THE COUNCIL REPUBLICS
The first result of the failure of German Liberalism and of the Weimar
Assembly was that revolution and reaction came into active collision
with each other in the provincial capitals.
These two conflicts ran concurrently, and collision in the provinces
was a necessary consequence of collision in the capital. Moreover,
when the revolution had failed twice to assert itself by force in
Berlin, it stood little chance of surviving in Bavaria, Brunswick, or
Bremen. Such spontaneous and sporadic appeals to force met by
organised police measures and prosecutions only prevented the
Socialist party from reuniting, and forced German politics into a duel
between the propertied classes and the proletariat, in which the
latter had no prospect of success.
This duel started in Berlin in the December and January conflicts
which were settled in favour of the Government, and its subsequent
continuance in the provinces had the same result.
The outbreaks in the coast ports and the coal districts of Westphalia
were remote, and their unexpectedly easy repression by flying columns
only confirmed the Government in a policy of coercion. The outbreaks
in Munich and the south were outside the political orbit in which the
Government was moving. If the spread of the general strike from the
west to Saxony, which broke Germany in two and cut Berlin off from
Weimar, was more serious, yet the Maerker column soon succeeded, in
removing any danger to Weimar and in reopening communications with
Berlin. These outbreaks were not formidable enough to force the
Government to depart from its policy of suppressing not only revolts,
but the revolution.
But the general strike and street fighting in Eastern Berlin during
March although it was intentionally exaggerated so as to impress Paris
with the Bolshevist danger, did for a few days imperil not only the
Scheidemann Government, but the whole Parliamentary system. Both were
consequences of the coalition which by giving the Government a class
basis had made it quite incapable of going halfway to meet the
revolutionary demands for recognition of the Council System and for
socialisation. At first, party ties had held the moderate mass of the
Social-Democratic workmen; but as time passed and the middle-class
mentality of the men in power became more and more marked,
dissatisfaction with the Government and defections to the Opposition
grew rapidly. Even _Vorwaerts_ admitted there was cause of complaint.
In vain did the Government poster the streets with pathetic protests
that "socialisation is already here," and issued manifestoes pointing
to its legislative achievements--Eight-Hour Day, Unemployment Benefit,
Land Settlement, what we should call "Whitley Councils" in coal-mining
districts, War Pensions, and Repeal of War Measures. These had already
been put in force provisionally by the previous Government, and did
not amount to much any way. In vain did the Government profess its
intention of pushing through the two Bills approving, in principle,
nationalisation of coal mines and potash deposits; for no one wanted
nationalisation except as a step to socialisation. The workmen felt
that the Government was, as one put it to me, "a revolution
profiteer." It had perverted the purposes and pocketed the profits of
the revolution. They felt that Weimar, as another one expressed it,
was only a "soviet of profiteers" and would produce no socialist
legislation.
The revolutionary opponents of the Coalition saw their opportunity,
but their leaders could secure no combination or concerted action.
Nothing, indeed, was more surprising than the incapacity of the
Germans to associate and organise for a political purpose.
The general impression one got was that Germany had so grown to look
on political responsibility as the function of a specialised class
that they never could consider anyone outside that class as capable of
replacing any member of it. We see something of the same sort of
helplessness growing up in England, where it is becoming increasingly
difficult for the man in the street to conceive a Cabinet formed from
outside a small clique of the ruling class. And the German
revolutionaries of the Opposition showed themselves as incapable of
making use of their opportunities as did their Liberal opponents in
the Government. The game was in the revolutionaries' hands in the
early months of the year if they could have combined. But the
different disturbed districts declared war on the Government at just
such intervals of time as allowed them to be conveniently beaten in
detail by very small forces. Each district again was divided into all
manner of dissentient organisations in different stages of
development. In some the Councils were really representative, in
others they had co-opted themselves; while there were as many kinds of
revolutionary corps as of Councils.
In Berlin alone there were some ten different corps. A leader of one
of the last insurgent parties to hold out, told me, during an attack
by the Government troops, that it was not the great disparity of
numbers and munitions that had defeated him, but the difficulty of
getting the revolutionaries to work together.
Moreover, the issue between reaction and revolution in Berlin was
fought out in two different and quite distinct conflicts, that were
invariably confused by the foreign Press. One took the form of strikes
the other of street fighting. The general strike was the resistance of
the Workmen's Council organisations to suppression by the middle-class
Ministry. The street fighting was the resistance of the remains of the
old revolutionary forces to suppression by the new Frei-Corps
"mercenaries" of the reaction. The two developed concurrently though
with little connection.
The strikes that were always breaking out everywhere for no apparent
reason culminated in the Berlin general strike of March. This general
strike was forced on the reluctant Majority Socialists by the
Independents, themselves propelled by the Communists. For these two
latter controlled the Executive Committee of the Berlin Councils. But
though the Majority Socialists did not oppose the general strike, they
did their best to make it a failure, and when, after three days, the
Communists pressed for its extension to water, gas, electricity, and
food supply in order to support the fighting Spartacists, the
Majoritarians withdrew, and by the end of the week the strike was
declared off. The Majority Socialists' proposal for unconditional
surrender was rejected, that of the Independents for surrender on
conditions of amnesty accepted, and the conditions were agreed to by
the Government. Thereupon the Left of the Communists, including the
brilliant Clara Zetkin, took the opportunity of this crisis and of the
party caucus (Parteitag) then sitting in Berlin to secede to the
Spartacists.
The loss of their Left wing was, however, more than compensated to the
Independents by the movement leftward in the ranks of the
Social-Democrats, the supporters of the Government. And this leftward
trend was accentuated by disapproval of the action of the Government
in bombarding whole quarters of Berlin and in shooting wholesale its
political opponents. This rapid response of the Council system to a
trend in public opinion was in strong contrast to the irresponsive
inertia of the Weimar Assembly, which remained representative only of
a nationalist mood, and remote from the whole Socialist movement.
The Ministry had to give to the political pressure. Already before the
strike it indicated concessions as to industrial socialisation and
constitutional sanction of the Councils, and these were elaborated and
established by negotiations at Weimar with missions sent from the
Central and Executive Councils. These concessions were in principle
very considerable, and much more than could ever have been imposed in
practical application on the Centrum supporters of the Government. The
result of this crisis was therefore to prepare the way for a
reconstruction of the Government on a moderate Socialist basis,
between a Centrum-Conservative opposition to the Right and a Communist
to the Left. This would have represented the true balance of political
power at the time; and the fact that it would not have had a majority
at Weimar would have been only a formal difficulty.
But this, the natural, solution was made impossible by the
extraordinary severity with which the armed resistance to the
Government was punished. For this severity made it impossible for
even the most moderate Independents to join the Government. And this
fighting was not a development of the strike, but of the campaign
carried on by the Government with volunteer flying columns against the
revolutionary corps throughout Germany.
Of these corps, of which there were many in Berlin, the most important
were the Republican Guard and the Marine Division. The former had from
the first supported the Government, while the Marine Division of Kiel
sailors had already been in collision with it in December. The other
corps were all more or less in opposition, and some were mere
camouflage for bad characters. Until these corps were dispersed the
constitutional Government had no complete control of Berlin apart from
their "Council" rival, the Executive Committee. A first step was made
towards their suppression by the arrest of sixty ringleaders;
whereupon the Marine Division and the other corps prepared for
resistance, with the assistance of the Spartacist irregulars and a
rabble of roughs and rascals. These were joined later by about half
the Republican Guard, which had come into collision with the
Frei-Corps--the Government volunteer contingents. The strikers,
however, took no part in the fighting.
The strike was declared on a Monday; Tuesday passed in preparations by
the regulars and plunderings by the rabble, and on Wednesday the
garrisons of Government buildings in the east central district of
Berlin were attacked and besieged. They were hard pressed, but held
out, being supplied by aeroplane until relieved by an offensive of the
Government's troops on Thursday afternoon. For some hours a tremendous
bombardment was carried on round the Alexanderplatz and neighbouring
streets, but the damage to property though considerable could only
have been as little as it was if at least half the "hows" and
"minnies" had been firing blank; for the benefit rather of the
correspondents than of the insurgents. The insurgents' positions were
eventually made untenable by aeroplane observation and bombing. During
the following days they were driven, with terrific fusillades and some
fighting, through the east end into the suburbs, where the
bombardments were continued for no obvious reason for several days.
Berlin will long remember those Ides of March. So shall I, not because
of Thursday's fighting--you could generally get your fill of such
fighting in Germany those days--but because on that Thursday I got a
real lunch. It was a good lunch--oysters, veal cutlets, and pancakes.
It was given me by a banker, and cost just about four shillings a
mouthful. I know, because I counted them. And in the cellars of the
same house were families living on 5 lbs. of bad potatoes and 5 lbs.
of black bread a week.
The banker and I were enemies, and I was nominally and nationally
engaged in starving him; though, as members of our respective
Independent Labour Parties, we were politically working in the same
cause. And a few streets away men of one race and one class were
killing each other respectively in the names of Law and Liberty. Such
was European civilisation in the year of Our Lord 1919.
But probably you are more interested in the fighting; so, if you like,
I will take you two excursions through it. We will start the first on
Thursday afternoon, when the insurgent soldiers and Spartacists were
trying to force their way westward from their base in the east end,
across the Spree, past the Schloss, to the Linden, and the Government
troops were trying to drive them eastward. The main battleground was
the Alexanderplatz, from which radiate the main thoroughfares leading
east.
At the west end of the Linden all is much as usual. Instead of the
omnibuses laid up by the general strike long German farm carts drawn
by ponies are carrying passengers perched on planks resting on
packing-cases. Lorries with mounted machine-guns patrol up and down,
and machine-gun pickets guard all important buildings. As we go east
the roadway empties and the traffic on the pavements thickens into
hesitating groups all facing eastward, or knots encircling some
political discussion. Further on the roadway is blocked by artillery
of the Luettwitz Volunteer Corps going into action--field-guns, trench
mortars, and minenwerfer, the latter towed behind lorries loaded with
the missiles, great brown conical cylinders 4 ft. high. Here, too, is
the first cordon, and the game of "passes" begins.
The main rules are not to revoke by playing a pass from the wrong
side, and not to put on a higher card than is necessary. I take this
trick with quite a low card, the Foreign Office pass. At the next
cordon I try quite a good card--a pink Weimar Press pass with a
photograph, but he won't have it. I go one better with a British
passport, Royal Arms and all, but he trumps this by shoving his rifle
under my nose and saying, "Be off!" I have still a special pass from
the Kommandantur, and, best of all, a visiting card with "Noske"
scribbled on it, but the game is over here. These Government
volunteers, boys of eighteen or nineteen, shoot from the hip or
anyhow, and are all on hair triggers.
We try round another way. A soldier with a rifle at the ready comes
down the middle of the empty street scanning the windows. "Window
shut," he shouts, aiming at one. A red poster proclaims that anyone
loitering will be shot at. We are now in the danger zone. A lorry
hurries forward, the bottom spread with brown stained mattresses. The
noise becomes bewildering--the _crack_ of roof snipers and the _rap_
of the machine-guns are incessant. A field-gun is banging away round
the corner, and that heavy boom is a minenwerfer shelling the
Alexanderplatz.
The main struggle has already passed into the roads radiating
eastward, which the insurgents are barricading hastily, while others
on tugs retreat south down the Spree. But of this fight we can only
see the aeroplanes swooping a few hundred feet over the roofs and
bombing the machine-gun nests. An insurgent plane engages for a few
minutes, but retires outnumbered. The battle is over; though fighting
will go on for days as the troops drive the insurgents from one street
to another through the eastern quarter out into the suburbs.
And now it is the following Tuesday, and I will take you for our
second excursion into the insurgent camp at Lichtenberg--the most
easterly suburb of Berlin, where the main body still holds out. This
morning's Government bulletin has told us that the victorious
Government troops have cleared the whole East End, except Lichtenberg,
which is encircled with a "ring of steel." That several thousand
insurgents have barricaded all approaches and are sweeping them with
field-guns. That they have destroyed hundreds of tons of flour. That
they have shot sixty--a hundred--two hundred prisoners. That others
have been torn in pieces by the mob, which has taken wounded from the
ambulances and clubbed them to death. That no one in a decent coat can
venture on the street without being murdered. That in consequence of
these "bestial atrocities" anyone found with arms will be shot. But
we've read war bulletins before!
On our way we pass a convoy of prisoners, hands handcuffed behind
their backs, armed motor-cars before and behind. A young soldier
blazes off several shots to scatter the crowd, at which a well-dressed
woman remonstrates, but she is at once arrested and put with the
convoy.
Here we are at the Warschauer Bruecke over the Spree, where there is
an imposing concourse of steel-helmeted troops and guns, and a cordon.
We pass this after being searched for arms, and across the bridge come
on a lot of guns and machine-guns firing fiercely down the Warschauer
Strasse, though there is no audible reply or visible reason. After
watching the shells holing houses, we start working our way round to
the south through empty streets, keeping close to the house-fronts and
taking cover when bullets whisper a warning. At last crowded streets
again, and through them to a broad avenue crossed by shallow trenches
and ramshackle barricades--the much-bulletined Frankfurter Allee. Here
an insurgent picket takes charge of us and undertakes to bring us to
the secret Headquarters.
"But where are your field-guns?" we ask.
"Field-guns? We haven't any," they say, surprised.
"And how do you keep the troops in check?"
"Oh, those boys! Two of us take machine-guns, charge with them down
each side of the street, and they run."
"And how many of you are there?"
"Some two or three hundred perhaps--it varies, but we're all old
soldiers--we allow no boys to fight for us."
"And have you shot the sixty policemen you took in the Lichtenberg
station?"
"Sixty policemen? There aren't that number in all Lichtenberg. Two got
shot defending the station, but after they surrendered to a quarter of
their number we let them all go home. You can go and see any of them."
It is impossible not to believe these intelligent, even intellectual
and eminently honest faces. So the sixty policemen follow the
field-guns and the "ring of steel" into the limbo of "White" lies.
We pass a railway goods yard where plundered flour is being carried
away in sacks.
"Where is that going?" we ask.
"To the bakers, and afterwards to be distributed gratis to the crowd."
We see later women with red crosses distributing loaves from a cart to
women and children. We reach our destination, only to be warned by a
woman just in time that it is now occupied by troops--a narrow escape
that so shakes the nerve of our guide that he takes refuge in a
dressing station improvised in a shop. Here are "neutral" doctors and
nurses, very angry at the bombardment of crowded tenement houses and
the reckless shooting by the young volunteers. They run great risks,
as robbers have so often misused the Red Cross that it is now no
protection against the Government troops. Here are many wounded,
mostly women and children, and but a few fighters. The latter all
indignantly deny having shot prisoners, though they know the other
side are doing it. And then at last to the evasive Headquarters, where
the leaders tell us of what they hope to achieve by this desperate
resistance of a few hundred men armed with rifles and bombs against as
many thousands armed with all the machinery of modern war.
"Noske," they say, "is only a puppet in the hands of Majors Gilsa and
Hammerstein, and they are agents of the Eden Hotel, the headquarters
of the Cavalry Guard and the centre of reaction. The old story again
of Bethmann-Hollweg, Ludendorff, and the General Staff, militarism and
monarchism is what all this bombardment means, for they want to
convince the Entente that they must have a large standing Army. They
have just raised the pay and doubled the rations of these young
mercenaries. Why don't the Entente abolish them and insist on a Swiss
Militia here?
"If this White Guard goes on, we shall organise a Red Guard, and we
shall win. But that will mean Bolshevism. We are not Bolsheviks, but
Socialists to-day. We have offered to keep order in Berlin and here,
with a militia representing all parties, but they go on bombarding. It
is the old Prussian terrorism again. They have learnt nothing from the
war."
And, so, in the twilight, back the way we came, wondering at the
working of moral laws that have now subjected Berlin to a
self-inflicted punishment of bombardments and bombings worse than any
of those it inflicted on other cities.
Firing heavy artillery at crowded tenement houses, even with reduced
charges and plentiful blank, means a butcher's bill of several
thousands, mostly women and children, and damage to property of
several millions.
Next day we extract the following from the advertisement sheet of our
daily paper:--
"Reinhard Brigade. Mine-Throwers."
"Officers, non-commissioned officers and men with mine-thrower
training urgently required. Comrades! Consider the crisis!
Come and help! Spartacus must be crushed with every weapon.
Report to the Brigade Reinhard, at the New Criminal Court,
Turmerstrasse 91."
"Obituary."
"On the 12th March, innocent victims of these troubled times,
through the destruction of my house by a mine-thrower, my
little Adolf and Bertha, aged 12 and 8 years."
The behaviour of the Government can only be explained by their having
left the whole matter to Noske, who, in turn, left it to his military
advisers, Majors Gilsa, Pabst, and Hammerstein, who again were agents
only of the militarist reactionary faction. This faction intended to
exploit the crisis by killing two birds with one stone--the
anti-Bolshevists at Paris and the pro-Bolshevists at Berlin. Their
policy was to make an excuse for raising a large professional army
with which to suppress the revolution and, if the gods were kind, to
restore Germany's ancient _regime_ and its racial frontiers. For this
purpose atrocities were invented as a pretext for reprisals and for
recruiting and raising the pay of the Frei-Corps. The Government could
have kept order of a sort through the revolutionary corps if it had
kept in touch with the revolutionary councils; but it fought the corps
with flying columns of under-trained over-armed boys, and it fought
the councils with its patched-up majority of old parliamentary hands
and party hacks.
In the resultant civil war that raged, and still rages, all over
Germany one may distinguish certain combats more decisive than the
others. There were the conflicts in Berlin--of December against the
Marine Division, of January against the Spartacists, and of March
against the Republican Guard and other corps. In the provinces, the
expeditions against Bremen, Halle, Brunswick, and Munich. I saw
nothing of the first of these, but something of the fall of the
revolutionary movements of Halle, Brunswick, and Munich. And with each
of these failures ended some distinctive element of the German
revolution. With each of these failures the German revolution took a
fresh impetus and a more extreme form.
The trouble at Bremen was merely a collision between the centre of the
renascent reaction at Berlin and the original source of the revolution
among the soldiers and sailors of the seaboard towns. The revolution
first broke out at Bremen and was spread from there by parties of
sailors who established themselves in the leading towns of the
interior, including Berlin; and wherever they settled they became the
"Red Guard" of the revolution. Bremen was therefore not only the
Bethlehem of the new gospel, but was also the key position to the
control of the coast. And this control was indispensable to the
Government, which was negotiating with the Allies for the importation
of foodstuffs in mitigation of the blockade. For the revolutionary
extremists, recognising that the blockade was breeding revolt, kept
throwing every difficulty in the way of importing food. They first
refused to allow the German steamers to sail under the agreement, and
then refused to allow foodstuffs to be unloaded. The Government were
thus forced, probably not unwillingly, into military action against
the revolution in the interests of famine relief. When Gerstenberg's
flying column occupied Bremen in February with little serious
fighting, the revolutionary policy of barring off Germany from the
conservative West and turning it towards the Council government of
Russia finally failed. The desperate plan of strangling and starving
Germany into revolution was defeated by the German middle class, who
preferred, even at the cost of immediate civil war, to go into
economic slavery to France and England rather than to go into
political outlawry with Russia. The fall of Bremen really finished all
immediate chances of Russian "Bolshevism" in Germany.
The Halle affair in March was a less crucial business, though critical
enough for a time. The Saxon towns had been in a state of economic
unrest that increased as the impotence of the Weimar Assembly became
more obvious. Thus the smaller towns in the immediate neighbourhood
of Weimar, like Erfurt and Jena, became outposts of revolution,
permanently menacing the deliberations of the Assembly in the classic
groves of the Ilm. Small bands of revolutionaries even penetrated
Weimar itself, until the roads and railways were barred. It was some
weeks before the Saxon Frei-Corps of Jagers, under General Maerker,
were strong enough to attempt expeditions against the smaller
Thuringian towns. And the General himself had, in these early days,
more than one narrow escape. His small force was still very weak in
numbers and discipline when a general strike was declared at Halle,
with the avowed political object of cutting communications between the
Legislature at Weimar and the Administration at Berlin. Obviously, if
Weimar could be seized, or even surrounded by the revolutionaries, the
parliamentary system of government must collapse and a revolutionary
Saxony would divide the Prussian bureaucrats from the South German
burghers. This plan--if plan it was--and not merely a process of
inchoate and unconscious forces, was defeated by the Maerker
expedition to Halle; and those who are interested in the outside as
well as the inside of political events may learn something of what the
civil war in Germany was like in the following diary of my
experiences with this expedition.
_Friday Afternoon._--The green room of the Weimar Theatre--now the
National Assembly--and the War Minister Noske on a sofa, a big
beetle-browed, bullet-headed type of German, a Bismarck Mk. II., but
evidently underfed and overstrained. On a chair a sharp-nosed
intelligence officer, for War Ministers must be careful these days who
they see and what they say. After some talk I ask leave to go with the
Government troops who are to reopen the rail to Berlin by occupying
Halle. The intelligence officer demurs, but Noske good humouredly
agrees to my arguments, scribbles a word or two on the back of my
card, and hurries off to catch the Berlin train. He will have to spend
all night going round by Chemnitz and Dresden.
_Friday Midnight._--A fourth-class carriage in the third of three
troop trains conveying 4,000 men and 20 guns to Halle. Five of us are
perched on the narrow wooden seats; two officers in mufti, and two
Halle deputies going as Government delegates, one a brisk little
Democrat, the other a patriarchal Social-Democrat, in a long white
beard and a broad black hat. We make the best of it. One officer has a
candle, the other a stock of war adventures; I have a bottle of wine
and a budget of news from outside; the patriarch has sections of an
eel and views on the food question, which he roars like a hungry lion.
Bump! we are mostly on the floor. The engine of No. 2 has broken down,
and we have trodden on and derailed its tail. We pile into train No.
1, and get cushioned seats. The officers snore, the patriarch dozes,
rumbling like a distant storm. Only the little Democrat sits brooding.
"Oh, Halle! Halle!" he mutters, "that I should ever come to you like
this."
_Saturday Morning._--The General and I are marching up the road to
Halle; behind us officers in mufti, beside us the head of the column
of volunteers. The little General is telling me this is the seventh
town he and his flying column have occupied, but the first real big
one. An expert in Bolshevist busting, this tiny General of a toy army,
with the face and manner of a dear demure little old maiden lady. He
ignores politely the women and boys, who are shouting, "Bloodhounds!"
"Brutes!" "Vultures!" "Vermin!" and salutes scrupulously any burgher
bold enough to wave.
So we enter Halle, pass the factories and skyscrapers, where the hands
live stacked in tiers, and then occupy the station yard. The General
with a few officers and men, marches straight through the great
deserted station into the guardroom of the insurgent troops. The
guard, taken by surprise, seize their rifles, and some cock and point
them, shouting threats. The little General raps out an order like a
machine-gun, and after a long half-minute a man drops his rifle, the
others follow suit, and all file out--one shouting in a heart-broken
voice, "Is this all we can do?" A deputation of sailors arrives, fine
upstanding fellows, with intelligent faces. These are the real
fighters, and some hundreds of them are occupying a building in the
town. They have probably only come to find out what chance there is of
holding it, and the guns outside are answer enough, for they leave
abruptly. The General sends a summons to evacuate after them, and they
have cleared before their building is surrounded. "Those cursed blue
boys," says a young officer. "What wouldn't I have done for them
during the war, and now they've brought us to this."
_Saturday Afternoon._--The General with a few officers and a
half-company, is walking down to the Town Hall to arrange with the
local authorities. I am congratulating him on everything being so well
over--and add, as I see the market-place ahead packed with people and
ugly-looking roughs hooting us--that in England things would be about
going to begin. I've hardly said it before they do begin. The crowd,
annoyed at the hauling down of the red flag and hoisting of the red,
white, and black, storms the Town Hall, tears the machine-guns and
rifles from our guard there, and smashes them, seizes a motor and an
ambulance, which it afterwards runs blazing into the river, and
carries off two officers, whom it shuts up in the Red Tower, a
mediaeval fortress. They then turn on our little party, which is in
rapid retreat on the Post Office, but we stand them off until we are
behind the iron gates. An angry mob howls outside, but when they get
to shaking or scaling the gates a movement from the sentries inside is
enough still to stop them. At last reinforcements arrive, forcing
their way through the crowd, which, however, falls on the last files
and tries to haul them off. We sally out and pull them in, shouting to
the soldiers, now as angry as the mob, not to shoot. But already there
comes the crack of rifles and the rattle of a machine-gun from another
position up the street. Firing becomes general. The crowd scatters in
all directions, and the empty streets round are picketed with
machine-guns. The General, regardless of roof snipers, comes round,
patting his young soldiers on the back. "Well," says he to me, "here
we are, and the only question is, are we holding Halle or is Halle
holding us?"
_Saturday Evening._--A long table in the Post Office. At one end the
little General, behind him two officers, one smiling, the other
scowling. On his right the two "Independent" tribunes of the people,
representing the workmen's councils, beyond them commandants of the
local barracks, at the foot representatives of the burgher committee
and the little Democrat, on the General's left representatives of the
soldiers' council, probably students. The Patriarch has, however,
disappeared, the march of events having been too rapid for him. The
General is very short with the student soldiers, and very urbane with
the Independent politicians who are or were in control of Halle--one
is another Bismarck type, Mk. III. this time, the other a Bernard Shaw
Mk. II. A strong combination of authority with audacity; but I doubt
the General with his steel-helmeted troops and machine-guns will be
stronger. Their case is that they kept order until the troops came,
and they can only restore it if the troops go. The General and the
burgher delegates accuse them of arming and agitating the proletariat,
which they indignantly deny. The discussion is interrupted at
intervals by the irruption of dingy individuals, who report disorders
and discoveries, and I suspect the General of having realised the
dramatic value of the messenger in Greek tragedy. Finally, the two
tribunes agree to put out posters that the troops have nothing to do
with the strike, and must be let alone. This negative result horrifies
the burghers, and the General, leaving the table, is besieged by
earwigging notables imploring him to arrest the two tribunes. "I saw
them leaving the house that fired the first shot," hisses a flabby
frock-coated party with a grog-blossomy nose. "Bernard Shaw" overhears
him, but only strokes his thin beard and his moustaches curl in a
cynical smile. He knows the General knows his business.
_Saturday Midnight._--I've been out and in through the pickets and
among the armed parties of the other side several times, and a major
in mufti and I are going out to a hotel. Two journalists who've made
their way in, and regret it, decide to follow us. Nearing the cleared
street, we turn up a side street and come right on an armed party. The
journalists, a few paces behind, bolt round the corner, which leads to
our being stopped and questioned. I engage their attention all I can
to give the major a chance of slipping off, which he wisely does.
Unfortunately, this gives time for a larger crowd to gather than I
can manage, and they march me off to the market-place, where they
become a mob. Ugly roughs and excited boys keep pressing in, and
several have seen me with the General. The ring round me gets savage,
and I have increasing difficulty in keeping those round me quiet. A
man shouts at me in Russian, asking whether I'm from Joffe. I
repudiate Joffe, but knowing Russian gets me a friend or two. One
calls up some armed sailors and persuades them to take me to their
guard-house. A plucky little burgher who has been appearing and
disappearing in the welter attaches himself to the party. The crowd
follows until a machine-gun opens near by and scatters it. Our party
gets smaller each time we run or shelter from the machine-guns, which
are playing on the plundering parties. I find the burgher will take me
in if I get rid of the escort, so, distributing some small notes, I
suggest we should all be better off at home. Some agree, others
object, but a machine-gun closures the debate without a division and I
spend the night on the friendly burgher's sofa.
_Sunday Morning._--I hear from the burgher that an aide-de-camp of the
General caught by the mob in mufti with the General's orders in his
pocket, soon after my escape, has been thrown into the river and shot
as he swam. The town is still in the hands of the revolutionaries,
but quite quiet except round the buildings held by the troops. After
changing my appearance and borrowing the burgher's hat, I go round in
a crowd of Sunday sightseers staring at the looted shops and the
bullet-starred houses. Near the Post Office there is sniping from the
roofs, and a hand grenade is thrown almost on top of us. There are
ugly red blotches in the streets among the broken glass. Running the
gauntlet of the pickets, I find the General very glad to see me. The
scowling officer shows me a sniper behind a chimney-pot who has just
shot the smiling officer. The situation militarily and politically is
temporarily at a deadlock, and the only interest in staying is the
risk of being sniped in the Post Office or mobbed in the town. The
General offers me a passage to Weimar with the "flying post."
_Sunday Afternoon._--The Halle flying ground. While one of the few
planes left is being patched up the officer is telling me of his
difficulties. He daren't leave the men alone for an hour. The plane
with the post for Weimar I travel with has to be represented as going
to Magdeburg, or the men might stop its starting. He holds on because
the planes are indispensable to the Government, but when he came back
from the front, and the orders and badges were torn from his coat,
"something broke in him." His family has always been military, but now
it's over, and he is going to the Argentine. But my pilot is tougher
stuff. A man of the middle class, pilot since 1912, fighting scout
through the war, a friend of the great fliers and of Fokker, he had
had good openings abroad. "But no," says he; "Germany's going down out
of control, but if it crashes I crash with it."
So after careful scrutiny to see that nothing has been half sawn
through, as it was a few days before, we climb in. The roar of the
motor drowns the distant rattle of the machine-guns, and Halle
disappears below into the dusk as we drive into the red glare of the
setting sun.
Germany at this time was like a seething pot. Outbreaks such as that
at Halle were only bubbles breaking out on the surface. At any moment
one expected the whole heaving, simmering mass to boil over. But,
wherever a centre of ebullition declared itself the Government
quenched the upheaval with a douche of Frei-Corps.
Such a centre from the first days of revolution was Brunswick. Indeed,
Brunswick had been such a centre of disturbance from the earliest
days of German history. The chronicles of Brunswick show the workmen
of that town always in the van not only of German but of European
movements. They were indeed Bolsheviks as early as 1292; and it was
largely owing to the improvement in the workmen's position that they
forced on the German towns in the following century that the general
risings of the proletariat, that led to civil war in England and
France, were in Saxony comparatively bloodless.[A]
And, as soon as the revolution broke out in the North Sea Coast towns,
Brunswick gave it its first welcome to the interior. Bodies of
sailors, travelling up from the coast as the vanguard of revolution,
had established it in Brunswick, the day after the first outbreak at
Wilhelmshaven; and thereafter Brunswick threw itself wholeheartedly
into a real revolutionary _regime_.
The little State of Brunswick consists of the mediaeval town and a ring
of industrial suburbs separate from the town, with satellite rural
townlets and villages. The political life and vital heat of Brunswick
centre now in this mushroom ring of factories, where the old rebel
character of the State is more truly reproduced than among the
burghers and bauers of the dead town and dormant villages. Under
pressure from the workmen in these factories Brunswick established a
government that, unlike that of Berlin, was sufficiently revolutionary
to attempt to realise the social revolution. When the inevitable split
came between the Social-Democrats in power and the Independents in
opposition, Brunswick declared for the Independents. The free Republic
of Brunswick became a citadel of the Independent extremists, a centre
of revolutionary propaganda and a _corpus vile_ for the application of
revolutionary principles. And it was unfortunate that it made itself
so obnoxious to its big neighbour, Berlin, in its first two characters
that its services in the third capacity were overlooked. For Brunswick
was working out a _regime_ which was in fact a compromise between the
revolutionary institutions of council government and the established
parliamentary system of its constitutional Government. True
parliamentary institutions had under the leadership of extremists like
Merges been relegated rather to the background. But they had not been
abolished and remained ready to function, when required, as a sort of
Second Chamber and conservative counterbalance to the radical _regime_
of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils. Nor had this _regime_ so far
as I could ascertain done any irremediable material harm, while it had
certainly done real moral service. The propertied and professional
classes had been alarmed certainly; but had learnt to defend
themselves very effectively by strikes and refusal of taxes, and had
thereby obtained recognition of their rights as a numerical minority.
Feeling, of course, ran high; but the freedom of speech of the
burghers was never curtailed while the workmen's party was in power.
Of course, the workmen's leader, the hunchback tailor Merges, was
represented as a sort of ogre throughout Germany, but the Brunswick
burghers rather despised than dreaded him. Their opinion of the rule
of the "Arbeiter Rat," or Workmen's Board, is expressed in these lines
pasted on the pedestal of the equestrian statue representing Duke
William of ever pious and still immortal memory (obiit, 1884).
"Good Old Bill, if you'll get down,
Merges shall give up your crown.
We'll put you on the Board, of course,
And put the tailor on your horse."
As reaction developed at Berlin and revolution at Brunswick it became
evident that once again in its history a bullying Berlin would bash a
bumptious Brunswick. This simple solution as between the two centres
of the main conflict that has divided Germany was delayed by cross
complications coming from conflicts belonging to another plane, and to
an older chapter. Brunswick town, unlike Halle or Hamburg, was a free
Republic--more than that it was a semi-sovereign State. The
semi-sovereign rights of the lesser German States were one of the
ancient bulwarks used by the reactionary government as defences
against a levelling revolution. They were particularly dear to the
Centrum supporters of the Government as the temporal entrenchments of
the Clerical position. And so the free and Independent republicans of
Brunswick had a longer lease of power than might have been expected.
Finally, political and personal considerations combined to overcome
the reluctance of the Berlin Government to take military action
against a Free State. As usual the personal factor probably forced the
decision and the incident throws a sidelight on German politics of
this period.
Magdeburg, an industrial town on the main line between Berlin and
Brunswick and on the borders of Brunswick State, had been a political
stronghold of Majoritarian Social-Democracy. But it had been so
affected by the drift of the workmen to the left that by the end of
April the Independents believed they had a majority in that
parliamentary constituency. Now the representative of this
constituency was the moving spirit, the Machiavelli, of the
ministry--Landsberg. This Polish Jew has already been referred to as
the brains of the Government. He, as representing Majoritarian Social
Democracy and Erzberger as representing middle-class Clericalism, were
the cement of the coalition between Social-Democracy and the Centrum,
a coalition based on love of office and fear of the Opposition. So
Landsberg finding his own seat threatening defection to the Opposition
and joining a general strike of the Saxon towns, went down to
Magdeburg. But on his arrival he was seized by the revolutionaries,
put in a car, and sent off to Brunswick to be held to ransom. This
kidnapping of the reactionary Minister of Justice, second only to
Noske himself in importance, was a score for the revolution. But a red
Jew is kittle cattle to drive. Landsberg escaped from his captors, and
within a few days General Maerker and his merry men were marching on
Magdeburg from Halle. Magdeburg was occupied after slight resistance,
and became the base for operations against Brunswick. Only a _casus
belli_ was required and this was supplied when Brunswick, encouraged
by the Munich revolution, proclaimed a "Raete Republik," and invited
the Saxon towns to rally to the revolution and the "Soviet system."
This was immediately countered by the officials and clerks of
Brunswick organising a strike that crippled the Prussian railway and
the German postal and telegraph system. Whereupon Berlin declared that
it had ground for intervention in Brunswick, the State frontier was
closed and Frei-Corps expeditions advanced from Magdeburg and Hanover.
Skirmishes occurred at Helmstadt, Borsum and Wolfenbuettel and both
sides had losses. Brunswick called off the general strike, protested
against the violation of State right and tried to make terms. There
followed a pause in the operations during which the moderates on both
sides were trying to arrange matters. Meantime the Communists and
Council revolutionaries of Brunswick were preparing resistance, in the
confidence that the revolutionaries of the Saxon towns would rise in
the rear of the troops; while the reactionaries were mobilising
rapidly tanks and howitzers with the intention of giving the
Revolution the _coup de grace_. It was at this moment that I decided
to go to Brunswick partly to study its revolutionary institutions
before they were wiped out, partly to prevent bloodshed if possible by
informing the revolutionary leaders as to the small prospect of
Brunswick, if it resisted, getting any support from Saxony or Prussia.
It was not an easy journey and the following account of it from my
diary may serve as an illustration of Germany at this time.
_Monday Evening._--The notorious Eden Hotel, headquarters of the
Berlin garrison and military police. I am waiting for a permit to go
with the expedition against Brunswick. When I went with the same
troops against Halle a month ago I got my permit from Noske himself,
but the captain in charge at the Eden Hotel is only second in real
importance to the War Minister. There is, I suppose, a War Office and
General Staff still, with generals and colonels, but the Government is
based on the volunteer corps and they are run from the Eden Hotel. And
now Brunswick, not for the first time, has championed the cause of
German revolution and challenged Berlin, which has become, not for the
first time, the centre of German reaction. And Berlin has determined
to bash the head of revolution in Brunswick as it broke its back in
Halle. True, Brunswick is a free State with its own constitution,
which only differs from that of Prussia in preserving the principles
of the November revolution; but it has become a centre of
revolutionary opposition connecting the industrial districts of
Westphalia with those of Saxony. There has been a plan for concerted
action. Brunswick has given the signal too soon and realised its
mistake too late. Brunswick, says the Eden Hotel, will fight in the
hope of support from the Saxon towns, not knowing that they will not
rise, for it has been isolated for a week.
_Tuesday Morning._--A fourth-class carriage in the "parliamentary" to
Magdeburg. There are third-class carriages, but a haversack on the
floor is more comfortable than a straight-backed wooden bench. But
imagine traffic between London and Derby reduced to three trains
daily, two of which stop at every station. A peasant woman sitting on
a sack is complaining:--"We get up at four every morning and work till
dark. The cabbages and potatoes lie at the stations for days; the sun
shines on them, the rain rains on them, and they rot--no trains--so we
starve in the fields and you starve in the towns. A burgher frau tells
how a barge load of American wheat has arrived at her town--"but what
use is it at that price?" A man explains the high price is only for
the extra ration and that most of it goes to make up the old ration at
the old rate. "But," objects another, "we shall have to pay for it all
the same, and we can't." "Emigration, that's what it means," says a
soldier. "Why emigrate?" says a young man--"socialisation and Council
Government are what's wanted, then the workmen will work and we can
pay." You can hear more sound politics and economics now in
fourth-class carriages than at Weimar, for hunger is the best
political education. But--"Oh, politics, always politics now,"
protests a pretty girl The soldier gallantly responds and the debate
becomes a Beatrice and Benedict duel, altogether too Shakespearean to
report.
_Tuesday Evening._--The General's headquarters. I hand my friend the
General my credentials from my right-hand pocket, in my left are
letters to Brunswick leaders. Public disorder makes for personal
orderliness, and getting passes mixed in his pockets cost an officer
acquaintance of mine his life lately. The General tells me he is
marching against Brunswick--horse, foot and artillery--next evening. I
can go ahead in the armoured train or an armoured car. But I explain
this time I want to see the occupation from the other side and so must
get into Brunswick well ahead. However, the General doesn't respond to
my request to be set down outside Brunswick from one of the aeroplanes
employed in distributing proclamations. Brunswick has been cut off by
road and rail for days, and he evidently prefers it should remain so.
Brunswick, he says, means to fight and must get a sharp lesson. Anyway
it's impossible for anyone to get in now. And at first sight one would
say he was right. Brunswick is sixty miles from Magdeburg by rail,
trains only run in other directions, and even for them one must have a
permit. All planes and cars are under control of the troops. So it
will have to be the "underground railway" for me. For, when you drive
a revolution underground it won't be long before there's an
underground railway. It's quite easy even for a foreigner without
local friends to get down the lifts and along the passages to it,
provided he can find the way in. And a good place to look for the
entrance is a newspaper office.
_Wednesday Morning._--A back room in a beerhouse of a back street in
Magdeburg. I am being booked through to Brunswick on the underground.
The "tickets" are being made out among the slops and my guide is
getting his instructions. For all tours on the underground are
personally conducted.
_Wednesday Evening._--A beerhouse in a back street of Brunswick. We
have run the blockade successfully, and are waiting to be sent for by
the revolutionary government. We reached Brunswick soon after dark,
having travelled hard all day. First, leaving Magdeburg by train and
going north, we got out at a wayside station where a carriage and pair
was waiting. This drove us at a great pace over the rolling uplands to
the outskirts of a village. Whom it belonged to I didn't hear, but it
had the best pair of horses I saw in Germany. Next came a sharp run
across country to a halt on a local steam tramway, which took us down
to a junction where we got a train. The train had to be left
unostentatiously _en route_. Fortunately, German trains don't go very
fast nowadays; but standing on the end platform and waiting to jump
while my Communist guide turned somersaults on the embankment, I
should have preferred even my lop-winged Halle aeroplane to the
Brunswick "underground." Another walk to a local station from which a
train ran backwards and forwards to Brunswick. As we arrived it came
up loaded with refugees who were retiring to country farms to escape
the imminent invasion of the Prussian troops.
_Wednesday Midnight._--Government House Brunswick.--The town is
plunged in darkness but the Government building is all ablaze with
lights and a-bustle with figures hurrying to and fro past the lighted
windows. Inside there is a curious nightmare feeling of hampered haste
and of imminent menace. Round a long table in an upper room sits a
sort of council of war distractedly discussing whether Brunswick shall
resist the Prussian troops that are due to arrive at dawn. In a sort
of drawing-room adjoining, other members of the Independent Government
sit about listlessly in fauteuils brought over from the palace, or
pace restlessly about the room. A Communist is trying to spur the
Council on to fight, assuring them that the soldiers and sailors are
ready to face the tanks and trench mortars--which is true, and that
the workmen will support them--which is not. A sailor suddenly appears
in the Council room excitedly waving an object in his hand which it
seems is a bomb that has just been found hidden in the cellars--but
whether intended to blow up the revolutionaries or to be subsequently
found by the reactionaries and exploited as an "atrocity" is not
clear. Anyway, no one pays any attention to him, and annoyed at this
he proceeds to take it to pieces to prove it's a real bomb. I persuade
him to go away and drown it.
Soon after the Council decide not to fight. This definite decision
wakes us all up from the nightmare. Telephone orders are at once sent
out to the outposts, everyone hurries off on some mission, and as we
go home the dark alleys are full of dim hastening groups hauling heavy
objects--machine-guns and rifles to be thrown into the river or
buried.
_Thursday Morning._--A hotel window looking on the main square. I am
taking down the history of revolutionary Brunswick from the dictation
of one of the leading revolutionaries, while below the Prussian troops
are marching in. The organisation of the Independent Government has
made good in its last crisis and not a shot has been fired, to the
openly expressed disappointment of the invaders. The hotel, awkwardly
enough, has been commandeered as an auxiliary headquarters, and I have
to escort my informant out past groups of officers and see him safely
away into the "underground railway." He is one of the few wanted men
who get clean away. Merges and others escaping in aeroplanes and in
cars are with few exceptions caught. Merges himself, subsequently, is
released by friendly jailers.
The burghers in the streets exult at their deliverance and some of the
girls throw flowers to the troops. A young volunteer in an armoured
car catches a bunch gracefully and I recognise him as a scion of the
princely house of Reuss. At the back of the crowd stalwart men in
ill-fitting civilian clothes glower gloomily. A girl at an attic
window in a side street cries shrill abuse at the "steel helmets" and
one boy in joke points his rifle at her. It goes off, the bullet stars
the plaster and the boy looks as terrified as the girl. It is the only
shot fired at the fall of the Free Republic of Brunswick.
_Thursday Evening._--The General has deposed the Government of
Independents and set up another of Majoritarians, has arrested all the
leaders he can find and has proclaimed the severest form of martial
law. Many burghers are already regretting the revolutionary _regime_.
The streets are almost deserted for it is already dusk and no one may
be out of doors after sundown. In the shadows under the overhanging
gables of the mediaeval market-place gleams the steel helm of a
Prussian picket. Other cloaked and helmed figures gather round a fire
down a side street. Brunswick is back in the Middle Ages and these
might be Tilly's men. A fat burgher creeps cautiously past the hotel.
Every evening for years he has trotted to the cosy beer cellar round
the corner. Shall these bedamned Prussians keep a free Brunswicker
from his beer. After several false starts he marches boldly out across
the market. Bang goes a blank cartridge from the Prussian sentry and
the burgher bolts back into obscurity. The liberty of Brunswick is no
more.
The establishment of a Raete Republik at Munich got more attention than
the Brunswick attempt but was really less interesting because less
indigenous. The relative importance of the two was more accurately
assessed at Berlin. Berlin has always had a difficulty in taking
Munich politics seriously. It has had to recognise its superiority in
Art and Literature, but compensates itself in matters political by an
amused arrogance not unlike the attitude of London to Dublin. But
Munich is not Bavaria. If it were, the Prussians and Wurtembergers
would never have ventured to interfere; for the Bavarian is far too
fierce a fighter and too jealous of his freedom for all the rest of
Germany to coerce him as a nation. However, it soon became evident
that Munich Communism represented only a section of the Munich workmen
and was resented by Bavaria as a whole, with the exception of the
proletariat in the large industrial towns. Even so, the Berlin
Government acted cautiously. It was indeed in a difficult position;
for the policy that Scheidemann's socialism stood for was one of
compromise with political clericalism and provincial particularism.
His minister, Preuss, then framing the constitution, had been
reluctantly compelled to reject the conception of the more radical
reformers who had hoped to found a wholly uniform and wholly united
centralised German Socialist State. The Government had been forced to
use the political jealousies of the German States and the clerical
prejudices of the Centrum as weapons against the social revolution. It
would not be too much to say of this period of German politics that
only the revolutionary adherents of the Council movement were Germans;
while the upper and middle classes had again become Prussians, Saxons
or Bavarians. And now it had become necessary to coerce the capital of
Bavaria, the centre of Roman Catholicism and the most sensitive and
important of the minor kingdoms. And this, too, at the very time when
everything was being done to induce German-Austria, Bavaria's
neighbour, to accept the same sort of position in the Realm as that
held by Bavaria. It was a most awkward predicament and the German
Government showed less than its usual tactlessness in dealing with it.
It arranged with the Bavarian bourgeois Government, when matters came
to a crisis at Munich, that it should take refuge at Bamberg, where it
could be protected by the Government's troops centred at Weimar. Then
it arranged with Wuertemberg and Baden to supply troops to restore this
Bamberg _ancien regime_, supporting them with Saxons and, at first,
keeping the Prussian corps in the background. Operations were then
begun, first against the Franconian towns of North Bavaria, where
Bavarian sentiment was weak. Any attempt against Munich was delayed
until a raging Press propaganda against the rule of the Munich
Bolshevists in the Wittelsbach Palais, and the crushing of the
movement everywhere else, had excited the class feeling of the
propertied farmers and burghers and had exorcised temporarily Bavarian
jealousy of Prussia. All this, however, would not have ensured Berlin
success, but for the inherent weakness of the Munich revolutionaries.
The movement for Council Government and general Communism had lost all
chance of success when it was forced either by the policy of its
enemies or by the jealousies of its supporters into the hands of men
like the Russian extremists, Levine and Levien.
I saw a good deal of both men during my stay in Munich a few days
before their fall, and both were very frank as to the hopelessness of
their position. They were very different. Levine was a black Jew of a
common and rather criminal type, with a bad record, but great ability
of a sort. Levien was a cosmopolitan and a Bohemian--in appearance and
abilities a dissolute and demoralised version--a Bohemian and
Bolshevist caricature--of the Treasury official who now represents us
and rules Germany on the Reparation Commission.
A curious picture it was this Communist dictatorship in the
Wittelsbach palace. Outside--crowds of workmen waiting for the posting
of the bulletins in which decrees were proclaimed. Inside--a great
coming and going of seedy-looking revolutionaries--a frantic
clattering of typewriters pounded by unkempt girls--hurried conclaves
in corners--remains of meals on marble tables--the dubious atmosphere
of a Quartier Latin garret--the high pressure of a Bolshevist
headquarters and the melancholy madness of a Wittelsbach pavilion.
The political situation in Bavaria after the revolution had rested
entirely on the personal power of the idealist Jew, Kurt Eisner. His
influence over both revolutionaries and reformers produced in Munich a
coalition of Socialists in which the predominant element was
progressive; whereas in Berlin, for want of any such personality the
coalition split up into reactionaries and revolutionaries. The
assassination of Eisner and the disablement of Auer on 21st February
were succeeded by some weeks of the Hoffmann Government during which
the issue as between parliamentary and council government was defining
itself. The distribution of force at this time appears from a division
in the Assembly of Councils where the proclamation of a Raete-Republik
(a Council State) was outvoted by 230 to 70; Levien himself, the
Bolshevist, declaring against it as premature. But during March the
strong movement to the left and towards a Council constitution,
noticeable in the Berlin Raete-Congress, made apparently even greater
progress in the Bavarian industrial towns. Majority-Socialists, the
Social-Democrats, found their followers going over _en masse_ to the
Independents, while the latter lost equally heavily to the Communists.
In Prussia the Majoritarians had made up for this loss of popular
support by creating a military force strong enough to resist any
attempt to overthrow them by other than constitutional means. But in
Bavaria the Majority party found itself being left in the air. It
seems thereupon to have adopted a policy of outbidding its opponents.
At Augsburg, late in March, Niekisch, a leading Majoritarian, declared
for a Raete-Republik exclusive of Parliament, and succeeded in getting
it voted. The vote was later rescinded under influence of the
Independents and Communists, but restored under Majoritarian pressure.
The same curious reversal of roles followed in Munich, where a
Majoritarian, Thomas, pressed for a Raete-Republik. A commission of
Left Majoritarians and Right Independents was appointed on April 4th
and adopted a programme including the dictatorship of the working
class, the organisation of a council system on an industrial and
professional basis, the socialisation of industries, banks, and land,
the revolutionising of administrative, judicial, and educational
systems, the separation of Church and State, compulsory work for all
classes, the formation of a Red Army, and alliance with Hungary and
Russia.
This programme was to be executed by a Central Council and
Commissioners, equally composed of Independents, Communists, and
Social-Democrats. At first the Communists refused to join and
attacked the new Government bitterly as a humbug; but later, after
proclamation of the Raete-Republik and a Council constitution, agreed
to co-operate in the Central Council in an advisory capacity. The
Raete-Republik was proclaimed on April 7th. The Hoffmann Government
left; but soon after reappeared, first at Nuremberg and then at
Bamberg, where it established itself as a sort of Bavarian Weimar. The
Berlin Government at once refused recognition to the new _regime_,
while it gave every countenance and support to the Bamberg Government.
A few days later, Sunday the 13th, a "_putsch_" under the leadership
of a _ci-devant_, von Seifertitz, and a Majoritarian, Loewenfeld,
supported by the Republican _Schutztruppe_, overthrew this Government
and arrested the Independent members of the Central Council, as also
Muehsam, a non-partisan idealist. The Communists then took immediate
action and a hundred or so armed workmen under Toller, a young
Independent officer, ejected as many soldiers from the railway station
at the cost of two killed and a few wounded and some broken windows--a
scuffle represented in Berlin as a desperate battle in which the
station and surrounding houses had been completely destroyed. The
Communists then formed a "Bolshevist" Government under Commissioners,
among whom were included the Russians Levien and Levine, and an
Executive Council, on which were two Independents and a moderate,
Maenner--an able man in charge of finance.
Of course in this curious _chasser-croiser_ it is open to anyone to
regard the Majoritarians as mere governmental _agents provocateurs_,
working for a premature proclamation of the Raete-Republik, with such
motives as it may suit the critic to attribute to them. This was the
view taken by the _Times_; but personally I am inclined to see merely
the manoeuvring of demagogues ambitious of power, in a people with
little political experience. To retain power, the Majoritarian
Socialists of Prussia were prepared to re-introduce militarism; while
those of Bavaria were prepared to introduce "Bolshevism" for the same
object.
Both the course and the collapse of Munich Communism give an answer to
the question whether Russian Bolshevism can take root in Germany. If
Bolshevism meant Sovietism and merely is a constitutional conflict
between parliamentary and council government, it could. There is no
such traditional belief in the parliamentary system in Germany as to
make it an essential foundation of constitutional government. Neither
the old Berlin Reichstag nor the Weimar Assembly acquired popular
confidence. But if by Bolshevism we mean an economic class conflict
concerning the dictatorship of the proletariat, the answer seems to be
that it cannot be established in Germany, under normal conditions.
The short life of the Munich Commune seemed to show this. The
Government consisted of Commissioners--a sort of inner Cabinet, an
Executive Council--a sort of Ministry, and an Assembly of
Councils--the Legislature. The first was Bolshevist, in general
standpoint, the second Independent Socialist and Moderate Communist,
the third predominantly Moderate Socialist. The Commissioners,
especially the Russians, did not enjoy the confidence of the Assembly,
still less of the garrison. I believe that they would soon have been
replaced by a Socialist _regime_, but for the military action of
Prussia and Wuertemberg.
Nor were the measures taken by this _regime_ what could be called
Bolshevist. The absurd newspaper yarns, reproducing all the old
calumnies against Russian Council Government, including the
communisation of women, gave quite a false impression. I have a
complete list of the Communist measures, and they contain nothing very
sensational and mostly existed anyway only on paper. I will give two
examples which I heard discussed before the Assembly. The _cafes
chantants_, a great feature of Munich, had all been closed on moral
grounds, not without justification, as those who know Munich will
admit. The delegates of the employes appealed against this as throwing
three thousand people out of work. The debate showed that this measure
was largely a protest of the workmen against the irregular lives of
the Communist leaders themselves, and the cafes were allowed to
re-open under the control of a committee of the Assembly. Further, the
middle-class papers had been suspended by the Commissioners. So
representatives of the Communist and Independent papers rose to say
they would suspend publication until this prohibition was removed.
This threat was carried out and at the time I left the prohibition was
about to be repealed.
As to the practical results of the Bolshevist _regime_ it was
difficult to judge from the two or three weeks it was running; all the
more that half this time was passed in the general strike proclaimed
by the Communists which they could not prevent after their accession
to power. But after work was resumed it was clear that conditions were
normal. Order was not disturbed and the revolutionary tribunal as to
which wild stories were told was a mild affair. It was even recognised
by the local bar--and when an agent of the Anti-Bolshevist League was
caught with false Communist papers and large funds he was only fined
the amount in his possession. Telegraph officials, accomplices of a
spy in running a secret telegraphic service to Nuremberg, were
acquitted as only irresponsible agents. Russian Bolshevism would have
given them a short shrift. The only practical difference between
Communist Munich and Independent Brunswick was that the Munich
revolutionaries not having the hearty support of the garrison had to
form volunteer corps of Red Guards. These, like the Government
volunteers, were highly paid and fed, the means being provided partly
by money confiscated as illegal remittances abroad, partly by printing
new notes. The extent of the attempted exportation of money may be
guessed from the thousand mark note, the only convenient means of
exportation, having been worth fourteen hundred marks. The removal of
the note printing presses to Bamberg embarrassed the Communists for a
time, but they had succeeded while I was there in printing twenty mark
notes, which were, of course, declared worthless by the German
Government.
At the time I left Munich the garrison had declared in favour of
negotiating with the expeditions menacing Munich from Augsburg and
Ingolstadt, and the workmen, though against negotiating with the
troops, would clearly have welcomed a peaceful solution even at the
cost of expelling the Russians. This I was able to report to the
Premier Hoffmann at Bamberg, whom I found under the impression that
negotiations were hopeless. Three days later, they were opened at his
invitation at Nuremberg, but led to nothing, as the workmen would not
agree to disarm. The troops accordingly marched in, driving the "red
army" before them; and Munich, less happy in its leaders than
Brunswick, became the scene of the usual sniping and skirmishing by
insurgents with machine-gunning and bombarding by the troops. The
influence of the Russians was probably responsible for one
particularly ugly incident, the cold-blooded murder of a number of
"hostages" in reprisal for the wholesale shooting of prisoners by the
troops. Levine, the leading member of the Russian clique, was captured
and shot and several less dangerous and even quite harmless
revolutionary or Radical leaders also perished, some "by accident."
Levien was arrested some months later but escaped to Vienna. The new
Bavarian Ministry, or rather the old Bamberg Government restored, then
took on the same character as the Ministry in Berlin; that is a
Government by military force behind a Moderate Socialist facade.
The failure of the revolution in Munich was its last effort in this
first volume of the German revolution. The movement thereafter adopted
Leipzig as its centre, an Independent stronghold; but when later the
Government picked a quarrel with Leipzig, occupied it with troops and
abolished its Independent _regime_, there was no resistance.
In this autumn of 1919 the German revolution seems hunted to death. It
has, however, only gone to ground.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] "Brunswick succeeded more thoroughly than any other German town in
reaching the goal of the whole development of mediaeval civic life--that
is the emancipation and elevation of the working class....
"The Guilds developed unusually early in Brunswick those activities
which rendered them everywhere schools of political education and
centres of revolution. In Brunswick first of all did the workmen make
head against the Burghers. And if old records can be trusted what
immoderate ambitions appear even in their first rising in 1292. They
were not merely in revolt against abuses or for some moderate
participation in government, but proposed nothing less than the
suppression of the old Constitution and to make themselves absolute
masters of the town." Chroniken der Deutschen Staedte. Braunschweig. Vol.
I., p. xxvi.