THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
I
It is the constant complaint of the German Democrats that there is no
Liberal Party in Germany. The wars that repeatedly devastated the
country during past centuries drove property owners to seek the
protection of a strong, centralized government. This habit has
survived the centuries. Whenever the middle classes show signs of
breaking away from the conservatism of the "Regierung," the Prince
always finds a way of bringing them back. The Period of
Revolution--1850--ended in a compromise that ignored the workingmen
and virtually left absolutism on the throne. When the new era dawned,
and Bismarck, like a young giant, shaped the highways of empire, he
used the Liberals so adroitly that, when his national legerdemain was
accomplished, they were a broken and impotent faction, lost in the
conservative reaction of the hour.
Universal suffrage for the Reichstag elections was written into the
Constitution of the new empire, not because the Chancellor and his
Prince loved democracy, but because the smaller states insisted upon
this safeguard against Prussian omnipotence.
Democracy and Liberalism have never been strong enough to break the
fetters of national habit; and nearly all the democracy, certainly all
the workingman's democracy, in Germany to-day is found in the Social
Democratic Party.
In order to understand the development of Social Democracy in Germany,
it is necessary to bear in mind the bureaucratic, autocratic,
paternalistic character of the German government.[1]
It is the German governmental policy to do everything for the welfare
of its citizens that can be done; and, in return, it expects the
people to let the government alone. The medieval conception of class
responsibility survives. It is the attitude of a self-righteous parent
toward ignorant and wilful children. The government assumes the right,
and possesses the power, to regulate every phase of the citizen's
life, in domestic, industrial, educational, moral, and political
affairs. It is a regal survival of the theory that government is
omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.
Germany is a made-to-order country that clings to medieval
conservatism in government; a country that is thoroughly modern in
industry and distinctly middle-age in caste; where the workingman has
always been treated with patronizing condescension and his political
acts watched with jealousy; and where he has, against great odds,
determined to work out his own salvation. Surrounded by preordained
and rigid conditions, he has perfected an organization that is the
most remarkable example of proletarian achievement found anywhere in
history. To the development and description of this organization we
will now address ourselves.
German Social Democracy, while Marxian in theory, owes its active
existence to Ferdinand Lassalle, one of those brilliant and daring
geniuses who flash, in an hour of adventure, across the prosaic days
of history.[2] He was pronounced a _Wunderkind_ by William von
Humboldt; dashed his way through university routine; attracted the
friendship of poets, philosophers, and politicians; was lionized by
society; became a revolutionist in 1848, and was, at the age of
twenty-three, indicted for inciting a mob of Duesseldorf workingmen to
acts of violence. He defended himself in a brilliant speech which
launched him fully into the campaign of the workingman.[3]
Early in his career he volunteered to defend the cause of the Countess
Hatzfeldt, whose unfaithful husband was squandering his estates and
suffering her to live in want. Lassalle fought the case through
thirty-six courts for nine years, and won an ample fortune for the
countess, who became the main financial support of Lassalle's
campaigns.
After his first arrest, Lassalle was kept under vigilance by the
government. But finally, through the interposition of distinguished
friends, he was allowed to return to Berlin. There, in 1862, he
delivered a series of addresses that soon brought him into conflict
with the police. His defense in the court was published later under
the title, _Science and the Workingman_. This he followed with a
letter, _Might and Right_,[4] sent broadcast over the land.
In these two publications he succinctly enunciated his theory of
democracy: "With Democracy alone dwells right, and in Democracy alone
will might be found. No person in the Prussian state to-day has the
right to speak of 'rights,' except the Democracy, the old and true
Democracy. For Democracy alone has constantly clung to the right, and
has never lowered herself by compromising with might."[5]
In the political turmoil of that period, when new forces were
awakening to their power and feudalism, conservatism, Cobdenism, and
democracy were all contending for supremacy, there were three
predominating currents of thought. The first was naturally the feudal,
the absolutist that would put down by the police power, and failing in
that by the soldiery, every attempt at changing the organization of
the government. This was embodied in the reactionary, or Conservative
Party, which held then, as it still does, the high places in army and
government. Bismarck was its leader. It had ample nationalist aims,
and was called the "Great German Party" ("Gross Deutschland"); Austria
was included in its ambitions, and monarchic supremacy was the token
of its power. It comprised the landowners, the nobles, and the
agrarians.
The second tendency was commercial, bourgeois. It found expression in
the National Liberal Party, which was liberal in name only. It was the
"Small German" ("Klein Deutschland") Party, preferring the ascendency
of Prussia. It comprised the enterprising traders, manufacturers, and
bankers, and was strongest in the cities. It was attached to monarchy,
cared little for military or political glory, except as it affected
trade and taxes.
The third tendency had nothing in common with the other two. It was
the revolt of the proletarians, led by men of great ability. It was
the democratic movement. It abhorred both the idea of feudal
prerogative in government, as expressed by king and noble, and the
vulgar trade patriotism, as expressed by the National Liberals, the
bourgeoisie. It took its inspiration from France and its example from
England. From France came the political platitudes of equality and
liberty with which we are familiar in America; from England, the
example of strongly organized trade unions. In Germany these two
movements, economic and political, were blended into one.
Not that the workingman's movement was a unity. Schultze-Delitsch, the
founder of the German co-operative movement, contended that labor
should keep out of politics and devote itself to economic activities
alone. Rodbertus, the distinguished economist, who was potent in
shaping economic and political thought in Germany, wrote Lassalle,
when he was entreated to join the brilliant agitator's propaganda,
that he could "tolerate no political agitation which would excite the
working classes against the existing executive power."[6]
There was no unity in the theories of the workingman's movement. The
first organizations, the "Workingmen's Associations," were founded
soon after 1848, as soon as the laws gave a limited right of
association to the working class. The government looked with suspicion
on every political act of labor, and especially upon organizations for
political purposes. The ban of the law was put upon those
organizations in July, 1854, and the right of public meeting was
greatly restricted; police autonomy increased, giving them arbitrary
power to stop meetings; and the right of free press was virtually
denied. Democracy became a movement of silent intrigue and occasional
rough outbreak.
At this juncture a new political party was organized, to absorb what
was "legal" in the democratic workingman's movement and what was truly
liberal in the National Liberal Party. The new party was called
Progressist ("Fortschrittler"). It was a German party, devoted to the
Manchester doctrine: Free commerce, free trade, free press, free
speech; freedom of expression in every phase of human activity. It was
_laissez-faire_ to the uttermost plunged into the reactionary mass of
German politics. The economic issue became freedom of contract
_versus_ feudal status; the political issue, freedom of ballot
_versus_ hereditary prerogative.
The new party began to appeal for the workingman's support. Their lure
of free speech and freedom of organization was not without effect. The
older workingmen, who were not familiar with the teachings of Marx and
Engels, and who had not even read Weitling's communistic
idealizations, were brought, in some numbers, into the new party.
The younger and more radical element in the workingmen's clubs were
restless. In 1862 some of them had visited the International
Exposition in London and had talked with Marx. The fire of the
"International" was kindled. A movement for calling a national
workingman's convention was started among these radicals. The
Progressists tried to check the agitation, saying that every effort
should be directed toward establishing a new Constitution. But it was
in vain. In Leipsic a group of radicals seceded from the Workingman's
Union (Arbeiter Bildungs-Verein), and formed a new organization, which
they called "Vorwaerts" (Progress). These now invited Lassalle to
address them on his views of the labor situation.
The movement was opportune, and Lassalle's answer is the basic
document of present-day Social Democracy.[7]
There is no salvation for the workingman except through "political
freedom," he says. This freedom demands laws, and to secure laws
united action is essential. They must be powerful enough to get laws
to their liking. This power they will not get by being an appendix to
the Progressists, for they are dominated by a trade doctrine, not by
altruistic ideals for the oppressed.
With a clearness that has not been excelled, he showed the dependence
of economic upon political power and influence. His economic program
was none other than Louis Blanc's state-subsidized workshops. It made
no great impression and soon faded away. But his bold plan of a
workingman's party fighting fiercely for democracy, and for the
betterment of the "normal conditions of the entire working classes,"
has been developed to surprising perfection.
The state, he says, must be the instrument of their power, not the
object of their striving. They are in politics, not as politicians,
but as proletarians. "The state is nothing but the great organization,
the all-embracing association of the working classes." No "sustaining
and helping hand" will be their guide. Political supremacy is the
"only way out of the desert." And how win the state? There is only one
way: through universal suffrage, democracy. "Universal suffrage is not
only your political but also your social foundation principle, the
condition precedent of all social help. It is the only means for
bettering the material conditions of the working classes."
Cut loose from Rodbertus economically, and from the Progressists
politically, Lassalle was invited to take the leadership of the new
movement, which from the start was political rather than economic. He
aimed to organize the German workingmen into a great national party,
so powerful that it could control governments, make laws, and demand
obedience. But it was slow work, and to the fiery spirit of Lassalle
its snail's pace was exasperating. It provoked him into violence of
speech which led him everywhere into the courts and into constant
altercations with the Crown's solicitors.
His powerful personality and unusually active mind made a profound
impression everywhere. At the last conference of his association which
he attended he claimed the Bishop of Mayence and the King of Prussia
as converts. The Bishop, Baron von Ketteler, was indeed turning toward
Socialism, but not Lassalle's political Socialism. He was the founder
of that Christian Socialism which has made the Catholic Church in
South Germany and the Rhineland a potent factor in the labor movement.
The King, whose conversion Lassalle boldly announced, had only
received a delegation of Silesian weavers who laid their grievances
before him and were promised the royal sympathy.
However, Lassalle and Bismarck had formed a general liking for each
other, and the great minister received from the brilliant agitator
many suggestions which he later embodied in his state insurance laws.
Both Bismarck and Lassalle believed in the power of the state for the
amelioration of social conditions. They met several times at the
Chancellor's solicitation, and Bismarck disclosed their conversations
to the Reichstag, on the insistence of Bebel, when the insurance bills
were under discussion. The Chancellor expressed his admiration for the
virility of the Socialist's mind and said he believed Lassalle
perfectly sincere in his purpose.[8]
Lassalle did not live to see his General Workingmen's Association
("Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeitsverein") attain political power. He was
killed in a duel over a love affair August 31, 1864. His brilliant
campaign for democracy had resulted in a petty organization of 4,610
members.
Lassalle's influence is increasing every year. His death-day is
celebrated by the German Socialists (Lassalle Feier). The present-day
German movement is Lassallian rather than Marxian.[9]
In a letter to Rodbertus, February, 1864, Lassalle says that he aimed
to show the workingman "how identical the economic and the political
forces are. Every separation of them is an abstraction, and I believe
that uniting the two is the principal potency which I can give to the
cause."
II
The little handful was soon rent by internal strife and threatened
with utter extinction, both by police aggression and by Marxian
competition. The year Lassalle died the International Workingman's
Association was organized and agitation began in Germany under the
leadership of William Liebknecht, a friend and disciple of Marx.
Liebknecht was the scholar of the early Social Democratic group. He
possessed a university education, was a revolutionist in 1848, a
fugitive in Switzerland and England until 1862. His foreign sojourn
did not mellow his natural dogmatism; on the contrary, his long
intercourse with Marx in London hardened his orthodoxy. He was a
powerful polemist. However, alone he could not have organized a
national movement. He did not possess the personal traits that lure.
He made a notable convert when he won August Bebel, a Saxon
woodturner, to his cause. "I was Saul and became Paul," Bebel said to
me. The words are not inapt: his power is Pauline. Lie has been
persecuted and imprisoned, has written speeches and epistles, has
made many missionary journeys, and kept constantly in intimate touch
with every local phase of his propaganda. His imprisonments have
undermined his health, but they have not diminished his mental vigor;
and more than once the Iron Chancellor winced under his ferocious
assaults.
Liebknecht and Bebel were more advanced than the Workingmen's
Association, which now had fallen under the leadership of Schweitzer,
an able but dissolute disciple of Lassalle. The two organizations
fought each other as rivals. The international wing, under Liebknecht
and Bebel, in 1869, organized the Democratic Workingmen's Party at
Eisenach, and were called "Eisenachers." Their program is of great
importance. It stated that the first object of the new party was the
attaining of the free state (Freier Volkstaat). This state Liebknecht
explained at his trial in 1872: "The idea of a free state is
interpreted by a majority of our party to mean a republic; but does
this necessarily imply that it is to be forcibly introduced? No one
has expressed an opinion as to how it is to be introduced. Let a
majority of the people be won for our opinions, and the state is of
our opinions, for the people are the state. A state without a king is
conceivable, but not a state without a people. The government is the
servant of the people."
This free state, the program continues, can be won only by political
freedom, and political freedom is the forerunner of economic freedom.
Demand is therefore made for universal, equal, direct suffrage, with
secret ballot, for all men twenty years of age, in both parliamentary
and municipal elections. Other leading demands were: direct
legislation; the abolition of all privileges, whether of birth,
wealth, or religion; the establishment of militia in place of standing
armies; the separation of Church and state; the secularizing of
education; the extension of free schools and compulsory education;
reform of the courts and extension of the jury system; abolition of
all laws restricting freedom of speech, of press, and of association;
the establishment of a normal workday; the restriction of female, and
abolition of child, labor; the abolition of indirect taxes; the
establishment of an income and inheritance tax; the extension of state
credit for co-operative enterprises.
This program sounds very modern and moderate. But its expositors were
not restrained to moderation, and when the congress met at Dresden in
1871 it adopted a resolution extolling the French Commune. A great
deal of popular sympathy was lost through this action.
Meanwhile the Lassalle party was slowly gaining ground. In 1875 the
two parties united at Gotha. There were 9,000 members in the
Liebknecht party and 15,000 members in the Lassalle party. Here was
adopted the first program of the united German Social Democracy. Its
economics are thoroughly Marxian in theory and are only slightly
tinged by the teachings of Lassalle and Schultze-Delitsch in practice.
Labor, it affirmed, was the source of all wealth and was held under
duress by the capitalistic class. Its only emancipation could come
from the social ownership of the means of production. The way to this
goal could be found through productive copartnership with state aid.
The political part of the program embraced the demands made at
Eisenach.
With its unity, a new vigor took possession of the party. Its
organization was perfected; 145 agitators were in the field; its
twenty-three newspapers had over 100,000 subscribers. This meant
increased police vigilance. All the leaders served terms in prison,
newspapers were suppressed, organizations dissolved, houses searched,
agitators ordered to leave the country. The government did everything
in its power to suppress the movement. Every act of oppression
popularized the Democracy among the proletarians. The blood of the
martyrs bore the usual harvest.
The new empire had been launched amidst the greatest enthusiasm,
shared by every one except the discontented workingmen who had so
stoutly fought for entire political freedom. The new imperial
parliament was thrown open to them because Bismarck had found it
necessary to include universal suffrage in the constitution of the
Reichstag. In 1871 the Socialists elected two members, and the feudal
lords beheld the novel sight of workingmen sitting with them in the
imperial Diet. The voting strength of the party was 124,665. This was
increased to 351,952 in 1874, when nine members were elected. In 1877
the party cast 493,288 votes, electing twelve members. This was cause
for alarm. The party had now reached fifth place in point of votes
among the fourteen parties or factions that contended for power in
Germany, and eighth place in point of members elected. But in point of
agitation, of perfervid speech and pointed interpellation, it ranked
easily first. Its delegation in 1877 included Bebel and Liebknecht,
now out of jail, and Most, afterwards the notorious Anarchist in
America, and Hasselman and Bracke, who were not modest in the
expression of their opinions. These representatives of democracy let
no occasion pass to embarrass the government with peppery questions.
Bismarck was slowly evolving a scheme for checking the Socialist
growth and satisfying the demands of labor for better conditions. Both
revolved around the pivot of patriarchal omnipotence. The suppression
was to be accomplished by force; the gratification, by paternal rigor.
III
He addressed himself first to repression. He entreated the governments
of Europe in 1871 to unite in stamping out Socialism, but he received
no encouragement. In 1872 Spain, exasperated by the revolutionary
outbreaks, addressed a circular to the Powers, asking their
co-operation to check the growth of the revolutionary element.
Bismarck was ready. But Lord Granville, for England, said the
traditions of his country were favorable to an unrestricted right of
residence for foreigners as long as they violated no law of their
host. This ended the international attempt. Next (in 1874) Bismarck
attempted to tighten the gag on the press, but the Reichstag refused
to sanction his proposals. Then he fell back on existing legislation
and with great vigor enforced the statutes against revolutionary
activity. The police were given wide latitude in interpreting these
laws.
Several acts of wanton violence now occurred which brought about a
sudden change of temper in the people. On May 11, 1878, while driving
in Unter den Linden, Emperor William was shot at by a young man. The
Emperor was not struck by the bullets, but the shots were none the
less effective in rousing public indignation. Popular condemnation was
turned against the Social Democrats because photographs of Liebknecht
and Bebel were found on the person of the intended assassin. Two days
later Bismarck introduced the anti-Socialist laws. They were debated
in the Reichstag, while Most was being tried for libeling the clergy.
But the Reichstag was not ready to go to the lengths of the
Chancellor's desire, and by a vote of 251 to 57 rejected his bill.
Here the matter would have rested had not a second attempt been made
on the life of the aged Emperor. This occurred on June 2, and this
time the Emperor was seriously wounded.
Naturally the indignation of the nation was thoroughly aroused. In the
midst of the excitement, a general election was held, and Bismarck
won. His own peculiar Conservatives increased their delegation from 40
to 59, the Free Conservatives from 38 to 57; the National Liberals
reduced their number from 128 to 99, the Liberals from 13 to 10, the
Progressists from 35 to 26. The Socialists retained nine seats, losing
three; their vote fell from 493,288 to 437,158.
Immediately a repressive law was introduced. It was called "a law
against the publicly dangerous activities of the Social Democracy"
(Gesetz gegen die gemein-gefaehrlichen Bestrebungen der
Sozial-Demokratie).[10]
Bismarck prefaced his law with a very clever prologue (Begruendung). In
simple language he arraigned the Social Democracy as being, first,
anti-social, because it aims at the modern system of production, and
does so, not through "humanitarian motives," but through revolution;
second, as anti-patriotic, because it makes "the most odious attacks"
on the German Empire. "The law of preservation therefore compels the
state and society to oppose the Social Democratic movement with
decision.... True, thought cannot be repressed by external compulsion;
the movements of minds can only be overcome in intellectual combat.
But when movements take wrong pathways and threaten destruction, the
means for their growth can and should be taken away by legal means.
The Socialist agitation, as carried on for years, is a continual
appeal to violence and to the passions of the multitudes, for the
purpose of subverting the social order. The state _can_ check such a
movement by depriving Social Democracy of its principal means of
propaganda, and by destroying its organization; and it _must_ do so
unless it is willing to surrender its existence, and unless the
conviction is to spread amongst the people that either the state is
impossible or the aims of Social Democracy are justifiable.[11]
The law was passed against the vehement protest of the Socialists.
They disclaimed any connection with the dastardly attempts on the life
of the aged Emperor. Bebel, in an impressive speech, declared that
while Socialists do "wish to abolish the present form of private
property in the factors of production, labor, and land," they had
never been guilty of destroying a penny's worth of property. Nor did
they aim to do so. It was the system of private ownership of great
properties, that enabled a few to oppress the many, that they were
fighting. And here they were in good company: Rodbertus, Rosher,
Wagner, Schaeffle, Brentano, Schmoller, and a host of other scholars
and economists, Bebel affirmed, were Socialistic in their tendencies.
Bismarck was unyielding. He said he would welcome any real effort to
alleviate harsh conditions. But the Socialists were a party of
destruction and were enemies to mankind.
The leader of the Progressists said, "I fear Social Democracy more
under this law than without it." The vote of 221 to 149 in favor of
the law showed the grim Chancellor's sway over the assembly.
The law made clean work of it. It forbade all organizations which
promulgated views controvening the existing social and political
order. It prohibited the collecting of money for campaign purposes;
put the ban on meetings, processions, and demonstrations; on
publications of all kinds, confiscating the existing stock of
prohibited books; and created a status akin to martial law by endowing
the police authorities with the power of declaring a locality in a
"minor state of siege," and exercising arbitrary authority for one
year.
A commission was appointed by the Chancellor to carry out these
inquisitions, and the war between Socialistic democracy and medieval
autocracy was on. Its events are instructive to every government; its
sequel a warning to all nations.[12]
The government organized its commission; the Socialists met at Hamburg
to consider the situation. They determined to perfect their
organization, to promulgate a secret propaganda, and to use the
tribune in the Reichstag as the one open pulpit whence they could
proclaim their wrongs.
The government promptly declared Berlin in a "minor state of siege."
In the course of a few months about fifty agitators were expelled,
bales of literature confiscated, organizations dissolved, meetings
dismissed, gatherings prohibited, and the Socialist agitation pushed
into cellars and back rooms.
But there was one tribune which the Chancellor could not close--the
Reichstag tribune. Here Bebel and Liebknecht talked to the nation, and
their speeches were given circulation through the records of debate.
Prince Bismarck, in his extremity, tried to muzzle the Socialist
members and expunge their words from the records; but the members of
the Reichstag refused this extreme measure. Then Bismarck asked
permission to imprison Hasselman and expel Fritzche from Berlin. These
two deputies had been especially vituperative in their attacks upon
the law. The Chancellor claimed that the famous Section 28 of the
anti-Socialist law authorizing the minor state of siege extended to
members of the Reichstag. But the House, under the vehement leadership
of Professor Gneist, the distinguished constitutional lawyer, refused
to sanction this dangerous measure on the ground that the thirty-first
article of the federal Constitution exempted members of the Reichstag
from arrest.
Bismarck soon had another plan for ridding himself of the Socialist
nettles in the Reichstag. He introduced a bill creating a
parliamentary court chosen by the House, who should have the power to
punish any member guilty of parliamentary indiscretion. The bill also
empowered the House to prevent the publication of any of its
proceedings if it desired. The Reichstag also refused to sanction this
measure.
The assassination of Czar Alexander of Russia in March, 1881, gave
Bismarck the opportunity to renew his efforts to quell Socialism and
Anarchism by international concert. He asked Russia to take the
initiative, and a conference was called at Brussels to which all the
leading states were invited. Germany and Austria eagerly accepted,
France made her participation dependent on England's action, and
England refused to participate. Bismarck next tried to form an Eastern
league, but Austria failed him and he had to content himself with an
extradition treaty with Russia.
Bismarck now fell back on his Socialist law. He enforced it with
vigor, extending the minor state of siege to Altona, Leipsic, Hamburg,
and Harburg. His commission reported yearly. Its words were not
reassuring. In 1882 it said: "The situation of the Social Democratic
movement in Germany and other civilized countries is unfortunately not
such as to encourage the hope that it is being suppressed or
weakened." The Minister of the Interior said to the Reichstag: "It is
beyond doubt that it has not been possible by means of the law of
October, 1878, to wipe Social Democracy from the face of the earth, or
even to strike it to the center."[13]
The duration of the law had been fixed at two years. At the end of
each term it was renewed, each time with diminishing majorities.
Meanwhile the rigor of the law was not diminished. The minor state of
siege was extended to other centers, including Stettin and Offenbach.
Meetings were suppressed everywhere, and dismissed often for the most
trivial reasons. The police were given the widest powers and exercised
them in the narrowest spirit.[14] "A hateful system of persecution,
espionage, and aggravation was established, and its victims were the
classes most susceptible to disaffection."[15]
On the unique _index expurgatorius_ of the government were over a
thousand titles, including the works of the high priests of the party,
the poetry of Herwegh, the romances of Von Schweitzer, the photographs
of the favorite Socialist saints, over eighty newspapers and sixty
foreign journals. Bales of interdicted literature were smuggled in
from Switzerland to feed the morose and disaffected mind of the German
workingman.
I can find no record of how many arrests were made. Bebel reported to
the party convention in 1890 that 1,400 publications of all kinds had
been interdicted and that 1,500 persons had been imprisoned, serving
an aggregate of over one thousand years.[16] Every trial was a
scattering of the seeds, and every imprisoned or exiled comrade
became a hero. The awkwardness of the government was matched against
the adroitness of the propagandists. A good deal of terror was spread
among the people, stories of sudden uprisings and bloody revolutions
were told. Even the National Liberals lost their heads at times. But
Bebel was always superbly cool. This woodturner developed into one of
the ablest political generals of his time.
Persecuted and pressed into underground channels of activity the party
persisted in growing. In 1880 it rid itself of the violent
revolutionary faction led by Most and Hasselman.
In the elections of 1881 the Socialists gained three deputies, but
their popular vote was reduced over 125,000. In the next election,
1884, they won twenty-four seats and polled 549,990 votes; two out of
six seats in Berlin were won, and one-tenth of the voters in the land
were rallied under the red flag. The police were alarmed and the law
was enforced with renewed energy.
With this powerful backing Liebknecht asked the repeal of the
"Explosives Act." A violent debate took place. Liebknecht said: "I
will tell you this: we do not appeal to you for sympathy. The result
is all the same to us, for we shall win one way or another. Do your
worst, for it will be only to our advantage, and the more madly you
carry on the sooner you will come to an end. The pitcher goes to the
well until it breaks."[17]
Bebel roused all the fury of Bismarck when he warned him that if
Russian methods were imported there would be murder. In July of this
year (1886) at Freiburg occurred the memorable trial of nine
Socialist leaders, including Bebel, Dietz, Von Vollmar, Auer, Frohme,
and Viereck, charged with participating in an illegal organization.
All were sentenced to imprisonment for terms varying from six to nine
months.
Preceding the election of 1887 the Reichstag had been dissolved on the
army bill. The patriotic issue, always effective, was made the
universal appeal by the government. In spite of this the Social
Democrats polled 763,128 votes, a gain of 213,128. Saxony had
succeeded in holding down the vote to 150,000; but in Prussia the
result was startling; in Berlin forty per cent. of the voters were
Social Democrats. With all their voting strength the party elected
only eleven members to the Reichstag. With proportional representation
they would have elected forty. The Bismarck Conservatives returned
forty-one members with fewer votes than the Socialists.
Finally in 1890 came the end of this farce. It was also the end of the
chancellorship of Bismarck. His old Emperor had died, and a young and
daring hand was at the helm. Bismarck proposed to embody the
anti-Socialist laws permanently in the penal code. This might have
passed; but he also proposed to exile offenders, not merely from the
territory under minor siege, but from the Fatherland. This
expatriation the Assembly would not brook and the Reichstag was
prorogued.
The Socialists left parliament with eleven members, they returned with
thirty-five; they left with 760,000 mandates, they returned with
1,500,000, more votes than any other party could claim, and on a
proportional basis eighty-five seats would have been theirs. Bebel
was justified in saying in the Reichstag, "The Chancellor thought he
had us, but we have him."
When midnight sounded on the last day of the existence of the
oppressive law, great throngs of workingmen gathered in the streets of
the larger cities, to sing their Marseillaise, cheer their victory,
and wave their red flag. Now they could breathe again.
For the first time in thirteen years they met in national convention
on German soil. The veteran Liebknecht, recounting their hardships and
sacrifices, raised his voice in jubilant phrase: "Our opponents did
not spare us, and we, too proud and too strong to prove cowardly,
struck blow for blow, and so we have conquered the odious law."[18]
IV
During the enforcement of the anti-Socialist law Bismarck began the
second part of his policy. He would repress with one hand, with the
other he would placate. In 1883 he introduced his sickness insurance
bill, followed in 1884-85 by his accident insurance, and in 1889 by
his old-age pension act.[19]
It is not unnatural that these measures were opposed by the Social
Democrats. They had no love for the Chancellor. The Dresden congress
decided to "reject state Socialism unconditionally so long as it is
inaugurated by Prince Bismarck and is designed to support the
government system." Bismarck "had sown too much wind not to reap a
whirlwind."[20] He had planted hatred in the hearts of the workingmen;
he could not hope to reap respect and affection.
Bismarck believed that Socialism existed because the laboring man was
not sufficiently interested in the state. He had no property, and was
not enlightened enough to appreciate the intangible benefits of
sovereignty. In 1880 German trade had reached a low ebb. Agriculture
had fallen into decay. German peasants and workingmen were emigrating
to America by the tens of thousands. Bismarck promulgated his
industrial insurance, first, to placate the workingman; second, to
restore prosperity to German industry.
As a result of his policy Germany is to-day the most "socialized"
state in Europe. Here a workingman may begin life attended by a
physician paid by the state; he is christened by a state clergyman; he
is taught the rudiments of learning and his handicraft by the state.
He begins work under the watchful eye of a state inspector, who sees
that the safeguards to health and limb are strictly observed. He is
drafted by the state into the army, and returns from the rigor of this
discipline to his work. The state gives him license to marry,
registers his place of residence, follows him from place to place, and
registers the birth of his children. If he falls ill, his suffering is
assuaged by the knowledge that his wife and children are cared for and
that his expenses will be paid during illness; and he may spend his
convalescent days in a luxurious state hospital. If he falls victim to
an accident the dread of worklessness is removed by the ample
insurance commanded by the state even if his injury permanently
incapacitates him. If he should unfortunately become that most pitiful
of all men, the man out of work, the state and the city will do all in
their power to find employment for him. If he wanders from town to
town in search of work the city has its shelter (Herberge) to welcome
him; if he wishes to move to another part of his town the municipal
bureau will be glad to help him find a suitable house, or may even
loan him money for building a house of his own. If he is in difficulty
the city places a lawyer at his disposal. If he is in a dispute with
his employer the government provides a court of arbitration. If he is
sued or wishes to sue his employer, he does so in the workingmen's
court (Gewerbe Gericht). If he wishes recreation, there is the city
garden; if he wishes entertainment let him go to the public concert;
if he wishes to improve his mind there are libraries and free
lectures. And if by rare chance, through the grace of the state's
strict sanitary regulations and by thrift and care, he reaches the age
of seventy, he will find the closing days of his long life eased by a
pension, small, very small, to be sure, but yet enough to make him
more welcome to the relatives or friends who are charged with
administering to his wants.[21]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For a comprehensive description of the German government, see
DAWSON, _Germany and the Germans_, Vol. I.
[2] Liebknecht said, in the Breslau congress of the Social-Democratic
party: "Lassalle is the man in whom the modern organized German labor
movement had its origin."--"Sozial-Demokratische Partei-Tag,"
_Protokoll_, 1895, p. 66.
[3] For sketch of Lassalle and his work see KIRKUP, _History of
Socialism_, pp. 72 et seq.; ELY, _French and German Socialism of Modern
Times_, p. 189; RAE, _Contemporary Socialism_, pp. 93 ff. For an
extended account, see DAWSON, _German Socialism and Ferdinand
Lassalle_, London, 1888. GEORG BRANDES, _Ferdinand Lassalle_,
originally in Danish, has been translated into German, 1877, and into
English, 1911. Also see FRANZ MEHRING. _Die Deutsche Sozial-Demokratie:
Ihre Geschichte und ihre Lehre_; BERNHARD BECKER, _Geschichte der
Arbeiter Agitation Ferdinand Lassalles_, Brunswick, 1874: this volume
contains a good detailed account of Lassalle's work.
[4] Published in Zuerich, 1863: _Macht und Recht_.
[5] _Macht und Recht_, p. 13.
[6] Letter dated April 22, 1863.
[7] "Oeffentliches Antwort-schreiben an das Zentral Committee zur
Berufung eines Allgemeinen Deutschen Arbeiter Congress zu Leipzig,"
first published in Zurich, 1863.
[8] In the Reichstag, September 16, 1878.
[9] When Bernstein collected Lassalle's works he wrote a sketch of the
agitator's life as a preface. A number of years later, 1904, he
published his second sketch, _Ferdinand Lassalle and His Significance
to the Working Classes_, in which he shifted his position and assumed
a Lassallian tone. This change of mind is typical of the Social
Democratic movement toward the Lassallian idea.
[10] The law is reprinted in MEHRING, _Die Deutsche
Sozial-Demokratie_.
[11] See DAWSON, _German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle_, pp. 251
ff., for a discussion of this law.
[12] A good description of the working of this law is found in DAWSON,
_Germany and the Germans_, Vol. II, Chap. XXXVII.
[13] December 14, 1882.
[14] "At a large Berlin meeting a speaker innocently used the word
commune (parish), whereupon the police officer in control, thinking
only of the Paris Commune, at once dismissed the assembly, and a
thousand persons had to disperse into the streets disappointed and
embittered.... 'Militarism is a terrible mistake,' said a speaker at
an election meeting, which legally should have been beyond police
power, and at these words, further proceedings were forbidden and
several persons were arrested. The Socialist deputy Bebel, in
addressing some workingmen on economical questions, said that 'In the
textile industry it happens that while the wife is working at the
loom, the husband sits at home and cooks dinner,' and the meeting was
dismissed immediately."--DAWSON, _Germany and the Germans_, Vol. II,
pp. 190-1.
[15] DAWSON, _supra cit._, p. 192.
[16] _Protokoll des Partei-Tages_, 1890, p. 30.
[17] Reichstag debates, April 2, 1886.
[18] _Protokoll des Partei-Tages_, 1890, pp. 11-12.
[19] For discussion of German industrial insurance, see W.H. DAWSON,
_Bismarck and State Socialism_, also J. ELLIS BARKER, _Modern
Germany_.
[20] R. MEYER, _Der Emancipations-Kampf des Vierten Standes_, p. 475.
[21] See Appendix for table showing cost of industrial insurance.
In Germany the state owns railways, canals, river transportation,
harbors, telephones, telegraph, and parcels post. Banks, insurance,
savings banks, and pawnshops are conducted by the state.
Municipalities are landlords of vast estates, they are capitalists
owning street cars, gas plants, electric light plants, theaters,
markets, warehouses. They have hospitals for the sick, shelters for
the homeless, soup-houses for the hungry, asylums for the weak and
unfortunate, nurseries for the babies, homes for the aged, and
cemeteries for the dead.