EUROPEAN SPARTACIDES AND COMMUNISTS
In Berlin, shortly after the Revolution against the Imperial Government,
Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and their group of Socialists of the
extreme Left were raising a merry riot almost every day in the hope of
overcoming the ultra-conservative Socialist government and introducing
the radical Bolshevist program. The constant disorder occasioned by
these Spartacans or Spartacides of the Left provoked the opposition
parties very much, annoying them to such an extent that many Germans
wished to remove the capital of the country from Berlin to some more
orderly city.
The name "Spartacides" or "Spartacans" came from the fact that early in
the World War Karl Liebknecht, their leader, issued a number of anti-war
pamphlets bearing the pseudonym, "Spartacus."
The Spartacides are the reddest of the Reds, the real Socialists of
Germany. They differ very much from the Ebert-Scheidemann group, for the
Spartacans want the principles of Socialism applied immediately, whereas
Ebert and other members of his government warned their followers that
though they held Socialist theories, the application of Socialism must
be postponed to the distant future. The Ebert-Scheidemann Majority
Socialists are regarded by the others as Socialists only in name, being
really social reformers, or, at the most, weak-kneed Socialists who
sought power, but fully realized that the application of the Marxian
principles would be doomed to absolute failure. The Spartacans, however,
still have confidence in Socialism; they agree heart and soul with the
Russian Bolsheviki; they are the rowdies and ruffians of Germany, always
looking for trouble. Strikes, riots and civil discord are their weapons,
and the American Socialists are among their particular friends. Indeed,
the Socialist Party of Eugene V. Debs has no use whatever for the
Ebert-Scheidemann group, who are looked upon as reactionaries,
hypocrites, murderers and traitors to Socialism.
In the latter part of 1918, the Berlin correspondent of the "Kölnische
Zeitung" drew a graphic picture of the terrorism exercised in Berlin by
the Spartacan gangs:
"Dr. Liebknecht himself, whose imprisonment has obviously clouded
his formerly keen intelligence and probably turned his brain,
spends his time in visiting barracks in Berlin, Spandau and
elsewhere, and inciting the men to refuse to allow any distinctions
even of non-commissioned rank or to accept anything resembling
orders from officers or to admit them to the local councils. His
chief of staff, Dr. Levy, who before the war was his business
partner in his law office, is preaching fanaticism in Berlin to all
and sundry.
"The word Spartacus goes through the city like a bogy. Civilians,
soldiers, employees, capitalists, all feel themselves equally
threatened. A sitting of the Prussian Lower House had to be
adjourned because it was feared that the Spartacus gang was going
to seize the building.
"'The Lokal Anzeiger' has several times failed to appear, as the
result of repeated efforts of the Spartacus gang to seize it.
Careful burghers chain up the house doors, and it would be well if
the steadier elements of our workmen and soldiers would chain up
the door of their hearts against the murderous and suicidal ideas
of the Spartacus gang."
The Spartacides made a practice of terrorizing German newspapers into
supporting them. In the early part of 1919, they tried to prevent the
Constituent Assembly from coming together, and later on engineered many
a revolt in the various cities of Germany. Since their leaders, the
fiery Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, were assassinated, the orderly
elements of the German people have succeeded more and more in weakening
the power and influence of the Spartacans.
Kurt Eisner, of Bavaria, after the overthrow of the German Imperial
Government, sought to establish a federation of German republics under
the head of Bavaria. It was not very long before the first step was
taken, Bavaria declaring itself a republic independent of the Berlin
Government. After the assassination of Eisner, Bavaria, and especially
its capital, Munich, came more and more under the control of the extreme
radical group of Socialists known as the Communists. About the end of
March, 1919, Bela Kun, the Foreign Minister of the newly established
Communist Government of Hungary and one of the most active propagandists
of Russian Bolshevism, arrived at Munich to confer with the leaders of
the Bavarian Government. Shortly afterwards, in the early part of
April, a Soviet Republic was proclaimed at Munich.
The socialization of industry began. That part of the press that favored
the new regime was upheld by the Government, which suppressed unfriendly
organs. Members of the Christian Textile Workers' Association were
forced, on pain of being deprived of work, to join the Social-Democratic
Union. Various other measures of "freedom, equality, and justice" were
also bestowed upon the people, and the hope was expressed by the Red
Socialists of Munich that the proclamation of a Bavarian Soviet would
have its effect throughout Germany and result in a world revolution.
Towards the middle of April, 1919, press dispatches stated that the
Munich Communists had elected a council, consisting of five workmen and
five soldiers, with Herr Klatz, a bricklayer, as president; that the
police was disarmed; that eleven hostages were taken from the ranks of
the trade-union leaders; that revolutionary tribunals were established
at Munich, where twenty-eight judges continued, in relays of seven, to
pass sentences day and night, and, finally, that a decree was issued by
the Communist government confiscating all dwellings.
Shortly after these reports reached America, the peasants of Bavaria
rose up against the revolutionary government in Munich and declared an
effective ban on the shipment of food to that city. No attacks were made
upon Munich by the troops of the moderate Hoffman government of Bavaria
which had been ousted by the Communists, for it was feared that the
whole country might thus be plunged into civil war. The only strategic
movement of these troops was to cut off the supplies of food.
Discord soon sprang up among the Soviet leaders themselves, who engaged
in open street fights against each other. Before the end of April, 1919,
the Central Council had been dissolved and the Communist mob had turned
to plundering. Food ration cards were taken away from the bourgeoisie,
and barricades were erected around the city to defend it from Noske's
army, sent to attack it by the Ebert-Scheidemann moderate Socialist
Government of Berlin. In the early part of May, 1919, the Communist
rabble of the Bavarian capital was finally overcome by the artillery
fire of Noske's troops, and Hoffman was once more put in control.
The American Socialists look upon the ousted Communists of Bavaria as
the upholders of the Marxian doctrine, and consider them, along with
the Russian Bolsheviki and the Hungarian Communists, as Socialist
brethren worthy of their respect and imitation.
In Hungary the "100 per cent" Socialists, the Communists, under the
leadership of Bela Kun, came into power in the early part of the year
1919. Press despatches, at the end of March, stated that all villas,
industries and building had been declared the property of the state;
that each factory was controlled by a Council of Laborers; that
free-love was legalized as in Russia; that all clergymen and nuns were
removed from the hospitals, excepting those who acted in the capacity of
nurses, and the religious, tuition schools were abolished.
A press dispatch dated Buda-Pest, April 4, 1919, said that "in
Transylvania, following the practice in Moscow, the churches have been
converted into music halls, the best seats being reserved for the
proletariat. The government officials do not pay house rent and have
priority on foodstuffs and clothing."
The American Socialists boasted about the absence of bloodshed in
Hungary during the early part of Bela Kun's regime. Whether or not he
had been cautioned by Lenine not to wear out too many rifles in the
beginning, lest there be a dearth later on, we do not know. At any rate,
by the latter part of May, 1919, the Hungarian Communists also began to
manifest their true color. They were not satisfied with "painting
everything red" in Buda-Pest, but also wanted to see red blood flowing
in the gutters. In confirmation of this we have the following Associated
Press report, dated Vienna, May 20, but not appearing in the "New York
Times" till May 23:
"Many persons accused of being counter-revolutionists are being
executed by the Hungarian Communists, according to despatches
received here. The victims are usually shot in front of the
Hungarian Parliament House in the daytime or in the school-yard in
the Markostrasse at night.
"Among those who are said to have been executed are Herr Holan,
manager of the Kaschau-Oderberg Railway; Bishop Balthasar, a
hostage from Debreczen, and Colonel Dormany of the General Staff,
who was taken from a hospital. Several girls, who were accused of
making tri-color rosettes for the counter-revolutionists, also were
executed. The presiding Judge of the Revolutionary tribunal, which
orders the executions, it is said, is a former locksmith, 22 years
of age.
"Many bodies of men and women and girls of the better classes have
been found on the shores of islands in the Danube below the city.
It is reported that they were arrested in the residential quarter
of Buda and thrown into the Danube by guards who were taking them
to prisons in Pest."
In the summer of 1919 the Hungarian Communists lost control of the
country. Not only had internal dissensions broken out at home, but they
had been attacked for a long time by the Rumanians, who had caused them
endless trouble. If they had succeeded in remaining in power long
enough, they would, no doubt, in time have shown themselves proficient
in murdering their fellow-countrymen and as skilled in the use of the
rifle as the Bolsheviki in Russia, the Spartacides in Germany and the
Communists in Bavaria. These four groups of European Socialists of the
extreme Left--ruffians, brutes, murderous thugs, half barbarous savages,
slayers even of their own Socialist brethren--have long been in a
"position" to teach the "gentle art" of plunder and murder to their
admiring comrades on this side of the Atlantic, that "poor,"
"persecuted," "workingman," Eugene V. Debs, and his crowd of "honest,"
"scientific," "evolutionists."
With these European thugs Berger and Hillquit deliberately "lined up"
the Socialist Party of America in the words of their Chicago manifesto
of September 4, 1919:
"The Socialist Party of the United States at its first national
convention after the war, squarely takes its position with the
uncompromising section of the international Socialist Movement. We
unreservedly reject the policy of those Socialists who supported
their belligerent capitalist governments on the plea of 'national
defense,'" etc.
There is no breath of patriotism in these dogs.
The above "line up" was confirmed by the rank and file of the Socialist
Party of America in their referendum vote identifying their party with
the Revolutionary Third (Moscow) International. (See Chapters V and
XVI.)