has cet ee Se = es a ’ . oe a : c ee be - «4 es a : pee. -~ Wee i an t Se ae LSet! BS a eee ee ue DL eee. Se ae Er ar a ee a ‘e : RA eae vase Ne a ; ‘ceo NOTICE: Return or renew all Library Materials! The Minimum Fee for each Lost Book is $50.00. The person chi ging this material is responsible for its return io ive iibrary from which it was withdrawn on or before the Lates: Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underiining «* Sooks are reasons for discipli- nary action and may result ir: dismissal from the University. To renew call Telephone Cente:, 433-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN L161—O-1096 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2021 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign httos://archive.org/details/germanrevolutionOOamer = INTERNATIONAL CONCILIATION Published monthly by the American Association for International Conciliation. Entered as second class matter at New York, N. Y., Post office, February 23, 1909, under act of July 16, 1894. THE GERMAN REVOLUTION I. The Documentary History of the German Revolution II. Manifesto of the Spartacus Group III. What Should be Changed in Germany, by Charles | Andler. Translated by Grace Fallow Norton APRIL, 1919 No. 137 | AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR INTERNATIONAL CONCILIATION { SUB-STATION 84 (407 WEST 117TH STREET) . . NEW YORK CITY —— ee as —_ eee —— rs li It is the aim of the Association for International Con- ciliation to awaken interest and to seek codperation in the movement to promote international good will. This movement depends for its ultimate success upon in- creased international understanding, appreciation, and sympathy. To this end, documents are printed and widely circulated, giving information as to the progress of the movement and as to matters connected therewith, in order that individual citizens, the newspaper press, and organizations of various kinds may have accurate information on these subjects readily available. The Association endeavors to avoid, as far as pos- sible, contentious questions, and in particular questions relating to the domestic policy of any given nation. Attention is to be fixed rather upon those underlying principles of international law, international conduct, and international organization, which must be agreed upon and enforced by all nations if peaceful civiliza- tion is to continue and to be advanced. A list of pub- lications will be found on pages 93, 94, and 95. Subscription rate: twenty-five cents for one year, or one dollar for five years. a a — enemas . T aes ae TABLE OF CONTENTS I. THe DocuMENTARY HISTORY OF THE GERMAN . BRE CLASS LON Me AA wes ete he thsi) a! bs ggaceti tala s 5 II. MANIFESTO OF THE SPARTACUS GROUP... . 20 IiI.. WHat SHouLD BE CHANGED IN GERMANY BV OHARLES ANDI E Brwrids ie ek alvin hase 26 937 I THE DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE GERMAN REVOLUTION Reprinted from The Living Age, March 1, 1919 Many points about the making of the German revolution are left obscure by the accounts hitherto published in this country. It is, however, possible to reconstruct its history from the official and other docu- ments which have been published from time to time in the German press. This we propose to do, and as the documents are themselves of great historical inter- est and importance, we shall quote them in full. The first act or prelude in the revolution was the naval mutiny at Kiel on November 5. It spread to Bavaria on November 7, and broke out in the capital of the Empire on November 9. It is probable that Saturday, November 9, was deliberately chosen be- forehand to recall the Russian revolution of the pre- vious year. It is still uncertain to what extent the revolution was prepared and concerted; it was, how- ever, certainly not wholly spontaneous. The only statement which we have is one by the Majority party to the effect that their leaders were for several weeks in close consultation with the factory workers— a significant fact when it is remembered that the revo- lution was actually accomplished through a general strike of factory workers. The truth seems to be that the Majority party (and probably many of the leading Minority or independent Socialists) were, even as late [5] 538 as November 6, opposed to any revolutionary action, but as the military situation became more desperate, they attempted to compromise by insisting upon such drastic steps as the abdication of the Kaiser. On No- vember 4 and 6, the Majority paper Vorwdrts was urgently appealing to the workers and warning them against agitators, flysheets, Bolshevism, and “Russian conditions,” or, in one word, revolution. Then, sud- denly, the Socialist papers began to demand the Kaiser’s abdication. Even on the morning of Friday, November 8, the Socialist ministers, Ebert and Scheidemann, seem to have thought it possible that the revolution might be staved off by the Kaiser’s resignation, and they issued the following ultimatum to Prince Max’s government: Announcement of an Ultimatum to the Bourgeots Gov- ernment Issued by the Socialist Majority Party, Ex- biring at Midnight on Friday, November &, Demand- ing the Kaiser’s Abdication. Peace is assured—in a few hours the armistice will have begun. Only let there now be no thoughtless acts, such as would cause the bloodshed which has ended at the front to reappear again at home. The Social Democratic Party is’ exerting all its power to get your demands fulfilled as quickly as may be! Therefore, the Executive of the Social Democratic party and the Social Democratic Parliamentary party have put the following final demands to the Imperial Chancellor: 1. Permission to hold the meetings forbidden today. 2. Instructions for extreme caution to police and military. 3. Abdication of the Kaiser and Crown Prince by Friday mid-day. 4. Strengthening of the Social Democratic element in the government. [6] 539 5. Conversion of the Prussian Ministry to conform to the programme of the Majority parties of the Reichstag. If no satisfactory answer is given by Friday mid-day, then the Social Democrats will resign from the government. Expect further news from us in the course of Friday after- noon. THE EXECUTIVES OF THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND OF THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARLIAMENTARY PARTY. This ultimatum was to expire on Friday mid-day; as a matter of fact, the time was extended until Friday midnight. But in the interval events moved with great rapidity; and when, in the “early hour” of Sat- urday morning, the Kaiser at last consented ‘to retire into Holland, it was no longer merely a question of the resignation of Socialist Ministers, but of revolution. On Saturday morning many workers struck work spon- taneously, and at I p.m. the following flysheet, calling a general strike, was issued from the offices of Vorwérts: Notice, Calling the General Strike, Published in an Extra Edition of Vorwdrts, at 1 o'clock on Saturday, No- vember 9. GENERAL STRIKE. The Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council of Berlin has decided to call the General Strike. All factories are to stop. The necessary feeding of the population will continue. A large part of the garrison has put itself at the disposal of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council in units armed with machine guns and rifles. The movement is to be led jointly by the Social Democratic party of Germany and the Independent party of Germany. Workers and soldiers! See to it that quiet and order are maintained! Long live the Socialist Republic! THE WORKERS’ AND SOLDIERS’ COUNCIL. [7] 540 A few hours were sufficient for accomplishing the “bloodless revolution,” and in the afternoon motor cars dashed through Berlin with the following notice an- nouncing the success of the revolution: Flysheet Issued 1n Berlin on the Afternoon of Saturday, November 9, Announcing the Success of the Revolution. WorKERS, SOLDIERS, FELLOW CITIZENS! The Free State has come! Emperor and Crown Prince have abdicated! Fritz Ebert, the chairman of the Social Democratic party, has become Imperial Chancellor and is forming in the Empire and in Prussia a new government of men who have the con- fidence of the working population in town and country, of the workers, and of the soldiers. Herewith public power has passed into the hands of the people. A National Assembly to settle the Constitution will meet as quickly as possible. Workers, soldiers, citizens! The victory of the people has been won; it must not be dishonored by thoughtlessness. Economic life and transport must be maintained at all costs, so that the people’s government may be secured under all circumstances. Obey all the recommendations of the people’s government and its representatives. It is acting in the closest union with the workers and soldiers. Long live the German People’s Republic! THE EXECUTIVE OF THE SOCIAL DEMOCRACY OF GERMANY. THE WORKERS’ AND SOLDIERS’ COUNCIL. Then Scheidemann appeared on the balcony of the Reichstag and addressed the crowd in the following speech: [8] 541 Scheidemann’s Speech to the People from the Balcony of the Reichstag on the Afternoon of November 9. WORKERS AND SOLDIERS! The German people have won all along the line. What is old and corrupt has yielded. Militarism has yielded. The Hohenzollerns have abdicated. Long live the German Re- public! Ebert has been proclaimed Imperial Chancellor. Comrade Ebert is thereby commissioned to form a new govern- ment. All Social Democratic groups will belong to this gov- ernment. Now our task is not to let this glorious victory, this complete victory of the German people, be besmirched. Therefore, I beg you to see to it that there is no disturbance to the public safety. We must be able to be proud of this day forever. Nothing must happen which might later be thrown in our teeth. Quiet, order, and security, these are what we need now. The General commanding in the marches and the War Min- ister Scheuch, will each receive an adviser. Deputy Goéhre will sign all statements of the War Minister as well as Scheuch. It is, therefore, your duty now to respect all statements signed by Ebert, Scheuch, and Goéhre. See to it that the new German Republic which we are setting up is not interfered with by anything. Long live the German Republic! Prince Max handed over the Chancellorship to the Socialist Ebert, and announced the abdication of the Kaiser. But the Kaiser himself waited for nineteen days in Holland before signing his formal Act of Abdication. Act of Abdication Signed by the Emperor William II at Amerongen, tn Holland, on November 28, 1918. I hereby renounce forever the rights to the Crown of Prussia and the rights to the German Imperial Crown there- with bound up. At the same time I release all officials of the German Empire and of Prussia, as also all officers, non- [9] 542 commissioned officers, and rank and file of the navy, the Prussian army, and the troops of the Federal contingents, of their oath of loyalty, which they took to me as their Emperor, King, and Commander-in-Chief. I expect of them that until the German Empire is ordered anew they will help those men who hold the actual power in Germany to protect the German people against the threatening dangers of anarchy, famine, and foreign domination. Given by our own hand and under our own seal, At Amerongen, November 28, 1918. WILLIAM. The new government immediately announced its accession to power in a flysheet, and its policy in a decree, but its programme could not be declared until its composition had finally been agreed upon. Satur- day afternoon and evening were occupied by negotia- tions between the Majority and Minority Socialists, and the demands of the Minority and the answer of the Majority are shown in the statement issued by the latter at 8:30 p.m. Agreement as to the conditions of a Coalition Government were at last reached. It was to consist of three Majority Socialists, Ebert, Scheide- mann, and Landsberg, and three Minority Socialists, Haase, Dittmann, and Barth. This cabinet of six— they call themselves indifferently The People’s Com- missartes, or The Imperial Government (Retchsregie- rung), t. e., Central Government for the whole Empire —issued its programme on November 12: Flysheet Issued on November 9 by Ebert to Inform the Public that He had Taken Over the Chancellorshtp. The previous Imperial Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, has, with the consent of the various Secretaries. of State, handed over to me the conduct of the Imperial Chancellor’s business. I am in process of forming the new government by [10] 943 agreement with the parties, and will shortly inform the public of the result. The new government will be a People’s govern- ment. Its aim must be to give the German people peace as soon as possible, to secure for it the liberty which it has won. Fellow citizens! I beg you all for your support in the difficult work which awaits us. You know how heavily the war threatens the people’s food supply, the first prerequisite of political life. The political revolution must not disturb the feeding of the population. It must remain the first duty of all in town and in country not to hinder but to further the production of food and its transport into the towns. Want of food supplies means plunder and robbery, with misery for all. The poorest would suffer most, the industrial workers would be hit the most hardly. Whoever interferes with the supplies of food or other objects of necessity, or with the means of transport necessary to their distribution commits the heaviest sin against the community. Fellow citizens! I beg you all most earnestly: Leave the streets. See that peace and order are maintained. (Signed) EBERT Imperial Chancellor Decree Issued by the New Revolutionary Government on the Evening of November 9. COMRADES! This day has completed the freeing of the people. The Emperor has abdicated, his eldest son has renounced the throne. The Social Democratic party has taken over the government, and has offered entry into the government to the Independent Social Democratic party on the basis of complete equality. The new government will arrange for an election of a Constituent National Assembly, in which all citizens of either sex who are over twenty years of age will take part with absolutely equal rights. After that it will resign its powers into the hands of the new representatives of the people. [ii] 544 Until then its duties are: To conclude an armistice and to conduct peace negotiations; to assure the feeding of the population. To secure for the men in the army the quickest possible orderly return to their families and to wage-earning work. For this the democratic administration must begin at once to work smoothly. Only by means of faultless working can the worst disasters be avoided. Let each man, therefore, realize his responsibility to the whole. Human life is sacred. Property is to be protected against illegal interference. Who- ever dishonors this glorious movement by vulgar crimes is an enemy of the people and must be treated as such. But who- ever codperates with honest self-sacrifice in our work, on which the whole future depends, may say of himself that at the greatest moment of the world’s history he joined in to save the people. We face enormous tasks. Laboring men and women, in town and country, men in the soldier’s uniform and men in the workman’s blouse, help, all of you! EBERT, SCHEIDEMANN, LANDSBERG. Answer of the Majority Socialist Party to the Demands of the Independent Socialists Concerning the Basis on Which They Should Both Agree to Form One Govern- ment, Issued at §:30 p. m., on November 9. To THE EXECUTIVE OF THE INDEPENDENT SOCIAL DEMO- CRATIC PARTY. Guided by the sincere wish to achieve a union, we must make clear to you our attitude to your demands. You de- mand: 1. That Germany is to become a Socialist Republic. Answer: This demand is the goal of our own policy; nevertheless, it is for the people and the Constituent National Assembly to decide. 2. In this Republic the whole executive, legislative, and jud1- cial power 1s to be exclusively in the hands of the chosen men of the total laboring population and the soldiers. Answer: If this [12] 945 demand means the dictatorship of a part, a class, without the majority behind it, then we must reject this demand, because it would run counter to our democratic principles. 3. Exclusion from the Government of all bourgeots members. Answer: This demand we must reject, because to accede to it would seriously endanger the feeding of the people, if not make it impossible. 4. The participation of the Independents shall only be valid for three days, as a temporary measure, in order to create a government capable of concluding the armistice. Answer: We hold that a codperation of the Social Democratic groups is necessary at least until the meeting of the Constituent Assembly. 5. The Departmental Ministers shall count only as technical assistants to the Cabinet, which alone shall take decisions. An- swer: We agree to this demand. 6. Equal powers to the joint Presidents of the Cabinet. Answer: We are for the equal powers of all members of the Cabinet; nevertheless, the Constituent Assembly will have to decide on this. It is to be hoped from the good sense of the Independent Social Democratic party that it will achieve a union with the Social Democratic party. THE EXECUTIVE OF THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF GERMANY. (Signatures. ) Programme of the New Revolutionary Government, An- nounced by the Berlin Cabinet of Six. To THE GERMAN PEOPLE! The government which the Revolution has produced, whose political convictions are purely Socialist, is undertaking the task of realizing the Socialist programme. They now make the following announcements, which will have the force of law: I. The state of siege is abolished. 2. The right of association and meeting is subject to no limitations, not even for officials and State workers. [13] 546 3. The censorship ceases to exist. The censorship of plays is abolished. 4. Expression of opinion, whether by word of mouth or in writing, is free. 5. Freedom of religious practice is guaranteed. No one shall be compelled to perform any religious act. 6. An amnesty is granted for all political punishments. Trials now proceeding for such crimes are quashed. 7. The Law of (compulsory) National Auxiliary Service is abolished with the exception of the provisions referring to the settlement of disputes. 8. The Domestic Services Decrees become null and void; also the Exceptional Laws against rural workers. 9. The laws protecting Labor, which were abandoned at the beginning of the war, are herewith restored. Further orders of a social-political nature will be published shortly. On January 1, 1919, at latest, the Eight-Hour Day will come into force. The government will do all that is possible to secure sufficient opportunities of work. An Order re the support of unemployed is ready. It divides the burden between the Empire (Federal), state, and municipality. In the sphere of sickness insurance, the insurance obligation will be increased beyond the present limit of 2,500 marks (£125). The housing difficulty will be dealt with by the building of houses. Efforts will be made to secure regular feeding of the people. The government will maintain ordered production, will protect property against private interference, as well as the freedom and security of individuals. All elections to public bodies are immediately to be carried out according to the equal, secret, direct, and universal franchise on the basis of proportional representation for all male and female persons of not less than twenty years of age; this franchise also holds for the Con- stituent Assembly, concerning which more detailed orders will follow. . Berlin, November 12, 1918. EBERT, HAASE, SCHEIDEMANN, LANDSBERG, DITTMANN, BARTH. [14] 547 The appeal to abstain from disorder so as not to imperil the food supply, which appears in these early documents, is repeated in a vast number of statements issued by every kind of authority all over the country. It shows that from the first moment of the revolution the new government were as urgent with their own people on this subject as Doctor Solf has been with the Allies. In a second appeal, issued by Ebert on the first day of the revolution, the statement is made that it is proposed to retain the bourgeois administrative services in order to avoid confusion and breakdown of supply. This is typical of innumerable other state- ments issued in other parts of the country. The question of public order was naturally bound up with that of maintaining discipline in the army. The lesson of the Russian revolution is shown by the new government’s determination to maintain disci- pline and the command of officer over private. At the same time, the old military system could not be re- tained, and the government defined the relations which were to exist between officers and men in a very interesting telegram to the High Command. The attitude of the Army Command in not challenging the revolution made the government’s path easier in this delicate and difficult matter. Hindenburg’s announce- . ment that he would coéperate with the Berlin govern- ment has appeared in our press; statements, for which we have no space here, show that the local military authorities followed suit: [15] 548 Telegram of the People’s Government in Berlin to the High Command, Defining the Relations of Soldiers to Officers and Regulating Military Discipline; Issued by the Wolff Bureau on November 12. | The People’s Government is inspired by the wish to see each of our soldiers return to his home as quickly as possible after his unspeakable sufferings and unheard-of deprivations. — But this goal can only be reached if the demobilization is carried out according to an orderly plan. If single troops stream back at their own pleasure, they place themselves, their comrades, and their homes in the greatest danger. The consequences would necessarily be chaos, famine, and want. The People’s Government expects of you the strictest self- discipline in order to avoid immeasurable calamity. We desire the High Command to inform the army in the field of this declaration of the People’s Government, and to issue the following orders: 1. The relations between officer and rank and file are to be built up on mutual confidence. Prerequisites to this are willing submission of the ranks to the officer, and comradely treatment by the officer of the ranks. 2. The officer’s superiority in rank remains. Unqualified obedience in service is of prime importance for the success of the return home to Germany. Military discipline and army order must, therefore, be maintained under all circumstances. 3. The Soldiers’ Councils have an advisory voice in main- taining confidence between officer and rank and file in ques- tions of food, leave, the infliction of disciplinary punishments. Their highest duty is to try to prevent disorder and mutiny. 4. The same food for officers, officials, and rank and file. 5. The same bonuses to be added to the pay, and the same allowances for service in the field for officers and rank and file. 6. Arms are to be-used against members of our own people only in cases of self-defense and to prevent robberies. (Signed) EBERT, HAASE, SCHEIDEMANN, LANDSBERG, BARTH. [16] 549 The last document contains the statement that the Soldiers’ Councils are to have “an advisory voice.” This brings us to the obscure subject of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils and their relation to the govern- ment. The Councils are of two kinds: (1) true Sol- diers’ Councils, formed at the front and in garrison towns and including officers, and (2) Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils, formed of civilians and those sol- diers who had returned home. The first gave a strong support to the new government, and demand, with that government, that a Constituent Assembly shall be summoned as soon as possible, and shall determine the future Constitution before any elaborate “sociali- zation of industry” is attempted. It is said by some that this attitude of the Soldiers’ Councils is influenced by the presence of officers in them, but it is probable that the returning soldier supports the Berlin and other governments because what he dreads is dis- organization and unemployment. The government obtains their support by promising employment and the rationing of work through an eight-hour day. This appears clearly in the following document: The Imperial Cabinet to the Returning Soldier. To THE RETURNING SOLDIERS! ComraDES! The German Republic heartily bids you wel- come home! You went forth for a country in which you had no say, in which a handful of men in authority had shared out between themselves power and possession. You were but allowed to be silent and to fight, while hundreds of thousands had to be silent and die before your eyes. Today you return to your own country in which no one in future has anything to say or to decide except the people it- self, which is now receiving you once more as members. The ba: J09 revolution has broken the spell: you and we are free, Ger- many is free. Our Socialist Republic is to enter the League of Nations as the freest of all. And you are not only to find all the political rights of which hitherto you have been de- prived; your country is also to become your possession and your inheritance in an economic way, in that no one shall any more, with our consent, exploit you and enslave you. The Imperial government, which has been created and is being supported by the confidence of your comrades and of the workers, will get you work, protection while you work, and higher wages from your work. The eight-hour day, in- surance for unemployment, creation of employment, develop- ment of sickness insurance, the solution of the housing ques- tion, socialization of those industries which are ready for it: everything is in process, is already partly law! Come and be welcomed as the men who are to carry on the new Republic and its future. It is true you will find scarcity among us in foodstuffs, in all economic materials; there is distress and deprivation in the country. We can only get help from work in common, from action taken together. Only a Germany which has a government secured and anchored in the workers and soldiers can get from our previous opponents what you have fought for and longed for during four years— peace! Council of the People’s Commissaries, EBERT, HAASE, SCHEIDEMANN, DITTMANN, LANDSBERG, BARTH. It is feared in some quarters in Germany that with the demobilization of the army the true Soldiers’ Councils will cease to exist and all power will come into the hands of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils, where the Extremists of the Spartacus group exercise such power as. they have. At the time of writing there has just been fighting in Berlin which seems to have left Ebert and the Majority Socialists still more [18] 551 firmly established in power. Conditions vary from place to place. In Berlin, from the outset, there has been some attempt to imitate the Russian Bolshevik theory, but for this men like Ebert, Scheidemann, Haase, Bernstein, and Kautsky have no sympathy. The International Review [19] 552 If MANIFESTO OF THE SPARTACUS GROUP Reprinted from the New York Times, January 24, 1919 PROLETARIANS! MEN AND WOMEN OF LABOR! Com- RADES! The revolution has made its entry into Germany. The masses of the soldiers who for four years were driven to the slaughterhouse for the sake of capital- istic profits, the masses of workers, who for four years were exploited, crushed, and starved, have re- volted. That fearful tool of oppression—Prussian mili- tarism, that scourge of humanity—lies broken on the ground. Its most noticeable representatives, and therewith the most noticeable of those guilty of this war, the Kaiser and the Crown Prince, have fled from the country. Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils have been formed everywhere. Proletarians of all countries, we do not say that in Germany all the power has really been lodged in the hands of the working people, that the complete tri- umph of the proletarian revolution has already been attained. There still sit in the government all those Socialists who in August, 1914, abandoned our most precious possession, the International, who for four years betrayed the German working class and at the same time the International. But, proletarians of all countries, now the German proletarian himself is speaking to you. We believe we have the right to appear before your forum in his [20] 553 name. From the first day of this war we endeavored to do our international duty by fighting that criminal government with all our power and branding it as the one really guilty of the war. Now at this moment we are justified before history, before the International, and before the German pro- letariat. The masses agree with us enthusiastically, constantly widening circles of the proletariat share the knowledge that the hour has struck for a settlement with capitalist class rule. But this great task cannot be accomplished by the German proletariat alone; it can only fight and tri- umph by appealing to the solidarity of the proletarians of the whole world. Comrades of the belligerent countries, we are aware of your situation. We know very well that your gov- ernments, now since they have won the victory, are dazzling the eyes of many strata of the people with the external brilliancy of the triumph. We know that they thus succeed through the success of the murder- ing in making its causes and aims forgotten. But we also know something else. We know that also in your countries the proletariat made the most fearful sacrifices of flesh and blood, that it is weary of the dreadful butchery, that the proletarian is now ' returning to his home, and is finding want and misery there, while fortunes amounting to billions are heaped up in the hands of a few capitalists. He has recog- nized, and will continue to recognize, that your gov- ernments, too, have carried on the war for the sake of the big money bags. And he wiil further perceive that your governments, when they spoke of “justice and civilization” and of the “protection of small nations,” meant the profits of capital just as did ours when it [21] 554 talked about the “defense of the home”; and that the peace of “justice” and of the “League of Nations” amounts to the same base brigandage as the peace of Brest-Litovsk. Here, as well as there, the same shame- less lust for booty, the same desire for oppression, the same determination to exploit to the limit the brutal preponderance of murderous steel. The imperialism of all countries knows no “under- standing,” it knows only one right—capital’s profits; it knows only one language—the sword; it knows only one method—violence. And if it is now talking in all countries, in yours as well as ours, about the “League of Nations,” “disarmament,” “rights of small nations,” “self-determination of the peoples,” it is merely using the customary lying phrases of the rulers for the purpose of lulling to sleep the watchfulness of the proletariat. Proletarians of all countries! This must be the last war! We owe that to the 12,000,000 murdered vic- tims, we owe that to our children, we owe that to humanity. Europe has been ruined through the infamous in- ternational murder. Twelve million bodies cover the gruesome scenes of the imperialistic crime. The ‘ flower of youth and the best man power of the peoples have been mowed down. Uncounted productive forces have been annihilated. Humanity is almost ready to bleed to death from the unexampled blood- letting of history. Victors and vanquished stand at the edge of the abyss. Humanity is threatened with the most dreadful famine, a stoppage of the entire mechanism of production, plagues, and degeneration. The great criminals of this fearful anarchy, of this chaos let loose—the ruling classes—are not able to [22] 09 control their own creation. The beast of capital that conjured up the hell of the world war is not capable of banishing it again, of restoring real order, of insuring bread and work, peace and civilization, justice and liberty, to tortured humanity. What is being prepared by the ruling classes as peace and justice is only a new work of brutal force from which the hydra of oppression, hatred, and fresh bloody wars raises its thousand heads. Socialism alone is in a position to complete the great work of permanent peace, to heal the thousand wounds from which humanity is bleeding, to trans- form the plains of Europe, trampled down by the passage of the apocryphal horseman of war, into blooming gardens, to conjure up ten productive forces for every one destroyed, to awaken all the physical and moral energies of humanity, and to replace hatred and dissension with fraternal solidarity, harmony, and respect for every human being. If representatives of the proletarians of all countries stretch out their hands to each other under the banner of socialism for the purpose of making peace, then peace will be concluded in a few hours. Then there will be no disputed questions about the left bank of the Rhine, Mesopotamia, Egypt, or colonies. Then there will be only one people: the toiling human beings of all races and tongues. Then there will be only one right: the equality of all men. Then there will be only one aim: prosperity and progress for everybody. Humanity is facing this alternative: dissolution and downfall in capitalist anarchy, or regeneration through the social revolution. The hour for decision has struck. If you believe in socialism, it is now time to show it by deeds. If you are Socialists, now is the time to act. [23] 556 Proletarians of all countries, when we now summon you to a common struggle it is not done for the sake of the German capitalists who, under the label “Ger- man nation,” are trying to escape the consequences of their own crimes; it is being done for our sake as well as for yours. Remember that your victorious capi- talists stand ready to suppress in blood our revolution, which they fear as their own. You yourselves have not become any freer through the “victory,” you have only become still more enslaved. If your ruling classes succeed in throttling the proletarian revolution in Germany, as well as in Russia, then they will turn against you with redoubled violence. Your capitalists hope that victory over us and over revolutionary Russia will give them the power to scourge you with a whip of scorpions and to erect the thousand-year empire of exploitation upon the grave of socialism. Therefore the proletariat of Germany is looking toward you in this hour. Germany is pregnant with the social revolution, but socialism can only be real- ized by the proletariat of the world. And therefore we call to you: “Arise for the struggle! Arise for action! The time for empty manifestos, pla- tonic resolutions, and high-sounding words has gone by! The hour of action has struck for the Inter- national!” We ask you to elect Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils everywhere that will seize political power and, together with us, will restore peace. Not Lloyd George and Poincaré, not Sonnino, Wil- son, and Erzberger or Scheidemann, must be allowed to make peace. Peace is to be concluded under the waving banner of the socialist world revolution. Proletarians of all countries! We call upon you to complete the work of socialist liberation, to give a [24] 5957 human aspect to the disfigured world, and to make true those words with which we often greeted each other in the old days and which we sang as we parted: “And the International shall be the human race.” [25] KLARA ZETKIN RosA LUXEMBURG KarL LIEBKNECHT FRANZ MEHRING 558 It! INTRODUCTION Charles Andler has been, for the last twenty-five years, one of the keenest students of Germany’s inner politics. Being himself in close touch, at a cer- tain time, with the French socialists and their leader, Jean Jaurés, he may have been blinded as to certain conditions of European affairs; he has always, never- theless, been singularly well-informed respecting the evolution which characterized German socialism since the days of Bebel and Liebknecht. Born in Strasbourg on March 11, 1866, before the Franco-Prussian War, Charles Andler followed his father, an Alsatian pharmacist, out of his invaded province. After distinguished high school studies at Gray and in Paris, he entered the Ecole Normale Supérieure, with a strong vocation for philosophical work; his too radical views, however, are said to have prevented him from continuing along that line. He decided then to be a student of German literature, but kept always-a distinct liking for metaphysics, theories and systems. A longer stay in Berlin and some other German universities enabled him to know, otherwise than from books and newspapers, the main representatives of liberal Germany in the late eighties and early nineties. Asa high school teacher in Nancy, shortly afterwards as a maitre de conférences in the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Andler made rapidly his way to the Sorbonne, where he is now professor of German language and literature. [26] is he His doctor’s dissertation on Les Origines du Socia- lisme d’Etat en Allemagne (Paris, 1897), an original interpretation of Le Prince de Bismarck (Paris, 1899), were his first approaches at a description, and even at a prognostication, concerning German internal affairs. He certainly believed, in those days, in a liberating force which, spreading from the organized proletariat of Germany, would sooner or later bring over the world a peaceful and idealistic reform of economic conditions. His first discovery of different realities was late, but outspoken and unbiassed; in October, 1912, then in April, 1913, he pointed out, in a news- paper article and in a political address, to what extent German socialism of the hour was imperialistic. An essay in the Revue socialiste (May, 1913) to the same point (“Ce qu’il y a d’impérialisme dans le socialisme allemand d’aujourd’hui”) brought him rebuke and re- proof from his French fellow-partisans. Andler had only shown, with texts borrowed from the leaders of German socialism and from the proceedings of recent congresses, that no real counterpoise, in many cases even disguised support and sympathy, was to be found, in a militaristic Germany of world-wide ambi- tions, in the main opinions of a party mainly interested in material ameliorations, higher salaries, and the like. The war has proved, on the whole, the correctness of Andler’s disclosures. To what extent his hopes for a sincerely liberal Germany (similar to that which, in 1848, was unable to assert herself practically) are correct, has to be verified by the events themselves. But it may be interesting to note that, after the ad- [27] ‘560 dress which is given here in translation, Andler deliv- ered another lecture on the falsity of the first German “democratisation” (For et Vze, October 10, 1918): “La Démocratie en Allemagne.” F. BALDENSPERGER Professeur a la Sorbonne COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY There can be no doubt that the tomorrow of Germany is one of the most critical questions of the moment. Germany will eventually take her place in the society of nations and in all probability as one of the great powers. The defeat of Prussian militarism and aggression has been absolute and overwhelming, and with the collapse of the armed forces has come a disruption of the German political system. The Germany of today is very different from the Germany which M. Andler analyzes so thor- oughly in the following lecture delivered on March 4, 1917, and yet it may be that changes effected in so short a time are more apparent than real. M. Andler’s article is, therefore, of distinct value in pointing out certain fundamental qualities in the German complex in 1914, which must be altered beyond question before Germany can become a member of the League of Nations, be- cause they are qualities which can not exist in a wholesome democratic society, and it is only upon a truly democratic basis that our society of nations can be secure.—The Editor. [28] 561 WHAT SHOULD BE CHANGED IN GERMANY By CHARLES ANDLER Translated by GRACE FALLOw, NorRTON Along with the general difficulty which we experience in representing to ourselves the world of tomorrow, perhaps the most thankless single difficulty lies in knowing how to make a place there for Germany. The German nation seems to us at the present hour a for- eign substance in Europe. It seems to us something which we can never assimilate. But in what way is Germany so irreducibly different from ourselves? Here we must be scrupulous to a degree, not to flatter the prejudices of the moment, not to cede even to the most legitimate resentment. We must not say things of which, after the peace, we should be ashamed and which we should have to re- tract. We must realize that Germany is in general on the same level of civilization as ourselves, and take that fact into account. She is our equal in all that is meant by science and philosophy, in all that is meant by general culture, and in all the principal arts. If this be disputed, let but Bach and Beethoven be heard! But the scandal of the world is that a people set so high in civilization should be thus responsible for the present war, for a war carried on with the scientific and premeditated methods of atrocity... . . How shall we explain this outrageous fact? I will anticipate [29] 562 my conclusions by telling you where I seek the expla- nation. Germany, although so profoundly cultivated in sO many respects, is politically the very opposite. She has neither the taste nor the talent for liberty. She does not respect in other peoples feelings and ideas which are not yet ripe in herself, or which have been smothered. It is none the less certain that Germany cannot enter into the society of nations until the day on which she does respect these things. A few weeks ago—to be exact, on the 24th of Jan- uary, I1917—there appeared a circular by the Prussian Minister of Public Instruction, Herr von Trott zu Solz. The minister said: “We must educate our political thinking; we must give a political education to the youth of Germany. It is of the utmost importance and urgence that we raise the level of our culture as regards our exterior politics.” 1 As one might suppose, what this junker especially wishes is the education of the youth of Germany in Germanism. Nevertheless, in itself this is an admission. The minister perceives that during this war there has been a sort of bank- ruptcy of the German intellectual preparation. He perceives that the Germans do not know the other nations. They have spread themselves among them in crowds; they have collected statistics; but in reality they always remained strangers, lacking re- spect, blindly self-confident. They did not bring back with them any deepened or psychological understand- ing; nor did the government attempt to spread such understanding. The paternalism of the ancien régime always assumed that only those directing the state were qualified to inform themselves concerning the affairs of the state. There was a famous phrase cur- 1 Denkschrift tiber Forderung der Auslandstudien. [30] 563 rent in the eighteenth century concerning the “limited intelligence of the governed” (beschrankter Unter- tanenverstand). In our day we smile at the expression; it seems antiquated. Nevertheless, the state of things which it describes and criticizes still exists. If I picture to myself correctly the average Ger- mans, both the common people and the bourgeoiste, they: are people without vision, men of a limited hori- zon, strictly specialized each in his own work, for whom the days pass in methodical labor, without overwork, and strangely secure and regular. In the evenings they do not disdain a glass of beer, a game of skittles, or choral singing. Some find leisure for communal or corporate interests. Yet, excellent patriots, almost all of them, they feel no other concern in the direction of the destinies of this country which they love. They tell themselves that it is safe behind the most power- ful army in the world. They think the direction of public affairs is a trade like other trades, a specialty demanding an apprenticeship which the average Ger- man has not served. They consider that there are officials who have gone into this special study and who will toil with method, regularity, and patriotism to carry on these affairs. The average German has more confidence in the officials than in the Reichstag, be- cause the Kaiser has more confidence in them than in the Reichstag—the Kaiser and the government pass- ing as “above all parties.” They say this and they are believed! Nor is it to be questioned that the govern- ment has at heart the protection of the material pros- perity of the German people, as far as this is possible. It knows that material prosperity, particularly when conquered by the rude discipline and immense effort which the rapid economic expansion of Germany made [31] 564 necessary, puts every other preoccupation to sleep. The mass of the people has not time or does not care to demand political rights when collective energy and individual effort are exhausted in the immense work for which people and government know so marvel- ously how to combine: the work of the economic expansion of Germany. Meanwhile, what becomes of the internal liberties? And what of the external relations of the state? What use does the government make of the enormous force springing from the German people? The multitude takes no thought of this. Certain powerful leagues, the conservative League of Agriculturists, or the re- cent League of the Hansa, a more liberal organ of the great Jewish bank, have opened up a propaganda for economic ends. The Social Democrats made it their business to carry on in the press and in their public meetings a purely negative and theoretical criticism. Powerful enough in the city administrations, they claimed no title to the actual management of state business and their work of control was as devoid of sanction as is all the rest of German parliamentarism. “You have neither a revolutionary opposition nor a parliamentary opposition!” cried Jaurés to the Ger- man socialists at Amsterdam. Where then lay the political life of Germany before 1914?. It was the privilege of those leaders to whom the German people had confided their destiny. It was confined to that caste of junkers who furnish the high officials just as they furnish the generals, and who sometimes associate with themselves talent selected outside, from among the specialists in law or in the technique of industry or finance. In order to escape control, up to 1907 this caste placed the greatest ob- [32] 565 stacles in the way of the liberty of the press and the rights of assembly and association. Thus the people of every class, from Germany’s great industries and her great commerce, her ancient and new middle class,. and her intellectuals—all remained politically without culture, in spite of the overflowing wealth of the country and the enormous progress in technology.” The unique political task and the duty par excel- lence of the good bourgeois patriots was to cry “Hoch!” at the passage of the court carriages and to decorate for those dynastic anniversaries which German par- ticularism furnishes in quantities every year in each monarchy of the Empire. If one was reckoned among the “high lights of society,” on these anniversaries one was invited to the usual banquet, dreaded for its dull- ness, where the “high lights” communed in a spirit of monarchic loyalty. And if any profound uneasiness troubled the German people, other well-known leagues, the Wehrverein, the Flottenverein, the general associa- tion of Kriegervereine, the Pan-germanist league, or simply the salaried press, would combine to stir up a roaring wave of chauvinism which would sweep all internal grievances away. Discord ceased at the approach of real or imaginary national peril. No one asked if there might not be certain men, powerful though few in number, whose interest lay in having some peril threaten from without, in order that they might be spared the sight of their power shaken from within. Here we have the main points proposed for our analysis. The question is: What part of the respon- 2 Compare the picture drawn by Konrad Haenisch, “Die Politi- sierung der Deutschen” (Hamburger Echo, February 9, I917).. Haenisch is an imperialistic and majoritarian socialist. [33] 566 sibility for this war belongs to the German people? Should we distinguish between the government and the people? And are not the people, even without the responsibility of having taken the initiative, still accomplices because of their passive attitude toward the conduct of their governors? This is not easy to determine. The different social classes of Germany, unanimous in their aggressive furor, once the war is started, have not equal responsibility in the starting of war, because they have not equal power. The great political fact which has rendered Europe uninhabitable for fifty years is well known to us; we make no mistake in calling it by name; it is Prussian- ism. While her civilization came to Germany from the west and the south, her political formation came from the east and the north. Here is the truly tragic fact in the destiny of Germany. For it follows that the qualities and defects of Prussia have been imposed on the political life of the whole German people. The Prussian cult of the will—behold the sole moral quality come from the marches of Brandenburg! The Prussian incapacity for understanding and re- specting the preferences and liberty of those peoples with whom hazard brings the Germans in contact or brings into conflict with them: this is what Germany has learned from Prussia. The liberals of 1848 feared this robust, intolerant, intolerable Prussian will. That is why, though they were conscious of German unity, they considered dissolving Prussia into Germany. I am not speaking of the men of the extreme left, the republicans, so few in number, whose doctrines drew on a prejudice against Prussia. I am speaking of the moderate monarchists, such as Max and Heinrich von Gagern, Dahlmann, Rudolf Haym, Simson, Droysen, 134] 567 and Max Duncker. These men would willingly have offered the crown to the King of Prussia. But on the other hand, they wanted Prussia broken up and to have Germany herself the mistress of her fate, in- stead of being ridden by that brutal and tyrannical cavalier—Prussia. What, then, are the effects of Prussianism in Ger- many? They seem to me to be three in number: 1. The emasculation of the bourgeoisie. 2. The strengthening of the bureaucratic and mili- ‘tary state. 3. The corruption of German science. When we have considered these three important points more closely, we shall have a more fundamental opinion concerning the possibility of distinguishing between the responsibility of the German people and the responsibility of their government. I. THE EMASCULATION OF THE BOURGEOISIE The bourgeoisie that founded the great, free German cities of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, was a great bourgeoisie. In the absolutist period it had already declined considerably. By the eighteenth cen- tury, the country which in former times had almost broken up into a federation of innumerable republican ‘cities is no longer recognizable in the monarchies of the south and the east and particularly in the Prussia of Frederick II. In Prussia the bourgeoisie was quite crushed. It made use of the military exemptions and privileges accorded by the king in order to enrich itself. Stein had confidence in its future because it had education, capital, and good manners and customs. But it demanded no rights and Stein’s political sense [35] 568 failed him in so far as the most important cities of Prussia, and even Berlin itself, resisted the Stadte- ordnung, introduced by him, which was the first chart of communal authority for the great cities. In the states of the south and west, the cities had _ been declining for three hundred years. Throughout those flourishing towns, where the sumptuous town- halls of the Renaissance and so many fine patrician dwellings had been built, German political incapacity and the stupid rivalry between neighboring republics had assured the triumph of the princes ever since the sixteenth century. For two centuries the palaces of princes had been replacing the old municipal archi- tecture. Cities were proud to become the “residence” of some prince-bishop. Thus the German bourgeoisie reaches the threshold of the nineteenth century, with- out political tradition and without pride. When Prussia overflowed upon the west and south in 1815 and 1866, the bourgeoisie was filled with a respect without limit for the Prussian nobility of the sword, for the junkers, who had conquered it and conquered its princes. They rivalled the junkers and the military in their servility to the Prussian crown. In Prussia,. the bourgeoisie would perhaps never have been eman-. cipated without the aid of certain great aristocrats like Stein. Throughout the last century the principal leaders of the bourgeois parties in all the parliaments of Germany, were also aristocrats, converts to liberalism: such men as von Gagern, von Vincke, von Bennigsen,. von Hoverbeck. It would seem as though the burghers. themselves lacked the energy to defend their rights; but an enlightened aristocrat appearing in their ranks: was immediately recognized as a leader and imposed: his personality upon them. [36] 569 This alone is a bad sign morally. We should add that the bourgeoisie seemed predestined economically to betray liberalism. It betrayed it during two epochs: first in Prussia, in order to enrich itself; afterwards in the unified Empire, in order definitely to establish the power of big capital. Without doubt the Prussian bourgeotste was liberal around 1815. It had to break the ancient corporative mercantilism, the ancient system of guild mastership, and all those feudal rights which prevented cities from spreading outside of their walls. A wholly negative task which the Prussian bourgeotste left to its reform ministers to accomplish rather than accomplished it- self. But this task of economic liberalism once real- ized, the Anglo-French political ijiberalism went aground in Prussia. Prussian liberalism died of an internal contradiction which broke out at the time of the sad shipwreck of the revolution of 1848 and as a result of the constitutional conflict in Prussia in 1866. The parceling out of Germany, German particularism, Kleinstaateret, were the causes of the meekness of the bourgeotste. In order to break down the resistance of particularism, a strong force was needed. That was why the Prussian bourgeotsie counted only on its king and its army. But in the other states, especially in Wurtemburg and Baden, the bourgeotsie also cried for help to this Prussian army and this Prussian royalty. The manifesto of the Wurtemburger, Paul Pfizer, in 1832, was prophetic of this evolution. Thirty years later, in 1866, the entire liberal bourgeoisie thought as did this bad poet, who was a very calculating oppor- tunist politician, and who, at a time when all the nations were rising in revolution, thought only of how to curb the German people beneath a discipline which 137] 9/79 he wished to be Prussian. What likelihood was there of the success of the revolution of 1848, when on every side the bourgeoisie applauded the crushing out of the insurrections in the Palatinate and in Baden by the Prussian army? What likelihood that the conflict be- tween the parliamentarians and the militarists of Prussia during the period from 1861 to 1866 could end in a victory over Prussian militarism, when the parlia- mentarians were hoping for Prussian victory on the battlefields? However, must we say that the Germans have no democratic instincts? There is probably nothing older than this instinct in all the western peoples. Concern- ing the democratic character of the organization of the most ancient Germanic tribes, I do not believe that the historians Waitz, Sybel, or Dahn have lied to us.’ One can see the minister, von Stein, who, full of the idea of reinstating his people, preferred to live among the Westphalian peasants, “because they did not sa- lute him.” The Westphalian peasant does not salute his squire until he is sure that the salute will be returned. One can also understand the appreciative remark of that Prussian magistrate, Landrat of a Westphalian district, where, by the way, the vote is always given to the Catholic center: “They are red inside!” That is to say, internally revolutionary. But why has nothing ever come out of this profound instinct? If it is true, according to the assertion of Gierke, one of the most eminent German jurists, that German law is corporative, then the German state should also be corporative. It should be a free corpo- ration of citizens. The directing will of the state 3 But it was a barbaric democracy which would be found as well among the Magyars or the primitive Slav peoples. [38 ] 971 should not come from an individual surrounded by a crew of military men and bureaucrats, but from the people themselves called together to deliberate their own destiny. That which has triumphed is, on the contrary, German constitutionalism. We must see what is masked beneath this apparently liberal term. What, specifically, is this constitutionalism, ad- mired by the whole German bourgeoisie and considered by German theoreticians, of whom Treitschke is the foremost, as the most perfect synthesis of authority and liberty, a sort of masterpiece of modern public law? Bismarck, after having created it, thus—too late—defined it: “My principal preoccupation,” he said to the students of Jena in 1897, “was to strengthen the crown.” Kindly remember this astonishing state- ment! In every other country “constitutionalism” has consisted in strengthening the guaranties given to the people and in augmenting the power of their repre- sentatives. There is one country in the world where, even before absolutism had been wholly destroyed, constitutionalism consisted in fortifying the royal power which as yet no revolution had shaken. This conception of “constitutionalism” is specifically Prus- sian; it is specifically that of Prussianized Germany. Do not offer the objection that Bismarck introduced universal suffrage into the Empire! If he had recog- nized universal suffrage as a right of the people, would he not have introduced it into Prussia as well? And since then, would the King of Saxony or the patrician republic of Hamburg have been permitted to wrest their franchise from the Saxons and the people of Hamburg? In 1867 Prussia needed a war-machine to break the last resistances of German particularism, especially in the south. The dynasties were not adapt- [39] O72 ing themselves easily to their rdle of vassals, nor the aristocratic classes to their humiliation before the Prussian junkers. Bismarck broke them by “that war with revolutionary strokes” which he carried on along with the other war. His deeply hidden motive he afterwards expressed: he expected to withdraw this temporary reform of universal suffrage after it had fulfilled its mission. His last plan for internal politics was that project for a coup d'état wherein, after a rising during which the working-classes, artificially incited, were to be deci- mated, restricted suffrage should be restored. The crown, strengthened though it was, did not dare follow Bismarck that far. William II. himself did not wish, as he protested to his chancellor, “to wade up to-his ankles in the blood of his people.” Had royalty, built to be strong, suddenly become weak? Bismarck could not believe it. He began to think—too late—that perhaps he had made it too strong. We know from diverse confidences that during his last days two of his beliefs were shaken. He came to doubt, first, Providence, of which he had always believed himself to be the chosen instrument and which had abandoned him at the caprice of a young blunderer with a crown; and second, his own political doctrine. For in 1890 it was responsible for this monstrous thing: no one in the Reichstag dared question the government concerning the causes which had brought about the fall of the greatest statesman who had ever arisen in Germany! Behold where the system led which had tended exclu- sively towards making royalty strong and parliament weak! Thus the “German constitutionalism” created by Bismarck according to his own proportions, just to fit himself and his Kaiser, was no longer viable when [ 40] 973 the Kaiser changed. The system of “strong mon- archy” means more precisely the sum of personal confidence existing between a monarch and his prime minister. It supposes in the king the talent for choos- ing his minister well, and in the minister, a fidelity to authority, maintained against all odds. It can be conceived that Bismarck defended this exceptional position with a tenacity which stopped before no measure of violence and no base procedure. He de- clared whoever desired a less personal form of power to be “an enemy of the Empire” (Reichsfeind). For him, to be patriotic and to be for the government were the same thing. Bismarck always despicably insulted men and parties who did not think as he. He refused permission to officers who wished to marry daughters of families said to be “progressive.” In the presence of the venerable Rickert, deputy from Danzig, William I. could publicly ask the president of the province if he could not arrange to have the district of Danzig send to the Reichstag a “better” deputy! The citizens of Germany have, indeed, the right to vote. But let them take a fancy to vote for a candidate displeasing to the government and they will be treated as enemies of the country. Thus the government of Germany constantly tends to become once more a government of pure authority; whereas the spirit of modern con- stitutionalism is to institute governments of opinion. Will this opposition be possible for long? It could last as long as there was someone in a position, as was Bismarck, to draw on the moral credit which is given by great foreign successes. And so long as Europe was in that state of instability into which Bismarck had thrown it, one could always argue that danger was threatening at the frontiers. More than once Bis- [41] 574 marck conjured up an exterior peril, or the appearance of such peril, in order to be able to invoke it. His interior policy was this constant extortion practised upon German public opinion by the aid of exterior peril, from which he alone, because of his victories, had the reputation of being able to save Germany. Thus a constant moral constraint bent every will to his and, as a last resort, he had in reserve against uni- versal suffrage the coup d’état for which was needed only a monarch willing to “wade in blood up to his ankles.” This compromise between absolutism, limited by a constitution which embarrassed it but little, and a terrorized democracy which did not try to develop its constitutional rights—here is the system which lasted in Germany for fifty years! The least one can say of it is that it did nothing for liberty. Without doubt, the idea of the Empire had certain liberal origins; and during the ten years from 1870 to 1880, or thereabouts, the legislation of the German Empire again had a false tint of liberalism. The vot- ing of the law of exception against the socialists in 1880 marks the end of this liberal era and establishes the definite impotence of the German parliament. The bourgeoisie that betrayed liberalism between 1866 and 1871, betrayed it a second time between 1880 and 1914. Big industry, just coming into being, had al- ways looked for the basis of its power to a strong monarchy, which was to be found only in Prussia. Arrived now at the fullness of its strength, this great industry founded in its cartels and its trusts such for- midable organizations that it no longer needed to con- sider its task as a fight against power, but rather as a fight to achieve the conquest of power. This mon- 142] 975 archic state, so strong, so concentrated, conjured up by the German capitalist bourgeotste because through this state it was to become great, was henceforth to be placed at the service of big capital. Now the modern economic struggle is no longer that simple competition which seeks to beat a rival in the univer- sal market by furnishing a superior product at a better price. It consists, in the first place, in export- ing capital, in investing it outside, within the new or backward countries, and in getting orders in their name. Whoever “finances” the construction of a rail- road of penetration or of a port, will also furnish the rails and other material, the construction of the piers and the electric installations. He will furnish the personnel of direction and exploitation. This new fight for markets is accomplished in great part by mili- tary and naval pressure. It is a fight for “spheres of influence,” preceding colonial conquest—to call it by its proper name. For this “imperialist” struggle, to which Germany has largely contributed its character of cunning and violence, the big industry, and the big commerce of Germany needed a military power that would be feared. They thought rightly that they had got the upper hand of the socialist opposition at home, either by force or by persuasion; by persuasion, rather, ever since the working-class has perceived that large salaries, short hours, and all the well-being so recently conquered presupposed the prosperity of Ger- man industry and hence the triumph of economic and colonial imperialism. It remained to be seen if the lower bourgeoisie would persist longer than the upper in its fidelity to liberal ideas. It furnished, through its small merchants, its people with modest incomes, its small proprietors, its [43 ] 576 artisans and peasants, the most solid contingent of the old Prussian Freisinn (progressive party) and of the Volkspartei of the southern states. And perhaps this lower bourgeoisie would not strike out of its pro- gram the democratic reforms which had constituted its ancient political creed. But if it did not strike them out, it ceased to fight for them. The small contractor defends himself less easily against the new demands of the working-class than does big capital. He resists by means of economies which pinch the equipment and the salaries. The average “philistine,” who in the pre- ceding generation was still the ally of the working- class, today hates social democracy because it brings discontent into all the workshops. Where shall he find an ally against this new and mortal enemy, Socialism, if not in the enemy of yesterday, Power? Thus even the most liberal of employers, who are the small and the average, seek the support of a strong monarchy; and if they do not love it, at least, they are careful not to pass as its enemies. Who then, after this desertion by the greater and lesser bourgeoisie, will carry on the fight for the defense of constitutional rights? Here, therefore, are the remote effects of that “Ger- man constitutionalism” instituted by Bismarck: 1. No one holds any longer to the constitutional guaranties. The impotent parliament is abandoned by the most eminent spirits. The Parliament of Frankfort, in 1848, was proud because it numbered all those whom Germany considered its intellectual guides. The Prussian Parliament at the time of the conflict counted its historians and savants, like Duncker or Twesten, Virchow or Sybel. The assem- blies after 1870 listened to a Treitschke or an Adolf Wagner, besides those great liberals, Lasker and [44] ote Eugen Richter. Today the intellectuals are more concerned with directing the great factories than with defending, in a discredited parliament, rights in which they no longer believe. And it is the junkers who, as in that important matter of the canal from the Elbe to the Rhine, make use of parliamentary obstruction in the interests of their class. 2. It is evident that a “strong monarchy” always favors the party which forms the entourage of the monarch. Logically, therefore, in England, after a change of ministry the personnel of the king’s house- hold is also changed. The English fear the influence of permanent cliques which might create disagree- ments between the king and his transient ministers. Why is there not all the more reason to fear that the political opinions of men surrounding the monarch will be decisive and formidable in a state where the monarch selects his ministers without having to ac- count to parliament for the reasons of his choice? This is the case in Germany, and in Prussia even more than in the Empire. There is not one instance of the Kaiser having chosen his ministers elsewhere than from his personal entourage. How shall we otherwise ex- plain why it is that for twenty years, and in an era when the democratic extension of suffrage has often reappeared in the foreground of the public interest, the Prussian Minister of the Interior has always been a junker? How does it happen that the other ministers, when they are of bourgeois stock, have always been chosen from the anti-democratic bourgeotste? 3. Thus the government, entirely personal because of the prerogatives of the monarch, becomes more so because of the method which the monarch employs. He can never consent to strengthen parliament be- [45] 578 cause the system of a strong monarchy is incompatible with a parliament that decides. Or at least, a mechan- ism in which a strong monarchy is to be united with a strong parliament, would constitute a complication such that Bismarck himself dared not institute it. This is why either the monarchy must give way or parliamentarism must die. But a monarchy which accepted the decisions of a parliamentary majority would no longer be the Prussian monarchy that we know; should a parliamentary system take the place of the traditional system, the old Prussia would be dead. Whence came this parliamentary system? It did. not arise out of the constitutional quarrels which for fifty years have set Prussia at variance with the Em- pire. These antagonisms, wholly formal, have little interest for the rest of Europe. The political suffrage is universal, direct, and secret in the Empire. It is restricted, indirect, and public in Prussia. A voter, politically of age in so far as he is a citizen of the Empire, sees his political maturity denied in so far as he is a Prussian citizen. Nothing of all this concerns us. It is for the Prussian electors to discuss why they are considered stupider as Prussians than as Germans. One could invent a multitude of schemes for the reali- zation of homogeneity between the electoral rights of the Empire and those of Prussia; a return could be made to the liberal project of von Kardorff who, in 1869, proposed that the Prussian chamber be com- posed of the same deputies whom the Prussian vote had elected as its representatives in the Imperial Par- liament. An analogous system might be suggested for all the German states. There is nothing contradictory in supposing that the Imperial Parliament is only [ 46] 579 the sum of the separate state parliaments, united for the deliberation of the affairs of. the imperial collec- tivity. All these reforms would remain formal and vain as long as it is true that every draft of an imperial law, even before it is submitted to the Bundesrat, where Prussia presides and is always in possession of the majority, must as a necessary preliminary be sub- mitted to the Prussian minister who makes a decision without parliamentary consultation. Sometimes it is difficult to reconcile the votes of united Germany with the votes of Prussia. Sometimes the former is more liberal than the latter. A virtuoso of parliamentary tactics like Prince von Biilow could sport with this difficulty. His government, liberal in Germany, turned conservative in Prussia. He always had the power, because he was accountable to no one. An equilibrist of great elegance, von Biilow distributed to left and to right the smiles which brought him unani- mous applause up to the day on which a draft of a law of inheritance, unimportant in itself, produced a coalition of the Catholic Center and the junkers. He was then shown—something of which he should not have been ignorant—where the real power lay; it lay in the conservative parties. Has it changed camp since the war? The people who have given so much, in toil and in blood, what rights have they in compensation for their sufferings? And what did the “Easter message,” issued by the Kaiser, promise them? One thing is certain, one thing authorizes hope: democracy alone is the power of the future! The industrial technique itself, by means of which Germany has’ built up her powerful economic empire 147] 580 and her capitalist class so fearfully invasive, has spread education. The mind refuses to admit that the dif- fusion of knowledge does not result in the diffusion of the critical spirit as well. This work will be long in Germany because the German people is ever slow to change its ideas; because intellectual culture, for which it has such scrupulous respect, nevertheless remains specialized and broken into parts; and be- cause the Germans are not accustomed to control their leaders as long as they are being benefitted by the collective prosperity, of which, rightly or wrongly, they ascribe the origin and attainments to the prestige and solidity of the established system. | It is, therefore, not certain that German opinion will make an effort to induce Prussia to be dissolved into the more liberal Germany. It will put off making this effort, through indifference or complicity, because the strongest cement of the Empire has been this very industrial bourgeoisie, great and ambitious, which has spent all its energy in building up the “strong author- ity” indispensable to its projects of expansion. There- fore, it is for us, the Allied Powers, to assist in the dis- solving of Prussia in the Empire, by means of the war. II. THE GERMAN BUREAUCRATIC STATE A second important point, allied with the Prussian predominance in Germany, is the prodigious strength- ening of bureaucratic and military officialdom. If there is a profound pride in Germany, it is that of the body of officials and the body of officers. Which of the two is the more overbearing, the haughtier, the surer of its superiority, it would be difficult to say. A Ger- man officer is convinced that there is only one staff— [48 ] 581 the German staff. A German official is convinced that there is only one corps of officials which understands how to carry on its business and is disciplined and honest—the German corps. The corps of officials and the corps of officers have succeeded in imposing this conviction on the mass of non-Prussian Germans. That is why it follows them so blindly, after having abased itself before them with such cowardly acquies- cence. It has followed them into triumphs of which it has shared the intoxication and the profits. As it is to our detriment that they have accepted these intoxi- cating benefits, and as it is the lack of control by the German people of their officials that permitted the latter to loosen the universal catastrophe upon the world, we must inquire what these guaranties are, of which the public life of Germany is stripped through the fault of its bureaucracy. And here we cannot afford to be too disdainful. We are a bureaucratic people and we have been even more so. German bureaucracy is made in the image of the old French bureaucracy. From the Emperor Maxi- milian, who copied the bureaucratic hierarchy of Philip of Bourgoyne, continuing with Frederick Wil- liam I., King of Prussia, who copied the bureaucracy of Louis XIV., down to Stein, who borrowed the Na- poleonic framework, everything in the Prussian administration is of French origin. But the French have known how to break up the power of their body of officials. They hollowed it out from within. The Prussians consolidated theirs, by their discipline, by their methods of recruitment, and by the enormous authority which they conceded. The infatuated smile of a Prussian official or of a Prussian officer when he speaks of foreign officeholders or military men, means: [49] 582 it is in vain that you exert yourselves; we are the only ones that count, for we are obeyed, whereas, in your country, you are the ones that obey! This form of spirit is that of the old absolutism, the police-state (Polizeistaat) of the ancien régime. It was never a power without curb. It was well understood that under the old régime the administration realized the public welfare. At least, it tried to or pretended to. But it realized it without regard for any of the personal rights or for the consent of the citizens. It also goes without saying that this police-state has undergone transformation since the eighteenth cen- tury. It has become the Rechtsstaat even before be- coming the Verfassungsstaat. This means that the state has submitted its civil and military administra- tion, not only to the ideal ends of public good, beyond the understanding of its citizens, but to a posttive law, defined by a code known to all. The administration which is nowhere controlled by the parliaments, is, nevertheless, controlled by administrative tribunals established by itself. The arbitrary power of the officials, civil or military, receives at this point a con- siderable limitation. Nevertheless, it is not abolished. All that remains outside of the limits fixed today by laws not merely old, but also inspired by an old spirit, remains abandoned wholly to their good pleasure. This part of their arbitrary power, when we consider the police and the army, is prodigious. Though the principle of legality in administrative action is direc- tive and pedantically insisted upon, still it offers innumerable holes in its application; or rather, the kind of legality that regulates the administration is out of date. Of two methods, the one now preferred is the legal realization of the principle, leaving no place for [50] 583 arbitrary power. The idea that there are intangible rights of man and citizen is not unknown in Germany. It came there from France; but it remains as a stranger. Formerly there were conventions (that of Frankfort in 1848 and the national Prussian Conven- tion of the same year) which voted the Grundrechte. In the constitutions of almost all the German states the Grundrechte are inscribed. But this has never become the profound idea from which the governments have received their inspiration. There is no right of man or of citizen to which German law and practice does not make strange exceptions. 1. Exception to the equality of rights. Equality before the law, which, according to modern thought is a pro- found right of man and of citizen, intends that public offices shall be equally accessible to all. This, indeed, is inscribed in the constitutional law of Prussia and of almost all the states. Nevertheless, if the electoral right is bound up with restrictive conditions of census, of landed property, of education; if numbers of muni- cipal or state elective officers are not open to all citi- zens, is there not here an evident infraction of the principle of equality of rights, an infraction all the better calculated to disturb the public spirit in that it is imputable to the law itself? And how many infractions have there not been, clandestine, cunning, complying with a literal but superficial observance of the law? No German really believes that all the citizens should be able to apply for all the offices of the state. The proletarian, humble folk, the liberals, the Jews, know that they would try in vain to climb to the higher rounds of officialdom. Doubtless in all countries the body of officials has a tendency to be closed, to constitute a caste, to be [51] 584 recruited only by nepotism. In Germany this miser- able esprit de corps is reinforced by social prejudice and all the political power of the state. It is useless to hope for codperation and advancement in upper officialdom, if one has not in youth been admitted to certain of those distinguished student-clubs with the multi-colored caps, which form the élite, if not intel- lectually at least socially, of the German universities. These clubs accept only the students who are rich or who are sons of families with a von; a spirit of con- servatism and of Prussian megalomania is maintained which is agreeable to the authorities. To all the force of friendships clinched by drinking-bouts and common studies, there is thus added the force of the bond of caste and of social prejudices kept up throughout a lifetime. Behold why the members of these student- clubs offer such strong pledges of loyalty! As long as there are more candidates for the state-offices than there are vacant posts, why should not the military and civil administrations be masters of their choice? They choose out of that narrow freemasonry of the old Korpsstudenten, among whom relationships are begun in youth and complete the bond of distinguished cousinship. Nota high office in the diplomatic service or in the magistracy or in the upper administra- tion, which does not belong in advance to these Jaba- dens of the “corps;” and their taste for full-dress-cere- monials, their mania for pompous discourses and sumptuous horseback parading, their habit of building costly mansions to harbor their gatherings—all this solemn snobbism so surprising in very young people, is only the affirmation, insolently published before the population, of ambitions in reserve for the future. But the state, by its public encouragement and by a favor- [52] 585 itism which is the tradition of all its administrations, maintains and encourages these schools of conserva- tive and narrow fanaticism. It follows that a demo- cratic policy would have for its first object to discredit them, to dry up their recruitment by suppressing the exorbitant privileges which are attached to candida- tures of this origin in all the professions. 2. Exceptions to the right of assembly and association. The liberty of assembly and association is a right of man and of citizen. It is a right codified in Germany by the laws of which the latest date is 1908. It should never be limited except by the simple practical guar- anties required by public order. Nevertheless, there is evidence that the German government does not recog- nize this simple notion of modern rights. Shreds of it are obtained by main force, only to fall back again into the paternalism of the ancien régime. The German authorities, especially in Prussia, never cease thinking vaguely that there is something illicit in the mere facts of associating and meeting. Not only is the adminis- tration occupied with watching everything that is plotted between people who are not of the adminis- tration and who, therefore, have not the right to mix in politics, but it also believes that it has the right to know and control the particular attitude of each citi- zen. How otherwise would it come about that young people of from eighteen to twenty should be expressly excluded from every right of assembly and association? Note that it is demanded of these young men that they die for their country. The destiny of their country is put back within their hands on the field of battle. . But they are refused the right of discussing this destiny in meetings. As though this interdiction did not have for immediate effect the encouragement [53 ] 586 of a clandestine propaganda, just as agitating but of necessity more acrimonious and less controllable than public propaganda! There is another curious feature which testifies to the persistence of this ancient patrimonial law. The right of assembly and association is guaranteed to the major citizens by law. But it is not guaranteed except in relation to the state. It is no longer guaranteed if it interferes with obligations which the German citizen contracts by virtue of other engagements. A German official may, indeed, possess theoretically the right of assembly and association: but his hierarchic chiefs may prevent his being present at any meeting or being made a member of any association which they consider prejudicial to discipline or monarchic loyalism.