customs Duties. The an- 
 tagonism between North and South was still so 
 keen that the people of the South knew more of 
 Vienna and Paris than of Berlin, which they rarely 
 visited. In the debates this antagonism often gave 
 rise to violent altercations. But here, as else- 
 where, it was proved that the South German is no 
 match for the North German in tenacity and deter- 
 mination. Liebknecht and I did our utmost to 
 stiffen the backbones of the South German Deputies, 
 whose political principles were more akin to ours 
 than to those of the North. Most of the South 
 Germans were glad to turn their backs upon Berlin 
 after four weeks of unremunerated attendance. (In 
 most of the South German States the Deputies were 
 salaried.) The sittings were, as a rule, very poorly 
 attended. 
 
 The next Session of the North German Reichstag 
 — in 1869 — was chiefly devoted to a new code for 
 the regulation of trade and industry. I spoke on 
 several occasions, attacking Privy Councillor 
 Wagener as the Royal Prussian Court Socialist, and 
 defending our propaganda and organisation against 
 the attacks of Baron von Stumin,* maintaining that 
 
 * A great ironmaster, known for his violent attacks on 
 Social-Democracy. 
 
IN PARLIAMENT 199 
 
 as the organisation of capitalism was international, 
 ^hat of labour must be the same. 
 
 At this point I should like to say something of the 
 sacrifices which our participation in the debates 
 of Ihe Reichstag and the Customs Diet imposed 
 upon us. Our constituents— it is only fair to them 
 to say it— did their best to help us financially, but 
 it was very painful to us to accept assistance from 
 those whom we knew to be among the poorest of 
 the electorate. The party paid us nothing ; it had 
 not the means earlier than 1878, and then it could 
 afford only a meagre pittance. We had to pay 
 even our travelling expenses to and fi'om Berlin 
 out of our own pockets. We thus missed many 
 sittings, even when our presence was of the greatest 
 importance to our party. It was the same with the 
 other parties. The majority of the Bills passed 
 were passed by Houses which did not contain a 
 quorum. This state of things continued until 1906, 
 when salaries were finally granted. 
 
 In the same Session the electoral law was passed. 
 The Lassalleans had brought in an amendment 
 fixing the age limit at twenty -one instead of twenty- 
 five, and establishing Sunday as election day. I 
 moved that the elections should be fixed for the 
 whole Confederation on one and the same day, that 
 day to be, a Sunday or other holiday, and that there 
 should be no disqualification of paupers. Of 
 
200 MY LIFE 
 
 course, all our amendnients were rejected. But 
 at the instance of the National Liberals all electors 
 serving with the colours at the time of an election 
 were disqualified. 
 
 In the debates on the Budget Baron von Hover- 
 beck had advocated disarmament. I objected, say- 
 ing that it was folly to think of disarmament as 
 matters then stood in Europe, while Csesarisin was 
 rampant both within the country and without, and 
 one Caesar was only awaiting the opportunity to 
 attack and destroy the other. It was like the story 
 of the two lions in the fable, who devoured one 
 another until only the tails were left. When that 
 stage was reached our turn would come. 
 
 In the Reichstag of 1870 I spoke against the 
 death penalty. It had been abolished in Saxony, 
 and in Baden ; but Bismarck insisted upon it, and 
 it was included in the new Criminal Code by a 
 majority of 27 votes (137 against 110). 
 
 The Customs Diet of 1870 sat only for three 
 weeks. A Bavarian Deputy — a Progressive — re- 
 signed, stating as his motive that the Diet was a 
 sham, which existed only to increase the power 
 of Prussia. It is remarkable how tame and shy of 
 fighting the bourgeois party — the Democrats — had 
 gradually become, quite oblivious of the fact that 
 it is only by fighting that a party, can live and 
 grow. The more intelligent had begun to under- 
 
IN PARLIAMENT 201 
 
 stand that in view of the developments of Social - 
 Democracy, bourgeois democracy had no future. 
 An ever -increasing class antagonism was widening 
 the rift between the sheep and the goats. 
 
 The Spring Session of the Customs Diet of 1870 
 was to be its last ; a few months later commenced 
 the great tragedy which completely altered the 
 political conditions of Germany and made a 
 Customs Diet superfluous. 
 
 Between Liebknecht and myself there existed 
 some differences of opinion as to the tactics which 
 our party should adopt in the Reichstag. Liebknecht 
 regarded the North German Confederation as a 
 thing to be fought against with any and every 
 means available, until it was utterly destroyed. To 
 take any part in its Assembly, otherwise than by 
 way of protest and absolute negation, was in his 
 eyes a betrayal of the revolutionary ideal. No 
 truckling, therefore, to compromise and arrange- 
 ment ; no attempts to influence legislation in our 
 favour ! 
 
 I did not share this conception of the revolu- 
 tionary ideal. I was for protest and denial when- 
 ever they were necessary, especially protest against 
 all that was pernicious from our point of view ; 
 but I was also in favour of positive action, such 
 as the moving of amendments of a propagandist 
 nature. Then our speeches were bound to reach 
 
202 MY LIFE 
 
 millions of readers, however much the reports 
 might be bowdlerised by the Press, and to spread 
 and plead for our principles. 
 
 These differences as to tactics came to a head 
 during the Session, and Liebknecht finally felt 
 bound to state his position. This he did in a 
 lecture delivered before the Berlin Democratic 
 Labour Society, which was afterwards published 
 in pamphlet form. In this he stated his belief 
 that Socialism was not a matter of theory but of 
 power, and a question that could not be solved 
 in Parliament but only in the open, on the field 
 of battle, as all other questions of power had to 
 be settled. To make speeches in the Reichstag was 
 useless ; and to make useless speeches was the work 
 of fools. "No peace," he said, "in the existing 
 State." 
 
 This purely negative attitude was never that of 
 the party as a whole. When, later on, under 
 the laws directed against Socialism, Anarchism 
 obtained a hold here and there in Germany, the 
 anarchists, of course, used Liebknecht's pamphlet 
 against us, the " Parliamentarian party." This was 
 insupportable ; so Liebknecht loyally agreed to pub- 
 lish a new edition of the pamphlet, stating in an 
 introduction that his remarks were intended to 
 apply only to political conditions in Germany, 
 before the foundation of the Empire (1871). Later, 
 
IN PARLIAMENT 203 
 
 at a Congress at St. Gall, held in 1887, he openly, 
 and frankly declared that he had been converted 
 to ray point of view,, and that he regarded the 
 practical participation of the party in parlia- 
 mentary life as necessary and of the greatest 
 advantage to the party. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 
 
 1. Preliminaries to the Declaration of War. 
 
 The attitude which Liebknecht and I assumed at 
 the outbreak of the war and maintained throughout 
 the course of it, both within the Reichstag and 
 without, has for years been the subject of discus- 
 sion and the occasion of violent attacks upon us. 
 This was the case, too, within our own party for a 
 time, though not for long, as we were soon seen to be 
 in the right. I can assert that I do not in any way 
 regret the attitude we then adopted, and that had 
 we at the outbreak of the war known all that after- 
 wards became known, whether from official or 
 other publications, our attitude would have been 
 even more hostile to the war from the very outset. 
 Not only should we have abstained from voting ; 
 we should even have voted against the first grants 
 of money. 
 
 To-day there can be no doubt that the war of 
 
THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 205 
 
 1870 was desired by Bismarck, and that he had 
 long laid his plans to bring it about. Although 
 in respect of the wars of 1864 and 1866 his pose 
 as the innocent victim, the party attacked, was 
 hardly successful, the same could not be said of 
 the war of 1870, when his pose was brilliantly 
 maintained. With the exception of a small inner 
 circle of intimates who knew that Bismarck had 
 worked with might and main to bring about the 
 war— and not even the then King of Prussia, 
 Wilhelm I., belonged to this inner circle— Bismarck 
 duped the whole world, making every one believe 
 that Napoleon had provoked the war, while poor, 
 peace-loving Bismarck was the aggrieved party. 
 The semi-official and official historians have 
 fostered this belief among the general masses 
 of the population, according to which Germany, 
 was acting on the defensive and France was the 
 attacking party. It is true that Napoleon declared 
 war, but the admirable point in Bismarck's policy 
 was that he so shuffled the cards that Napoleon 
 was forced to declare war as though of his own 
 initiative and to appear as the peacebreaker. 
 
 Even men like Marx and Engels shared the 
 common opinion, and gave public expression 
 thereto, although in their position they ought 
 to have known better. The events that preceded 
 the declaration of the war were so confusing and 
 
206 MY LIFE 
 
 unexpected that people quite overlooked the fact 
 that France, who declared war, was quite unpre- 
 pared, while Germany had all her preparations 
 completed to the last button, and succeeded 
 in mobilising her forces without the slightest 
 hitch. 
 
 I first accused Bismarck of having provoked the 
 war in two articles published in the Volksstaat of 
 1873, entitled " The Second of September," * in 
 which I gave an account of the now famous 
 telegram of Ems which made the war inevitable. 
 
 In these matters Liebknecht and I did not see 
 eye to eye. He was of the opinion that Napoleon 
 desired the war, but that Bismarck had not the 
 courage to take up the challenge. Thus he wrote 
 on the 16th of July: "The courageous party 
 retreats— before the stronger. The Hohenzollern 
 candidature f has been abandoned in consequence 
 of the threatening attitude of Bonaparte ; peace 
 will be preserved and the mighty North German 
 Confederation, which was to make Germany 
 respected abroad, has hauled dowm its colours 
 
 * The 2nd of September is the anniversary of the capitu- 
 lation of Sedan, when Napoleon and a French army of some 
 120,000 men were taken prisoners, 
 
 + A Prince of Hohenzollern blood had been invited by the 
 Government of Spain to ascend the throne. This Napoleon 
 resented, and asked the King of Prussia to veto the proposal as 
 head of the HohenzoUerns. 
 
THE FRANCO -GERMAN WAR 207 
 
 as humbly as it did in the Luxemburg 
 affair." * 
 
 I was of a different opinion, being convinced 
 that Napoleon had fallen into a trap prepared for 
 him by Bismarck. I was greatly incensed with 
 Liebknecht, and high words passed between us ; 
 but we were soon reconciled, and from the 20th 
 of July and onwards the Volksstaat adopted my 
 views. 
 
 Knowing nothing of the imminence of war, we 
 had called a party meeting for the 17th of July. 
 Now we had to define our attitude towards the 
 war, and did so in the following resolution : — 
 
 " This meeting protests against any war but one 
 undertaken in the interests of freedom and civilisa- 
 tion, as a crime against modern civilisation. This 
 meeting protests against a war waged in the 
 interests of a dynasty, which jeopardises the lives 
 of hundreds of thousands and the welfare of 
 millions in order to satisfy the ambition of a few 
 of those in power. This meeting hails with joy 
 the attitude of the French democracy, especially 
 of the socialistic workers, and declares its complete 
 
 * In 1867, after the dissolution of the Germanic Confedera- 
 tion, Napoleon objected to the Prussian garrison. Prussia 
 refused to give way. But a conference sitting in London 
 agreed upon the neutrality of Luxemburgh, the withdrawal 
 of the Prussian garrison, and the dismantling of the 
 fortress. 
 
208 MY LIFE 
 
 sympathy with their efforts to prevent the war, 
 and expects the German democracy and German 
 workers to uplift their voices for the same 
 purpose." 
 
 The workers of Paris declared against the war 
 before we did so. Similar resolutions were passed 
 by public meetings of working-men in many cities, 
 such as Barmen, Berlin, Niirnberg, Augsburg, 
 Munich, Konigsberg, Fiirth, Krefeld, &c. 
 
 The party executive in Brunswick was of a 
 different opinion. It convened a public meeting 
 for the 16th of July, which passed a resolution to 
 the effect that as France and a majority of the 
 representatives of the French people had frivolously 
 broken the peace of Europe, and as the German 
 nation was the party aggrieved and attacked, the 
 meeting regarded the defensive war as an unavoid- 
 able evil, but asked the whole people to do their 
 utmost to induce the German people to decide in 
 fullest sovereignty upon the question of peace or 
 war. Similar resolutions were passed in many 
 cities, especially in the North. Thus a very definite 
 difference of opinion within the party became 
 apparent. 
 
 The Reichstag was to be opened on the 19th 
 of July. Liebknecht considered it was our duty 
 to vote against any war loan. But it was thought 
 that a vote against the loan would be a vote in 
 
THE FRANCO -GERMAN WAR 209 
 
 favour of Napoleon. The only possible course was 
 for us to abstain from voting. Liebknecht finally 
 agreed to this, and to justify our action we had 
 the following declaration inserted in the Journal 
 of the Reichstag :— 
 
 " The present war is a dynastic war in the 
 interest of the Bonaparte dynasty, as the war of 
 1866 was in the interest of the Hohenzollern 
 dynasty. 
 
 " We cannot vote the moneys required for the 
 conduct of this war, as this would imply a vote 
 of confidence in the Prussian Government, which 
 prepared the way for this war by its proceedings 
 in 1866. 
 
 " Neither can we vote in an adverse sense, as 
 that would be equivalent to approval of the wicked 
 and criminal policy of Bonaparte. 
 
 " As we are in principle opposed to all dynastic 
 wars, and as Socialist Republicans and members of 
 the International Association of Labour, which, 
 without regard for nationality, opposes all op- 
 pressors and strives to unite in one fratern,al 
 union all the oppressed, cannot, either directly 
 or indirectly, declare for the present war, ;we 
 therefore abstain from voting, in the confident 
 hope that the peoples of Europe, taught by the 
 present fateful events, will do everything to conquer 
 their rights of self-direction, and to abolish the 
 
 14 
 
210 MY LIFE 
 
 existing supremacy of class and the sWord, which 
 is the cause of all public and social evil." 
 
 The loan, amounting to some £18,000,000, was, 
 of course, voted. The Lassalleans gave their votes 
 in favour of it. But the German capitalists afforded 
 the world a sorry spectacle. Although the interest 
 on the loan was 5 per cent, and the price of issue 
 only 88, only some £10,000,000 of the amount was 
 subscribed, while in France the £28,000,000 of the 
 French War Loan was applied for in full. So 
 much for the patriotism of the German capitalists ! 
 
 Our attitude in the Reichstag widened the differ- 
 ence between us and the party committee. 
 Liebknecht refused to edit the Yolksstaat accord- 
 ing to the wishes of the committee, and was 
 finally so far angered that he threatend to emigrate, 
 so greatly did " this nationalist paroxysm disgust 
 him." I, too, greatly objected to the admonitions 
 of the committee, and wrote to them informing 
 them that I should refuse to write for the Yolksstaat 
 if they proceeded against Liebknecht. In answer 
 to their reproach that we acted as we did merely 
 from motives of what they called our " Saxon 
 particularism," * I maintained that we Saxons were 
 good Socialist Republicans. 
 
 On the 1st of September Liebknecht wrote to a 
 
 * ParticularistB are sticklers for State rights, especially aa 
 opposed to Prussian preponderance. 
 
THE FRANCO -GERMAN WAR 211 
 
 correspondent : " I should not give up my position 
 because I am afraid of these place-hunters, but 
 because I am disgusted with their patriotic frenzy. 
 This malady must run its course ; meanwhile I 
 am superfluous here, and could be very useful else- 
 where—for example, in America. But I still hope 
 it will soon be over, so that I need not go away." 
 The course of events forced him to stay and 
 take up his position in the forefront of the battle. 
 
 2. The Arrest of the Party Committee at 
 Brunswick. 
 
 On the 30th of June the Committee published in 
 the Volksstaat a manifesto in which the differences 
 which still divided us became apparent. " It is 
 our task," they said, " to play a decisive part at 
 the birth of this new State, which, as we hope, will 
 embrace the whole of Germany, so that it may 
 result, not in a dynastic but in a Social-Democratic 
 Commonwealth. It is our task to imprint upon 
 it the stamp of our ideas in a sharp and bitter 
 struggle if at its birth the new State still wears 
 dynastic colours. They hoped for the victory of 
 our arms over France, but hoped the victors would 
 not give themselves over to vaingloriousness. The 
 fratricidal war between two countries was to be 
 regretted, but it was not the fault of Germany. 
 The guilty would receive their just punishment. 
 
212 MY LIFE 
 
 but this once achieved it would be a question of 
 uniting forces for the glorious common struggle 
 of all the oppressed of the earth. With Napoleon 
 vanquished the French people would breathe freely 
 once more, and we Germans would call upon our 
 rulers to give the people their due and what the 
 immense sacrifices and miseries of the war would 
 entitle them rightfully to demand." 
 
 The members of the Committee in their optimism 
 did not suspect that they would be the first victims 
 of the " glorious victory." The French armies were 
 utterly defeate'd, by rapid blows, and Germany soon 
 had whole armies of prisoners captive, whose 
 housing and feeding became a very disagreeable 
 burden. Then came the Battle of Sedan, which 
 Napoleon accepted under such circumstances as 
 made it clear that he did so purposely, preferring 
 to become the prisoner of Germany rather than 
 return to France a beaten man. When the news 
 of his surrender reached Germany, every one was 
 jubilant. All thought it would mean the end of 
 a war which had already become a matter of 
 general disgust, on account of the immense losses 
 suffered. Even the King of Prussia wrote to his 
 wife : " I am afraid to inquire as to the losses." 
 
 Yet the war was continued. Paris responded 
 to the capture of Napoleon by proclaiming a 
 Republic, a coup which was far from welcome to 
 
THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 213 
 
 those at the German headquarters. Assuredly the 
 war had not been undertaken in order to convert 
 France into a Republic ! This, it was feared— 
 though without cause— would prove a bad example. 
 When the news of the proclamation of the Republic 
 reached Germany, Liebknecht, greatly excited, with 
 tears in his eyes, rushed into my workshop to 
 announce the event. He was much taken aback 
 by the cool indifference with which I received the 
 news. But to the committee also this news came 
 like a bolt from the blue, and effected a rapid 
 change of feeling. All differences vanished on the 
 instant. We were in complete accord, and de- 
 manded the immediate conclusion of peace, the 
 imposition of a war indemnity, but no annexation. 
 Yet what had been a defensive war had become 
 a war of conquest. 
 
 On the 7th of August the General Council of 
 the " International " published a manifesto, which 
 was printed in the Volksstaat. It declared the war 
 to be a dynastic war on the part of Napoleon, and 
 defensive on the part of Germany. " But," it con- 
 tinued, " if the German workers permit it to lose 
 its defensive character and to degenerate into a 
 war against the French people, victory or defeat 
 will be equally fatal. Prussia alone would reap 
 the advantage." 
 
 The committee, acting on this manifesto, pub- 
 
214 MY LIFE 
 
 lished a proclamation " To All German Workers." 
 It asked the workers to assist the efforts of the 
 Republican French Government to obtain an 
 honourable peace. It quoted from a letter of 
 Marx — though his name was not mentioned — a 
 passage to the effect that the war of 1870 would 
 necessarily be followed by another between 
 Germany and Russia, and that the centre of 
 gravity of the Labour movement would shift from 
 France to Germany. The German workers ought 
 to show their consciousness of their great respon- 
 sibility, and agitate, by means of public meetings, 
 against the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, and for 
 a speedy and honourable peace with the French 
 Republic. The proclamation concluded : " When 
 we see that a great people has once again 
 taken its destinies into its own hands, and that 
 Republics exist, not only in Switzerland and over- 
 sea but de facto in France and Spain, let us join 
 in the cry which, if not to-day, yet perhaps on 
 some future date, will greet the dawn of freedom 
 even in Germany : the jubilant cry — Long live the 
 Republic ! " 
 
 This proclamation was published on the 11th 
 of September. On the 14th we had to announce 
 that General Vogel von Falkenstein, who held com- 
 mand in North Germany, being detailed to prevent 
 the French from landing on the German coast. 
 
TiHE ERANCO-GERMAN WAR 215 
 
 had given the order— in defiance of law and justice, 
 as afterwards appeared— to put the Party Com- 
 mittee in chains and transport them, with a strong 
 military escort, to Lotzen, a fortress in Eastern 
 Prussia, where they were to be imprisoned. The 
 prisoners were very brutally treated ; thus the 
 journey to Konigsberg took thirty-six hours. On 
 the way the people regarded them as traitors to 
 their country and behaved accordingly. 
 
 Another of our party, who was named in our 
 address, was also arrested. The same fate befell 
 two Liberal Democrats, Johann Jacoby and Herbig. 
 The arrest of these latter made a very bad impres- 
 sion on the Liberal Press. A Radical paper said 
 at the time : " These arrests do not go well with 
 our grfeat victories, and make us wonder whether 
 the German people will not lose in internal freedom 
 what it has gained in external glory." 
 
 We, of course, were not surprised. We had not 
 shared the illusion of our committee, which 
 expected a Liberal development of the new order 
 from the very man — Bismarck — who had been the 
 arch-enemy of every liberal, not to say demo- 
 cratic development, and who now, as victor, placed 
 his spurred boot on the neck of the new Empire. 
 
 Other members of our party were arrested for 
 distributing the party manifesto. The Saxon 
 Government prohibited all public meetings, in 
 
216 MY LIFE 
 
 view of the final result of the war. Yet our party 
 was very successful in the elections to the Town 
 Councils of two Saxon towns— a fact which gave 
 us some consolation. 
 
 The official Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung re- 
 gretted that Liebknecht and I had not been 
 arrested with the committee. They had not long 
 to wait. 
 
 A provisional committee was formed, with its 
 headquarters at Dresden. As a good deal of corre- 
 spondence was seized at the time of the arrest 
 of the committee, I wrote warning the secretary 
 not to keep any letters — a warning which he 
 promptly disregarded. When, later on, a search 
 was made of his premises, even my letter of advice 
 fell into the hands of the police, and later still 
 appeared in the records of the action for high 
 treason which was brought against me. 
 
 A curious adventure befell Liebknecht and 
 myself towards the end of October. The thirty- 
 first of that month is a holiday in Saxony— the 
 so-called Day of the Reformation — the anniversary 
 of the day on which Luther affixed his ninety-five 
 theses to the door of the church at Wittenberg. 
 Two days before that date I received a registered 
 letter, which urgently summoned Liebknecht and 
 myself to proceed on some important business to 
 Mittweida, a small Saxon town, on the 31st. We 
 
THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 217 
 
 complied with this request. At the station we were 
 met in the most mysterious manner, and were led, 
 by a roundabout way, to a hotel, where, to our 
 utmost surprise, we found assembled all the con- 
 fidential party agents of the district. The question 
 was put to us : Why did we remain inactive? Why 
 did we not give the signal of insurrection while the 
 army was away, while that portion of it remaining 
 in the country could be easily overpowered? We 
 shook our heads at this simplicity. I spoke to 
 the meeting, demonstrating the absurdity of this 
 demand ; Liebknecht, of course, did the same. It 
 was not difficult to convince those present of the 
 justice of our point of view. They, too, had come 
 to Mittweida on the invitation of two comrades, 
 without in the least suspecting what was in the 
 wind. 
 
 3. Annexation of Alsace-Lorraine— The Empire. 
 
 After the capitulation of Sedan the war continued 
 with undiminished vigour. The Imperial Army was 
 destroyed and captured, but the Government of 
 National Defence, with Gambetta and Freycinet at 
 its head, succeeded in organising new armies. 
 While the war against the Empire lasted only six 
 weeks, the war against the Republic was to last ' 
 six months. Most of our imprisoned comrades 
 were released. The Party Committee, once more 
 
218 MY LIFE 
 
 in chains, was brought back to Brunswick to 
 undergo trial for high treason. 
 
 On the 24th of November the North German 
 Reichstag was to meet in extraordinary session. 
 The session was short, but very stirring. The 
 motions before the House dealt with war loans for 
 the continuation of the war, the treaties with the 
 South German States concluded at Versailles, and 
 the new Constitution of the Empire. 
 
 What had leaked out concerning these treaties 
 had greatly displeased the Liberals. The South 
 German States — Bavaria in particular — had insisted 
 upon certain reservations, which greatly com- 
 plicated the unity of the Empire. The North 
 German Constitution was to become, with certain 
 modifications, the Constitution of the Empire. 
 There was little Liberalism or liberty in it. It 
 did not even grant the payment of deputies. More- 
 over, people were depressed by the fact that the 
 end of a war which had cost such enormous 
 sacrifices was not yet in view. 
 
 On the 26th of November the motion of a further 
 war loan of some £15,000,000 was the order of 
 the day. I spoke against the motion ; it was not 
 a long speech, but it raised a storm the like of 
 which no other speech of mine, before or after, 
 ever produced. I maintained that as Napoleon was 
 a prisoner the cause of the war had disappeared. 
 
THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 219 
 
 I quoted, a;midst great commotion and protest, in 
 corroboration of my contention, the Speech from 
 the Throne and the proclamation of the King of 
 Prussia, which had referred to the war, not as 
 a war against the French people but merely against 
 Napoleon and his armies. 
 
 The great obstacle to a speedy conclusion of 
 peace was the policy of annexation. When I 
 alluded to the pitiful part the German capitalist 
 classes had played in connection with the War Loan 
 the storm increased. A large part of the House 
 was attacked by a kind of frenzy ; we were treated 
 to invective of the most offensive kind, while dozens 
 of Members rushed at us with clenched fists and 
 threatened to turn us out. For many minutes I 
 could not finish my speech. Finally I moved a 
 resolution embodying the chief points of my 
 speech refusing the loan, and especially recom- 
 mending the speedy conclusion of peace and the 
 renunciation of all proposals to annex French terri- 
 tory. Liebknecht also spoke, laying especial stress 
 on the fact that annexation would bring, not peace 
 but war, and would perpetuate the danger of war. 
 Our resolution was, of course, negatived, five votes 
 being cast in its favour. 
 
 A few days later there was a Liberal inter- 
 pellation in the Prussian Diet in respect of the 
 imprisonment of Jacoby, a Liberal. Jacoby had 
 
220 MY LIFE 
 
 complained directly to Bismarck at Versailles. 
 Bismarck indirectly admitted Jacoby to be in the 
 right, but took no action. As we know from the 
 journal of his journalist-in-ordinary, Moritz Busch, 
 he was afraid of the military party at head- 
 quarters, and was greatly exasperated by the service 
 element, which spoiled his political plans. 
 
 During the Session of the 3rd of December I 
 complained of the treatment meted out to the com- 
 mittee. Miquel, on the contrary, justified these 
 arrests, maintaining that France was encouraged 
 to further resistance by our attitude — a contention 
 the untruth of which I immediately proved. 
 
 During one of the following Sessions the separate 
 treaties with the South German States were dis- 
 cussed. I spoke against these, as well as against 
 the new Constitution as a whole, as not conform- 
 ing to the expectations of the German people in 
 the matter of liberty and unity. The three wars 
 of the last ten years had, from a Liberal stand- 
 point, set Germany back. But the people would 
 assert their independence and give themselves the 
 only Constitution worth having— namely, a Republic. 
 
 Privy Councillor Wagener spoke after me, and, 
 to the great surprise of Liebknecht and myself, 
 quoted from a newspaper he had just received 
 passages of a letter which the French Consul at 
 Vienna had addressed to us, thanking us, in the 
 
THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 221 
 
 name of the French Republic, for our attitude in 
 the Reichstag. Amid cries of " Shame ! " from all 
 sides of the Chamber I could only State that we 
 had never received such a letter, which was all 
 the more incomprehensible as the Norddeutsche 
 Allgemeine Zeitung had printed it. I stated my 
 opinion that the letter was a miserable concoction, 
 probably fabricated by the Press Bureau with the 
 intent to injure us. At the next sitting Wagener 
 maintained the letter to be genuine. I held to my 
 first declaration that I had received no such letter. 
 But at last I really did get it ; it was addressed 
 to Liebknecht and myself, and dated the 2nd of 
 December ; it had thus taken six days to reach 
 me. The letter was as follows : — 
 
 " Gentlemen,— In the name of the French Re- 
 public, the Government of which has appointed me 
 special envoy to the German democracy, I think 
 it my duty to thank you for the noble words ypu 
 have uttered in the Berlin Parliament, in the midst 
 of an assembly fanaticised by the spirit of con- 
 quest and the intoxication of militarism. The 
 courage you evinced on that occasion has attracted 
 the attention of all Europe, and has won for you 
 a glorious position in the ranks of the soldiers of 
 freedom. The liberal and humanitarian spirit of 
 Germany is suffering for the moment, as you, 
 
222 MY LIFE 
 
 gentlemen, have so eloquently asserted, one of those 
 eclipses such as we ourselves have passed through, 
 during the period of our First Empire, and will 
 suffer the same disillusions. A frenzy, of brutal 
 domination has seized upon the most enlightened 
 minds. Those thinkers who but a short time since 
 emitted such brilliant rays of light all over the 
 world have become, under the inspiration of Herr 
 von Bismarck, the apostles of the murder and 
 destruction of a whole nation. You, gentlemen, 
 and your party, in the midst of this general 
 desertion, maintain the great Germanic traditions. 
 In our eyes you are the great representatives of 
 the German nation, which we embrace with a truly 
 fraternal affection, and have never ceased to love. 
 France salutes you, sirs, and thanks you, for she 
 beholds in you the future of Germany and the hope 
 of a reconciliation of the two peoples." 
 
 This letter may have been well meant, but it 
 was, at the moment, extremely untimely. We do 
 not know who gave it to the newspapers. I 
 suspect the letter was suggested to the Consul by 
 some person or persons who wished to injure us. 
 
 On the 10th of December a deputation was 
 appointed to present to the King, at Versailles, an 
 address from the Reichstag congratulating him on 
 the assumption of the dignity of Emperor. The 
 
THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 223 
 
 Progressive party, the majority of which had voted 
 with us against the Constitution, had refused to 
 participate in the address. The members of the 
 deputation were to be selected by lot. We said 
 not a word, but took our chances. Had we been 
 allotted we should of course have declined. But 
 we escaped. When the name of Rothschild was 
 read out Windthorst— the leader of what was after- 
 wards the party of the Centre— went solemnly up 
 to him, shook him vigorously by the hand, and 
 congratulated him. The whole House shook with 
 laughter. 
 
 After the close of the Session we returned to 
 Leipzig, and on the 15th of December gave an 
 account of the debates at a public meeting of the 
 Social -Democratic Labour party. The audience 
 was so large that it was a real assembly of the 
 people. Amidst the audience were many French 
 officers in mufti, who, as prisoners of war, had 
 been assigned to Leipzig. The meeting passed a 
 resolution enthusiastically approving our attitude 
 in the Reichstag. This was our last public meeting 
 for many a day to come. On the 17th the blow 
 fell which we had so long anticipated. 
 
 4. Arrested ! 
 
 On the 7th of September we had stated in the 
 Yolksstaat that we knew from the most reliable 
 
224 MY LIFE 
 
 sources that the Saxon Government intended to 
 take energetic proceedings against our party, at 
 the instance of those at the German headquarters, 
 Count von Bismarck in particular. Shortly after- 
 wards the whole press, and the Liberal press more 
 especially, began a regular hue and cry after us. 
 They even had the insolence to accuse us of high 
 treason, the supposed offence being committed in 
 the interests of France. To make us further 
 suspect, the papers published garbled extracts from 
 our letters to the Party Committee, which had been 
 seized when the members of the committee were 
 arrested. Of course these extracts could only be 
 published through the gross negligence or perjury 
 of the ofiicial who had these letters in his keeping. 
 I On the 17th of December I was at work in my 
 y workshop when my wife, pale as death, suddenly 
 rushed in arid informed me that a police official 
 wished to speak to me. I knew at once what was 
 the matter. The officer told me that he was to 
 arrest me and seize my papers. The latter duty 
 was soon accomplished, as I had destroyed most 
 of them. I dressed rapidly and took leave of wife 
 and child, assuring them that I should soon be 
 back. A cab took us to the police-station and 
 thence to the prison. I was put into a cell, and 
 I will not conceal the fact that when the door 
 was locked and bolted I ran furiously to and fro 
 
THE FRANCO -GERMAN WAR 225 
 
 and cursed my enemies. The next morning— it 
 was a Sunday— the Public Prosecutor and the 
 Director of the prison came to see me and asked 
 me whether I had any requests to make. I asked 
 for books and a light up to 10 p.m. The director 
 granted this request, except that I could not have 
 a light later than 8 p.m. The Public Prosecutor 
 informed me that my entire career as an agitator 
 would be investigated, as it was regarded as dan- 
 gerous to the State and treasonable. The investi- 
 gation would take a long time, as it was intended 
 that evidence should be obtained from abroad. On 
 the following day I was to make my first appear- 
 ance before the examining judge. I was on tenter- 
 hooks. The judge, Ahnert, received me with a 
 serious demeanour and was very reserved. He 
 told me that we should be tried— for I learned 
 that Liebknecht and our sub -editor, Hepner, 
 had been arrested also — on a charge of attempted 
 high treason. I was greatly surprised and 
 disappointed when the judge told me that he 
 could not for the present continue my exam- 
 ination, as the principal documents which con- 
 stituted the material for the prosecution were still in 
 Brunswick. However, he hoped to receive them 
 before the end of the year. Thus we had, strictly 
 speaking, been arrested illegally, as neither judge 
 nor Public Prosecutor was acquainted with the 
 
 15 
 
226 MY LIFE 
 
 material of the indictment. Evidently those at 
 headquarters had been anxious to render us 
 innocuous as promptly as possible. 
 
 I was extremely wroth when I returned to my 
 cell. I now had ample leisure to inspect my lodg- 
 ing. It was roomy enough, being almost empty. 
 In one corner was a great covered wooden tub, in- 
 tended for purposes on which I need not enlarge. 
 On one wall was a small shelf, with a water -jug, 
 a hymn-book, and the New Testament. On the 
 other side of the cell, also fixed against the wall, 
 was a narrow bench, three feet in length, and in 
 front of it stood a very small table (this was a 
 special favour), so small that an open copy of 
 the Gartenlaube * entirely covered it. There was 
 no bed ; a mattress was spread on the floor for 
 the night, and removed in the morning. From 
 below my window, which was, of course, cross - 
 barred, and so high up in the wall that I could only 
 reach it by standing on the table, a curious noise 
 rose day and night. When I looked out I 
 saw in a garden below six large coffee -roasters 
 at work, roasting coffee for our troops at war 
 in France. 
 
 My cell was abnormally cold, and the winter was 
 very severe. The old-fashioned iron stove did not 
 give out much heat ; it was started at five o'clock 
 A popular family magazine about the size of Punch. 
 
THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 227 
 
 in the morning with a: few handfuls of coal. I 
 had to get a little fresh air; but if I opened the 
 window the little warmth there was in the cell flew 
 out. To keep myself warm I used to sit on the 
 table, put my feet on the bench, and wrap my legs 
 in a blanket which was given me, notwithstanding 
 which I contracted inflammation of the bladder. 
 Liebknecht, as our senior, had been given a better 
 cell. I learned this from my wife, who was allowed 
 to visit me once a week in the presence of the 
 judge, and with whom I was allowed to correspond, 
 again under the supervision of the judge. 
 
 I very soon discovered, to my great disgust, that 
 my cell was infested with vermin, but by dint of 
 much labour I succeeded in clearing them out. 
 Hardly had I done so when, by order of the doctor, 
 I was given a warmer cell on the west side of the 
 prison, formerly occupied by a woman charged with 
 infanticide, as the warder amiably informed me. 
 The result of this move was that I had to do the 
 work of cleansing all over again. 
 
 Imprisonment without or pending trial, such as 
 ours was, is of all forms of imprisonment the most 
 abominable. To be condemned to strict solitary 
 confinement, behind bolt and bar, without knowing 
 how long it is to last, or what the indictment will 
 be, is exceptionally harassing and debilitating. At 
 last, in the beginning of January, I was again 
 
228 MY LIFE 
 
 brought before the judge. When I entered the 
 room I saw on the window-sill a large bundle of 
 blue paper— my letters to the Party Committee, 
 which the secretary had most carefully kept, in 
 spite of my warning. I don't know what I would 
 have done to him if I had had him then and there 
 under my thumb. But I soon found I had no cause 
 to be angry. The judge told me he had received 
 the papers only a few days earlier, but would 
 inspect them as soon as possible. He was as good 
 as his word. At every fresh examination he became 
 more accessible. Of course he examined our letters 
 first, and as most of these were strictly confiden- 
 tial, we had written, not only of party matters but 
 of our personal troubles, great and small, so that 
 the letters proved that we had not been lying on 
 a bed of roses. To his surprise, L fancy, the judge 
 discovered that we were not traitors and regicides, 
 but just ordinary human beings actuated by the 
 best of motives and with warm blood in our veins. 
 By the end of February the judge had worked 
 through the enormous mass of documents— some 
 2,000 letters— and closed the preliminary examina- 
 tion. The judge— a most intelligent and conscien- 
 tious man, as we learned later from our counsel 
 for the defence, Otto Freytag— had arrived at the 
 conclusion that there was no case against us either 
 for attempted high treason or actions preparatory 
 
THE FRANCO -GERMAN WAR 229 
 
 thereto, and he therefore recommended our release. 
 This the Public Prosecutor opposed. 
 
 Yet I was convinced that we should be con- 
 demned ; not that we were guilty, but on account 
 of the hue and cry against us in the Press I had 
 no confidence in the jury. Further, the Govern- 
 ment, I was certain, being on its dignity, would do 
 everything in its power to secure a verdict against 
 us. I was prepared to receive two years in a 
 fortress. And I was right. 
 
 There were to be new elections to the Reichstag 
 on the 3rd of March. I was a candidate in my old 
 constituency— Glauchau-Meerane in Saxony. Our 
 party and the Lassalleans put me up as joint can- 
 didate at Leipzig, though I tried to dissuade them 
 from doing so. 
 
 Our financial means were very small ; in no con- 
 stituency was a larger sum spent than £25 to £30. 
 The supporters of our party to-day can hardly 
 conceive how little money we had to manage with. 
 
 The elections were unfavourable to us ; they pro- 
 ceeded to the accompaniment of the tolling of bells 
 and the thunder of guns that celebrated the pre- 
 liminaries of the Peace of Versailles. Only one 
 other candidate of our party was elected beside 
 myself ; the other four were defeated. In Saxony 
 we received altogether 39,000 votes ; the General 
 Labour Union got altogether some 63,000 votes. 
 
^30 MY LIFE 
 
 As soon as I received the news of my election I 
 sent my constituents a letter from prison, thanking 
 them warmly for their renewed confidence in me. 
 
 I have often experienced the pleasure of find- 
 ing myself the object or subject of poetry, laudatory 
 or otherwise. Thus, during the election, the 
 following was circulated in my constituency : — 
 
 NAPOLEON UND BEBEL 
 
 Er sitzt auf Wilhelmshohe, 
 
 Er im BezirksgericM ; 
 Er hat sie in der Zehe, 
 
 Und er im Kqpf die Gicht. 
 
 " One of them sits on Wilhelmshoh', 
 One on a prison bed ; 
 The one has gout in his big toe, 
 The other in his head." 
 
 At Leipzig the lampoons appeared even during our 
 imprisonment. At a music-hall a farce was pre- 
 sented entitled " Nebel and Piepknecht " ; at another, 
 " Bebel : or the enlightened Cobbler and his Boy." 
 In this way the " patriots " sought to give vent to 
 their anger against us. 
 
 Part of the Liberal Press was so incensed at my 
 re-election that it did everything in its power to 
 prevent my release from prison for the Session of 
 the Reichstag. But the Saxon Government, in order 
 to prevent any discussion, released us on the 28th 
 
THE FRANCO -GERMAN WAR 231 
 
 of March. At four in the afternoon the warder 
 suddenly entered my cell with the news that we 
 were to be released. Leaving the cell, I found 
 Liebknecht and Hepner in the corridor. Without 
 speaking a word we embraced one another. The 
 examining judge before whom we were brought 
 informed us of our release, but we had to promise 
 not to leave the Leipzig district without his 
 permission. 
 
 Two days later the Brunswick Committee was 
 also released. The High Court had refused to 
 prosecute it for high treason. The comtaittee 
 had been 200 days in prison, we 101 day;s. The 
 members of the committee were later condemned, 
 merely for various transgressions of the laws of 
 association, to terms of fourteen and sixteen months' 
 imprisonment, but on appeal the terms were reduced 
 to two and three months. 
 
 Note. — Members of the Reichstag may be released from 
 prison if not yet condemned, as was the case with Bebel. 
 Generally, the Reichstag passes a motion to postpone trial 
 until after the Session closes. If the Reichstag does not 
 pass a motion — as was the case with Bebel in later years — 
 prisoners are generally not released. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 FURTHER PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY. THE TRIAL 
 FOR HIGH TREASON 
 
 1. The First Session of the German Reichstag. , 
 
 On the 2nd of April I went to Berlin to attend the 
 sittings of the Reichstag, which had been opened 
 with due solemnity by the Emperor in the presence 
 of all the German princes and representatives of 
 the Free Towns.* 
 
 First of all, I went to my former landlady, 
 to inquire whether she could put me up again. 
 To her great regret she had to refuse, informing 
 me that in the previous December, when we had 
 left Berlin, the police had come to her house and 
 had strongly objected to her taking us in. We 
 had been under the surveillance of the secret police 
 during the whole Session, just as though we had 
 been criminals. 
 
 * Three of the old Hanse Towns — Hamburg, Bremen, and 
 Llibeck — which enjoy a sort of republican Constitution. 
 
FURTHER PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY 233 
 
 In the Reichstag, as there was no i-oom on the 
 Left, I had to take my seat on the extreme Right. 
 The neighbourhood of the honourable members of 
 the Right was by no means welcome to me, but 
 I must confess they behaved as gentlemen, and 
 did not make me pay for my misfortune. 
 
 The debate on the first reading of the Constitu- 
 tion of the Empire, which was presented for 
 ratification, was monopolised by the Kultur- 
 Kampf speeches.* The declaration of the dogma 
 of papal infallibility by the Council of the Vatican 
 in Rome (1870) had stirred up the Opposition. 
 The Liberals evinced a burning desire to dis- 
 guise their shame at having sacrificed their ideals 
 of civic liberty by floods of high-sounding oratory 
 about the Kultur-Kampf — a term invented by 
 Professor Virchow.f The Catholic party had 
 become the Centre, under the leadership of Windt- 
 horst.J I delivered a speech expressing my 
 astonishment at the religious turn which the debates 
 had assumed. For one who, like myself, I added, 
 
 * The struggle, headed by Bisiliarck, against the Roman 
 Catholic Church in Germany was known as the Kultur-Kampf 
 (lit. "War of Culture"). , 
 
 t The famous Berlin scientist-professor of pathology — a 
 lifelong Radical, and a most consistent and implacable 
 opponent of Bismarck's policy. 
 
 I A former Minister of the ex-King of Hanover (who was 
 deposed in 1866), another implacable enemy of Bismarck's. 
 
234 MY LIFE 
 
 had long ago broken with all religious dogmas, 
 it cost not a little self-sacrifice to continue attend- 
 ance. I finished my speech by expressing a hope 
 — this amid general uproar — that before the end of 
 the nineteenth century the demands of the Social - 
 Democratic party would be realised. Time has 
 seemed to show that this expectation was rather 
 too optimistic. 
 
 I also had an encounter with Miquel. But when 
 I alluded to the fact that he had once belonged to 
 the party he now attacked, namely, the Communists, 
 the House was nonplussed, and Miquel remained 
 silent. From that time onward' Deputy Miquel 
 treated me with something like respect. 
 
 The Radicals again brought forward a motion 
 recommending the payment of Members. I taunted 
 our opponents with the dread of the Social-Demo- 
 crats, which set them against it. Bismarck frankly 
 treated the motion as a farce. Many of the 
 Members then present, he said, would certainly 
 never be returned if the payment of Members were 
 introduced ! And that would be a pity, for he 
 nourished in his heart a certain tenderness for the 
 present assembly. Yet, he must add, the Prussian 
 Upper Chamber, which was not paid, was inclined 
 to curtail its Sessions, while the Lower Chamber, 
 which was paid, showied an opposite tendency ! 
 
 When a motion was before the House for more 
 
FURTHER PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY 235 
 
 money to bring the war to an endl, I again explained 
 our standpoint. No French Government, whatever 
 its nature, would be allowed to forget the an- 
 nexation of Alsace-Lorraine. France would look 
 for allies, and would try Russia. Germany would 
 have to maintain a much greater army. At the 
 end of my speech I praised the Commune— it had 
 been proclaimed on the 18th of March— for its 
 moderation. I did not sympathise with all the 
 Commune had done, but we in Germany, in a 
 similar situation, should certainly not observe the 
 same moderation towards the great financiers. 
 
 As I stood quite alone in the Reichstag — my 
 colleague did not count — I had to be more 
 frequently in Berlin. Yet my business urgently, 
 required my presence in Leipzig. Those who were 
 jubilant over my doings in the Reichstag had no 
 idea how miserable I sometimes felt ! 
 
 On the 25th of May I was once more in the 
 thick of the battle. I spoke against the coercion 
 of Alsace-Lorraine. At the close of my speech I 
 took the opportunity of defending the Commune. 
 The European proletariat, I explained, looked 
 hopefully towards Paris. The fighting in Paris 
 was only a mere skirmish of outposts, and before 
 many years had gone the battle-cry of the French 
 proletariat, " War upon the palaces, peace to the 
 cottages, death to misery and idleness ! " would 
 
236 MY LIFE 
 
 be the battle-cry of the whole European prole- 
 tariat. Then the time would come when the 
 proletariat would have won the right of self- 
 government, which could only be realised under 
 a Republican form of government. Prince 
 Bismarck said in the autumn of 1878, when 
 he introduced his anti-Socialist laws, that it was 
 this speech of mine which had opened his eyes 
 to the dangers of Socialism. If that was so, he 
 showed no signs of the fact at the time. He simply 
 brushed my speech aside as not worthy of a reply ; 
 the other speakers did the same, but the Press 
 attacked me all the more violently, although the 
 Berliner Borsen Zeitung brought out a Sunday 
 feuilleton, written probably by Stettenheim, then 
 editor of Wasps, a satirical weekly, which poked 
 fun at the alarm of the bourgeois, and sought to 
 show that, after all, I was hot such la very 
 dangerous incendiary. 
 
 'At this time I made the acquaintance of Johann 
 Most. As a Socialist, and for his participation in 
 the Eisenach Congress, he had been condemned 
 in Austria to a term of penal servitude for high 
 treason, but was released by a general amnesty, 
 expelled from Austria, and came to Leipzig. In 
 a letter to his father, who urged him to abandon 
 his errors, he said he would rather receive dry 
 bread from his party than one thousand gulden a 
 
FURTHER PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY 237 
 
 month from the bourgeois parties. This says much 
 for his character ; and it was his honest opinion, 
 for he was at heart a man of sterling character. 
 If, later on, under the anti -Socialist laws, he went 
 astray and became an anarchist and an advocate 
 of direct action, and iinally, atlhough he had been 
 a model of abstinence, ended in the United States 
 as a drunkard, it was all due to the anti -Socialist 
 laws, laws which drove him and many others from 
 the country. Had he remained under the influence 
 of the men who were able to guide him and restrain 
 his passionate temper, the party would have 
 possessed in him a most zealous, self-sacrificing, 
 and indefatigable fighter. In later years he 
 attacked me most violently in his paper, Freiheit, 
 which he edited from London, and later from New 
 York ; yet I am heartily sorry that one who had 
 such valuable gifts should have perished so 
 miserably. 
 
 The party soon recovered from the effects of 
 the war. The great industrial prosperity that 
 ensued favoured the movement. That the " German 
 question " had been solved, though not as we had 
 wished, yet definitely for the present, removed many 
 points of difference that had kept the Labour party 
 divided. Tiie field of battle became simplified and 
 easier to overlook. Our party, the Eisenacher as 
 we were now called, soon had a number of papers 
 
238 MY LIFE 
 
 in different towns, in which our ideas iwiere 
 propagated. 
 
 2. The Dresden Congress. The Second Session 
 OF the Reichstag. 
 
 The second party Congress was held in Dresden, 
 on the 12th, 13th, and 14th of August, 1871 ; 56 
 delegates attended, representing 75 localities and a 
 membership of 6,220. I was president. The 
 agenda was interesting and the debates lively. In 
 place of Liebknecht, who was unable to attend, 
 Most had to report upon the political standpoint to 
 be adopted by Social -Democracy. The debates gave 
 rise to violent scenes. The inspector of police 
 who was present demanded in the name of his 
 superiors that no allusions must be made to the 
 Paris Commune. We refused, and the report of 
 Most was all the more combative. I proposed, as 
 it was unworthy of us to debate under such con- 
 ditions, that the resolution should be passed with- 
 out debate, adding that " after the publication of 
 the official documents relating to the Commune it 
 was evident that the statements against the Com- 
 mune, which had been made for months, were 
 calumnious lies." The resolution expressly 
 approved of the attitude of the Volksstaat— that 
 is, our attitude towards the events of the preceding 
 yeai-, including, of course, the war— and especially 
 
FURTHER PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY 239 
 
 of the bonds of intellectual unity between German 
 Social-Democracy and the " International," which 
 were promoted by our journal. Finally, we 
 decided to express our gratitude to the Paris Com- 
 mune without debate, by rising from our seats. 
 
 Hamburg became the headquarters of the Party 
 Committee, and Berlin of the Committee of Control. 
 The Congress was to be held the following year 
 at Mayence. 
 
 Shortly after the Dresden Congress the first 
 women's meetings were held in Leipzig and 
 Chemnitz, and in the latter town the first Women's 
 Union was founded. 
 
 In the Reichstag, during the Session of 1871, I 
 spoke against the Budget. I warned the Liberals 
 that the hopes of a diminished budget, now that 
 the Empire had been established, were a delusion. 
 The increasing hostility of class to class would 
 alone prevent any decrease. Yet the standing army 
 would not always under all circumstances remain 
 the support of the existing order of things. France 
 had possessed a large army, yet that army could 
 not prevent the Commune. The proletariat in- 
 creases more rapidly than any army can be 
 increased ; and as an army increases, its Social- 
 Democratic elements also increase, all the more 
 rapidly as the industrial proletariat furnishes an 
 ever larger proportion. 
 
240 MY LIFE 
 
 In another debate I came into violent collision 
 with the President, Simpson. A Liberal motion 
 demanding elected assemblies in all the Federated 
 States was before the House, and I sup- 
 ported the Conservatives and the Centre in this 
 matter, who opposed the motion, disregarding the 
 sneers at the alliance of " red " with " black." * 
 I spoke against the motion as a delusion and a 
 snare, and characterised the Constitution of the 
 Empire as a piece of sham constitutionalism' and 
 naked Caesarism. The President became more and 
 more restive, and threatened to appeal to the House 
 as to whether I should be heard any farther. I 
 protested against this threat as illegal and against 
 the rules of the Reichstag ; but, as I continued, 
 the President put the question and obtained a 
 majority. 
 
 Next day I protested that the House had broken 
 its own rules. A Member could be suspended only 
 after two calls to order, and the President had 
 never formally called me to order. Finally, the 
 President consented to submit the question to the 
 Standing Committee on Procedure. 
 
 The matter caused great excitement outside the 
 Reichstag, and most of the papers stood by me, 
 claiming the right of free speech. The committee 
 
 " The centre is nicknamed " black " on account of its 
 clerical tendencies, 
 
FURTHER PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY 241 
 
 very cleverly avoided the direct issue, and merely 
 reported that it was not considered necessary for 
 the President to use the express form of words, " I 
 call you to order." I refused to accept this 
 decision. On the motion of that old diplomatist 
 Windthorst, the decision was referred back again 
 to the committee. The President, regarding this 
 procedure as a vote of no confidence, resigned, but 
 was, of course, re-elected. Some of the Liberals 
 were greatly incensed at the spectacle of barefaced 
 vacillation which the Reichstag had afforded, and 
 one of them, Ziegler, as soon as the resolution was 
 passed, came over to my seat, trembling with anger, 
 and said : " You are right, Rebel, we are no 
 better than a pack of rascals ; you ought to hang 
 the lot of us ! " I replied, laughingly, that if 
 circumstances permitted I would not fail to follow 
 his amiable advice. 
 
 My general attitude during the three last sessions 
 had gained me considerable popularity among the 
 working-classes and the democratic bourgeois 
 circles, for genuine democracy still survived in cer- 
 tain sections of the middle classes. In Rerlin, for 
 example, there was a group of well-to-do citizens 
 who followed the lead of Johann Jacoby. These— 
 they were known as the Jakobites— had their own 
 journal, a democratic weekly, Zukunft, which they 
 maintained at a great loss, wealthy though they 
 
 16 
 
242 MY LIFE 
 
 were, from 1867 to 1871. The editor-in-chief was 
 Dr. Guido Weiss. To this group belonged William 
 Spindler,* the son of the founder of the great clean- 
 ing and dyeing firm ; van der Leeden, Dr. G. 
 Friedlander, Morten Levy, Dr. Meierstein, Boas, 
 Dr. Stephani, late editor of the Vossische 
 Zeitung, and others .f When Liebknecht and I 
 stayed over the week-end in Berlin we usually 
 met these people in a wine-shop. Sometimes 
 we were joined by Paul Singer. By tacit agree- 
 ment we all drank the same cheap Moselle— 
 the so-called Kutscher (coachman) at sixpence the 
 tumbler. We would often go on to some beer- 
 house ; I was a very poor hand at drinking, but 
 some of the others could carry a good cargo. More 
 than once we went home after sunrise. 
 
 Another consequence of my popularity was that 
 the families of my friends made much of me, and 
 invited me to dinners and suppers. I did not care 
 much for these invitations, and avoided them as 
 much as possible, as I used to be anxious to get 
 home to my wife and family. 
 
 The AUgemeine Zeitung of Augsburg wrote : 
 " Bebel again gave proof of brilliant oratorical 
 
 * Spindler learned his trade in England, and was the first 
 dry-cleaner and dyer in Germany. 
 
 t It is curious to note that these genuine democrats are, 
 to judge by their names, mostly Jews or non-Germans. 
 
FURTHER PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY 243 
 
 gifts, and of the fact that he is indeed a man. It 
 is worth stating, especially as it is too little known, 
 that this young master -turner of Leipzig, although 
 he stands quite alone, and although his extreme 
 views are generally condemned and regretted, has 
 made for himself quite an exceptional position in 
 the Reichstag, and has won the respect and recog- 
 nition of the majority of the Members, and 
 especially of the High Tories, the more so because, 
 in the hours he can spare from his parliamentary 
 labours, he works in the shop of a fellow-craftsman 
 for the support of his family." 
 
 The latter statement was of course a fairy-tale. 
 Such a thing would have been quite impossible. 
 Rut I found this legend repeated later on in a book 
 on Social-Democracy. It stuck ; thus history is 
 made. 
 
 In the meantime the development of the party 
 was quite satisfactory. It grew by the very per- 
 secution and opposition it encountered. In the 
 meetings I had to fight, not only our ordinary adver- 
 saries but, as a rule, a host of speakers and agitators 
 of the General German Labour Union. Although 
 Schweitzer had resigned, the attacks upon us were 
 even more violent than before under the new presi- 
 dent, Hasenclever. After one meeting, at which 
 we had been subjected to the most violent attacks, 
 I took some of the speakers aside and reproached 
 
244 MY LIFE 
 
 them with their treacherous tactics. They replied 
 almost immediately that they had to attack us, for 
 if Social-Democracy were to unite the next thing 
 would be that the Government would proceed 
 against the party and suppress it. Subsequent 
 happenings have shown that this was an intelligent 
 anticipation of coming events. 
 
 In the meantime a good many Social-Democrats 
 had gone to prison. On the 1st of February, 1872, 
 Valteich was interned in the fortress of Hubertus- 
 berg ; Karl Hirsch followed him a little later. 
 
 3. The Trial for High Treason at Leipzig. 
 
 At the opening of the Reichstag on the 23rd of 
 March, 1871, Prince Bismarck went up to Deputy 
 Von Schwarze * and asked him : " Well, Herr 
 Attorney -General, what will become of the prosecu- 
 tion of Bebel and company? " 
 
 " Nothing at all," replied Von Schwarze, shrugging 
 his shoulders. 
 
 " In that case," replied Bismarck, " these people 
 ought not to have been imprisoned ; now, of course, 
 the odium of the prosecution will fall upon us." 
 
 Schwarze, who had studied all the documents, 
 meant to imply that he did not think a condemna- 
 tion possible. Bismarck seemed to have forgotten 
 that we were imprisoned— at his own instigation, 
 so I was told— not on suspicion of high treason, 
 * The highest judicial functionai'y of Saxony. 
 
FURTHER PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY 245 
 
 but just to put us out of the way, behind prison 
 doors. 
 
 * Our trial was to take place in the spring of 
 1872, at the Leipzig Assizes. As the excitement was 
 considerable, we admonished our friends, by means 
 of a manifesto in the Volksstaat, to keep quiet 
 and not to play into the hands of the police anJd 
 the agents -provocateurs. The Leipzig bourgeois 
 papers thought it their first and most important 
 duty to prejudice the jury against us by inflamma- 
 tory articles which were expressly sent to members 
 of the jury, and the latter were even approached 
 personally in various ways. 
 
 I cannot attempt here to give a complete account 
 of the trial, which lasted fourteen days. The indict- 
 ment was based upon our whole activity as agitators 
 as exemplified by our relations with the workers' 
 societies, our behaviour at meetings, and our 
 writings, whether in the form of newspaper articles, 
 pamphlets, or letters, &c. Moreover, the entire mass 
 of Social -Democratic pamphleteering literature 
 which had so far appeared in German was used 
 against us, whether we had any hand in its pro- 
 duction or distribution or not. 
 
 The president of the court was a Herr von 
 Mucke, who, in contrast with his name (Mucke = 
 
 * Bebel, it will be remembered, had been released from 
 prison to attend the sittings of the Reichstag. 
 
246 MY LIFE 
 
 gnat), was a man of Herculean proportions, but 
 with a brow so low that there seemed to be no 
 room for brains. He was, as a matter of fact, a 
 man of rather low intelligence. He had not 
 mastered the rather voluminous indictment, and 
 Socialism was a sealed book to him. He did not 
 understand our explanations, and made himself 
 ridiculous by his cross-examinations. 
 
 Otto and Bernhard Freytag were our counsels. 
 They did very well, and more than once confounded 
 the president by their cross-examination. 
 
 The jury comprised six tradesmen, one aristo- 
 cratic landowner, one head forester, and a few 
 small landowners. The court was crowded every 
 day. The Minister of Justice and the Attorney- 
 General were present on several occasions. As 
 the leading papers of Germany gave extensive 
 reports of the trial, their readers became for the 
 first time aware of what Socialism meant and at 
 what it aimed. The trial thus became eminently 
 serviceable from the propagandist point of view ; 
 and we, especially Liebknecht, who was the chief 
 protagonist, were not loath to avail ourselves of 
 this opportunity. But our opponents, day after 
 day, were hard at work seeking to prejudice the 
 jury against us, meeting them in the restaurant, 
 when the events of the day were discussed and 
 exploiting these to our disadvantage. 
 
FURTHER PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY 247 
 
 On the thirteenth day the " pleadings " for and 
 against us commenced. The Public Prosecutor 
 closed his speech with the words : " If you do 
 not find against the accused, you will sanction high 
 treason for all time to come." 
 
 Our counsel replied, and tore the indictment to 
 tatters ; but after two and a half hours of delibera- 
 tion the jury came in with a verdict of guilty. 
 The Public Prosecutor demanded two years' 
 imprisonment in a fortress, and the court passed 
 judgment accordingly. 
 
 Our party friends were exceedingly angry on 
 hearing the verdict and sentence ; but I, feeling 
 reckless, proposed that we should go all together 
 to Auerbach's cellar — rendered famous by the scene 
 in Goethe's Faust — and have a bottle of wine. Our 
 wives, who received us ^ith tears, were not 
 pleased with our levity ; but finally, plucky women 
 that they were, they came with us. My doctor 
 consoled my wife in a curious way. " Frau Rebel," 
 he said, " if your husband gets a year in prison 
 you may rejoice, for he needs a rest ! " 
 
 On the 27th of March, when we had received the 
 written verdict, we issued a brief manifesto to the 
 party, admonishing them to be true to the cause, 
 and especially to assist in the distribution of the 
 Volksstaat, which then had a circulation of 5,500 
 copies. On the same day we published a 
 
248 MY LIFE 
 
 declaration in the Volksstaat protesting our inno- 
 cence of tile crime for wliichi we were condemned, 
 and accusing tlie jury of partiality. " This trial," 
 we said, " has done so much to propagate our ideas 
 that we willingly take a few years in prison as 
 part of the bargain. Social-Democracy is beyond 
 the reach of any jury. Our party will live, grow, 
 and conquer. But you, gentlemen of the jury, by 
 your verdict, have passed sentence of death on the 
 present system of trial by jury, for the jury com- 
 posed of members of the propertied classes is 
 nothing but an instrument of class domination and 
 class oppression." 
 
 The entire democratic and radical Press was 
 on our side. The President and the Public Prose- 
 cutor were decorated for their " State-saving " 
 action. And on the 2nd of April Johann Jacoby 
 declared his secession from the bourgeois to the 
 Social-Democratic Labour party. Numerous pro- 
 tests were made by our party Press and at 
 public meetings, which gave rise to further 
 prosecutions. 
 
 Shortly after the trial I fell dangerously ill with 
 pleurisy. I was thoroughly exhausted with all this 
 work and worry, public and private. I suffered 
 violent pain, and could not sleep. During the 
 nights, as I lay awake, I bethought myself of Bis- 
 marck, in the light of a fellow-sufferer ; for I knew 
 
FURTHER PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY 249 
 
 from the papers that he was very ill with insomnia 
 and neuralgia. "Grief is half removed when it is 
 shared." 
 
 4. Further Speeches in the Reichstag and Trial 
 FOR " Lese-Majeste." 
 
 At the end of April, 1872, the Reichstag met for 
 its third Session. Just restored to health, I pro- 
 ceeded to Berlin, and on the 1st of May spoke in 
 support of the motion in favour of the abolition 
 of the salt-tax. I opposed all taxes on the neces- 
 saries of life because the propertied classes main- 
 tained this system of taxation from purely selfish 
 motives of class interest, so as to shift the public 
 burdens from their own shoulders. Such a con- 
 dition of affairs, I said, would certainly do nothing 
 to reconcile the different classes of society. 
 
 The year 1872 saw the culminating phases of 
 the Kultur-kampf, that greatest of Bismarck's 
 political blunders, which gave the internal develop- 
 ment of Germany a most pernicious tendency. The 
 Bill before the Chamber was Bismarck's measure 
 for the expulsion of the Jesuits. I spoke opposing 
 it in the debate on the third reading, stigmatising 
 it as a measure of coercion, which would only result 
 in increasing the influence of the Jesuits in 
 Germany, while the best means of combating that 
 influence would be to spend the hundreds of 
 
250 MY LIFE 
 
 millions then wasted on armaments on the 
 education of the people. 
 
 The points of my speech were briefly as 
 follows : The English historian Buckle measures 
 the stage of development to which a people has 
 attained by the degree of importance assumed by 
 religious strife in the affairs of that nation. 
 Measured by that standard Germany stands on a 
 very low level of civilisation. The religious ques- 
 tion holds the centre of the stage. Yet it must 
 be admitted that religious questions are intimately 
 allied to political and social problems. If the 
 Centre party is strong in the House, that is not 
 solely on account of its religious opinions, but 
 especially on account of the social and political 
 interests it represents. Those strata of the German 
 people which profess the Roman Catholic faith and 
 are economically retrograde adhere by preference 
 to the Centre, while the other capitalistic strata 
 join the Liberals. Protestantism, a plain, simple, 
 homely religion — so to speak, a religion in dressing- 
 gown and slippers— is the religion of the modern 
 bourgeoisie. The whole battle, as far as religion 
 is concerned, is a sham fight ; in reality the fight 
 is for the predominant position in the State. If 
 the Liberals are in earnest in their professions of 
 progress, they ought to break with the Church ; 
 for in reality the bourgeoisie has no religion at 
 
FURTHER PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY 251 
 
 all. Religion with them is only a means to an end ; 
 the end being the maintenance of authority, de- 
 signed to make the workers more willing objects 
 of exploitation. 
 
 The dogma of infallibility is said to be a 
 danger to the State. That is a proposition I 
 cannot understand. In the end all dogmas are 
 antagonistic to science and reason, and are on that 
 account a danger to the State. But the more 
 monstrous a dogma — and the dogma of Papal in- 
 fallibility certainly deserves to be called monstrous 
 — the more will it be resisted by all thinking people. 
 Again, Jesuitism was said to be immoral ; yet 
 the State as such had never cared a tinker's curse 
 for morality, and the then Chancellor was the 
 last man to do so. If the Jesuits and the 
 Centre would only support his policj'^, they would 
 be allowed to do as they liked in religious matters. 
 Bismarck wanted the Ultramontane party to become 
 an instrument of his policy. To oppose Jesuitism 
 by an emergency measure would only serve 
 to increase the number of its adherents. It 
 is indeed the State that is the real parent of 
 Jesuitism. Instead of spending hundreds of 
 millions yearly on instruments of murder, it 
 should spend these sums on the education of the 
 people. This would damage Jesuitism more than 
 all the coercion Acts in the world. To create a 
 
252 MY LIFE 
 
 really modern system of education, to separate the 
 State from the Church, to expel the Church from 
 the schools would in ten years put an end to all 
 ecclesiastical intrigues. Let them preach in the 
 Churches to their hearts' content— nobody will go 
 to hear them. But the other parties do not want 
 this. They want the help of authority, which is also 
 the main support of the Church. If authority were 
 to fail in heaven, it would drag down earthly 
 authority with it. This would mean, as a political 
 result, a Republican Government, the social system 
 known as Socialism, and the religion of Atheism. 
 
 Count Ballestrem, the Centre deputy, fastened 
 on my last remarks. " If the people," he said, 
 " once lost their faith in a heavenly paradise, they 
 would ask for the paradise on earth promised by 
 the International." To which I replied with an 
 emphatic " Quite right, too ! " 
 
 An amusing incident was related among the 
 deputies about this time. Some deputies of the 
 Centre, chatting in a restaurant, were speaking of 
 Bollinger, and his opposition of the dogma of 
 infallibility. A clerical gentleman, deputy for 
 Munich, was reported to have said : " Why, if the 
 old ass believed in so much nonsense already he 
 could surely have believed in this dogma as 
 well ! " 
 
 I was put on my trial for Idse-majest^ because 
 
FURTHER PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY 253 
 
 I had criticised the King of Prussia's rescript of 
 thanks, dated the 25th of June, 1870. The King 
 had stated in this rescript that he trusted that free- 
 dom and unity would result from the war. I 
 said we had got unity, but liberty was absent. It 
 was the old story once more ; when kings were 
 embarrassed they made all sorts of fine promises, 
 but when the people, by its sacrifices, had saved 
 them, they forgot all about their promises. I con- 
 ducted my own defence. The Public Prosecutor 
 asked for further imprisonment in a fortress, in 
 addition to that to which I had already been con- 
 demned ; but the court overruled him, and con- 
 demned me to nine months in prison. The court 
 also declared my mandates, to the Reichstag 
 annulled. This was a gross political blunder ; 
 for as the law could not declare me ineligible I 
 was again supported as candidate by my party, 
 and triumphantly returned. This was a smack in 
 the face for the court, but of this more anon. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 IN THE FORTRESS 1 AND THE MEANTIME 
 1. HUBERTUSBURG. 
 
 Before I set out for the fortress a friend wrote, 
 in a farewell letter : " If it were not for your 
 families, I could almost shout for joy over the 
 stupidity of your enemies. You, for example, will 
 certainly profit largely in health and will learn 
 much ; then you will be a dangerous fellow indeed, 
 and your good wife, in spite of the pangs of 
 separation, will be content if you undergo a cure 
 which will strengthen you for good." 
 
 On the first day of my imprisonment I published 
 a declaration to my constituents, asking them to 
 return me at the top of the poll, so as to set at 
 naught the decision of the court, which they did. 
 For when the Reichstag was to meet again, in the 
 first months of 1873, the Saxon Government had 
 to order a new election in my constituency, and 
 I was returned by a majority four thousand 
 votes lai'ger than at the previous election. 
 
 254 
 
IN THE FORTRESS 255 
 
 I made an unsuccessful application to the 
 Saxon Government to be released from the 
 fortress in order to attend the sessions, it being 
 maintained that the immunity of deputies guaran- 
 teed by Article 41 of the Constitution did not 
 extend to prisoners. Although I think that in a 
 constitutional State a deputy when in prison ought 
 immediately to be released when he is required to 
 attend to his duties in Parliament, I did not regret 
 the refusal. A temporary release would have ex- 
 tended my imprisonment over a longer period and 
 would still further have damaged my business 
 affairs. 
 
 On the afternoon of the 8th of July I started 
 on my journey to Hubertusburg. A crowd of both 
 sexes was at the station to bid me goodbye. 
 Amidst my luggage was a large cage with a cock 
 canary, the gift of a Dresden friend, " as a com- 
 panion in the prison cell." I got him a wife, 
 and a goodly number of children and grandchildren 
 were hatched to him in prison. 
 
 In Hubertusburg I found Liebknecht already 
 installed. There was also Karl Hirsch and a party 
 friend from Chemnitz. There were five or six of 
 us altogether, and when one left the court would 
 provide a fresh recruit. Further, there was always 
 some student sent to the fortress for some duelling 
 affair. 
 
256 MY LIFE 
 
 The Castle of Hubertusburg is quite a consider- 
 able pile of buildings in the baroque style. Our 
 cells had large iron-barred windows, which over- 
 looked the great kitchen garden, where we took 
 our regulation walks, and beyond the walls over 
 forest and field to the little town of Mutzchen. 
 
 The cleaning of our cells was done by a so- 
 called " calefactor." We had to pay for this 
 cleaning and rent as well — for the State does not 
 give prison-room even for nothing — at the rate of 
 some fifteen shillings monthly. We got our food 
 from an inn in a village near by. Our daily routine 
 was as follows : We had to be ready dressed by 
 seven o'clock, when the cells were opened for 
 cleaning. In the meantime we had breakfast in 
 the large corridor. Our friend Hirsch used to take 
 this opportunity to play chess with another civilian 
 prisoner, with whom he used to be continually 
 quarrelling over the game. From eight to ten we 
 were locked in our cells ; then we took our regula- 
 tion walks in the garden. From twelve to three 
 in winter and four in summer we were once more 
 locked up, and then took our second walk, to be 
 locked up at five or six, according to the season, 
 until the cells were unlocked next morning. We had 
 the right to burn a light until 10 p.m., and these 
 hours I devoted to study. After some months I 
 obtained permission to have Liebkuecht locked up 
 
IN THE FORTRESS 257 
 
 with me in my cell, from 8 to 10 a.m., that he 
 might give me lessons in English and French. Of 
 course, we used to discuss our party affairs, and 
 I answered the business letters which my wife sent 
 me every day. 
 
 Liebknecht and I were great lovers of tea ; but 
 we could not get any, and we were forbidden to 
 make it ourselves on account of the danger from 
 fire. However, rules are made to be broken, and 
 I managed to smuggle in a spirit lamp and kettle 
 and the necessary ingredients. As soon as we were 
 locked up for the night I began to brew my tea ; 
 and in order to give Liebknecht the pleasure of 
 indulging in his favourite beverage, I had cut a 
 pole in the garden, which was about nine feet long, 
 to the end of which I attached a net of my own 
 making. As soon as tea was ready I knocked on 
 the wall— Liebknecht's cell was next to mine — and 
 I placed a glass of tea in the net ; I then thrust 
 the pole out of the window and swung the glass 
 round to Liebknecht's. In the same way we 
 exchanged newspapers. 
 
 As soon as I was fairly settled in my cell I com- 
 pletely broke down. Only the excitement and 
 labours of the last years had made me oblivious 
 of the utter state of exhaustion to which I was 
 reduced. Now, when the tension was relaxed and 
 I had to keep quiet, I broke down. But absolute 
 
 17 
 
258 MY LIFE 
 
 rest and fresh air soon put me on my feet again. 
 So the doctor was quite correct when he told my 
 wife that a year's fortress would be the best cure 
 for me. When undergoing a medical examination 
 subsequently it was even discovered that my left 
 lung, in which tuberculosis had eaten a large hole, 
 had healed during my internment. I was lucky 
 again ; what might have proved an injury did 
 me good. 
 
 As I was now finally to be imprisoned for 
 thirty-one months I resolved to make a thorough 
 use of this time by filling up, to some extent, the 
 gaps in my education. I studied history and 
 political economy principally. I read Marx's 
 " Capital " for the second time ; only the first 
 volume was then published ; Engel's " Condition 
 of the Working Classes in England " ; Lassalle's 
 " System of Acquired Rights " ; Mill's " Political 
 Economy " ; the works of Duhring and Carey ; 
 Lavelaye's " Primitive Property " ; Stein's " History 
 of Socialism and Communism in France " ; Plato's 
 " Republic " ; Aristotle's " Politics " ; Machia- 
 velli's " Prince " ; Sir Thomas More's " Utopia " ; 
 von Thiinen's "The Isolated State"; and others. 
 Of the historical works which I then read I was 
 most captivated by Buckle's " History of Civilisa- 
 tion " and Wilhelm Zimmermann's " History of the 
 German Peasants' War." The last book inspired 
 
IN THE FORTRESS 259 
 
 me to write a popular essay with the title " The 
 German Peasant's War," with special regard to the 
 chief social movements of the Middle Ages. It was 
 published in book form, but confiscated later on 
 under the anti-Socialist laws. I did not neglect 
 natural science. I read Darwin's " Origin of 
 Species " ; Haeckel's " Story of Creation " ; 
 Biichner's " Force and Matter " and " Man's 
 Position in Nature " ; Liebig's " Letters on 
 Chemistry " ; and part of my time I devoted to 
 reading the classics. I was seized by a veritable 
 passion for reading and learning. 
 
 I translated from the French Ives Guyot's and 
 Sigismond Lacroix's " Study of the Social Doctrines 
 of Christianity " ; a translation which is published 
 down to the present day under the title " The True 
 Nature of Christianity." I wrote a criticism of 
 this work in the shape of a pamphlet, entitled 
 " Glosses to Ives Guyot and Sigismond Lacroix : 
 the True Nature of Christianity," with an Appendix 
 on the present and future position of women. This 
 pamphlet was, as far as I know, the first thing ever 
 to be written by a man of our party on the position 
 of women from the socialistic point of view. I 
 was induced to write it by my study of the French i 
 socialistic and communistic Utopias. / 
 
 I also made my preparatory studies to the book 
 "Woman," which first appeared in 1879 under the 
 
260 MY LIFE 
 
 title "Woman in the Past, Present, and Future," 
 which, though prohibited under the anti-Socialist 
 laws, rapidly ran through eight editions. In 1910 
 the fiftieth and fifty -first editions were published. 
 
 Every three or four weeks our families came 
 to see us. They stayed for three days and lodged 
 in the village. They used to bring our children. 
 They were allowed to stay with us in our cells 
 from 9.30 a.m. to 7 p.m., and to accompany us 
 on our regulation walks. This was an alleviation 
 indeed. 
 
 I experienced a great need of bodily exercise, 
 and the notion struck me that I would do some 
 gardening. We could not get garden plots allotted 
 to us, but were allowed to cultivate as much as 
 we liked of the fallow land along the garden wall. 
 We set to work with great energy. Liebknecht, 
 who was just then writing his essay on the land 
 question, regarded himself as an expert on agrarian 
 matters, and assured us that this fallow land was 
 one of the most fertile of soils. But when we 
 began to dig we found nothing but stone. 
 Liebknecht pulled a long face, but we all laughed. 
 We then took to spreading manure — not a very 
 nice job, and one which we should have refused 
 with indignation had the authorities forced us to 
 do it. 
 
 We sowed radishes and awaited the harvest. 
 
IN THE FORTRESS 261 
 
 They came up beautifully— at least, the leaves did 
 — but there were no radishes. Every morning when 
 we started to take our walk there would be a race 
 to see who should pull up first a radish. But 
 always in vain. There were no radishes ; and 
 finally the warder told us the reason : we had 
 manured the ground too well. The soil was too 
 fat. We looked very foolish indeed. 
 
 On the 29th of October King John of Saxony 
 died, and his son Albert became King. As an 
 amnesty is the rule when a new ruler ascends the 
 throne, our wives hoped for our release. But we 
 had no such illusions. The new King would rather 
 have released all the criminals in Saxony than one 
 of us. And we preferred it so ; for the general 
 elections to the Reichstag were approaching, and 
 we counted on the spirit of exasperation which 
 was abroad at the time, and which would have 
 been spoiled by an amnesty. 
 
 I decided to use my enforced leisure and profit 
 by my absence from the electoral campaign in 
 writing a pamphlet for the use of candidates, under 
 the title " The Parliamentary Activity of the 
 Reichstag and the other Assemblies and Social 
 Democracy from 1871 to 1873." In an appendix 
 I collected those paragraphs useful to know for 
 practical politicians of the electoral law, the 
 electoral ordinances, the criminal code, the law 
 
262 MY LIFE 
 
 as to associations, as well as hints on party propa- 
 ganda. I had the satisfaction of learning from 
 Eugen Richter himself that my pamphlet inspired 
 him to write his well-known " Political A B C." 
 Later on the other parties all followed my example. 
 
 The elections took place on the 10th of January, 
 1874. They were very satisfactory to our party. 
 Six of our candidates were elected, and three candi- 
 dates of the German Labour Union. The two 
 sections of the Social Democrats thus had nine 
 members in the Reichstag. Altogether they had 
 received 351,670 votes ; the candidates of the 
 General German Labour Union received 180,319, 
 and ours 178,351. The total number of votes was 
 larger by 236,000 than in 1871, or by 200 per 
 cent. 
 
 Of course, this brilliant result greatly angered 
 the bourgeois parties. In view of the fact that 
 in spite of prosecutions and chicanery the party 
 was steadily increasing, the idea of attacking it 
 by exceptional legislation, which already existed 
 in the mind of the Government, now gradually 
 began to take shape. 
 
 2. KONIGSTEIN. 
 
 In the course of March we were officially 
 informed that on the 1st of April, 1874, we 
 should be removed to the fortress of Konigstein. 
 
IN THE FORTRESS 263 
 
 But the removal was postponed, so that Lieb- 
 knecht completed his term at Hubertusburg, depart- 
 ing for Leipzig on April the 15th. I myself set 
 out for Konigstein, accompanied by an official in 
 plain clothes, on the 23rd of the same month. 
 When we took our leave of the director of the 
 prison and thanked him for his many civilities he 
 was visibly touched ; he shook hands with us and 
 recommended us to the keeping of the Almighty 
 as the best viaticum, from his point of view, he 
 could give us. 
 
 The 23rd of April was a beautiful spring day. 
 We climbed up to the fortress, and on the way 
 met the Governor, General von Leonhardi, to whom 
 I was introduced by my warder. We continued 
 on our way in his company, the General inquiring 
 how we had been treated at Hubertusburg, and 
 promising that I should fare no worse at Konig- 
 stein. I was given a room in a part of the building 
 which had formerly served as a powder magazine, 
 with bomb-proof walls and iron-barred, portlike 
 windows. There was a big, tiled stove in the 
 room, which greedily devoured the 5 lbs. of coal 
 — the meagre daily allowance — without giving any 
 warmth to the room, in spite of the brilliant spring 
 weather. I had to buy extra coal at my own 
 expense in order to keep warm. 
 
 There was very little space for walks in the 
 
264 MY LIFE 
 
 confined quarters of the fortress ; a sentry mounted 
 guard in order to keep the numerous visitors at 
 a distance. But the food, which I got from the 
 canteen, was both ample in quantity and excellent 
 in quality. 
 
 3. Zwickau. 
 
 On the 14th of May I was released. Before 
 serving my nine months in prison I was granted six 
 weeks' leave. In Leipzig I was greeted by Eduard 
 Bernstein, who had come from Berlin expressly 
 for the purpose. It was Whitsuntide, and I made 
 an excursion with my family and friends to the 
 " Saxon Switzerland " ; and when we came to 
 Konigstein, which I had just left, we were highly 
 amused by the fact that the window of the cell 
 in which I had slept for three weeks was pointed 
 out as one of the curiosities of the place. 
 
 Before entering on my term of imprisonment at 
 Zwickau I called on the director to learn the privi- 
 leges which would be allowed to a political 
 prisoner. I was to be allowed to see my wife 
 once a month, in the presence of a warder. But 
 after the first visit, in the third month of my im- 
 prisonment, we resolved to forego further meetings ; 
 for having to put up with an ofiicial witness to 
 every word we uttered the interview was not worth 
 the cost of the journey. 
 
IN THE FORTRESS 265 
 
 I was much troubled by business anxieties. The 
 industrial crisis was then at its height, and it was 
 only with great difficulty that my business could 
 compete with that of a rival who had started 
 production by machinery on a large scale. 
 
 My principal occupation was the writing of the 
 history of the German Peasants' War— now long 
 out of print — not a masterpiece at any time, as I 
 lacked the necessary means of reference. I wrote 
 the book because the wars of 1525 and the pre- 
 ceding peasant revolts seemed to me one of the 
 most important phases of modern German history, 
 and withal a period shamefully neglected by the 
 official historians. 
 
 At last, on the 1st of April, 1875 — Bismarck's 
 sixtieth birthday — I was released. I had been on 
 the best of terms with the prison authorities, and 
 my parting from the director was most cordial. 
 It has always been my way to make the best of 
 things that cannot be mended. Without in the 
 least demeaning myself, I have always tried to 
 facilitate the difficult task of the prison authorities 
 by conforming strictly to the regulations. 
 
 My comrades at Zwickau gave me an ovation on 
 the day of my liberation, and presented my wife 
 and myself with two fine coffee-cups with suitable 
 inscriptions, and with the wish that we might enjoy 
 the national beverage of Saxony in quiet and repose 
 
266 MY LIFE 
 
 for ever thenceforth ; a wish, alas ! that was not 
 to be granted. 
 
 My friend Sonnemann, the chief proprietor of 
 the Frankfurter Zeitung, published a leader con- 
 gratulating me on my release instead of Bismarck 
 on his sixtieth birthday. He had sent me some 
 bottles of wine while I was in prison, which I 
 had sent home to drink with my wife and friends, 
 as the prison regulations do not allow such 
 luxuries. 
 
 Shortly after my release I received a letter from 
 Professor Schaffle, the sociologist, formerly a 
 member of the Liberal Government of Austria, and 
 the author of the well-known pamphlet, " The 
 Quintessence of Socialism," which had caused a 
 great stir by its unprejudiced account of the aims 
 of Socialism. He sent me the first volume of his 
 magnum opus, " The Structure and Life of the 
 Social Body." He wrote that although we might 
 hold different opinions on many points, we were 
 equally interested in social questions, and asked me 
 to accept this book as a token of common interests. 
 
 Later, in 1877, we met in Leipzig. Our principal 
 subject of conversation was the development of the 
 Socialist party and the time when Socialism would 
 be predominant. I, optimist that I am, thought 
 the time close at hand ; he thought it would take 
 at least two hundred year-s. 
 
IN THE FOt^TRESS 267 
 
 But Professor Schaffle underwent a complete 
 transformation. When Bismarck inaugurated his 
 social reforms, SchafQe, who was anxious to take 
 oflQce under him, wrote a pamphlet on the " Im- 
 practicability of Social Democracy," which was 
 diametrically opposed to his former convictions. 
 After this performance I had no further relations 
 with him. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 FROM 1871 TO THE GOTHA CONGRESS 
 
 1. Governments and Social-Democracy. 
 
 The Paris Commune made all the Governments of 
 Europe regard the Socialist movement with the 
 keenest anxiety. This anxiety increased when it 
 became evident that the Commune had the 
 sympathy of the workers of those countries in 
 which a Socialist movement was already in being. 
 Governmental and bourgeois circles nursed exagge- 
 rated, not to say ridiculous, ideas of the power of 
 the " International." Many voices were raised in 
 Germany demanding that the movement should 
 receive a more vigorous handling, a demand very 
 willingly conceded by the police and the courts. 
 
 Bismarck invited his most inveterate enemy, the 
 Austrian Chancellor, von Beust, to confer with him 
 with regard to the " International " at Gastein ; but 
 they could come to no agreement further than to 
 "study the question." 
 
 But in February, 1872, the Spanish Government 
 
FROM 1871 TO THE GOTHA CONGRESS 269 
 
 —Prince Amadeo of Italy having just been elected 
 King Qf Spain— addressed a circular dispatch' to 
 the European Powers suggesting that one of the 
 Great Powers should take the matter in hand and 
 propose measures against the " International," which 
 by its aims attacked the very traditions of humanity, 
 wished to abolish the Deity, the family, and here- 
 ditary property, and by reason of its formidable 
 organisation constituted a danger which could 
 hardly be exaggerated. But the English Foreign 
 Secretary, Lord Granville, extinguished the pro- 
 posal. The "International," he declared, although 
 a centre of an international union of workers and 
 trades unions, restricted itself in Great Britain to 
 giving advice in the event of strikes. It had very 
 little money. By the laws of England any foreigner 
 had the right to come to England and reside there, 
 and enjoyed the protection of the laws of the land, 
 on exactly the same footing as that of a British 
 subject. They could only be punished if they trans- 
 gressed these laws, and only by the regular courts 
 and the ordinary public procedure. No foreigner 
 as such could be expelled except subjects of coun- 
 tries with which treaties of extradition for criminal 
 offences existed. So far he saw no reason for 
 altering the laws respecting the sojourn of 
 foreigners in Great Britain. 
 
 The attitude of the British Government made an 
 
270 MY LIFE 
 
 international agreement impossible ; and the Hague 
 Congress of 1872, when the split occurred between 
 the Socialists under Marx and the Anarchists under 
 Bakunin, proved to such Governments as were over- 
 timid that the danger was not immediate. Further, 
 the " International," by transferring the locale of its 
 General Council from London to New York, proved 
 the need of reorganisation. 
 
 But Bismarck remained on the alert. In the 
 Prussian Upper Chamber, in April, 1873, he spoke 
 of the necessity of rigorous laws against the party 
 of the " International " as well as against the party 
 of ecclesiastical domination— the Centre. In June of 
 the same year he brought in a Bill to limit the 
 freedom of the Press to the effect that any one 
 attacking, in print, the family, property, universal 
 service, or any other of the fundamental supports 
 of the existing order of things, in a manner detri- 
 mental to morality, the sense of justice, or 
 patriotism, or representing actions punishable 
 under this law as meritorious, consistent with 
 duty, and worthy of imitation, or discussing the 
 present condition of civil society in a manner likely 
 to lead to a breach of the peace, should be punished 
 by imprisonment or detention in a fortress for a 
 term not exceeding two years. Offences against 
 religion taking the form of attacks in the public 
 Press were to be punishable by imprisonment for 
 
FROM 1871 TO THE GOTHA CONGRESS 271 
 
 terms varying from three months to four years. 
 The responsible editor was to receive the same 
 punishinent as the culprit. 
 
 These diabolical proposals were too much even 
 for the majority in the Reichstag. The Bill was 
 thrown out. Bismarck then tried to get at the 
 Social-Democratic party by alterations of the laws 
 of contract, the laws relating to master and man, 
 and so forth. I shall speak of these attempts later. 
 From 1874 onwards there was a continuous series 
 of prosecutions which culminated, in the spring 
 of 1878, after the attempts on the life of the 
 Emperor William, in the anti-Socialist laws. 
 
 2. The Two Social -Democratic Parties. 
 
 The character of the persecutions which the 
 party suffered from 1872 onwards should have pro- 
 moted a closer union, a more perfect co-operation 
 of all socialistic bodies. But from 1872 to 1873 
 the internecine war raged more fiercely than ever, 
 especially on the side of the Lassalleans— the 
 General German Labour Union— whose especial 
 bugbear was our chief agitator in Berlin. 
 
 The question of union was first mooted at the 
 Congress of the LassaJlean Union in Berlin in 1872 ; 
 but the motion was defeated by putting the previous 
 question. The matter was again discussed at the 
 fourth Congress of the Social -Democratic Labour 
 
272 MY LIFE 
 
 Party, held in 1872 at Mayence. A lengthy 
 resolution was adopted, recommending mutual for- 
 bearance, and especially the cessation of Press 
 polemics. But although Liebknecht and I, in the 
 Volksstaat, kept our promise and did not attack 
 the other branches, made even proposals of a very 
 conciliatory nature, recommending, if fusion were 
 impossible, at least an agreement upon common 
 action at elections, the quarrel continued with un- 
 diminished bitterness. We were even snubbed for 
 our unauthorised attempts at reconciliation by the 
 Committee of Control. 
 
 The director of the Leipzig police for the year 
 1873 was especially active in the persecution of 
 our party, as if eager to outshine his colleagues 
 throughout the country. Thus he published an 
 edict prohibiting attendance at the Congress of the 
 " International " at the Hague, under penalty of four 
 months' imprisonment. Our co-editor Hepner con- 
 travened the edict, got his four months, and was 
 afterwards expelled from Leipzig. Moreover, the 
 director prohibited rnembership in the " Inter- 
 national," forbade the recruiting of fresh members, 
 and the collection of money for party purposes. 
 
 Hepner, owing to disagreements with the party 
 executive, had written letters to Marx and Engel, 
 in which he described the party as being in very 
 low water, thanks to the Lassalleans. This, on 
 
FROM 1871 TO THE GOTHA CONGRESS 273 
 
 account of the deep distrust which Marx and Engels 
 felt for everything connected with Lassalle, caused 
 the latter to write to Liebknecht in a spirit of 
 admonition. The contents of this letter were com- 
 municated to me, and I wrote to Marx and Engels 
 reassuring them. To Engels I wote that as matters 
 stood, it was impossible to take active measures 
 against the Lassalleans without irreparably 
 damaging the cause. The cult of Lassalle, as 
 engineered by the Countess Hatzfeldt, must be up- 
 rooted. But we had to proceed carefully, as the • 
 posthumous influence of Lassalle was still im- 
 mense. The best means of dealing the cult 
 a decisive blow would be for Marx, as a recog- 
 nised scientific authority on political economy,, 
 to expose, from a scientific and objective point 
 of view, in a series of articles in the Yolksstaat, 
 the many faults and errors of Lassalle's theories 1 
 I wrote to Marx in the same strain, askiing 
 him also to publish a new edition of the " Com- 
 munist Manifesto," omitting the conclusion, which | 
 as it stood would expose the publisher to proise- 
 cution for high treason. The Manifesto, strongly! 
 recommended and sold in public, would be kni 
 eye-opener to many, and would exrpose the weakness 
 of Lassalle's proposals. 
 
 In those days the prosecutions against 
 Volksstoflt were so numerous that usually two and 
 
 18 
 
 tl^ 
 
274 MY LIFE 
 
 sometimes three of its editors were in prison. The 
 same fate befell the editors of the other party 
 organs, which were eight or nine in number, not 
 counting the Volksstaat. In Saxony the authori- 
 ties not only imprisoned but expelled the offenders 
 from town or district. The Leipzig police pro- 
 hibited participation in the fifth Congress of the 
 party at Eisenach — it was to have been held at 
 Nurnberg, but the Bavarian Government prohibited 
 it — under penalty of a month's imprisonment. 
 Leipzig was therefore not represented at the Con- 
 gress. It was attended by 71 delegates, representing 
 274 members. The question of the union of the 
 two sections of the party was again discussed, but 
 without any practical result, as the Labour Union 
 had shortly before passed a resolution refusing in 
 most abusive terms to have anything to do with 
 the Social-Democratic Labour Party. 
 
 I have already mentioned the results of the 
 elections of 1874. It may interest some to learn 
 what these elections cost the party. The expenses 
 borne by the party funds for the whole of Germany 
 amounted to some £1,950 ; the Saxon pa,rty com- 
 mittee, for the 91,000 votes polled, spent some 
 £112 ; the elections in Leipzig, borough and dis- 
 trict, including a by-election, cost £109 ; at 
 Chemnitz £65 was spent ; in other constituencies 
 £22 and £.52. These figures, compared with those 
 
FROM 1871 TO THE GOTHA CONGRESS 275 
 
 of our own times, seem absurdly small. But now 
 members of the party give money and are paid for 
 election work. In those days they did not give 
 money ; they had very little to give and they were 
 few in number ; and they worked without pay. 
 The individual member had to make much greater 
 sacrifices than are usual now in order to obtain 
 any results. Moreover, it must not be forgotten 
 that to-day, in Germany especially, the election 
 campaigns are conducted by our adversaries on 
 a much more extensive and costly scale than any 
 we had to contend with, so that we have to meet 
 it by more strenuous exertions and a much greater 
 expenditure. 
 
 3. The Session of 1874. 
 
 This Session commenced in February. Our pro- 
 posal to the members of the General German 
 Labour Union that we should unite our parlia- 
 mentary fractions was declined ; but we had agreed 
 that we would at least mutually support each other. 
 Both sides had had enough of the mutual recrimina- 
 tions, which only profited our opponents, and were 
 anxious for an understanding even though union 
 might not be possible. 
 
 The party was not at all satisfied with its repre- 
 sentatives in Parliament. (I was, of course, still in 
 prison, and Liebknecht did not attend, as he was 
 
276 MY LIFE 
 
 released only a short time before the adjournment.) 
 It was urged that they spoke too rarely, and too 
 mildly when they did speak. The brilliant result 
 of the elections had raised expectations. Our 
 members complained bitterly that the President 
 of the Reichstag did not call upon them to 
 speak, and showed a preference for the members 
 of the General German Labour Union. This was 
 quite true. Forckenbeck was then President, and 
 he was, as I have already stated, one of the most 
 partial Presidents the Reichstag had ever had. The 
 prearranged list of speakers had been abolished 
 in order to muzzle the Socialists. The members 
 who wished to speak had to attract the attention 
 of the President much as children bring themselves 
 to the notice of their teacher. It was therefore left 
 to his discretion to call upon whom he pleased, 
 and Forckenbeck made ample and unblushing use 
 of this discretionary power. Our members conse- 
 quently very rarely had an opportunity of speak- 
 ing. Another abuse of the rules of debate : there 
 was a member of the National Liberal party, one 
 Valentin, who was ever ready to move the closure ; 
 so much so that a would-be speaker who was 
 closured was said to be " Valentined " — that is, 
 metaphorically, guillotined. Valentin was even said 
 to keep motions for the closure in stock. 
 
 Among the Bills before the Reichstag was a new 
 
FROM 1871 TO THE GOTHA CONGRESS 277 
 
 Army Bill, which fixed the strength of the army 
 on active service at 401,000 men for a term of 
 seven years. The Liberals and National Liberals 
 at first felt constitutional scruples, but the National 
 Liberals finally gave in when Bismarck threatened 
 to resign. It was then that Moltke uttered the 
 oft-quoted words : " What we have gained by force 
 of arms in half a year, that we must guard by 
 force of arms for half a century ; for let us not 
 deceive ourselves : we have won respect by our 
 successful wars on all sides, but love on none." 
 
 To our proposals to transform the standing army 
 into a militia Moltke replied : " Gentlemen, rifles 
 are easily distributed, but not so easily taken 
 back." 
 
 Another measure of importance to the working 
 classes was an amendment of the industrial code 
 penalising breaches of contract by fines not exceed- 
 ing £7 10s. or imprisonment. The strikes which 
 both during the boom and after the collapse had 
 often been started without regard to contracts, had 
 greatly alarmed the employers, who petitioned the 
 Government and the Reichstag to make such 
 breaches a criminal offence. The Government 
 brought in the above measure, but the Reichstag 
 threw it out ; it was not yet disposed to approve 
 coercive legislation. It also rejected a Bill to 
 restrain the freedom of the Press, although it was 
 
278 MY LIFE 
 
 a somewhat milder measure than that cited in a 
 former chapter. 
 
 The question of the union or fusion of the two 
 wings of our party was again discussed at the Con- 
 gress of 1874, but again without definite result. 
 But what did not ensue as a result of friendly- 
 negotiations was finally achieved by persecution. 
 It was more especially Tessendorf, who, as Public 
 Prosecutor, was called from Magdeburg to the 
 Berlin courts in 1873, who by his prosecution^ 
 acted as pacemaker ; and he was powerfully 
 abetted in his efforts as a " saviour of the State " 
 by the seventh chamber of the courts (at Berlin, 
 which in the numerous actions brought against 
 members of our party proved itself a veritable 
 "bloody assizes." 
 
 Tessendorf had already acquired fame in Magde- 
 burg as a scotcher of Socialists. He was one of 
 the worst of Streber (men on the make) in a 
 time which produced such men in abundance. He 
 wanted to make a career for himself, and sought 
 to recommend himself to the ruling powers by his 
 rigorous treatment of Socialism. He succeeded ; he 
 eventually became Attorney-General of the highest 
 court in Germany, the Imperial Court at Leipzig. 
 But our party only grew stronger and more united 
 as a result of his prosecutions. Those he set out 
 to destroy were victors in the end. In the Berlin 
 
FROM 1871 TO THE GOTHA CONGRESS 279 
 
 courts he justified the expectations of his superiors, 
 and of Bismarck in particular. Prosecutions 
 became more and more numerous ; penalties more 
 and more harsh and brutal. Many a life was 
 ruined, many a family's happiness destroyed. In 
 most cases the offences tried were mere bagatelles, 
 which any other court would have considered suffi- 
 ciently punished by a few weeks of prison or a 
 fine. Certain sections of society were in a state 
 of "blue funk." In the whole of Prussia, during 
 the year 1874, 82 Lassalleans were punished, in 
 104 trials, by a total of 212 months' imprisonment. 
 
 It was the same in Saxony. The judgments grew 
 always more severe ; where formerly months were 
 considered sufficient years were now inflicted. In 
 Saxony it was our party that suffered the most. 
 
 In addition to these judicial proceedings the 
 police persecuted us by dissolving our associations 
 and in other ways. At the end of June the General 
 German Labour Union was dissolved, and its presi- 
 dent sentenced to two months' imprisonment. The 
 police dissolved the Berlin branch of our party, 
 the Union of Working Women and Girls, and the 
 unions of bootmakers, cabinet-makers, and masons. 
 The same thing happened in Frankfort, Hanover, 
 and Konigsberg. Saxony and Bavaria followed the 
 example of Prussia. 
 
 All these prosecutions made it plain to the most 
 
280 MY LIFE 
 
 determined opponent of union that our only safety 
 lay in a united front. 
 
 On the 11th of October, 1874, Liebknpcht wrote 
 me — I was in prison at Zwickau — to the effect that 
 the Lassalleans had approached him with pro- 
 posals of peace and fusion, but recommended 
 caution. Later on it was agreed that our party 
 executive at Hamburg should entrust a joint com- 
 mittee of the two sections with the task of consider- 
 ing conditions and plans of unification. , Although 
 there was opposition within the Labour Union, 
 the subsequent negotiations pursued a favourable 
 course. There was a mass meeting in Berlin, at 
 which all the Reichstag deputies at liberty— two 
 were in prison — spoke in favour of reunion. The 
 committee, consisting of eight members of each 
 section, met at Coburg, on the 14th land 15th of 
 February, 1875, in order to arrive at a compro- 
 mise between the two widely different programmes 
 of the two sections of the party. The task Was 
 one of extreme difficulty, but finally the committee 
 was able to announce that it had agreed upon a 
 draft programme which satisfied all its members. 
 But such was not the case with the party as a 
 whole. When Liebknecht sent me the draft agree- 
 ment in prison with the remark that it had not 
 been possible to do more I was terribly upset. 
 For weeks I had been in a state of suspense and 
 
FROM 1871 TO THE GOTHA CONGRESS 281 
 
 ill-temper, because Liebknecht had not visited me 
 as he had promised, nor had he thought fit to keep 
 me au courant of the course of events. I thought 
 a little more regard was due to me. I wrote a 
 very long and very angry letter, in which I criti- 
 cised the draft most severely, and worked out a 
 long counter-proposal, going into the minutest 
 detail. I thus proved once more that prolonged 
 seclusion from the outside world causes one to 
 become completely absorbed by one's own medita- 
 tions. Liebknecht urged as excuse the pressure 
 of work and the impossibility of speaking of 
 intimate and secret party matters in the presence 
 of prison officials. He was right ; but a prisoner 
 who knows that negotiations are going on in the 
 outside world which will affect the matters that 
 completely absorb his thoughts and feelings, 
 naturally longs for an interchange of ideas, be 
 it ever so restricted. The party executive of course 
 declined my proposals, and although I finally re- 
 signed myself I was never satisfied with the draft 
 programme. 
 
 In a private letter to Engels I had asked for 
 his opinion touching the matter of union. He 
 answered in a decidedly negative sense. But I 
 refrained from public criticism, under pressure 
 from all sides and at Liebknecht's request ; my 
 opposition, I was told, would make the union impos- 
 
282 MY LIFE 
 
 sible. And as I had the union very much at heart, 
 and the party was urgent in its demand for union, 
 considerations of merely formal objection to the 
 programme had to be put aside. After all, the 
 programme could easily be amended later on. 
 
 After my release from prison — on April 1, 1875 
 —my constituency arranged to give me a grand 
 reception at Glauchau, which I attended with my 
 family. In a speech which I made on this occasion 
 I alluded to the negotiations for union which were 
 then in progress, and expressed the hope that as 
 we had formerly fought each other we should now, 
 with all our courage, strength, and endurance, wage 
 war upon the common enemy. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 FROM THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION AT GOTHA 
 TO THE EVE OF THE ANTI-SOCIALIST LAW 
 
 1. The Congress of Unification. 
 
 The Congress of Unification was convened to meet 
 at Gotha on the 25th of May, 1875. After years 
 of bitter and mutual antagonism the hitherto hostile 
 sections were to meet face to face and measure their 
 forces. It is not surprising that they did not at 
 once fall into one another's arms, but were still 
 full of suspicion. Great mutual forbearance was 
 required, for the differences of the two sections, 
 personal and political, were still considerable. Our 
 common enemies looked towards Gotha with 
 breathless attention, anxious to learn whether 
 the work of unification would be accomplished. 
 It was accomplished, after a certain amount of 
 friction, better than had been anticipated, and bore 
 good fruit. 
 
 The Congress was attended by 127 delegates, 
 representing 25,657 members ; 71 delegates for 
 
284 MY LIFE 
 
 16,538 members of the General German Labour 
 Union and 56 for 9,121 members of the Social- 
 Detmocratic Labour party. 
 
 Liebknecht reported on the question of the pro- 
 gramme. After some trifling amendments the 
 following programme was unanimously adopted : — 
 
 1. Labour is the source of all wealth and all 
 culture ; and as labour of a generally useful type 
 is only made possible by society the whole product 
 of labour is due to society, that is, to all its 
 members, on condition that they recognise a general 
 duty of labour, due by equal rights to each 
 according to his rational needs. 
 
 In the present society the means of production 
 are a monopoly of the capitalist class ; the result- 
 ing dependence of the working-classes is the cause 
 of misery and servitude in all its forms. 
 
 In order that labour may be emancipated, the 
 means of production must be transformed into the 
 common property of society, and labour as a whole 
 must be regulated on co-operative principles, and 
 the product of labour applied to the commonweal 
 in just division. 
 
 The emancipation of labour must be the work of 
 the labouring classes, distinguished from which all 
 other classes are but a mass of reactionary forces. 
 
 2. Starting from these principles, the Socialistic 
 Labour Party of Germany aims by all legal means 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 285 
 
 at the establishment of a free commonwealth and 
 a Socialistic society, the breaking of the iron law 
 of wages by the abolition of the wages system, the 
 extinction of every form of exploitation, and the 
 removal of all social and political inequalities. 
 
 The Socialistic Labour Party of Germany, though 
 working at first on a national scale, is conscious of 
 the international character of the labour move- 
 ment, and is resolved to assume all the duties which 
 it imposes upon the workers in order to bring 
 about in truth the fraternity of all human beings. 
 
 3. The Socialistic Labour Party of Germany, in 
 order to pave the way for the solution of the social 
 question, demands the institution of socialistic„pro- 
 ductive co-operation with State help under the 
 d emuc i' g tic^ontrol of the people. ,These produc- 
 tive organisations, industrial and agricultural, are; 
 to be on such a scale that the socialistic organisa- 
 tion of the whole of labour shall result therefrom. 
 
 Then follow demands for the' democratisatibn of 
 the State and the immediate social demands. 
 
 The name of the unified party was to be the 
 Socialistic Labour Party. As to organisation, it was 
 to be directed by a board of five members, to be 
 elected by the Congress. This directorate was to 
 be supervised by a committee of control of seven 
 members, to be elected by the members of the party 
 in the city designated year by year as the head- 
 
286 MY LIFE 
 
 quarters of the committee by the Congress < A 
 committee of eighteen members from all parts of 
 Germany was to be elected, which was in the first 
 instance to criticise the directorate and which 
 would on occasions of importance be heard by the 
 directorate. Local agents would be appointed by 
 the directorate upon the proposal of local members. 
 
 In accordance with my motion Hamburg was 
 selected as the first headquarters of the directorate. 
 "JThe following salaries were to be paid : to the 
 president a monthly salary of some £9 15s., to his 
 I deputy £2 5s., to each of the two secretaries &1 10s., 
 to the treasurer some £5 5s. monthly. The seat 
 of the committee of control was Leipzig, and the 
 president was myself. The official organs of the 
 party were to be the Tsleue Sozialdemokrat in Berlin 
 and the Yolksstaat in Leipzig. Both were acquired 
 by the party. The Congress separated with cheers 
 for the workers of all civilised nations and the 
 singing of the workers' Marseillaise. 
 
 In a letter to Engels I justified my acceptance 
 of this programme. I agreed that the programme 
 left much to be desired, and made too many con- 
 cessions to the Lassalleans. Yet it was all that 
 could be achieved at the time ; if we had asked 
 for more we should have made the work of unifica- 
 tion impossible, to the delight of our opponents and 
 the detriment of the party. The rest would be a 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 287 
 
 matter of education. My letter was not rightly 
 understood. Engels complained that we had really 
 been defeated by the Lassalleans and had accepted 
 their meaningless phrases relating to State help, 
 the iron law of wages, and so forth. He charac- 
 terised our programme as confused, illogical, dis- 
 connected, and generally ridiculous in the highest 
 degree. 
 
 It will be seen that it was not an easy matter to 
 satisfy the two old gentlemen in London. What 
 was really a clever tactical move on our part and 
 the result of prudent calculation they regarded as 
 mere weakness. However, the main point was 
 achieved — and that was unification. It contained 
 the germs of further development, and for that we 
 could depend on our best friend the enemy. 
 
 2. Aftermath. My Attitude towards the 
 Commune. 
 
 Of course all was not plain sailing even after 
 the Congress of Unification. There was still dis- 
 sension within the ranks, especially in Hamburg. 
 In order to make the new unity a living reality it 
 was agreed that the best-known men of the formerly 
 divided camps should address meetings in those 
 districts which had formerly been the reserves of 
 the opposing sections. Thus Liebknecht made a 
 tour of the north and west, some of the Lassalleans 
 
288 MY LIFE 
 
 took the south and Saxony, and I went to Hamburg 
 and Berlin, where I addressed large meetings. 
 
 For me personally the state of affairs was far 
 from agreeable. I suffered much from the antago- 
 nistic interests of public and private life. As I 
 had just taken a partner, the news spread through 
 Leipzig that I intended to retire from politics. 
 Thus a party friend wrote to me that he had been 
 told that I was about to start business on a large 
 scale, and gradually retire from the party. He 
 asked me to contradict these rumours publicly, a 
 course which I refused as being beneath my dignity. 
 
 The Autumn Session of the Reichstag in 1875 
 was the first I was able to attend after an absence 
 of nearly three and a half years. It was also the 
 first Session which we attended as a united party, 
 which made us altogether more energetic, active, 
 and independent. 
 
 A Bill was before the Reichstag to amend the 
 criminal law. Fourteen fresh offences were placed 
 in the category of criminal offences. Bismarck 
 was always a man of wrath, eager to crush and 
 abolish any tendency of the times which he 
 found inconvenient or disagreeable, by the applica- 
 tion of coercive measures. He applied such 
 measures to the Roman Catholic Church, the Polish 
 nationalist movement, and to Social-Democracy. 
 And he was never converted from this standpoint, 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 289 
 
 although at the end of his life it was plain as 
 the day that it had been a mistake. He was the 
 vanquished, not the victor. 
 
 As the judges and the police had failed to 
 suppress our movement, he now attempted to 
 do so by amendments of the so-called political 
 paragraphs of the criminal code. Thus para- 
 graph 130 was to be worded as follows: "Who- 
 soever, in a manner liable to cause a breach 
 of the peace, shall publicly incite the different 
 classes of the population one against the other, or 
 in a similar manner shall attack by speech or 
 writing the institutions of marriage, the family, 
 or property, shall be punished by imprisonment." 
 Other paragraphs were similarly amended. We 
 decided, as a matter of tactics, to allow the 
 Liberals to open an attack upon the amendments. 
 Even the National Liberals declared against them. 
 We took an active part in the debate on the amend- 
 ment above quoted ; the date was the 27th of 
 January, 1876. The Minister of the Interior, Count 
 Eulenburg, frankly admitted in the opening part 
 of his speech : " Gentlemen, this paragraph is 
 directed against Social-Democracy." The rest of 
 his speech consisted of quotations from our news- 
 papers, intended to prove that we were a menace 
 to the State. He urged the Reichstag to pass the 
 amendments, as otherwise, having regard to the 
 
 19 
 
290 MY LIFE 
 
 inadequacy of the law as it then stood, there was 
 a danger "that the rifles would go off and the 
 swords would pierce." His speech did not produce 
 the least impression, and Hasselmann, who spoke 
 for our party, had an easy task. Our party, he 
 declared, did not start the class war. It was com- 
 menced by our opponents, and the Paris Com- 
 mune was there to prove how cruel and bloody was 
 their method of waging it. Finally he declared 
 that our party would continue the war by all legal 
 means. The end of the debate was that the Govern- 
 ment could not find a single supporter for its Bill. 
 Our party Press warmly thanked Count Eulenburg 
 for his speech as a most excellent piece of propa- 
 ganda, and it was decided that it should be printed 
 and distributed on the largest possible scale. Bis- 
 marck, too, did not fail to improve the occasion. 
 He complained that the Reichstag, when a Socialist 
 Deputy spoke, did not take him seriously. It was 
 necessary to contradict the Utopian nonsense of 
 the Socialists in the Reichstag, and give such con- 
 tradiction the widest possible publicity. " Had not 
 the assassins and incendiaries of the Commune been 
 publicly praised in the Chamber, without a single 
 Deputy giving expression to the opposite view? 
 These phantom visions, which were revealed to 
 the infatuated only by the gloom of the dark lantern 
 of the seducers, ought to be dragged into the clear 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 291 
 
 light of the sun, in order to demonstrate their 
 impracticability and criminal folly." 
 
 These accusations of Bismarck's could only apply 
 to myself. They referred to my speech on the 
 Commune delivered during the Session of 1871. 
 I attempted to speak, but was " valentined," and 
 was allowed only to make a personal explanation. 
 I rejected as an insult the accusation that I had 
 defended assassins and incendiaries. I had de- 
 fended those persons because they were not that, 
 but men who had been bitterly wronged. For did 
 not three highly esteemed Governments, those of 
 Switzerland, Belgium, and Great Britain, refuse to 
 allow them to be extradited precisely on the 
 grounds that they were not criminals ? I was inter- 
 rupted by the President and forbidden to continue 
 because my speech went beyond personal explana- 
 tions and touched upon matters of opinion. But 
 I took my revenge later, at a meeting held in 
 Leipzig, where I thoroughly unburdened my mind. 
 
 On the 12th of March, 1876, a debate on the 
 question was arranged in Leipzig between one 
 Bruno Sparig, the chief agitator of the National 
 Liberal party in Leipzig, and myself. The meeting 
 was convened jointly by our two parties, each party 
 receiving a like number of cards, and selecting a 
 chairman to preside while the spokesman of the 
 other side was speaking. My opponent attacked 
 
292 MY LIFE 
 
 my attitude towards the Commune with the argu- 
 ments that had been used before. I spoke for 
 about an hour and a half, winding up with the 
 following peroration :— 
 
 " The Commune acted as it was bound to act 
 having regard to the state of affairs, and those 
 who do not approve of its action will at least 
 find them explicable and excusable. So much is 
 certain : the Commune has done nothing to be 
 ashamed of, and if it did commit acts of violence 
 the monarchical Governments of Europe when in 
 similar positions have committed acts a hundred" 
 times more violent." 
 
 In rejoinder, after some quite irrelevant remarks 
 of my opponent's, I said : — 
 
 " Sparig has said that as long as Social- 
 Democracy does homage to the phantom of 
 Internationalism his party will have nothing to 
 do with it. Well, we can spare his sympathy. 
 But is Internationalism really a phantom? From 
 the family developed the tribe, from the tribe the 
 State and the nation, and, finally, from a close 
 union of the nations, Internationalism is evolved. 
 This is the course of history. Social-Democracy 
 by adopting the standpoint of universal fraternity, 
 by doing battle against national wars and animosi- 
 ties, and striving to bring the nations together 
 for the work of peace and civilisation— Social- 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 293 
 
 Democracy stands for the highest ideal of 
 civilisation that it is possible to conceive. 
 
 " When our party is insulted to-day because it 
 opposes a narrow national standpoint, sets its face 
 against racial hatred, and upholds the ideal of 
 national fraternisation, it suffers the fate of all 
 pioneers. Gentlemen, here is an example. In a 
 country in which Roman Catholicism predominates 
 you will find the profoundest ignorance concerning 
 Luther. 
 
 " All parties all the world over that have 
 stood for progress have suffered the same fate. 
 It was the fate of the Liberals. But to-day, now 
 that the Liberal party is in the ascendant, it 
 regards this world as the best of all possible 
 worlds, and we who speak to a different purpose 
 are treated by them as not quite twenty years ago 
 they themselves were treated by the feudal parties. 
 And naturally so. 
 
 " We do not trouble ourselves about these accusa- 
 tions. We know that our time approaches, that 
 circumstances are developing in our favour, that 
 with the disappearance of class antagonism, and 
 the disappearance of the lower middle classes, who 
 are being thrust downward into the ranks of wage- 
 earners, Social-Democracy will grow ever stronger, 
 and will finally lay hands upon the supreme 
 power." 
 
294 MY LIFE 
 
 I closed my speech with some remarks as to the 
 attitude of some of the other parties towards our 
 own. "The quarrel between the Conservatives and 
 National Liberals is like a quarrel between husband 
 and wife. As soon as a third party interferes they 
 become reconciled. Some weeks ago a Conservative 
 paper had a leader in which it admonished all 
 opponents of Social -Democracy to unite against 
 the common enemy and to form one great single 
 party of order. Well, we offer our congratulations. 
 You will need to do so. At Chemnitz, too, the 
 Conservatives and National Liberals quarrelled ; 
 each party put up its own candidate. But as soon 
 as it was known that there would be a Socialist 
 candidate as well the quarrel was settled, and the 
 word went round, ' All against Bebel ! ' " With 
 these words of mine the meeting, which had been 
 an immense success, came to an end. 
 
 Note. — Bebel gives his speech in defence of the Commune, 
 which is very lengthy, in extenso in the German text. Stated 
 briefly, his defence amounts to the plea that most of the acts of 
 violence were committed either before the regular Government 
 of the Commune was instituted or after it had been dissolved. 
 Further, if it did commit any atrocities it did so in self- 
 defence, under the stress of necessity and practically under 
 conditions of war, when its existence was threatened by the 
 Versailles army. 
 
 The shooting of Generals Lecomte and Clement Thomas was 
 not ordered by the Government of the Commune — which had 
 not then been constituted — but by mutinous troops. Further, 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 295 
 
 3. More Prosecutions. 
 
 In spite of prosecutions the party was in capital 
 fettle, and actively preparing for the next Reichstag 
 elections, which were expected in January, 1877. 
 Our comrades in Rerlin had founded a paper of 
 their own, the Berlin Free Press, which very soon 
 won the esteem of friend and foe alike. The first 
 signs of a change in the general policy of the 
 Empire soon evinced themselves. With the dis- 
 missal of von Delbruck, a Free Trade member of 
 the Government, the sudden volte-face towards a 
 policj' of Protection was inaugurated. Von Camp- 
 hausen, another Minister, who a few weeks earlier 
 had justified the reduction of wages as a means 
 of overcoming the industrial crisis, and had been 
 praised by the Radical Free Trader Eugen Richter 
 as a man who had the courage to state unpopular 
 truths, soon followed him into the wilderness. 
 
 In the meantime there were more prosecutions, 
 especially for libelling the Chancellor. Bismarck 
 used to have hectograph copies made of actions 
 
 the shooting of the hostages, and the burning of the Ministry of 
 Finance, were not ordered by the Government of the Commune. 
 Bebel especially defends Ferre and Raoul Rigault. On the 
 other hand, he praises the Commune for many measures which 
 it introduced, such as the abolition of night-work in the 
 bakehouses, the separation of Church and State, and the 
 cutting down of official salaries. 
 
296 MY LIFE 
 
 for libel, stacks at a time, so that he had one ready 
 the moment any one was denounced to him by 
 the Public Prosecutor. He was continually bring- 
 ing such actions, right up to the time of his dis- 
 missal in 1890. Their number was legion — it ran 
 into thousands— and greatly helped to increase the 
 population of the prisons. These proceedings were 
 certainly no proof of his magnanimity, and were 
 regarded with disapproval even by his warmest 
 admirers . 
 
 Tessendorf continued his series of prosecutions. 
 When he dissolved the General German Labour 
 Union he had exclaimed : " Let us destroy the 
 socialistic organisation and the Socialist party will 
 cease to exist ! " Such was his ignorance of the 
 real significance of the movement. His next attack 
 was upon the Socialist-Labour Party. He obtained 
 a decision of the Berlin courts which closed the 
 membership list of the party in Berlin as well as 
 for the whole of Prussia. The party executive 
 admonished the members not to be downhearted. 
 The section of the party thus destroyed was 
 replaced by local organisations— nominally inde- 
 pendent—which did more to circulate the party 
 paper and to collect money than the former 
 organisations had ever done. 
 
 A party Congress in the proper sense of the 
 word being thus impossible, it was agreed to con- 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 297 
 
 vene a General Socialist Congress, and in order to 
 render it possible for our Prussian comrades 
 to pay their contributions to the party funds in 
 a manner not amenable to the law a monthly sheet, 
 entitled The Voter, not much larger than the palm 
 of the hand, was printed and sold at twopence, 
 with excellent results to the party funds. 
 
 When after twenty-six months Most was liberated 
 from Plotzensee prison, near Berlin, he wrote a 
 pamphlet, entitled " The Bastille of Plotzensee," in 
 which he related his experiences, and told how 
 he and other prisoners had managed to hoodwink 
 the prison authorities and make themselves com- 
 fortable. It was very imprudent, for the result 
 was an official investigation, and in consequence 
 a much severer treatment of prisoners. The 
 political prisoners were interned in the " Masken- 
 Quartier," so called because prisoners had, during 
 their regulation walks, to wear black masks, in 
 order that no one should recognise them. The 
 pains and penalties became so numerous that finally 
 they caused hardly any sensation ; every editor 
 of a Socialist paper and every agitator knew that 
 it was, so to speak, part and parcel of his calling 
 to go to prison from time to time. At the time I 
 exchanged many letters with Georg von Vollmar, 
 later the leader of the Bavarian Socialist Party. 
 Von Vollmar, who was a retired officer and had 
 
298 MY LIFE 
 
 been wounded in the Franco -German War, had 
 serious apprehensions that he might lose his 
 pension on account of the many prosecutions in 
 which he became involved, and asked my advice. 
 My counsel, Freytag, who had defended me at the 
 time of ray trial in Leipzig, was unable to answer 
 the question definitely, but advised Von Vollmar 
 to be very careful as to what he wrote. 
 
 We had, on the other hand, a slight revenge 
 upon one of our persecutors. The highest court 
 of Brunswick condemned General Vogel von 
 Falckenstein— who in 1871 had arrested our execu- 
 tive and sent them in chains to Lotzen — to pay 
 substantial indemnities : to Brucke £105, to others 
 £5 5s., to another 7s. 6d. per diem, and to the 
 workman Kiitzer 3s. per diem. 
 
 4. The Party Congress at Gotha in 1876. 
 
 The sixth Congress of the party was held at 
 Gotha on the 19th to 23rd August. The official A^ord- 
 deutsche AUgemeine Zeitung made a good deal of 
 noise, and threatened prosecution, as the Congress 
 was a circumvention of the law. But we did not 
 trouble ourselves, only deciding to use every means 
 of rendering the blows directed against us 
 innocuous. 
 
 The Congress was attended by 98 delegates, 
 representing 38,254 members from 291 different 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 299 
 
 localities. The party budget— 53,973 marks— (an 
 income of some £2,698 and an expenditure of some 
 £2,721), showing a slight deficit, was balanced by 
 a surplus from the sale of The Voter, as mentioned 
 earlier in this chapter. The party then possessed 
 twenty^hree newspapers, eight of which were\ 
 dailies. As a proof of international solidarity it J 
 was decided to take suitable means to collect money | 
 for those Communards who were in distress. The 
 debates made it obvious that there were still de- 
 cided differences within the party on personal and 
 party matters. Thus Frohme, a former Lassallean, 
 gave voice to the accusation that several party 
 papers, as well as Liebknecht and myself, had 
 received monetary assistance from Sonnemann, the 
 proprietor of the Radical-Democratic Frankfurter 
 Zeitung. I told the Congress that during my im- 
 prisonment I had received from Sonnemann, for 
 business purposes, a loan of £90, on which I paid 
 5 per cent, interest, and which I repaid by instal- 
 ments. I maintained that the matter was purely 
 personal, the more so as I had been a friend of 
 Sonnemann's since 1866. A motion exonerating 
 me from all blame was accepted. I returned the 
 loan in the course of the same year. 
 
 There was another discussion as to our party 
 organ, and finally it was decided by a small 
 minority that the Volksstaat of Leipzig should be 
 
300 MY LIFE 
 
 the party organ, and should be known as Vorwarts. 
 Liebknecht was to be the editor. 
 
 This was the first time the Congress busied itself 
 with the economic questions of the day. The 
 industrial crisis, which began in the year 1874, 
 and became yearly more intense, had brought about 
 a complete revolution in industrial circles in the 
 matter of Free Trade or Protection, and finally 
 converted even the landowners, who had for 
 decades been the chief defenders of Free Trade. 
 At first it was principally the iron industry which 
 protested against the abolition of the duties on 
 iron, which was to take effect from the 1st of 
 January, 1877. Other industries, especially the 
 cotton industry, joined forces with it ; and as, 
 on account of the competition of American grain, 
 which was growing more and more considerable, 
 the prices of grain could not be maintained, the 
 great landowners of the east of Prussia, who were 
 losing their export trade through American com- 
 petition, and \yere even suffering from a similar 
 competition in their inland trade, went over to 
 the Protectionists. These revolutions of opinion 
 naturally occupied the party, and some members 
 — Auer and others — had declared for a more or 
 less complete policy of Protection. The Congress 
 had to define its attitude, and did so in a rather 
 lame and unsatisfactory resolution to this effect : 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 301 
 
 " The Socialists of Germany are not interested in 
 the fight between Free Trade and Protection which 
 has arisen within the ranks of the propertied 
 classes. The question is merely one of expediency, 
 to be decided in each instance upon its merits : 
 the troubles of the working-classes have their root 
 in the generial economic conditions as a whole. 
 Yet as the present commercial treaties are un- 
 favourable to German industry they must be 
 amended. The party Press must warn workers 
 not to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the 
 bourgeoisie, which under the cloak of Protection 
 wishes to capture the State for its own ends." 
 
 Another question of the day was the nationalisa- 
 tion of the railways, which had been planned by 
 Bismarck. The Congress declared in favour of 
 nationalisation, but against acquisition by the 
 Empire, because such acquisition would serve only 
 the interests of the aristocratic and militarist State ; 
 the revenue would be wasted on unproductive ex- 
 penditure whereby the Empire would acquire 
 further power — a power hostile to democracy ; and 
 great sums of money belonging to the nation would 
 fall into the hands of the market-riggers of the 
 Bourse. 
 
 Note. — The railways, in the opinion of the Congress, should 
 become the property of the various Federal States, not of 
 the Empire, 
 
302 MY LIFE 
 
 5. The Election Campaign of 1876-7. 
 
 For use during the electoral campaign I wrote 
 a small pamphlet as before, which was published 
 in Berlin by the co-operative printers, under the 
 very eyes of Tessendorf, who did not fail to profit 
 by the occasion, as he made us feel later on. 
 
 I took a very active part in the campaign, 
 travelling from Leipzig to Cologne and from 
 Cologne to Konigsberg, on the eastern frontier, and 
 on to Breslau, everywhere addressing crowded 
 meetings. At Leipzig I addressed a meeting on the 
 question of " the position of women in the present 
 State and with regard to Socialism." Although we 
 had taken the largest hall, many, had to be turned 
 away for lack of room. There were many women 
 among the audience. I explained to these that they 
 ought to take the keenest interest in the coming 
 elections, and as so far they had no votes they 
 should take part in the work of agitation, get their 
 husbands and other male relatives to the poll, and 
 make them vote for the Socialists as the only party 
 that stood for the complete social and political 
 equality of the sexes. The meeting was a great 
 success ; it was the first at which women were 
 asked to take their part in an electoral campaign. 
 
 I was a candidate in my old constituency, 
 Glauchau-Meerane, and in Dresden. I was elected 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 303 
 
 outright in the former constituency, as had been 
 generally expected, and in Dresden got into the 
 second ballot with a Liberal. In this I won by 
 10,837 votes as against 9,970, and for Dresden I 
 chose to sit. I wrote to a friend at the time : " It 
 greatly tickles me to think that just fourteen years 
 ago to-day I started on my wanderings as a 
 journeyman on the tramp. And now I am Member 
 of Parliament for the royal residence of Dresden. 
 To adapt Napoleon's saying : ' Every artisan on 
 the road has now a mandate for Parliament in his 
 knapsack.' We are getting on— thanks to our friend 
 the enemy." 
 
 The elections were highly favourable to us. 
 Altogether twelve Socialists were elected. The votes 
 obtained by our party had increased from 351,070 
 in 1874 to 493,447 in 1876— that is, an increase 
 of 141,777 votes, or 36 per cent. 
 
 In Saxony our party received the greatest aggre- 
 gate number of votes— 124,600 out of 318,740. 
 
 The " Tessendorf system " had proved a complete 
 failure. And although the prosecutions directed 
 against the party and its Press became more and 
 more violent, and the courts more draconic in their 
 judgments against us, it availed them nothing. Nor 
 was Bismarck more successful even when, favoured 
 by. circumstance, he induced the Reichstag to pass 
 the extremely trenchant measure of coercion which 
 
304 MY LIFE 
 
 he had wanted all along as a weapon to be used 
 against the party he feared and hated. 
 
 The Reichstag of 1877 devoted much of its time 
 to social questions. The Centre,* much alarmed 
 by the steady increase of Social-Democratic votes, 
 started on its proposals of social reform, in the 
 course of which it assumed the likeness of a man 
 who has to dance blindfolded through rows of eggs. 
 Before our successes the attitude of the Centre 
 towards social questions had been rather negative. 
 The measure now introduced by the Centre was in- 
 tended to improve the condition of small traders 
 and working-men. A party friend had assisted 
 me in working out another measure, as against 
 that proposed by the Centre, which recommended 
 the restriction of the work done in the prisons to 
 work done for the Government ; the prohibition 
 of Sunday work in factories ; or where that was 
 impossible the observance of one holiday in each 
 week ; a normal working-day of nine hours, or 
 eight hours in the case of women and male workers 
 under eighteen ; the prohibition of night work, or 
 where that was impracticable the introduction of 
 an eight-hours' shift ; a longer period of absten- 
 tion from work for women before and after child- 
 birth ; the introduction, in every factory and 
 
 * The Centre party depends upon the votes of the lower 
 middle classes md a, section of the workers, 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 305 
 
 workshop, of a set of regulations, to be 
 agreed upon by employers and employed ; the 
 abolition of " workbooks " for miners ; a character 
 to be given only on demand of the worker ; equal 
 terms of notice for employer and employed ; the 
 prohibition of the truck system ; better protection 
 against accidents ; the introduction of Labour 
 Chambers and Labour Courts ; an Imperial Inspec- 
 tion of Labour under the administration of the 
 Imperial Board of Health ; and, finally, the security 
 and further development of the rights of combina- 
 tion. The debate on the measure introduced by 
 the Centre and our own became a debate on 
 Socialism. I had occasion energetically to reject 
 the accusations levelled against us, and to criticise 
 as it deserved the so-called " Christian " standpoint 
 of the Centre. My speech made a great impres- 
 sion, and the Printers' Trades Union in Leipzig 
 presented me with a beautifully bound copy of it. 
 Of course these debates had no practical results. 
 On the question of the iron duties Bracke made 
 a fine speech, in which he dealt with the problem 
 of Free Trade or Protection ; but the votes of the 
 party were divided, a minority asking for the duties. 
 Tessendorf had entered an action against me 
 on account of the above-mentioned pamphlet 
 on the elections. But a majority of the Reichstag 
 voted for a motion to stop the action during the 
 
 20 
 
306 MY LIFE 
 
 Session. A search at the offices of the Berlin Free 
 Press revealed the presence of twelve copies — all 
 that were left. 
 
 6. The Congress at Gotha, 1877. Elections to 
 Saxon Diet. The " Zukunft " Newspaper. 
 
 As in the year before, the Socialists in the 
 Reichstag convened a general Congress of German 
 Socialists to meet at Gotha, from the 27th to the 
 30th of May. On account of the laws affecting 
 association and combination it was impossible to 
 call a Party Congress. The report which Auer 
 communicated to the Congress mentioned that the 
 party had put up candidates in 175 out of 397 
 constituencies. The party papers numbered 41 ; 
 there were also 14 party printing establishments. 
 The revenue amounted to £2,700 and the expendi- 
 ture to £2,531. Congress adopted the following 
 resolution : — 
 
 " In consequence of the most barefaced denial 
 of justice to socialistic organisations as practised 
 with unprecedented impudence by the Prussian 
 authorities, this Congress desists from the creation 
 of party organisations which would come under 
 the Prussian Laws of Association, but it recom- 
 mends its members to form local organisations 
 suitable to the local conditions," 
 
 It has to be noted that the whole of the Liberal 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 307 
 
 Press, and even the Radical portion of it, did not 
 utter a word of protest against the annoyances, 
 petty persecutions, and violence practised against 
 the Socialist organisations. The authorities re- 
 garded this absence of criticism as approval and 
 continued their policy. 
 
 Some very disagreeable disputes took place ; one 
 in respect of comrade Hasselmann, who had 
 started, in competition with Vorwdrts, a paper of 
 his own, the Red Flag, which did us great damage 
 and seemed to be working expressly for a split 
 in the party. He was asked by the Congress to 
 cease the publication of his paper. 
 
 Another discussion was in respect of a series 
 of articles by Friedrich Engels, attacking Professor 
 Duhring. These appeared in Vorwdrts. The Pro- 
 fessor had vigorously attacked the present condition 
 of things and had declared in favour of com- 
 munism. He had a great deal of influence with 
 the party in Berlin, and I was of opinion that his 
 writings were to be recommended and exploited 
 in the party interest. His books had been sent 
 me by Bernstein, in 1874, while I was in prison, 
 and I had even published two articles on him and 
 them in Vorwdrts, entitled " A New Communist." 
 When Diihring, in June, 1877, was censured on 
 account of his doctrines by the University authori- 
 ties and finally dismissed, his influence with us 
 
308 MY LIFE 
 
 became all the greater. A resolution was adopted 
 by Congress which forbade Vorwarts to publish 
 articles of the nature of Engels' articles attacking 
 Duhring. It is true that the professor finally lost 
 all his influence with the psirty, such an autocrat 
 did he become ; he was so overbearing that his 
 adherents left him one by one. 
 
 Von Volmar proposed that a delegate should be 
 sent to the International Socialist Congress at 
 Ghent, in order to give expression to the solidarity 
 of the Socialists of all countries. Although 
 Liebknecht warned the Congress that there was 
 a great danger that the Bakunin-Anarchist move- 
 ment, which was then at its height in Belgium, 
 would certainly attempt to dominate the Congress, 
 it was resolved to send a delegate. But none went, 
 as in the meantime the party was occupied with 
 different ' and more important internal affairs. 
 
 In 1877 we succeeded for the first time in getting 
 a member of our party elected to the Saxon Diet. 
 Liebknecht was elected for the district of Leipzig. 
 I had been offered the seat, but declined ; I could 
 not very well expect my partner to spare me for 
 the sittings of the Saxon Diet as well as for those 
 of the Reichstag. After the election it was found 
 that Liebknecht, not having the necessary qualifica- 
 tion of three years' residence in Saxony, could not 
 take his seat ; so a second election was held, when 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 309 
 
 Otto Freytag, the barrister who had been my 
 counsel, was elected. 
 
 A weekly paper, the Zukunft, was founded in 
 Berlin. It was financed by Karl Hochberg, the 
 son of a Frankfort banker. Hochberg had joined 
 the movement, if I may say so, from motives of 
 sentimental philosophy ; Eduard Bernstein, resign- 
 ing his position in a Berlin bank, became his secre- 
 tary. The rather indeterminate attitude of this 
 paper in respect of scientific Socialism as defined 
 by Marx and Engels— it opened its columns to all 
 the various currents of opinion which characterised 
 our movement— excited, from the start, the sus- 
 picions of the " two oldsters in London " ; 
 suspicions which deepened when the course of 
 events and the financial difficulties of the party 
 forced us to accept the financial assistance of 
 Hochberg. Marx and Engels, who were too far 
 away to hold a correct view of persons and things, 
 saw in these large sacrifices on the part of Hochberg 
 nothing but a Machiavellian design to entrap the 
 party and divert it from its true aims. They were 
 quite mistaken. Hochberg never made any con- 
 ditions ; he gave freely, because he had the 
 good of the cause at heart, and never without con- 
 sulting me or other friends. But in order to allay 
 their suspicions Bernstein and I had late in 1880 
 to undertake the journey to London which has 
 
310 MY LIFE 
 
 since become famous under the name of our 
 " pilgrimage to Canossa." But I must leave that 
 to a later chapter. 
 
 I myself wrote several articles for the Zuknuft, 
 among them one on " Proportional Representation," 
 a subject then little discussed by the party. My 
 treatment of the question was not approved of by 
 our old friend Karl Biirkli, then the protagonist 
 of the system in Switzerland. But I had the satis- 
 faction when I met him, shortly before his death, 
 in 1901, at Zurich, to hear from his own mouth — 
 he was then seventy-nine years of age — the con- 
 fession that I had been right. 
 
 7. Ripe for Prison once more. 
 
 On the 12th of June, 1877, I appeared before 
 the notorious Seventh Court of Berlin. Tessendorf 
 had found in my pamphlet no less than three 
 separate libels against Bismarck, in addition to 
 offences against Paragraph 131 of the penal code — 
 that is, I had published fictitious or misleading 
 facts knowing them to be such, in order to make 
 existing public institutions appear contemptible. 
 Bismarck most willingly gave his consent to the 
 action. I certainly did not deal tenderly with the 
 Chancellor in my pamphlet. But when I wrote 
 it I was still hot with indignation because the 
 Reichstag had not allowed me to reply to Bis- 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 311 
 
 marck's most offensive attacks, and had cut short 
 my speech. The offence against Paragraph 131 
 lay in my manner of attacking militarism. But 
 I felt it as a personal affront that these opinions 
 should be called fictitious and misleading, as Para- 
 graph 131 has it. They were the opinions I had 
 always held and expressed ; what I had written 
 was the honest expression of my standpoint and 
 conviction. 
 
 Tessendorf, as Public Prosecutor, took his task 
 very easily. He knew his court, and quite coolly, 
 in a speech of barely five minutes, he asked for a 
 sentence of nine months' imprisonment for the 
 libels against the Chancellor, and of five months 
 for the second offence, which terms might together 
 be reduced to one year. 
 
 His nonchalance increased my indignation. I 
 made my own defence, in a speech of one hour and 
 a half in duration. I especially protested against 
 the application of Paragraph 131, because, I stated, 
 it must be known to the court that my attack upon 
 militarism was not fictitious and misleading, but 
 corresponded with my party standpoint and my 
 private convictions, and was supported by quota- 
 tions from scientific and military authorities. 
 
 I think I made a very good speech. But I could 
 not have made any impression on the judges, even 
 without the hailstorm outside, which occupied their 
 
312 MY LIFE 
 
 attention far more than my fine arguments. The 
 court gave me nine months. I appealed to the 
 higher court. The Public Prosecutor pleaded for 
 confirmation of the sentence of the lower court, 
 especially as I had been condemned before. I 
 again made my own defence, in a speech which 
 lasted an hour, and vigorously protested against 
 the Public Prosecutor's plea that I was a sort of 
 recidivist criminal, and on that account to be 
 severely punished. " A political offender," I said, 
 " should not be put on a level with a common 
 felon. A political offender, even if recidivist, acts 
 from motives of idealism, and merits not severer 
 punishment, but rather approbation, because he 
 acts from conviction." The result was that the 
 indictment in regard to Paragraph 131 was 
 dropped, and I got six months for libel against 
 Bismarck. 
 
 I will just add that a few months later the Con- 
 servative social reformer Dr. Rudolf Meyer was 
 condemned to one year's imprisonment for libel 
 by the same court, but the Public Prosecutor ex- 
 pressed the pious hope that this would be the last 
 action of Bismarck's. But these actions continued 
 as long as Bismarck was Chancellor— that is, for 
 thirteen years longer. 
 
 In order to be near my family and business, I 
 applied to the authorities for permission to pass 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 313 
 
 the last five months of my sentence in the Leipzig 
 Prison. When I went to the President of the 
 Seventh Court, I was received, to my utter astonish- 
 ment, with exquisite politeness, and my request was 
 readily granted. 
 
 On the 23rd of November I was sent to 
 Plotzensee, the prison near Berlin where most 
 political prisoners were sent, in order to pass the 
 first month of my sentence. I was allowed to 
 occupy myself with writing, and was granted a 
 light in my cell up to ten o'clock at night. But 
 Marx's " Capital " and other socialistic writings 
 were confiscated — as though I had not yet been 
 thoroughly corrupted ! The inspector prescribed 
 that I was not to devote the whole of my time to 
 the reading of books, but should at least present 
 some proof of real application. I therefore wrote 
 a small pamphlet which appeared under the title 
 " France in the Eighteenth Century." 
 
 We were not allowed to buy our food from out- 
 side, but had to content ourselves with the usual 
 prison fare. What made this food almost intoler- 
 able was the exceedingly restricted bill of fare. 
 The weekly menu for breakfast, dinner, and supper 
 remained exactly the same, without the slightest 
 change. I lost heavily in weight during the two 
 months I was at Plotzensee. I cannot understand 
 how the prison doctors can approve of such 
 
314 M'K LIFE 
 
 monotony. Later on the doctor allowed me, at 
 my own request, so-called sick diet. In conse- 
 quence, I received three times a week a dish of 
 really good meat broth, and a small piece of meat, 
 which was stuck on a wooden skewer because 
 prisoners were not trusted with knives and forks. 
 The piece of meat in the broth was nicknamed 
 " the sparrow," as in shape and size it resembled 
 a plucked sparrow. 
 
 I had hoped to be allowed to move to Leipzig 
 just before Christmas, and to pass the holidays 
 with my family. Of the eight Christmas Days my 
 little daughter had so far seen I had passed four 
 in prison. In reply to m^i application, I was told 
 that all the space in the prison was occupied. I 
 had to wait, and did not reach Leipzig until the 
 18th of January, 1878. 
 
 While at Plotzensee the prison chaplain several 
 times called on me. Most had just then, as I learned 
 from the Vossische Zeitung, which I was allowed to 
 read, getting the six numbers all together at the end 
 of each week, started an agitation in Berlin in 
 favour of further secession from the Established 
 (Evangelical) Church. His meetings were crowded, 
 and the excitement was intense. The excitement 
 increased when the Christian Social party, which 
 had lately been founded by Court Chaplain Stocker, 
 called opposition meetings, or sent speakers to 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 3:i5 
 
 Most's meetings, where they naturally got the worst 
 of it, amid the general applause of the audience. 
 This agitation made an immense stir among ortho- 
 dox believers, and our chaplain was greatly excited. 
 Even old Emperor William alluded to the matter 
 in his reply to the President of the Diet, who 
 brought him the congratulations of the Chamber 
 on his birthday, saying, "The religion of the 
 people must be preserved." 
 
 8. Internal Affairs. In Prison at Leipzig. 
 
 While I was in prison some very significant 
 events transpired. In the place of their party 
 organisation, dissolved by the police, our comrades 
 in Berlin formed a society for the protection of 
 the interests of the working-classes. The Christian 
 Conservative State Socialists founded a weekly 
 paper, the State Socialist, with Professors Schafile, 
 von Scheel, Adolf Wagner, Samter, and others 
 as contributors. These Protestant social reformers 
 were anxious to keep abreast of the Roman 
 Catholic reformers, and as far as possible to 
 save as many of the workers from Social- 
 Democracy as could still be saved. 
 
 The approaching revolution in the fiscal policy 
 of the Empire made further strides. The direct 
 contributions of the Federal States to the Budget 
 of the Empire became more and more difficult to 
 
316 MY LIFE 
 
 raise. Bismarck hated direct taxation. In a speech 
 delivered in 1876 he spoke as follows on the 
 subject of what he considered to be the ideal of 
 taxation : — 
 
 " I assure the House that I have a decided prefer- 
 ence for indirect taxation [for the Empire ] ; I 
 think direct taxation a harsh and clumsy makeshift, 
 with the sole exception of what I venture to call 
 an Anstandsteuer [a tax which feelings of decency 
 would compel one to pay], a tax which I shall 
 always maintain : I mean an income tax falling, on 
 the rich — that is, on the really rich. I am very 
 anxious to increase the taxes on tobacco, though I 
 certainly do not grudge the smoker his enjoyment 
 of the weed [Bismarck was himself a heavy 
 smoker J. The same principle applies to beer, 
 spirits, sugar, paraffin, and all the other important 
 articles of consumption which are, so to speak, the 
 luxuries of the great mass of the people." 
 
 There was some hope that with the help of the 
 Liberals, Bismarck might, by such taxation, pro- 
 vide for the growing needs of the Empire. He 
 had just then a quarrel with the Conservatives, 
 and was not yet reconciled to the Centre. He 
 therefore approached the National Liberals and 
 offered their leader a seat in the Ministry. But the 
 offer fell through, as the National Liberals wanted 
 guarantees against a reactionary policy, which Bis- 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 317 
 
 marck could not give. He never forgave them for 
 this refusal. 
 
 Berlin was about this time the scene of two 
 events which made a deep impression. August 
 Heinsch, the manager of the Berlin Co-operative 
 Printing Press, died. He was not a great orator, 
 but a most excellent organiser, and enjoyed the 
 utmost confidence of the working-classes of Berlin. 
 His funeral was the occasion of a great Social- 
 Democratic demonstration, such as Berlin had not 
 yet witnessed. The demonstration was attended 
 with the most perfect order and discipline, which 
 greatly impressed our enemies. Kladderadatsch * 
 even celebrated the occasion in a poem. 
 
 A few weeks later Berlin saw a second funeral, 
 which was even more impressive. Paul Deutler, 
 the responsible editor of the Berlin Free Press, 
 had died of consumption, but the accompanying 
 circumstances had been such that a storm of in- 
 dignation swept through the party in Berlin and 
 through the whole of Germany. He had been con- 
 demned for lese-majesti and other offences to 
 twenty-one months' imprisonment, but had 
 appealed. He requested to be released on account 
 of the state of his health. After weeks of delay, 
 and only a short time before his death, he was sent 
 
 * The Berlin Punch, but strictly political, and a harder 
 hitter. 
 
318 MY LIFE 
 
 to the prison ward of the Berlin Hospital. He 
 died soon after, and his funeral was a fiery protest 
 against the treatment meted out to him. Again the 
 crowds astonished and frightened the bourgeoisie. 
 Thus the Magdeburger Zeitung (a National Liberal 
 paper) said at the time: — 
 
 " Who will speak of labour batallions after seeing 
 this funeral? There were regiments, brigades, 
 divisions, nay, whole army corps, which paid the 
 last honours to one who had certainly well deserved 
 them by his work for the cause." 
 
 Since then Berlin has seen many a Social-Demo- 
 cratic funeral, attended by yet vaster crowds, who 
 shouted their " Mene, Tekel, Upharsin " into the 
 ears of the bourgeoisie. 
 
 The Reichstag assembled on the 6th of April, 
 1878. I was in prison, and my request that I 
 should be released was not granted. During one 
 of the debates upon Socialists and their doings— 
 and such debates were frequent — Bismarck had had 
 the bad taste to remark, jokingly, that he was quite 
 willing to make over some district in Prussian 
 Poland to me as a trial ground for socialistic 
 experiments. I am sorry I was not in my place to 
 reply to his jest in a fitting manner. 
 
 I used my leisure in prison to write an article 
 for Vorwdrts advocating the creation of a general 
 party library ; this plan was put into execution. 
 
THE CONGRESS OF UNIFICATION 319 
 
 but much later. I completed my book on " Women 
 and Socialism," the first edition of which was 
 issued in the following year. I also wrote a 
 pamphlet on "The Imperial Board of Health," 
 in which I discussed the problem of social 
 hygienics, which the Board had to solve if it was 
 to justify its name. 
 
 I had the opportunity of somewhat improving 
 the lot of my fellow-prisoners. I learned, in 
 private conversation with my warder, that the 
 inspector of the prison had grown rich by selling 
 food and drink to prisoners who had money ; 
 further, that he economised in soap and handker- 
 chiefs, and made other illicit profits. I sat down 
 and wrote a letter of complaint to the president of 
 the court which had the supervision of the prisons. 
 I wrote the letter as if coming from a prisoner 
 who had just been released. Of course, the letter 
 was to be anonymous. When next my wife visited 
 me I managed to slip a note into her hand, ask- 
 ing her to walk along the street on which the 
 window of my cell opened punctually at half-past 
 nine the next day. I would then throw out a 
 letter, which she was to have copied by an un- 
 known hand and to send to the director of the 
 prison. Everything was done as I had planned. 
 A few days later the warder told me excitedly that 
 the director had paid an unexpected visit to the 
 
320 MY LIFE 
 
 prison, and had had a violent scene with the 
 inspector. He had read him extracts from the 
 letter of a former prisoner, and the inspector had 
 at once ordered the warders to set things in order. 
 Of course, I did not reveal my secret. 
 
 V 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE EVE OF THE ANTI-SOCIALIST LAWS 
 
 1. The Attempt on the Life of the Emperor 
 AND ITS Consequences. 
 
 On the 12th of May the news was brought me in 
 my cell — it was news that utterly surprised me — 
 that at three o'cLock in the afternoon of the day 
 before a certain Hodel, of Leipzig, a Social-Demo- 
 crat, had made an attempt upon the life of the 
 old Emperor, but that the Emperor had escaped 
 unharmed. At first the whole affair was a mystery 
 to me. I remembered the name Hodel, alias 
 Lehmann. A year earlier he had become known in 
 party circles — I did not personally know him— 
 and as he had no work, perhaps did not want 
 any — he was by trade a tinsmith — he had busied 
 himself with the sale of our local party organ, the 
 Torch, and other Socialist literature. But he was 
 exposed as a swindler. He embezzled the money 
 he received, and was dismissed by the manage- 
 ment ; this was on the 5th of April. The Leipzig 
 party members had decided upon his expulsion 
 
 21 *^ 
 
322 MY LIFE 
 
 from the party, and this expulsion was actually 
 announced on the 9th of May in Vorwdrts. 
 
 After his dismissal he had applied to the 
 Leipziger Tageblatt and the National Liberal agent, 
 Sparig, and had sold them a string of false and 
 exaggerated accusations against our party which 
 they attempted to use against us. Then they gave 
 him money to take him to Berlin. In Berlin he 
 exploited both sides ; he joined a Social-Demo- 
 cratic society, and at the same time the Christian 
 Social party of Stocker, which at that time opened 
 its doors to a number of Catilinarian individuals, 
 among them a tailor, Griineberg, who had been 
 expelled from the party at Munich and Stuttgart 
 on account of fraud. Griineberg stated that Dr. 
 Nobiling, the man who made the second attempt 
 on the Emperor's life, had also been a member 
 of the Christian Social party. In Berlin, Hodel 
 peddled Social -Democratic as well as Christian 
 Social papers and literature. When arrested photo- 
 graphs of Liebknecht and Most were found upon 
 him, which he used to sell. 
 
 As soon as Bismarck received the news of the 
 attempt made by Hodel he telegraphed to Berlin, 
 " Coercion laws against the Socialists." Such was 
 his longing to give the death-blow to the party he 
 hated. However, the public and the Press took 
 the news rather coolly at first ; and when some 
 
THE EVE OF ANTI -SOCIALIST LAWS 323 
 
 of the papers charged the Social -Democrats with 
 the attempt the semi-official Hamburger Korre- 
 spondent stated that in the last seventy-eight years 
 many attempts had been made on the lives of 
 notable personages, but by men of many different 
 parties. To saddle Social-Democracy with political 
 murder was unjust. 
 
 Hodel, when on his trial, denied the attempt ; 
 he had really intended to commit suicide. When 
 he was arrested he had not a penny in his pocket, 
 and the pistol he used was a quite useless affair, 
 which, as experts witnessed, would not carry more 
 than a few yards. It was found that Hodel was 
 born out of wedlock, and was poorly educated. 
 His head had been filled with Bible and Catechism 
 verses, but he could not write a correct sentence. 
 He had the laugh of an idiot ; he laughed on 
 entering court and on receiving the sentence of 
 death. It was found that he had been a liar and 
 thief from his youth. His whole conduct was that 
 of a degenerate. Yet he was condemned to death, 
 and on account of such a man was German Social - 
 Democracy to be crucified ! 
 
 2. The First " Exceptional " or Coercion Law. 
 Bismarck's desire for a coercion law affecting 
 Socialists was rapidly incorporated in a Bill. It 
 reached the Reichstag on the 20th of May and 
 was to be debated on the 23rd. 
 
324 MY LIFE 
 
 The National Liberals were very uneasy. The 
 Prussian Ministry had, by the elimination of all 
 Liberal members, been transformed into a re- 
 actionary body. The Bill, consisting of six clauses, 
 embodied the following restrictions on Socialism : 
 Literature and associations of Social-Democratic 
 tendencies could be prohibited by the Federal 
 Council,* but the prohibition had to be communi- 
 cated to the Reichstag as soon as it assembled, and 
 had to be cancelled on demand of that body. The 
 police were empowered provisionally to prohibit 
 the sale of literature in the streets, squares, and 
 other public places. The prohibition was to be 
 ' cancelled if within four weeks it was not formally 
 proclaimed by the Bundesrat. The prohibition and 
 dissolution of meetings lay wholly in the hands 
 of the police without appeal. Contraventions of 
 these prohibitions were to be punished with im- 
 prisonment for terms of not over five years' 
 duration. Printed matter could be seized without 
 a judicial decision. The presidents of prohibited 
 associations and the promoters and chairmen of 
 meetings which had been proclaimed and the 
 owners of premises hired for such meetings were 
 to be punished with not less than three months' 
 imprisonment. The law was to be in force for 
 three years. 
 
 * The Federal Council {Bundesrat) represents the Govern- 
 ments of the individual States of Germany ; its members (58) 
 are appointed by these Governments. 
 
THE EVE OF ANTI -SOCIALIST LAWS 325 
 
 Thinking that the party in the Reichstag would 
 vigorously attack the measure, I wrote to them 
 from prison : " The Member who speaks on our 
 side ought to consider that his speech will be dis- 
 tributed in hundreds of thousands of copies, and 
 will probably be used as an election pamphlet when 
 the Reichstag is dissolved, if the Bill should be 
 rejected. It is very important that everything that 
 can be said against Hodler should be carefully 
 considered." 
 
 But the party decided, after long deliberation, 
 not to take part in the debate, but only to make 
 a formal declaration. This was pronounced by 
 Liebknecht, and was to this effect : " The attempt 
 to make use of the deed of a madman, even before 
 the judicial investigation is closed, as a pretext 
 for the execution of a reactionary coup planned 
 long before, and to saddle with the ' moral author- 
 ship ' of a yet unproved murderous attempt upon 
 the German Emperor a party which condemns 
 murder of every kind and regards economic and 
 political development as quite independent of the 
 will of individual persons — this attempt carries with 
 it its own condemnation in the eyes of all unpreju- 
 diced people ; so much so that we, the representa- 
 tives of the Social-Democratic electors of Germany, 
 are urged by necessity to make the following 
 declaration :— 
 
326 MY LIFE 
 
 " We regard it as beneath our dignity to take 
 part in the debates on this exceptional law now 
 before the Reichstag, and shall not allow our resolu- 
 tion to be shaken by any provocations from what- 
 ever side they may come. But we shall take part 
 in the actual voting, because we think it our duty 
 to put our votes in the balance, in order to do 
 all that is possible on our part to prevent an un- 
 precedented attack upon the liberties of the people. 
 
 " Whatever the decision of the Reichstag, the 
 Social-Democracy of Germany, inured to conflict 
 and persecution, views the coming persecution and 
 conflict with the quiet confidence that the conscious- 
 ness of a just and unconquerable cause confers." 
 
 After Liebknecht, Bennigsen, the leader of the 
 National Liberals, spoke. He made a good speech— 
 I think the best he ever made. He referred to 
 the then unstable position of the Ministry. In 
 Prussia a Cabinet crisis seemed to have become 
 a permanent institution. Before giving dictatorial 
 power to any one it was important to consider 
 to whom it would be given. His party would not 
 consent to " exceptional laws " such as the present 
 one ; history shows to what they lead, and that 
 they are never productive of good. But he offered 
 the assistance of his party in the assurance of 
 civic liberty and firm authority, but only on the 
 ground of a common law for all. At the division 
 
THE EVE OF ANTI-SOCIALIST LAWS 327 
 
 the first clause was rejected by 243 votes against 60. 
 Tile Centre voted in its favour, but of the National 
 Liberals only three professors did so : Beseler, 
 von Gneist, and von Treitschke. The Government 
 went no further, but dropped the measure. But 
 the Minister of the Interior urged the police to 
 use their power with the utmost rigour— an injunc- 
 tion they were only too ready to obey. 
 
 3. Nobiling's Attempt on the Life of the 
 Emperor and its Results. Elections of 
 1878. 
 
 By the end of May I was released from prison. 
 On the 2nd of June, a Sunday, I returned home 
 from a walk with my family at about seven in 
 the evening, when a sister of Freytag's the 
 barrister hurried into the room and asked excitedly 
 if we had heard the news. We lived in the suburbs, 
 to which news filtered but slowly. Confessing our 
 ignorance, Miss Freytag continued : " Do you know 
 Dr. Nobiling? He has this afternoon shot the 
 Emperor and dangerously wounded him." I was 
 speechless, as though struck by lightning, but 
 finally answered that I had never heard his name, 
 and thought it out of the question that he was a 
 member of our party. Miss Freytag went away 
 quite comforted. 
 
 Next morning I went to the offices of Vorwdrts. 
 
328 MY LIFE 
 
 I found a public telegram which contained nothing 
 to the effect that Nobiling belonged to the party. 
 We all breathed more freely, and were thankful that 
 the party could not be held responsible. None 
 of us kneWi him' ; no one had heafd his name before. 
 I left the office, but returned a few minutes later. 
 A second telegram had been published stating that 
 Nobiling had confessed that he was a Social- 
 Democrat and that he had accomplices. We 
 were all speechless. 
 
 It was discovered later on that these statements 
 on the part of the Wolff Telegraph Bureau — the 
 German semi-official news agency — and other 
 messages relating to the same affair were grave 
 perversions of the truth. But they did their work 
 only too well. Public opinion, already excited by 
 the news of the 1st of June relating to the sinking 
 of the Grosser Kurfiirst, one of the largest vessels 
 of the German Navy of those days, which had sunk 
 in broad daylight, after collision, with her crew 
 of five hundred, in sight of the English coast, rose 
 to white heat in consequence of this murderous 
 attempt. 
 
 Bismarck rejoiced ; he had the means of dis- 
 solving the Reichstag in his pocket, and hoped, 
 after the elections, to have a majority at his dis- 
 posal for the passing of his exceptional measures 
 and for his policy of Protection. 
 
t 
 
 THE EVE OF ANTI-SOCIALIST LAWS 329 
 
 Nobiling had shot at the Emperor from a window 
 overlooking the street known as " Unter den 
 Linden." Afterwards he had attempted suicide, but 
 failed ; he was cut down by an officer who forced 
 the door of his room. He was unconscious for 
 a time and quite unfit to be questioned. But it 
 was established that he had" studied agricultural 
 science at Leipzig, and had shown himself, in the 
 debates in the class of Dr. Birnbaum, one of our 
 most redoubtable opponents. It was the same in 
 Dresden, where he attended the class of Professor 
 Bohmert, who was also our avowed enemy. In 
 Dresden he attacked us in public meetings, and 
 thus became known to members of our party, such 
 as Vollmar. Our members said of him, in answer 
 to questions put in court, that they regarded him 
 as an utterly insignificant blockhead. With the 
 party he had even less to do than Hodel. Some 
 people thought he had been incited to his attempt 
 by the way in which the Press dealt with the 
 personality of Hodel. The opinion that Nobiling, 
 too, was a degenerate was widely held ; even the 
 judge had remarked to an editor : " The picture 
 the papers drew of Nobiling is quite untrue ; he 
 is anything but intelligent ; he is even more stupid 
 than Hodel." When Nobiling died in prison, on 
 the 10th of September, not the smallest proof had 
 been adduced that he had ever had the least con- 
 
330 MY LIFE 
 
 nection with our party, or that it had either directly 
 or indirectly influenced his action. 
 
 Yet for those who wish'ed to excite the public 
 against us, and who were determined at all costs 
 to exploit these two attempts in the interest of 
 the coercion laws, all these established facts were 
 non-existent. Bismarck used his powerful influ- 
 ence with the Press in order to lash the public 
 into a fanatical hatred of the Social-Democratic 
 party. Others who had an interest in the defeat 
 of the party joined in, especially a majority of 
 the employers. Henceforth our opponents spoke 
 of us exclusively as the party of assassins, or the 
 " Ruin all " party— a party that wished to rob the 
 masses of their faith in God, the Monarchy, 
 the family, marriage, and property. To fight the 
 party and if possible destroy it seemed to. them 
 the height of glory. Thousands and thousands of 
 workers who were known to be Social -Democrats 
 were summarily dismissed. The newspapers pub- 
 lished in their advertisement columns declarations 
 signed by working-men who engaged themselves 
 for the future not to join any socialistic organisa- 
 tion, not to buy or read Social -Democratic papers, 
 not to pay contributions for Social-Democratic 
 purposes. This terrorism on the part of the 
 employers became so violent that our papers asked 
 members to sign anything they were asked to sign, 
 
THE EVE OF ANTI-SOCIALIST LAWS 331 
 
 but afterwards to do as they liked, because, in 
 face of such terrorism, they were not bound to 
 keep such pledges. This terrorism even went 
 farther ; patriotic house-owners gave notice to their 
 Social-Democratic tenants, and restaurant-keepers 
 who for years had been only too glad to have Social- 
 Democrats for their customers asked them to keep 
 off their premises. The editors of our paper in 
 Leipzig, having sent the paper to press, used to 
 resort to a certain restaurant for a glass of beer. 
 Now the owner informed them that he did not 
 want them under his roof. The same thing 
 happened in Berlin and elsewhere. 
 
 But these explosions of fanatical boorishness and 
 political insanity were not enough to satisfy the 
 patriots in their frenzy of persecution. A deluge 
 of denunciations of lise-majesti, genuine and fic- 
 titious, fell on our devoted heads. In many 
 cases it (was proved that the informers were inspired 
 by the spiteful desire of avenging private wrongs. 
 The judges also gave way to this paroxysm of 
 persecution. They almost always passed the 
 maximum sentences prescribed by the law, up to 
 five years' imprisonment. 
 
 Early in July the Radical Vossische Zeitung^ 
 which had printed a list of the sentences passed 
 outside Berlin, stated that they amounted altogether 
 to five hundred or six hundred years of prison. 
 
332 MY LIFE 
 
 Altogether, in two months, 521 persons were con- 
 demned to 812 years of prison. A small propor- 
 tion of these were genuine members of the Social- 
 Democratic party. The police, as always in such 
 cases, behaved as if they had lost their wits, making 
 searches and arrests on the vaguest suspicions. The 
 majority of those arrested had almost immediately 
 to be released. 
 
 The Town Council of Gotha prohibited the 
 Socialist Congress which was to have met there 
 in June. We were repeatedly told that those in 
 authority had remarked : " The Socialists ought 
 to have their hands tied and be squeezed against 
 the wall until they rebel and can be shot down." 
 The Berlin Free Press therefore wrote : " Be care- 
 ful, comrades ; beware ; they want to shoot you 
 down ! " Yet the number of subscribers to almost 
 all the Socialist papers increased— those of the 
 Berlin Free Press, for example, from ten thousand 
 to fourteen thousand in six months. 
 
 To me personally and as a business man this 
 universal hatred had very disagreeable results. 
 Shortly after my release I had urgent occasion to 
 travel for my firm in the north-west of Germany 
 and the Lower Rhine districts. It was fortunate 
 that I had never been there before and was not 
 personally known. I went to the hotels under a 
 fictitious name, as if I had used my own no hotel- 
 
THE EVE OF ANTI -SOCIALIST LAWS 333 
 
 keeper would have taken me in. Day by day I 
 had to listen to the most virulent abuse of our 
 party and myself. I fared as might be expected 
 at the hands of the firms when I offered my wares. 
 A merchant of Halle, pleased with my samples, gave 
 me a considerable order, but when I gave him 
 our business card he cancelled it. Others simply 
 declined to deal with us. When I returned home 
 after six weeks of travelling I had not earned 
 enough to cover my expenses, although I kept them 
 as low as possible and carried my sample trunk, 
 which weighed about twenty pounds, in order to 
 save the expense of a porter. 
 
 As soon as I was home I was immersed in the 
 election campaign. Bismarck, who was used to strike 
 the iron while it was hot, had prevailed upon the 
 Federal Council to dissolve the Reichstag, although 
 after the second attempt upon the Emperor even 
 the Reichstag as it was would have voted a 
 coercion law by a large majority. But Bismarck 
 had other aims ; he wanted to break the power 
 of the National Liberal party and to push his 
 policy of Protection. In an election address in- 
 spired by him he almost proudly broke away from 
 the economic system which had so far prevailed. 
 The address stated that the predominance in the 
 Reichstag of lawyers, officials, and professors— that 
 is, of persons not directly productive— had given 
 
334 MY LIFE 
 
 its debates a theoretical flavour. Party hatred, the 
 lust for power of the various factions,, and the 
 ambition of the leaders had made the Reichstag 
 the stage for oratorical performances. The 
 majority of the deputies followed no really pro- 
 ductive occupation, neither trade nor industry nor 
 agriculture nor commerce. The representation of 
 the vast national interests was entrusted entirely to 
 the hands of men who were not producers, but 
 lived by salaries, property, stipends, or investments. 
 
 The election campaign was more violent than 
 ever before. All the bourgeois parties joined forces 
 against us. " No Social -Democrat in the Reich- 
 stag," was the watchword, even in the Radical 
 Press. 
 
 I stood for Dresden and Leipzig. In Dresden 
 there was a three-cornered contest between a 
 Liberal, a Conservative, and myself. In the first 
 ballot I received 9,855 votes, the Conservative 
 7,266, and the Liberal 5,410. In the second ballot 
 between myself and the Conservative— which had 
 been cunningly fixed on the day of the seventieth 
 birthday of my opponent— I was returned at the 
 head of the poll with 11,616 votes against 1,072. 
 In Leipzig I received 5,822 votes, 600 more than 
 at the preceding election. Altogether our party 
 elected nine candidates, but only two at the first 
 ballot. 
 
THE EVE OF ANTI -SOCIALIST LAWS 335 
 
 Thus the Social -Democratic party had not been 
 extirpated from the Reichstag. Even in respect of 
 the number of votes received we fared better than 
 could have been expected after the formidable agita- 
 tion against us and the terrorism exerted in some 
 constituencies by our opponents. We secured at 
 the first ballot 437,158 votes, which, compared with 
 the 493,447 votes of 1877, showed a loss of only.: 
 56,387 votes and three seats. i\! 
 
 The result of the election was favourable to j 
 Bismarck's policy of Protection. The National 
 Liberals were reduced from 137 Members to 106, l 
 the Radicals from 39 to 26. Their loss was the 
 gain of the Conservatives, and to some extent of 
 the Centre. 
 
 Bismarck had now two majorities at his disposal 
 —a National Liberal -Conservative majority for his 
 Coercion Bill and a Conservative-Centre majority, 
 supported also by the right wing of the National 
 Liberals, for his Protectionist policy. The new 
 era of the denial of political rights to the class - 
 conscious workers and the burdening of the masses 
 by means of Customs duties could now commence. 
 The new Reichstag was to meet on the 9th of 
 September in order to pass the anti -Socialist laws. 
 
 The play was ready to begin. It was intended 
 to be a tragedy, in the course of which the Social - 
 Democratic party was to be sacrificed upon the 
 
336 MY LIFE 
 
 altar of the monarchical and capitalistic interests. 
 But, as before, it did not " come off " ; we turned 
 the tragedy into a comedy, and the Hercules who 
 came forth to strike us down with his bludgeon was 
 himself laid low after an inglorious ten years' war 
 against the hated enemy, and cumbered the field 
 of battle with his corpse. 
 
 Whereas in the old days of the Empire the battle 
 cry of the advancing armies was " To me, Guelph ! 
 To me, Ghibelline ! " it was now " To me, Bis- 
 marck ! To me. Social -Democrats 1 " 
 
INDEX 
 
 A 
 
 Ahnert, examining judges in treason 
 
 trial, 225 
 Albrecht, Prince, of Prussia, 154 
 Allgemeine Zeittmg (Augsburg) 
 
 on Bebel, 242-3 
 Alsace-Lorraine, annexation of, 
 
 217 
 Amadeo, Prince, of Italy, 269 
 Ambrose of Milan, on property, 40 
 Arheiterbildmngsverein (Societies 
 
 for the Promotion of Knowledge 
 
 among the Working Classes) ,56-7 
 Arheiterschaften (Schweitzer's 
 
 societies), 120 
 Arheiterverevn (Working - men's 
 
 societies), 58-9 
 Augsburg, Schweitzerian Congress 
 
 at, 173 
 Austria, Bebel crosses frontier as 
 
 journeyman, 38 ; war with 
 
 France and Italy, 81, 83 ; war 
 
 with Demnark, 85 ; war with 
 
 Prussia, 88 ; Venice ceded by, 
 
 88 ; Germans in, 91 
 
 B 
 
 Bakumin, anarchist leader, 270 
 BaUestrem, Count, 252 
 
 Barmen-Elberfeld, Congress of 
 German Labour Union at, 156 
 
 Basle, International Labour Con- 
 gress at, 172 
 
 Bebel, August, birth, 15; child- 
 hood and parentage, 16-22 ; 
 school, 23-6 ; early work, 29-80 ; 
 apprenticed to a turner, 33 ; 
 reading, 34; starts as journey- 
 man, 35-9; volunteers unsuccess- 
 fully, 40; takes the road again, 
 41 ; a determinist, 42 ; settles in 
 Leipzig, 42 ; chairman of Labour 
 Congress, 62; serves on com- 
 mittee, 70 ; attitude in Danish 
 war, 86 ; political activities, 
 94-7 ; elected to North German 
 Diet, 97; president of Association 
 of German Workers, 100; mar- 
 riage and private life, 104-7 ; 
 first imprisonment, 128 ; charged 
 with libelling Napoleon, 128 ; 
 attitude towards Franco-German 
 War, 175 ; arrested, 180 ; attends 
 North German Reichstag, 180 ; 
 first speech in, 191-2; accuses 
 Bismarck of provoking the war, 
 206 ; refuses to vote on war loan, 
 209 ; curious adventure at Mitt- 
 weida, 216 ; speaks against con- 
 tinuance of war, 219 ; arrested 
 
 22 
 
 337 
 
338 
 
 INDEX 
 
 on charge of treason, 224 ; pre- 
 liminary investigation, 225 ; in 
 prison, 226-8 ; elected to German 
 Reichstag, 229 ; takes his seat, 
 232 ; attitude towards the war, 
 235 ; against coercion of Alsace- 
 Lorraine, 235 ; defends the Paris 
 Commune, 235 ; collision with 
 the Speaker, 240 ; trial for high 
 treason, 244-7 ; iUness, 248 ; in 
 the Reichstag of 1872, 249 ; trial 
 for lese -majeste, 252-3 ; sen- 
 tenced and mandate annulled, 
 253 ; re-elected, 253 ; in the 
 fortress, 254^64 ; work and 
 study, 258-9 ; writes a 'political 
 guide, 262-3 ; moved to Konig- 
 stein, 263 ; writes a history of 
 the Peasants' War, 265 ; released, 
 265 ; debate with Sparig, 291 ; 
 defends the Commune, 292-4 ; 
 accusations against, 299 ; elected 
 in 1876, 308 ; action for libelling 
 Bismarck, 310; in prison, 313- 
 20 ; elected in 1878, 335 
 
 Bebel, August (uncle and step- 
 father), 19 ; death of, 21 
 
 Bebel, Frau (mother of August), 
 17-22, 25 ; death of, 29-30 
 
 Bebel, Frau (wife of August), 
 104-7, 247, 319 
 
 Bebel, Johann (father of August), 
 18 ; death of, 19 
 
 Becker, J. E., 110; character of, 
 164-5, 193-4 
 
 Bennigsen, von, 187 
 
 Berlm Free Press, 295, 332 
 
 Beust, von, 63-4 
 
 Bismarck, 48 ; relations with Las- 
 salle, 49, 71 1 73; Danish policy 
 of, 85-6; usss the Lassalleans, 
 134-5, 137, 143, 148; appear- 
 
 ance of, 189 ; responsible for the 
 Franco-German war, 197 ; in his 
 true colours, 215, 220, 244; 
 attacks the Jesuits, 249; his 
 attempted Press Coercion Bill, 
 270 ; persecutes the Socialists, 
 279 ; his coercion laws, 285-9 ; 
 his libel actions, 295-6 ; coercion, 
 303-4 ; on direct taxation, 316 ; 
 attacks the Social-Democratic 
 party, 835 ; his downfall, 836 
 
 Bourgeois, the, 70 
 
 Brass, August, 78 
 
 Braun, Dr. Karl, 187 
 
 BrauweUer, childhood at, 20-2 
 
 Brunswick, the party Executive 
 arrested in, 212 
 
 Busch, Moritz, 220 
 
 C 
 
 Catholic Artisans' Unions (Gesel- 
 lenverein), 36-7 
 
 Centre, the, its reform pro- 
 gramme, 304 
 
 Chemnitz, meeting at, 94-6 ; women 
 found a union at, 239 
 
 Coercion laws, 270, 288-9, 303-4, 
 385-6 
 
 Commune, the Paris, 235, 239, 268, 
 290-1 ; Bebel's defence of, 292-4 
 
 Communism, early, 45 
 
 Congress of Unification, the, 283-7 
 
 Congresses, see Social-Democratic 
 party. Labour Unions, the " In- 
 ternational," &c. 
 
 Constitution of the Empire, the, 233 
 
 Co-operation, 62, 64 
 
 Council of the Vatican, 283 
 
 Customs Diet, 101, 108, 197 ; last 
 session of, 201 
 
INDEX 
 
 339 
 
 D 
 
 Democracy, see Social-Democratic 
 party 
 
 " Democracy, demands of," 94-6 
 
 Democratic party, meets at Chem- 
 nitz, 94 
 
 Democratic Weekly, the, 99, 101, 
 110, 172 
 
 Denmark, war with (Schleswig- 
 Holstein war), 83-5 
 
 Deutler, P., dies in prison, 317 
 
 Disarmament, 200 
 
 DoUinger, Dr., 252 
 
 Dresden, meeting at, 72 ; party 
 Congress at, 170 ; Second Con- 
 gress at, 238 
 
 Diihring, Professor, 807-8 
 
 Dimcker, Max, 187 
 
 E 
 
 Eokhardt, Professor, 68 
 Eichler, Bismarck's spy, 48 
 Eisenach, Labour Congress at (first 
 Social - Democratic Congress), 
 122, 162-71 ; Austrian delegates 
 to, imprisoned, 178 ; 5th Congress 
 at, 274 
 Elections, of 1867, 97-8; of 1870, 
 229 ; Bebel re-elected when man- 
 date annulled, 253 ; of 1874, 274 ; 
 of 1878, 334-5 
 Electoral laws, 65 ; of Prussia, 
 
 147, 199-200 
 Empire, the, proclaimed, 218, 222 
 Engels, 45, 205, 281 ; attacks 
 Diihring, 307, 809 
 
 Falkenstein, General von, arrests 
 party Executive at Brunswick, 
 
 214-15; condemned to indemnify 
 them, 298 
 
 Faucher, his solution of the social 
 problem, 71 
 
 Porckenbeck, 276 
 
 Prance, Government of National 
 Defence of, 217 
 
 Franco-German War, 177, 204-31 
 
 Frankfort, Congress of Working- 
 men's Societies at, 59 ; resolu- 
 tion of, 59-60 
 
 Frcmkfv/rter Zeitung, 299 
 
 Frederick VII. of Denmark dies, 83 
 
 Free Trade, 300 
 
 Freiburg, Bebel at, 37 
 
 Fre^heit,''i3^ 
 
 French Eepublic, 212 
 
 Freycinet, 217 
 
 Freytag, Otto and Bernard, 187, 
 246, 298 
 
 G 
 
 Gambetta, 217 
 
 Ga/rtenlaube, 192 
 
 General German Labour Unions 
 (the Lassallean societies), 55-6, 
 72; meet the Workers' Improve- 
 ment Societies at Chemnitz, 94, 
 111, 133 ; meeting at Cassell, 
 130; Schweitzer president of, 
 151 ; dissolved, 153 ; remodelled, 
 153, 157; attack the Social- 
 Democratic party, 243, 271 
 
 " Germany's liberation," 71 
 
 Gotha, Congress of Unification at, 
 283-7 ; 6th party Congress at, 
 298 ; 2nd Congress of Socialists, 
 306 
 
 Granville, Lord, refuses to join 
 attack on the " International,"269 
 
 Greulich, 68 
 
 Qrosser Kv/rfwrat, loss of. 328 
 
340 
 
 INDEX 
 
 H 
 
 Hague Congress, the, 270 ; attend- 
 ance at, prohibited, 272 
 
 Hatzfeldt, Countess, 142-4, 158 
 
 Heinsch, A., death of, 317 
 
 Hepner, arrested with Bebel and 
 Liebneoht, 225 
 
 Herbig arrested in 1870, 215 
 
 Hirsoh, Moritz, 65, 69, 119; im- 
 prisoned, 244, 255 
 
 Hoohberg, Karl, 309 
 
 Hohenlohe, Prince, 71 
 
 Hohenstein, meeting of Saxon 
 workers at, 129 
 
 HohenzoUern candidate for the 
 Spanish throne, 206 
 
 " Honest men," the, 177 
 
 Hoverbeck, 195-200 
 
 Hubertusberg, imprisoned at, 254- 
 67 
 
 Infallibility, dogma of, 233, 251 
 
 Insurance, 62, 65 
 
 " International," the, 111, 114 ; in 
 Spain, 127-8 ; General manifesto, 
 213-4 ; attempted movement 
 against, 268 ; removes to New 
 York, 271; Congress at Ghent, 
 308 
 
 International Labour Congress at 
 Basle, 118 
 
 Isabella, Queen of Spain, 127 
 
 Issleib, Bebel's partner, 75 
 
 Italy, war with Austria, 39-40 
 
 Jacoby, arrested in 1870, 215, 219, 
 220, 241 
 
 Jena, 4th Congress of Workers 
 
 Societies, 100 
 Jesuits, BUI for expulsion of, 249 
 
 K 
 
 Kirchmann, von, 195 
 Kladderadaisch, 317 
 Konigstein, Bebel imprisoned at, 
 
 262 
 Kreuzzeitimg, 54 
 " Kulturkampf," the, 233 
 EuUv/rverein, the, 45 
 
 Labour, see General German 
 Labour Union, Workers' Im- 
 provement Societies, Social- 
 Democratic party 
 
 Labour Congress, Germany, 51 
 
 Labour Gazette, 88 
 
 Labour Gazette of Coblentz inter- 
 dicted, 73 
 
 Labour party, the great split in, 
 54 ; union of, suggested, 72 
 
 Ladendorf, Dr., Ill, 117-18, 165, 
 170 
 
 Lange, Dr., 65-6 
 
 Lassalle, 48 ; Bismarck on, 49 ; 
 death of, 50-51; his famous mani- 
 festo, 53 ; at Leipzig, 56, 60 ; 
 death of, 63-4 ; letter to Marx, 
 91 ; to Bngels, 91 ; posthumous 
 influence, 273, 280 
 
 Lassalleans, the, 56; harmful in- 
 fluence of LassaUean cult, 273, 
 280 ; see General German Labour 
 Unions 
 
 League, the Labour, 109, 116 
 
 Leipzig, Bebel finds- work in, 43 ; a 
 liberal centre, 65 ; Lassalle at. 
 
INDEX 
 
 341 
 
 55; meeting of Working- Men's 
 Societies at, 62-6 ; women of, 66 ; 
 strikes in, 67 ; last meeting 
 during war, 223 
 
 Leipzig, police of, 273-4 
 
 Leipziger Tagehlatt, 322 
 
 Leonhardi, General, governor of 
 Konigstein, 263 
 
 Liberal party, development of, 44 ; 
 in Leipzig, 45, 47-8; attacks 
 LassaUe, 55; attacks Bebel, 
 109 
 
 Liebknecht, 48 ; expelled from 
 Prussia, 73; his work, 74^5; 
 character, 78, 89 ; buys a paper, 
 92-3 ; defeated at elections, 97 ; 
 elected, 98 ; works for trades 
 unions, 119, 172, 174; arrested, 
 180 ; opposes North German 
 Confederation, 201 ; position of, 
 202-3; opposes the war, 200, 
 209, 216; arrested on charge of 
 treason, 225; trial for high 
 treason, 244-7 ; imprisonment, 
 253, 280-1 
 
 M 
 
 Magdeburger Zeitung, 318 
 
 Marx, Karl, 45, 48, 71, 78-9, 205, 
 
 214, 270, 309 
 Mayence, 4th party Congress at 
 
 272 
 Miquel, 71, 193-4, 220, 234 
 Militia, 277 
 Moltke, 195, 277 
 Most, Johann, accuses Liebknecht, 
 
 176, 236; sad end of, 237, 
 
 297 
 Miicke, von, 245-6 
 Mailer, Moritz, 69, 110 
 Munich, 38 
 
 N 
 
 Napoleon III., 85 ; Bebel charged 
 
 with libel on, 129 ; did not desire 
 
 war, 205-7 
 Nationalverem, the, 44, 47, 61 ; 
 
 attitude of, in Danish War, 84 
 Neue Sozialdemokrat, 182 
 Nobiling, Dr., his attempt on the 
 
 Emperor's life, 327-31 
 Nordeutsche AUgemeine Zeitung, 
 
 298 
 North German Confederation, 93 ; 
 
 Constitution of, 147 ; South 
 
 Germany objects to, 198 
 North German Diet, see Eeichstag 
 Nuremberg, Labour Congress at, 
 
 108-15 
 
 O 
 
 Oberwinder, accused of high 
 treason, 176 
 
 Paris, declares against war, 208 ; 
 
 see Commune 
 Party Committee, arrested, 212 ; 
 
 released, 231 ; iademnified, 298 
 Peasant revolt, 28-9 
 Peasants' War, Bebel's history of, 
 
 265 
 Plotzensee, Bebel at, 313-5 
 " Plotzensee, The Bastille of," 297 
 Polyteohnical Society, 45 
 Press, the Liberal, 54 
 Press, coercion of, attempted, 270 
 Prison, life , in, 226-31, 254-64, 
 
 313-20 
 Programme, Social-Democratic, 
 
 60-1 
 Proletouricm, the, 173 
 
342 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Protection, 300, b35 
 
 Prussia, ambitions of, 70 ; war with 
 
 Austria, 83 ; with Denmark, 
 
 85 ; with Austria, 88 
 Prussia, King of, see William I. 
 
 B 
 
 Bailways, suggestedinationalisation 
 of, 301 
 
 Bed Flag, the, 307 
 
 Keichstag, the German, 232 ; pay- 
 ment of Members, 334 ; Session 
 of 1872, 249 ; of 1874, 245, 288 ; 
 of 1878, 318 
 
 Eeichstag, the North German 
 (186-202) ; Session of 1867, 193 
 of 1869, 198, 200, 218 
 
 " Beptile fund," 152 
 
 Bepublio, declared in France, 212 
 
 Eevolution of 1848, 28 
 
 Eothsehild, N. Mayer, 188, 197, 
 223 
 
 Salzburg, 39-40 
 
 Saxon workers, meet at Hohen- 
 
 stein, 129 
 Saxony, King of, dies, 261 
 Saxony, Working-Men's Societies 
 
 in, 62-3 
 Sedan, 206, 212 
 Self-helpers, the, 69 
 Schaffle, Professor, 266-7, 315 
 Schleswig-Holstein, 83 
 Sehulze-Delitzsch, 10, 26, 71, 82, 
 
 188 
 Schwarze, von, 244 
 Schweitzer, J. B. von, 59, 74, 120 ; 
 
 his societies, 120, 130 (131-185) ; 
 
 character, 181-2 ; a creature 
 
 of Bismarck's, 134-5 ; his family, 
 
 135; early life, 136; edits 
 
 SozialdemoJerat, 138; duplicity 
 of, 139 ; imprisoned, 145 ; 
 preaches overthrow of Austria, 
 145; letter on suffrage, 14B ; 
 elected to the North German 
 Eeichstag, 149 ; his ostentation, 
 150; President of the General 
 Labour Union, 151 ; corruption 
 of, 151-3 ; prophesies end of 
 Union, 158 ; imprisoned, 154 ; 
 re-elected President, 154 ; an 
 interview with Prince Albrecht, 
 155 ; revolt against Schweitzer, 
 135 ; publishes a Proclamation, 
 157 ; opposes formation of Social- 
 Democratic party, 160; in prison, 
 161 ; his treachery, 177 ; retires, 
 181 ; in Bismarck's service, 183 ; 
 death of, 185 
 
 Simson, Speaker, 241 
 
 Social-Democratic party, startiilg- 
 point of, 53 ; difficulties of mem- 
 bers, 102 ; Congress warned, 
 159-60; Congress at Eisenach, 
 160-71 ; programme of the 
 party, 167-70; scope of, 174-5; 
 protests against the war, 207 ; 
 the party Committee arrested, 
 212 ; 215 ; Provisional Committee 
 at Dresden, 216; 2nd Congress 
 at Dresden, 216 ; growth of party, 
 243 ; two factions of, 271 ; 
 Congress of Unification, 284; 
 legislation against, 258-9 ; Con- 
 gress at Gotha, 298 ; attitude of 
 party, 301 ; Congress at Gotha, 
 806 
 
 Socialism, early, 45; Liebknecht 
 on, 202 
 
 Socialist-Labour party, attacked by 
 Tessendorf, 296 
 
 Sonnemann, 114-15, 266, 299 
 
INDEX 
 
 343 
 
 Spain, affairs in, 127 
 Spanish people, address to, 128 
 Spindler, 242 
 Spires, Bebel at, 35-6 
 State Socialist, the, 315 
 Strike, a, 43 
 Stumm, von, 198 
 Stuttgart, Congress at, 68-71 
 Suffrage, universal, meditated by 
 Bismarck, 50 
 
 T 
 
 Tessendorf, Public Prosecutor, 
 persecutes Social Democracy, 
 278-9, 296, 302-3 
 
 Torch, the, 321 
 
 Trades unions, 114-26 
 
 Tyrol, tramping through the, 39 
 
 U 
 
 Union, the, 125 
 
 Valentin, 276 
 
 Vienna, embarrassing letter from, 
 220-1 
 
 Virchow, Professor, 238 
 
 Volhsstaat, the, 110, 117, 177; 
 editors arrested, 180 ; Bebel 
 accuses Bismarck of causing the 
 war in, 206 ; 207, 210 ; prints the 
 Manifesto of the " International," 
 213 ; 227, 238, 248, 272-4, 288 
 
 VoUmar, G. von, 297-8 
 
 Vorwdrts (journal), 117, 318 
 
 Vorwwrts (society), 47 
 
 Vossische Zeitv/ng, 331 
 
 Voter, The, 297 
 
 Wagener, Councillor von, 49, '^1, 
 198, 220-1 
 
 War, results of, 89 ; Lassalle uj^n, 
 91-2 
 
 Wasps, 236 
 
 Weiss, Dr., 242 
 
 Wetzlar, chUdhood in, 22-3; /back 
 to, 41 ; 
 
 William I., King of Prussi^, Ger- 
 man Emperor, attempts ;6n life, 
 221, 327 
 
 Windthorst, 233 
 
 Wintermann, Sergeant, godfather 
 to Bebel, 17 
 
 Women, at Bebel' s meetings, 
 194 
 
 Women, German, Association of, 
 66 ; Congress of, 66 
 
 Women's Educational Society of 
 Leipzig, 66 
 
 Working - Men's Improvement 
 Societies, 45-6, 56-7 ; Congress 
 at Leipzig ; spUt in the Associa- 
 tion, 54-6, 58 ; Congress at 
 Frankfort, 59-63 ; Congress at 
 Leipzig, 64r-6 ; Congress at 
 Stuttgart, 68-72; meeting at 
 Mannheim, 87 ; they meet the 
 General Labour Union at Chem- 
 nitz, 164 ; the Association dis- 
 solved, 171 
 
 Wundt, Professor, 68 
 
 Zuhwnft, 241, 309 
 Zwickau, in prison at, 264-7 
 
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