Witness to the German Revolution (17 page)

At the last moment the bourgeoisie backed off in the face of the threat of civil war. The permanent class conciliators came out on top.

The impotence of the Stresemann-Robert Schmidt government remains total in the face of the victorious rise of the dollar, the arrogance of the Bavarian reactionaries, the demands of the kings of mine and ironworks, of bank and press.

It can do nothing but worship the dollar, capitulate to Munich, and serve capital, a churlish master that is preparing to dismiss it tomorrow. There is only one new claim in the programmatic statement of the chancellor, made on October 6 to the Reichstag:

“[…] To intensify production, we shall appeal to the goodwill of the workers, and, if need be, to the law.”

The compromise formula, accepted by the social democrats, states in effect, after having discussed technical improvements, that a “new set of regulations concerning working hours will be drawn up, with the eight-hour day still being considered as normal in principle.” The Great Coalition, the last resort of German democracy, has been revived by virtue of this double-talk.

Meanwhile, the dollar has climbed the following heights: October 1, 242 million marks; October 3, 440; October 5, 600 million; October 6 (convertible currency at Berlin), 740 and 775 million, according to
Die Morgenpost
…

On October 7, Herr von Kahr issued in Bavaria a new decree forbidding,
on pain of imprisonment, the editing, printing or publication of any Communist publication whatsoever, in any form whatsoever. The style of Herr von Kahr's edicts is reminiscent of the
ukases
of the late Tsar Nicholas II—whose reign did not end happily despite the repeated use of such measures over many years…
¹³⁴

But in fact General Müller, the representative of Ebert and Gessler in Dresden, has effectively suppressed the Communist press just as comprehensively. (The
Sächsische Arbeiterzeitung,
imitating the example of the nationalist
Völkischer Beobachter
in Munich, has nonetheless continued to appear in Leipzig.)

In red Thuringia, General Reinhardt has taken on the job of disarming the working class and has ordered (Gotha, October 4) the handing over within nine hours of all weapons in the possession of individuals, under threat of death! Demonstrations and strikes are banned.

Under the combined pressure of the military dictatorship, of the offensive of large scale industry against the eight-hour day, of Bavarian fascism, of the sabotage of production ordered by the employers, and of deep poverty, working-class Germany is emerging from the profound lethargy into which it had been plunged by forty years of reformist socialism.

The red German bloc has been formed. For some days Saxony and Thuringia have had workers' governments composed of left social democrats and Communists. These two governments have made a pact of alliance similar to the one that unites, within the two
states, the (left) SPD and the KPD. Their program of working-class defense includes the “republicanization of the Reichswehr.”

“That's a nice mess!” will exclaim, in Pantin or Montsouris,
¹³⁵
someone who understands nothing at all. “Communist ministers demanding the ‘republicanization' of the German army!”

Let us explain to this intransigent revolutionary that the SPD ministers have established in Germany the dictatorship of the revolutionary army precisely in order to save both their own ministerial jobs and the investments of the big bourgeoisie: while our comrades in Saxony and Thuringia are entering the Zeigner and Frölich governments, under martial law and military dictatorship, in order, despite everything, to organize the arming of the proletariat. Let us also explain to him that the “republican” purging of a reactionary army, when the word “republic” merely means frustrating the will of the kings of iron and coal, may be a revolutionary action.

It may very well be that a historical proof of this will soon be given to us by red Germany. The situation there is, in fact, of such gravity that it cannot be overstated. All workers' freedoms have been suppressed, the right to strike has been suppressed, the Communist press has been suppressed, the workers' hundreds have been disarmed and effectively made unable to make their existence known: the Saxon police—headed by a social democrat—is actively infiltrated by fascist gangs; in Dresden, General Reinhardt, a former accomplice of Kapp,
¹³⁶
is governor, and the whole of the German bourgeoisie is getting ready to put an end to red Saxony and Thuringia!

The workers in the two states can feel and see the ambush being organized all around them. One military provocation would suffice to
leave them with no alternative but a general strike—the only weapon left to them—and hence insurrection, since strikes are banned and the rigours of martial law mean immediate armed repression…

Not to act, for these proletarians of red Germany, would mean agreeing to be treated as the losers in the social war without even having joined battle. But to act would mean rising in open revolt against the dictatorship of the generals and giving white Germany the go-ahead for an all-out attack.

The fate of the German revolution—and hence of the German proletariat in the next ten or 20 years—is being decided at this moment in a quadrilateral at the angles of which are Erfurt, Dresden, Leipzig and Vogtland. Remember those names, comrades!

At this moment, there are a flood of indications of the determined will of the reactionaries to engage battle everywhere. In Prussia, public opinion has been closely following the trial of a small Prussian landowner from the outskirts of Potsdam, Karl von Kaehne. Everything in this case has general significance.

Von Kaehne was accused of having killed a young worker called Laase who had been gathering wood
¹³⁷
on his grounds. Von Kaehne and his sons, whom he had raised as ferocious junkers,
¹³⁸
had already been prosecuted several times for assault and battery against poor people who lacked respect for their property. One of the von Kaehnes, having once come across a peasant who was picking mushrooms on his estate, had beaten him to the ground there
and then. Against old von Kaehne there was the most serious circumstantial evidence to accuse him of murder. As for his character as a landowner and a tough Prussian junker, he proudly displayed it to the jury, with statements of the following kind:

“We are still armed and nobody has the right to criticize us for defending our property. I don't shoot at respectable people, but I am not afraid of shooting at scum.” He admitted having stated, when told that the body of a prowler had been found on his land: “Let it stay there for the pigs to eat!”

The Potsdam jury found this quite acceptable and acquitted him (October 4). There are judges in Potsdam, good judges for the landowners, judges who know their jobs.

Potsdam is one of the citadels of reaction. Nonetheless, the police had to protect the acquitted man from an angry crowd who jeered the jurymen and wanted to lynch Herr von Kaehne with cries of, “Death to the bloody dog!”

All capitalist countries have simultaneously two sorts of rulers: monarchs and ministers who pass away, and financiers and businessmen who endure. Thus Germany today has two chancellors. One, without money, without a press at his command, without any social influence other than that of his masters, who yesterday assumed powers that are much more apparent than real, and who will leave again tomorrow; meanwhile he bears all the formal responsibility. The other one owns mines, factories, estates, banks and newspapers; he is not accountable to anyone for anything; he is above the laws; he makes public opinion, cabinets, war and peace; he is irremovable. One is only the executor of the thankless governmental tasks of the bourgeoisie. The other is the brain of the bourgeoisie.

In the division of roles, the former—surrounded by his social democratic satellites—has as his main job to prepare the way for the latter.

Indeed, for the last few days Herr Stinnes has been behaving very publicly as the true master of Germany. Negotiations have not yet started between Messrs Stresemann and Poincaré. But Herr Stinnes is negotiating—in secret—with General Degoutte. Scarcely had he reprieved the cabinet of the Great Coalition when he addressed to it the ultimatum of October 9, summed up in the following ten points:

The government was summoned to respond to the iron chancellor
¹³⁹
before Tuesday, October 9, at noon. Acting in advance of
his reply, the Ruhr industrialists have required miners to extend the working day.

Never has the official government of a country been treated with such contemptuous arrogance by its true masters. Herr Stresemann and citizen Robert Schmidt have accepted without complaint the humiliation inflicted by Stinnes and have broken off all their current work in order to examine his “proposals.”

The best part of all this is to see Herr Hugo Stinnes presenting himself as a victim—an all-powerful one!—of the economic war in the Ruhr, and (patriotically) demanding indemnities, compensation and privileges…

Herr Hugo Stinnes developed his industrial and financial strength under the old imperial regime. The prosperity of the Empire was his prosperity. The Kaiser's armaments enriched him: he was the major supplier of coal to the manufacturers of cannons, his partners.

During the war Herr Hugo Stinnes continued to get richer: each shell manufactured in Germany brought him a profit; each corpse rotting on a battlefield brought him a profit… And on top of this he was plundering Belgian industry.

After the war Herr Stinnes joined up with the victors to exploit more or less all the nations of the earth, concluded a profitable reparations agreement with M. de Lubersac, and extended his empire over Vienna and Czechoslovakia.

The fall of the mark made him one of the profiteers who benefited from Germany's ability to sell at reduced prices. The war in the Ruhr meant that a substantial part of the Reich's gold reserves found their way into his safes.

Germany's capitulation will bring him large indemnities; the coming reparations agreement will be a goldmine to him; and the terrible poverty of the German nation will bring him to dictatorship…

Herr Hugo Stinnes is the magnate who owns the Rhineland coal syndicate, the German company for the coal trade and shipping, the Dortmund mining company, the German-Luxemburg mining and smelting company, the power stations of Aachen and Westphalia, the Gelsenkirchen mines, the Rhine and Elbe electricity company, that of Bochum, the Bohlen steel mills, the Siemens-Rheinelbe-Schuckert electrical and mining company, etc.

He owns several large daily papers:
Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
(General German News),
Rheinische Westfälische Zeitung
(Rhine and Westphalia News); he has an influence on the
Lokal Anzeiger
(Berlin), the
Tag
, the
Deutsche Zeitung
(German News),
Hamburger Nachrichten
(Hamburg Reports)… In each important city in Germany, there is at least one paper in his service. No precise evaluation of his wealth and power is possible.

He can negotiate on equal terms with the representatives of French imperialism; he has the habit of giving orders—and the right to give them—to Berlin governments. And he knows exactly what he wants.

For the moment, in domestic politics, what he wants amounts to two things: