Part 15 (2/2)
”Between these two extremes we find those (the Independents) who have studied the _bourgeois_ world and comprehend it, who regard it objectively and critically, but who know how properly to value its accomplishments and realize the difficulties of replacing it with a better system. This Marxist center must, on the one hand, spur the timorous on and awaken the blindly confiding, and on the other, put a check upon the blind impetuosity of the ignorant and thoughtless. It has the double task of driving and applying the brakes.
”These are the three tendencies that contend with each other within the ranks of the proletariat.”
Indications of the coming split with the cabinet were observable even in the first week of the government's existence. Together with its decree dissolving the Diet, the cabinet announced that ”the national government is engaged in making preparations for the summoning of a const.i.tuent a.s.sembly at the earliest possible moment.” The overwhelming majority of the German people already demanded the convening of such a body. Only the Spartacans, who had formally effected organization on November 14th, openly opposed it as a party, but there was much anti-a.s.sembly sentiment in Independent Socialist ranks, although the party had as yet taken no stand against it. Richard Muller, the dangerous Independent Socialist demagogue at the head of the workmen's section of the _Vollzugsrat_, was one of the most rabid opponents of a national a.s.sembly and one of the men responsible for his party's subsequent opposition to it. Speaking at a meeting of the _Vollzugsrat_ on November 19th he said:
”There is a cry now for a national a.s.sembly. The purpose is plain. The plan is to use this a.s.sembly to rob the proletariat of its power and lay it back in the hands of the _bourgeoisie_.
But it will not succeed. We want no democratic republic. We want a social republic.”
Haase, speaking for the cabinet, cleverly avoided putting himself on record as to whether or not a national a.s.sembly would eventually be called. It could not be called together yet, he said, because preparations must first be made. Election lists must be drawn up and the soldiers in the field must have an opportunity to vote. Moreover, the soldiers, who had been ”mentally befogged” by the pan-German propaganda at the front, must be ”enlightened” before they could be permitted to vote. Large industries must also be socialized before time could be taken to summon a _const.i.tuante_.
It soon became apparent that the work in the cabinet was not going smoothly. Ebert, Scheidemann and Landsberg, Socialists though they were, lacked any trace of that fanaticism which marks so many Socialist leaders. They were sobered by their new responsibilities. Looked at from above, administrative problems presented a different picture from that which they had when viewed from below by men whose chief role had been one of opposition and criticism. Sweeping socialization of all industries, regulation of wages and hours of work, the protection of society against criminals, the raising of revenue, the abolis.h.i.+ng of capitalism and capitalists--these things were less simple than they had seemed. To socialize the administration of the state was not difficult, for that was a mechanism which had been built up. But society, as these novices in government now comprehended more clearly than before, is an organism which has grown up. The product of centuries of growth cannot be recklessly made over in a few weeks.
The Majority Socialist trio, realizing the impracticability of tearing down old inst.i.tutions before there was something better to take their place, moved slowly in inst.i.tuting reforms. This was little to the liking of the radicals within and without the cabinet. Haase, politician before all else, and Dittmann, cla.s.s-conscious fanatic, insisted on speedier reforms along orthodox Socialist lines, and particularly on a far-reaching socialization of big industries. Nearly a year earlier Haase, Cohn and Ledebour, attending the notorious Joffe banquet, had approved Bolshevik attacks on the Majority Socialists and excused the slow progress of the revolutionary propaganda by saying that ”those--Eberts and Scheidemanns” could not be brought to see reason. It was hardly to be expected that the Independents would be milder now. The work of the cabinet was hampered already, although the Independent members kept up a pretense of working with the old party's representatives.
Haase, Dittmann and Barth were supported by the _Vollzugsrat_. This body, which had started out by ordering the restoration to their owners of the newspapers seized during the revolution, had so far faced about two days later that Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were able to exhibit to the publishers of the _Lokal-Anzeiger_ an order from the _Vollzugsrat_ directing them to place their plant at the disposal of the Spartacans for the printing of _Die rote Fahne_, whose editor the Luxemburg woman was to be. The order did not even hint at any compensation for the publishers. Naturally they refused flatly to obey it, and the Greater Berlin Soldiers' Council, still dominated by men of the better sort, meeting two days later, indignantly denounced the action of the _Vollzugsrat_ and compelled the withdrawal of the order.
Despite the fact that the Majority and Independent Socialists were evenly represented on this council, the latter dominated it. Brutus Molkenbuhr, the Majority Socialist co-chairman with Richard Muller was no match for his fanatic colleague, and most of the other members were n.o.bodies of at most not more than average intelligence. A more poorly equipped body of men never ruled any great state, and whatever of good was accomplished by the cabinet in the first month of its existence was accomplished against the opposition of a majority of these men. Muller's radicalism grew daily greater. ”The way to a national a.s.sembly must lead over my dead body” he declared in a speech filled with braggadocio, and his hearers applauded.
The Soldiers' Council noted with increasing displeasure the drift of the _Vollzugsrat_ toward the left. At the end of November, after a stormy session, the council adopted a resolution expressing dissatisfaction with the att.i.tude of the _Vollzugsrat_ and appointing one representative from each of the seven regiments stationed in Berlin to weigh charges against the executive council and, if necessary, to reform it. The resolution charged the _Vollzugsrat_ with holding secret sessions, usurping powers, grafting, nepotism,[55] failure to take steps to protect the country's eastern border against the aggressions of the Poles and hindering all practical work.
[55] A long chapter could be written upon this subject alone. The trail of German revolutionary governments (but not the national cabinet) is slimy with graft, robbery and nepotism.
Eichhorn, in the two months that he held the office of Berlin's Police President, made not a single one of the daily reports required of him and never accounted for moneys pa.s.sing through his hands. Himself drawing salary from _Rosta_ and also as police-president, he appointed his wife to a highly paid clerks.h.i.+p and his young daughter drew a salary for receiving visitors. An Independent Socialist minister's wife drew a large salary for no services. The _Vollzugsrat_ employed a hundred stenographers and messengers who had nothing to do except draw their salaries. The _53er Ausschuss_, a committee of marines and soldiers which took entire charge of the admiralty and conducted its affairs without any regard to the national government, voted itself sums larger than had been required to pay all the salaries of the whole department in other days. The police captain of a Berlin suburb, a youthful mechanic, received ninety marks a day, his wife was made a clerk at fifty marks, and he demanded and received an automobile for his private use. The first revolutionary military commandant of Munich tried to defraud a bank of 44,000 marks on worthless paper. The _Vollzugsrat_ never made an honest accounting for the tremendous sums used by it. Hundreds of soldiers' and workmen's committees const.i.tuted themselves into soviets in tiny villages and paid themselves daily salaries equaling the highest weekly pay that any of them had ever earned. Robbery through official requisition became so common that the people had to be warned against honoring any requisitions.
The Independent Socialists' ascendancy in the executive body was a.s.sured on December 5th, when an election was held to fill two vacancies among the soldier members. Two Independents were chosen, which gave that party sixteen of the council's twenty-eight members.
Even by this time the s.h.i.+ft of sentiment in the ranks of Independent Socialism had proceeded to a point where this party's continued ascendancy would have been as great a menace to democratic government as would Liebknecht's Spartacans. Adolph Hoffmann, the party's Prussian Minister of Cults, openly declared that if an attempt were made to summon the national a.s.sembly it must never be permitted to meet, even if it had to be dispersed as the Russian Bolsheviki dispersed the const.i.tuent a.s.sembly in Petrograd, and his p.r.o.nouncement was hailed with delight by _Die Freiheit_, the party's official organ in Berlin, and by Independents generally. Emil Eichhorn, who was once one of the editors of _Vorwarts_ but now prominent in the Independent Socialist party, and who had been appointed police-president of Berlin, was on the payroll of _Rosta_, the Russian telegraph agency which served as a central for the carrying on of Bolshevik propaganda in Germany. He did as much as any other man to make the subsequent fighting and bloodshed in Berlin possible by handing out arms and ammunition to Liebknecht's followers, and by dismissing from the city's Republican Guard--the soldier-policemen appointed to a.s.sist and control the policemen--men loyal to the new government.
The Spartacans were feverishly active. Liebknecht and his lieutenants organized and campaigned tirelessly. _Der rote Soldatenbund_ (the Red Soldiers' League) was formed from deserters and criminals and armed with weapons furnished by Eichhorn from the police depots, stolen from government stores or bought with money furnished by Russian agents. The funds received from this source were sufficient also to enable the Spartacan leaders to pay their armed supporters twenty marks a day, a sum which proved a great temptation to many of the city's unemployed whose sufferings had overcome their scruples.
The first demonstration of strength by the Spartacans came on November 26th, when they forcibly seized the Piechatzek Crane Works and the Imperator Motor Company, both big Berlin plants. Spartacan employees a.s.sisted Liebknecht's red soldiery to throw the management out. The funds and books of both plants were seized, soldiers remained in charge and plans were made to run the plants for the sole benefit of the workers. The cabinet ordered the plants restored to their owners, and the order was obeyed after it became apparent that the _Vollzugsrat_, although in sympathy with the usurpers, did not dare oppose the cabinet on such an issue.
The openly revolutionary att.i.tude of the Liebknecht cohorts and their insolent defiance of the government, resulted in armed guards being stationed in front of all public buildings in Berlin. But here was again exhibited that peculiar unpractical kink in the Socialist mentality: the guards were directed not to shoot!
The reason for the existence of this kink will be apparent to one who has read carefully the preceding chapters regarding Socialism's origin and the pa.s.sages therein reporting the att.i.tude of the two wings of the party in the Reichstag following Admiral von Capelle's charges in the autumn of 1917. The first article in the Socialist creed is solidarity.
”Proletarians of all lands: Unite!” cried Marx and Engels in their Communist Manifesto seven decades ago. The average Socialist brings to his party an almost religious faith; for hundreds of thousands Socialism is their only religion. All members of the party are their ”comrades,”
the sheep of one fold, and their common enemies are the _bourgeois_ elements of society, the wolves. Black sheep there may be in the fold, but they are, after all, sheep, and like must not slaughter like, _Genossen_ must not shoot _Genossen_.
The supporters of the government were to learn later by bitter experience that some sheep are worse than wolves, but they had not yet learned it. Spartacans coolly disarmed the four guards placed at the old palace in Unter den Linden and stole their guns. They disarmed the guards at the Chancellor's Palace, the seat of the government, picked the pockets and stole the lunch of the man in charge of the machine-gun there, and took the machine-gun away in their automobile. They staged a demonstration against Otto Wels, a Majority Socialist who had been appointed city commandant, and had no difficulty in invading his private quarters because the guards posted in front had orders not to shoot and were simply brushed aside. When the demonstration was ended, the Spartacans proceeded on their way rejoicing, taking with them the arms of the government soldiers.
The Spartacans were by this time well equipped with rifles, revolvers and ammunition, and had a large number of machine-guns. They secured one auto-truck full of these from the government a.r.s.enal at Spandau on a forged order. They even had a few light field guns and two or three minethrowers. In the absence of any opposition except the futile denunciations of the _bourgeois_ press and the _Vorwarts_, their numbers were increasing daily and they were rapidly fortifying themselves in various points of vantage. Neukolln, one of the cities making up Greater Berlin, was already completely in their power. The Workmen's and Soldiers' Council of this city consisted of seventy-eight men, all of whom were Spartacans. This council forcibly dissolved the old city council, drove the mayor from the city hall and const.i.tuted itself the sole legislative and administrative organ in the city. A decree was issued imposing special taxes upon all non-Socialist residents, and merchants were despoiled by requisitions enforced by armed hooligans.
The ”Council of Deserters, Stragglers and Furloughed Soldiers” announced a number of meetings for the afternoon of December 6th to enforce a demand for partic.i.p.ation in the government. The largest of these meetings was held in the Germania Hall in the Chausseestra.s.se, just above Invalidenstra.s.se and near the barracks of the _Franzer_, as the Kaiser Franz Regiment was popularly known. The main speaker was a man introduced as ”Comrade Schultz,” but whose Hebraic features indicated that this was a revolutionary pseudonym. He had hardly finished outlining the demands of ”us deserters” when word came that the _Vollzugsrat_ had been arrested. It developed later that some misguided patriots of the old school had actually made an attempt to arrest the members of this council, which had developed into such a hindrance to honest government, but the attempt failed.
The report, however, threw the meeting into great excitement. A motion to adjourn and march to the Chancellor's Palace to protest against the supposed arrest was carried and the crowd started marching down Chausseestra.s.se, singing the laborers' Ma.r.s.eillaise.
At the same time the crowd present at a similar meeting in a hall a few blocks away started marching up Chausseestra.s.se to join the Germania Hall demonstrants. Both processions found their way blocked by a company of _Franzer_, drawn up in front of their barracks, standing at ”ready” and with bayonets fixed. The officer in command ordered the paraders to stop:
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