THE COMING REVOLUTION IN GERMANY
I.
Both French and British publicists have remained strangely silent and
reticent on the problem and prospects of a revolution in Germany. It
may be that they are afraid to conjure up the ghost of political
rebellion, lest that ghost might cause havoc in other countries than
Germany. It may also be that they are unwilling to tackle a very
complex and delicate question. Yet the more we consider the problem,
the more central, the more vital it will appear. German policy, German
diplomacy, German strategy, are now entirely dominated by the dread of
a social upheaval. Measures which might seem to be dictated solely by
military considerations are in reality imposed by the necessity of
deceiving and distracting public opinion and of striking the popular
imagination.
And this obsession of an impending revolution is fully justified. To
the outside view the war may seem above all a conflict of nations,
involving a reconstruction of the map of Europe, raising international
issues and resulting in a new international order. But in reality the
conflict is concerned with national and internal issues, and it must
result in a new national order. If this war has not been fought in
vain, if we are to achieve the objects for which we entered it, if we
are ultimately to crush German militarism, which is only a vague and
confusing synonym for German reaction, then it inexorably follows that
the war must end in a German revolution. The road to peace must indeed
pass through Berlin, but that Berlin will have ceased to be the Berlin
of the Junkers--it must be the insurrectionary Berlin of 1848. Just as
there can be no real war of attrition in the struggle between Germany
and Europe, so there can be no war of attrition in the struggle
between the German people and despotism. As there could be no
compromise or surrender of principles before, there can be no
compromise and no surrender after. On the conclusion of peace, it must
come to a final trial of strength between the rulers and their
subjects, between the masses and the classes. The issues must be
fought out in a decisive battle. Even though we achieve a crushing
military victory, militarism would not be crushed if the Hohenzollern
were still able to command the allegiance of a still patient and
passive German people: just as Napoleonic militarism was not crushed
at Waterloo and revived in 1849, because Napoleon still retained the
allegiance of the French people. It is inconceivable that the German
reactionaries will abdicate of their own free will. It is equally
inconceivable that the reaction will develop slowly and gradually into
a free democratic government, as von Bethmann-Hollweg would make us
believe in the historic speech of February 27. No doubt this war has
hastened on the day of retribution. And the pathos of the war lies in
this, that it has been a vicarious sacrifice, and that millions of
Frenchmen and Britons have died to prepare the liberation of a nation
of slaves. _But ultimately it is the German people themselves who must
work out their own salvation._ They will have to turn against their
oppressors some of that combativeness, of that fanaticism, of that
idealism, which hitherto they have only directed against their
European brethren.
II.
I stated at the outset that publicists have maintained a conspiracy of
silence on the coming German revolution, because they were afraid to
conjure up a sinister spectre, and because they are repelled by a
difficult and delicate subject. But there may be another and a more
plausible reason for their silence--namely, that most people simply
cannot believe in the very possibility of a German revolution. And if
you press them to state their definite reasons for such a belief, you
will probably find that all the arguments given can ultimately be
brought under the four following headings:
1. Militarism and reaction are too deeply rooted in Germany. The
reactionary forces are far too strong to leave any chance to a
successful revolution.
2. A revolution is impossible under modern conditions of warfare. A
few machine-guns, a few crack regiments of the Kaiser's bodyguard,
would at once drench the rebellion in rivers of blood.
3. The Social Democrats, the so-called "revolutionary party," have
themselves repudiated revolutionary methods.
4. The German temperament has not the initiative, the resilience,
which are the prime conditions of a successful revolution. The whole
German historical tradition is against any revolutionary solution, and
any radical reform must be imposed from outside.
Let us carefully and dispassionately examine each of those arguments.
III.
In the first place we are told that Prussian reaction is too strong,
and that for the German people to attack the Hohenzollern stronghold
would be as hopeless as for a madman or a prisoner to break down the
walls of his prison or cell. The prisoner would only break his head,
and the madman would only get himself put into a "strait-waistcoat."
The German rebel is confronted by the impregnable structure of a solid
and efficient Government, a Government based on the prestige of the
past, and surrounded by the glamour of triumphant victories achieved
in great national wars.
The argument might have been valid after 1863 and 1870, when the
Catholics fought the battle of Liberalism and when the Social
Democrats fought the battle of democracy against Bismarck. But the
argument ceases to be valid to-day. For this is not a national war for
the Germans. When the conspiracy of lies and the conspiracy of silence
come to an end, when the diplomatic intrigues, when the pan-Germanic
plot, are revealed in their naked and hideous horror, it will be
clear, even to the blindest and dullest German mind, that this war was
waged neither in defence of national existence nor in defence of
national interests. It began primarily as a war against Russia, who
for a hundred and fifty years was the close ally of Prussia. It began
as a war against the Russian people, who were by far the best
customers for German industries. It developed into a war against
England, who, like Russia, was for one hundred and fifty years the
ally of Germany, who fought on many a battlefield with the Germans,
who never on any single battlefield fought against Germany.
Neither can this war be described as a national war for the German
people, nor has it resulted in a German victory. Here, also, when the
conspiracy of silence is broken, the net result of the war will prove
to be universal ruin, bankruptcy, millions of cripples walking the
streets of every German city, the loss of the goodwill of the world.
"Tout est perdu sauf l'honneur," said the French King after the
disaster of Pavia. "Everything is lost, even honour," will be the
verdict of the German people after the war.
In so far, therefore, as Prussian reaction was hitherto based on the
glamour of victory, that glamour is dispelled. The Hohenzollerns were
supposed to be the unsurpassed practitioners of _Realpolitik_. They
have only proved reckless and romantic visionaries. The Prussian
Government was supposed to be a marvellously efficient instrument. Its
efficiency has mainly shown itself in wanton destruction. The Prussian
Government was supposed to be the perfect type of a stable
government. Its work of five hundred years has been destroyed in three
years. The Germans had sold their birthright to the Hohenzollern for a
mess of pottage. They have lost their birthright, but they have not
secured the pottage. The German people had entered into tacit
contract. The rulers have broken the contract. The German people were
ready to surrender their personal liberty for the advantages which the
contract gave them. They preferred the security of despotism to the
risks of liberty. But the German people have discovered that the
security was illusory, that the advantages were negative, and that the
risks of despotism are infinitely greater than the perils of liberty.
IV.
But, even granting that the prestige and glamour of the Hohenzollern
Monarchy are dispelled, we shall be told that it does not necessarily
follow that a revolution would have any chances of success. For it may
still be objected that a revolution is impossible under modern
conditions of warfare, that under those conditions all the advantages
are with the Government and are not with the people, that it has
become very much easier to-day than in a previous generation to stamp
out a rebellion, and that the risks are very much greater.
I believe that argument to be entirely fallacious. I do not believe
that the chances are with the Government. I believe that they are all
the other way. Modern conditions are more favourable to the prospects
of a popular rising than they were, say, in 1789, in 1848, or in
1871. In olden days armies did not side with the people. They were
non-national. They were professional. They were made up of
mercenaries. The Swiss mercenaries allowed themselves to be massacred
in defence of the monarchy. The Hessian mercenaries allowed themselves
to be massacred in the service of the Hanoverian Kings. Nor had the
people any military training. To-day the armies are national armies.
They are the people themselves. They have received a military
training. They have imbibed the military spirit. If only the people
can be gained over to the revolution, three-fourths of the battle is
won.
In this connection it is essential that we should clearly understand
the fundamental differences between a foreign war and a civil war. A
foreign war is a trial of strength between one nation in arms and
another nation in arms. A rebellion is a trial of strength between a
nation and a Government. In a foreign war the armies will always be on
the side of the Government. In a revolution the armies may or may not
side with the people. They will side with the people if the people are
determined to fight.
The problem of revolution, therefore, is not primarily one of military
force, but of moral and political force. The people will dispose of
the necessary military strength if they dispose of the necessary moral
and political strength. In normal times the people are generally
unconscious of their moral and political strength, even as they are
unconscious of their military strength. But in times of revolution,
with their political consciousness awakened by their grievances and
their sufferings, with a quickened sense of political realities, the
attitude of the people to their rulers undergoes a radical change.
They suddenly discover that they are the source of all power. Once
that revelation has come to them, and once the subjects refuse to
support their rulers and are determined to resist them, the whole
fabric of government collapses like a house of cards. There lies the
reason for the fundamental differences between the slow development of
foreign warfare and the sudden and catastrophic termination of civil
war. The Bastille fell as if by magic and as by a flourish of
trumpets, like the walls of Jericho. The Revolution of 1848 overthrew
in twenty-four hours the strongest French Government of modern times.
And there, also, lies the reason why, in a civil war, the greatest
possible results are achieved with the minimum of sacrifice. To attain
the aims of a foreign war may require the sacrifice of millions of
lives. The aims of a civil war have often been obtained by the
sacrifice of a few hundred.
All revolutions have the same beginnings. The German Revolution of
1848 started in the same way as the French Revolution of 1848. The
insurrection of the people of Berlin very nearly succeeded in 1848 in
establishing a German democracy. The proudest of the Prussian Kings,
the most intoxicated with the dreams or delusions of absolute power,
was humbled to the dust. In an agony of terror, bareheaded, Frederick
William IV. of Hohenzollern had to salute the funeral procession of
the heroes of liberty, and the King's army had to withdraw from
Berlin, and Prince William, the future Emperor, had to escape to
England.
And the rising of the German people to-day will have a much better
chance than in 1848. If it be indeed true that a few machine-guns may
decide the issue, it will be by no means difficult for the insurgent
people to secure possession of those machine-guns. If it be true that
a military training is essential to success, millions of Germans have
received that training. Let only the merest fraction of the people
raise the standard of rebellion, and let the spirit of rebellion be
rife, and that spirit will spread like wild-fire, and the Hohenzollern
Monarchy after this war will be brought to the ground like a decaying
tree in a November gale.
V.
We shall be told that if a revolution were such an easy task, it is
inconceivable that the German people should not have risen before; and
it is perfectly true that, since the bloody days of 1848, there has
been no serious riot, not to mention any rebellion, in the German
Monarchy. But the reason for this passive acquiescence in and for this
servile surrender to despotism is due to the German revolutionaries
themselves. One of the secrets of recent German history is that the
revolutionists themselves have repudiated revolutionary methods. It is
the Social Democrats who deserted the cause of democracy. In France
Socialists were pacifists abroad and aggressive at home. In Germany
the Socialists were pacifists at home and aggressive abroad.
That is why, as I anticipated in my "Anglo-German Problem" (1912), the
German Socialists are ultimately responsible for the war, even more
than the Junkers. The Junkers and the Government knew that they had no
reason to dread a renewal of 1848. They felt that they had a perfectly
free hand. They knew the temper of the Social Democrats and the
meaning of the Marxian creed. For it was an essential part of the
Gospel according to St. Marx that the revolution, if it ever came,
would come peacefully, inevitably, with the people raising their
little finger, through the mere automatic pressure of economic
concentration. Capitalism itself, so the Socialists said, was working
for the triumph of Socialism. Once the process of concentration of
production was complete, once all the capital was gathered in a few
hands, the German revolution would come of itself, and Kaiser Bebel
and Kaiser Liebknecht would simply substitute themselves for Kaiser
William as the rulers of an absolute collectivist State.
That attitude of passive acquiescence, that sordid materialistic
creed, explains the ignominious collapse of the Social Democrats at
the outbreak of the war. It explains the paradoxical fact that to-day
von Bethmann-Hollweg in his tragic isolation is only supported by
Scheidemann and the Socialist majority. The failure is not due to any
lack of numbers. For the Social Democrats had millions of devoted
followers. The failure is not due to lack of organization, for the
Social Democrats were the most admirably organized party known to
modern history. It was not due to lack of discipline, for the Social
Democrats were subjected to an iron discipline. The failure is
entirely due to a lack of spirit, and the lack of spirit itself is
entirely due to the sinister and dreary Marxian creed. Between Marxian
Socialism and Prussianism there is no opposition of principles.
Indeed, one might almost say that the present war socialism, with its
bread rations, its organization of industry, its suppression of every
individual liberty, its hundred thousand regulations, is the nearest
approach to the ideal of the Marxist.
But as the result of the war, that Gospel according to St. Marx is
totally and finally discredited. It is now admitted that the
Socialists have been mere voting machines and doctrinaire
opportunists. It is admitted that no democracy can be built with such
ignoble material. It is admitted that, relinquishing the servile and
materialistic Socialism of Marx, we must revert to the heroic
conception of the British, French, and Italian Revolutions. It is
admitted that the salvation of a people cannot be attained by the mere
mumbling of catchwords and the waving of red flags; that it cannot be
attained by the mere proclamation of an iron law of wages; that it can
only be achieved by the display of an iron courage and by miracles of
heroism and self-sacrifice.
VI.
But again granting that the German Socialist creed is partly
responsible for the failure of German Democracy, it will be objected
that this creed is a typically German creed. Granting that the spirit
of heroism and sacrifice is an essential condition of any successful
revolution, it will be objected that it is precisely this heroism
which is lacking in the German temperament and in the German race. In
a famous passage of his "Governance of England," Chancellor Fortescue,
who wrote about the time of the Wars of the Roses, comparing the large
number of crimes of violence and burglary in England with the small
number of such crimes in France and Scotland, concluded that neither
the French nor the Scotch had the courage and spirit to be burglars.
"It is not pouerte that kepith Ffrenchmen ffro rysinge, but it is
cowardisse and lakke off hartes and corage, wich no Ffrenchman hath
like vnto a Englysh man. It hath been offten tymes sene in Englande,
that iij or iiij, theves ffor pouerte haue sett apon vj or vij trewe
men, and robbed hem all. But it hath not bene sene in Ffraunce, that
vj. or vij. theves haue be hardy to robbe iij. or iiij. trewe men.
Wherfore it is right selde that Ffrenchmen be hanged ffor robbery and
manslaughter, then there be hanged in Ffraunce ffor such maner of
crime in vij yeres. There is no man hanged in Scotlande in vij yere to
gedur ffor robbery. And yet thai ben often tymes hanged ffor larceny,
and stelynge off good in the absence off the owner thereoff. But ther
hartes serue hem not to take a manys gode, while he is present, and
woll defende it; wich maner off takynge is callid robbery. But the
Englysh man is off another corage. Ffor yff he be pouere, and see
another man havynge rychesse, wich may be taken ffrom hym be myght, he
will not spare to do so, but yff that pouere man be right trewe.
Wherfore it is not pouerte, but it is lakke off harte and cowardisse,
that kepith the Ffrenchmen ffro rysynge."
That "lack of spirit" which Lord Chancellor Fortescue so quaintly and
so unjustly denounces in the French and Scottish temperaments, may it
not be more justly attributed to the German temperament? Are not the
Germans constitutionally incapable of accomplishing a revolution? They
lack the red corpuscles in their veins. They have no phosphorus or
mercury in their composition. They have no élan, no resilience or
vitality. They are strong, but only when they act gregariously, not
when they act as free and irresponsible individuals. They can fight,
but only when they are driven, and only in a quarrel which is not
their own. They fight to-day against the English as the slaves of the
Kaiser even as they fought for the English as the mercenaries of the
Landgrave of Hesse.
I submit that all those generalizations are essentially shallow. It is
not true that the creed of Social Democracy is an essentially German
creed. As a matter of fact, the founders of German Socialism, and some
of their chief leaders, are Jews. Lasalle and Marx were Jews.
Bernstein and Adler are Jews. It is not true that the Germans are
constitutionally incapable of heroism. As a matter of fact, no people
has ever fought more heroically than the millions of blinded and
misguided wretches who challenged a world in arms, and went to their
doom singing religious hymns and patriotic songs. And it is not true
that there is some mysterious fatality in temperament or race. The
race theory is a Prussian theory, and it is a sinister theory, the
prolific mother of many political and moral heresies. National
temperament changes with circumstances, and the German temperament has
often changed in the course of history. If the Germans may be
described to-day as a nation of practical materialists, at one time
they were described as a nation of dreamers. If the German Government
may be described to-day as a despotic State, at one time it was
described as a Government of free cities.
The truth is that national character has little to do with race. It is
the result of political institutions and religious beliefs. And it is
the political institutions and religious beliefs of modern Germany
which largely explain the failure of Democracy.
We have already pointed out the baneful influence of the Socialist
creed. But there is another creed which has exercised an even more
baneful influence. If we attempt to trace, farther back in history,
the main source of German character, we are driven to the conclusion
that it is Lutheranism which is responsible for the perversion of the
German soul, that it is Lutheranism that is the _fons et origo
malorum_. Before the war all our ideas about religion and philosophy
in Germany were made up of unmeaning formulas. And I make the
confident forecast that all those ideas will have to be transvalued in
the light of the present catastrophe.
If I were asked to sum up the achievements of Lutheranism, I would say
that it has accomplished two things equally fatal to Germany and
Europe.
On the one hand it has broken up the spiritual unity of Medieval
Christendom and the political unity of the Holy German Empire into two
thousand four hundred petty principalities. It has set up a tribal
religion and the pagan idolatry of the State; and, on the other hand,
it has broken up the human soul into two water-tight compartments.
Or to express the Lutheran achievement in terms of freedom and
despotism, it has, in the first place, killed political liberty by
surrendering all ecclesiastical power to the Prince, or to the State
incarnated in the Prince. It has brought about the fusion and
confusion of spiritual and temporal powers. It has decreed that the
religion of the ruler shall determine the religion of the subject.
_Cujus regio illius religio._ From the beginning his own
ecclesiastical policy compelled Luther to sanction the bigamy of the
Landgrave Philip of Hesse. In the most violent of his tracts he
denounced a miserable German peasantry, and he called upon the
nobility to massacre those peasants who had only too faithfully obeyed
the provocations of the reformer.
And, in the second place, Lutheranism has killed spiritual liberty by
creating an inner world of emotions and of dreams and an outer world
of social and political activities without any relation to the inner
world. It has divorced speculation and action, theory and practice.
The German is like the symbolical eagle of the Habsburg. He has two
heads, and both look in an opposite direction.
I would say that the poison of Lutheranism has been acting like that
mysterious Indian poison called "curare," which I used to inject in my
distant student days when I had to dissect frogs in the Zoological
Laboratory at Liége. The "curare" does not kill the nerves, for the
frog still suffers under the dissecting knife. Nor does it kill the
muscles, for the muscles still react if you stimulate them. But the
poison cuts the connection between the nerves and the muscles. The
nerves can no more transmit their orders to the muscles. Even so
Lutheranism has not killed the thinking power of the German people. On
the contrary, it has given it a morbid stimulus, as speculation is no
more hampered by reality. Nor has it paralyzed their external
activities, but it has prevented any connection between the two. It
has prevented the thinking from influencing the acting. It justifies
the recent damning statement of Prince von Bülow, who ought to be a
competent judge, that the Germans have remained an essentially
unpolitical people.
At the outbreak of the Reformation there took place in Wittenberg, the
Mecca of Lutheranism, a memorable and ominous meeting to which few
textbooks take the trouble to allude, and which has had more
far-reaching consequences than any meeting known to history. It was
the meeting between Dr. Martinus Luther and the Grand Master of the
Teutonic Order, Albrecht of Hohenzollern. Luther advised the Grand
Master to secularize his Order, to confiscate its immense territories,
and to proclaim himself Duke of Prussia. Under such auspices arose the
Prussian State. Under such auspices, at the instigation of the
"Champion of Liberty," was established the most tyrannical despotism
of modern times. Under such auspices was consummated the unholy
alliance between a "reformed" Germany and a twice "reformed"
Hohenzollern Monarchy.
This unholy alliance has been shattered by the war. And with the
alliance will vanish the Lutheran creed, with all the evil works that
proceeded therefrom.
For four hundred years the German people have followed their
preachers, and have been led by them to the abyss, even as in the
famous ballad of Burger the German maiden Lenore has fallen under the
spell of a corpse and has been driven to the gates of hell.
For four hundred years the German people have been in the grip of
their despots. They will be under the spell no more.
For four hundred years the German masses have practised the three
theological virtues of Faith, Patience, and Obedience. The
long-suffering, docile, and servile Teutons are now ready to surrender
to the original sin of rebellion. They are now ready to revert to the
methods followed by the peasants massacred by the orders of Luther.
For four hundred years their temporal and spiritual rulers have
manufactured a nation of slaves. The war has manufactured a nation of
revolutionists. What seemed an inexhaustible inheritance of loyalty
and devotion has been wantonly squandered. The Hohenzollern Monarchy
has been born in spoliation, baptized in blood, and welded together by
iron. Blood and iron are now destroying it. The German armies have
been the terror of the world. The day is drawing near when those same
German armies will become a terror to their tyrants, and will call
them to account for the slaughter of twenty nations.