Carlton Joseph Huntley Hayes

“ Quite aside from its failures to establish a Marxian society and order in the Fatherland and to usher in a universal brotherhood of the world's workingmen, it has done more than any other single factor—more, it may be said without exaggeration, than all other factors put together—to preserve to twentieth-century Germany the heritage of the days of 1848, a passionate longing for political democracy, for individual liberties, for social equality. ”

“ Upon closer scrutiny, however, the revolution of 1848 reveals itself as an essentially middle-class uprising, in which outbreaks of violence among the workingmen for the most part bore a closer resemblance to riots than to organized revolution. Germany in 1848, let it ever be remembered, was even more unripe for a Socialist revolution than for a democratic and national one. Industrial development, the spread of the factory system and the growth of cities—the very stuff from which Marxian socialism has always been fashioned—was much more backward in Germany than in England or in France ”

“ From the first day of such a war there march under arms in Germany five million men including many hundreds of thousands of our party comrades. The entire nation is in arms. Frightful want, universal unemployment, starvation, stoppage of factories, fall of paper securities—is it credible that at such a moment when each is thinking only of himself, one could institute a general strike? ”

“ Besides, the Progressives in their sympathetic study of English institutions and precedents had hit upon a happily peaceful way of solving the social and economic problems of the day. If they could consecrate Prussia to "liberty"—liberty of trade, liberty of contract, liberty of association, liberty of education, liberty of self-help—they would wean the workingmen from socialistic Utopias and win them to a proper respect for law and order and individual rights, not the least of which was the right of private property. ”

“ Throughout western Europe there was a new impatience with parliamentary delays, and in Germany the impotence of the Social Democratic members of the Reichstag, in spite of the three million votes behind them, seemed intolerable. Why should not the German Socialists learn a lesson from their Russian comrades and seek to realize their political and economic aims, seek, moreover, to prevent international war, by utilizing the methods of revolutionary syndicalism? So queried Rosa Luxemburg and Liebknecht the Younger. ”

“ What workers there were, moreover, were imbued with the petty bourgeois spirit and, worse still from the standpoint of revolution, to some extent actually with the spirit of the medieval gilds.
Only a comparatively small minority of the German workers had grasped the revolutionary mission of the working class. If they everywhere fought in the front rank of the advanced parties; if, wherever they could, they tried to urge on the middle-class democracy, they paid the cost of all this in their own person. ”

“ When, more than a decade later, almost synchronizing with the advent of Bismarck to power in Prussia, the workingmen's agitation was resumed, the chief legacy of reborn German Socialism from the days of 1848–1849 was a horror of violence. No more incitements to immediate revolution came from the people's apostles. The foremost leaders had, temporarily at least, turned from dangerous propaganda to scholarly exegesis. Marx published his Critique of Political Economy in 1859 and forthwith set to work on his masterpiece Das Capital; Lassalle's System of Acquired Rights appeared in 1861. ”

“ In other words, it was during this time that many middle-class Germans, caring little or nothing about the purely economic dogmas or the ultimate goal of Socialism, began to cast votes for Social Democratic candidates for the Reichstag as the most obvious and direct rebuke to an illiberal and unrepresentative government, which was most seriously abridging the freedom of speech, of association, of meeting, and of the press. ”

“ Even the great Goethe said to his Eckermann that when revolution occurs the fault is wholly the government's; and I could cite you a dozen passages from writers, even from old Mommsen, who as a good classicist states in his Roman History that when a government shows itself incapable of fulfilling its duties in the interest of the great majority of the citizens, then it is right to precipitate a revolution, then the fault is not on the side of those who have recourse to violence but is on the side of those who have driven them to it. ”

“ A "Manifesto to the German Workingmen", published by the party executive of the Eisenachers on September 5, 1870, stated that
it is a duty of the German people, and indeed it is in their own interests, to accord an honorable peace to the French Republic. ... Above all it is the duty of the German workingmen, among whom the solidarity of interests between the German and French peoples has become a sacred conviction and who see in the French workingmen only brothers and comrades to whom they are united by a common lot and by common aspirations, to secure for the French Republic such a peace. ”

“ The governments soon felt themselves strong enough to dissolve all revolutionary organizations, and, on the motion of Prussia and Austria, the Bundestag in 1854 decreed that all the federated states must suppress every workingmen's society or fraternity which pursued political, socialist, or communist ends. Not only did the revolutionary movement of 1848–1849 mean for German Socialists the loss of their leaders and the dissolution of their organizations, but it likewise left in their minds an ineradicable distrust of violence as a means of realizing their ends. ”

“ Who believes that at a moment when a violent shock, a fever, is moving the masses to their very depths, when the danger of a gigantic war with its appalling misery confronts us—who believes that at such a moment it is possible to institute a general strike? ”

“ Is not this a potent proof of the value of our present tactics? ... The essence of revolution does not lie in the means but in the end. Violence for thousands of years has been a reactionary factor. [26]
No one in the party [said Bebel eight years later at the Congress of Hanover] can have any doubt of what we think of violent revolution. It is absurd to admit that there is in our party a single person who would feel disposed to precipitate a revolution if he thought that he could attain his goal much better, much more easily, and much more simply. ”

“ To-day political Germany as a whole is a thinly disguised military despotism, and the Reichstag, the popular assembly, is not much more efficacious than any respectable debating society. But outside the form of German political life are two million workingmen, including three-fourths of the trade-unionists of the country, who have had an excellent training, through their local organization, their annual congresses, and their press, in the methods and procedure, in the problems and responsibilities, of democratic self-government ”

“ The only difference between the assailants of popular liberties was that Metternich had no popular mandate for his acts while Bismarck commanded a majority of the deputies elected by universal direct suffrage throughout Germany. The German people of the new era must share with their unrepresentative government the responsibility for a most serious set-back to liberty.
One other aspect of the anti-Socialist law invites our attention, and this is its effect upon the Social Democrats themselves. From first to last they submitted to the outrageous measure. They preached no violence, no rebellion. ”

“ One might expect that as the German Social Democracy between 1875 and 1891 swung more and more from the teachings of Lassalle to those of Marx, the movement would take on an even more radical and "revolutionary" complexion. It is indeed true that while the German Socialists during the period of their persecution were holding their congresses outside of Germany they emphasized as never before or since the international character of their movement and the sacred solidarity of all the world's workingmen. ”

“ To make of the Marxian formulas living realities, it would not suffice to resort to violence and revolution. That was the capital lesson of the Era of Persecution. As Liebknecht said at the Congress of Erfurt:
If we should now accord chief importance to physical force, we should place ourselves in the position of our enemies. ”

“ The most striking lesson to be drawn from the Congress of Vienna is that a power, overwhelmingly defeated on the battlefield and actually occupied in large part by the victorious troops of a grand alliance, may, if it has a diplomatist of the calibre and shrewdness of Talleyrand, set its conquerors at variance one with another and in the name of "legitimacy" or of some other mouth-filling fiction preserve its territorial integrity and continue to play a role as a great power. ”

“ The "extra members" of the German Social Democracy had no direct voice in the deliberations of the party congresses or in the decisions of the party executive, but as time went on there was a growing tendency on the part of congress and executive not to make decisions which would alienate votes and thereby lessen the influence which a steadily augmenting poll-strength might exert upon the reactionary government. The getting of votes was becoming all-important; and indirectly middle-class liberals were pointing the Socialist party organization into the path of opportunism. ”

“ After a thirty-five years' existence the German Empire finds itself in almost complete isolation. For the last fifteen years there has been no lack of speeches and trips made in many potentates' countries, no lack of presents made to the most diverse nations. But the result of all these unsought assurances of love and affection is that to-day German policy is regarded with distrust by almost every foreigner, and Germany instead of friends has scarcely any but covert or overt enemies. ”

“ When France, republican France, [he wrote] has allied herself with Russian autocracy for the purpose of murder and destruction, it is difficult to conceive that England, parliamentary England, democratic England, is fighting side by side with them for "liberty and civilization". That is truly a gigantic, shameless piece of hypocrisy. ... The motive of England is envy of our economic development. ... Russia, France, Belgium, England, Serbia, Montenegro, and Japan in the struggle for liberty and civilization against Germanism, which has given to the world Goethe, Kant, and Karl Marx! ”

“ From what has already been indicated of the Socialist movement in Germany, no surprise should be evoked by the fact that the Social Democratic group voted "aye", nor by the statement which Chairman Haase read to the Reichstag in justification of the patriotism of his party:
Now we are only too surely confronted by the fact that war is upon us and that we are menaced by the terror of foreign invasion. ”

“ No drop of blood of a single German soldier may be sacrificed to the ambition of an Austrian potentate in the interest of imperialistic gains. ... The governing classes who in peace gag, despise, and exploit you, will use you as cannonfodder. Everywhere must sound in the ears of the potentates: We wish no war! ”

“ Congress after congress repeated the formulas of Marxian Socialism—economic determinism, the class struggle, the inevitable social cataclysm of the future, demands for political democracy and for collective ownership and operation of all the economic means of production and distribution, unswerving opposition to the whole capitalistic system, particularly to indirect taxes, militarism, and imperialism. Nor was Marxian internationalism ever lost sight of. German Social Democrats were conspicuous in the councils of the Socialist International. ”

“ There was no tradition in Germany of successful revolution, such as had been firmly established in France by the events of 1789, 1830, and 1848. From its first formal appearance, German Socialism was less revolutionary than evolutionary. ”

“ All Social Democrats know that Socialism must come as a result of historical necessity, as an inevitable result of economic development. ... But I warn you, do not have recourse to force! You would thereby but invoke a terrible penalty for yourselves and the whole capitalistic society. [62]
And Hugo Haase, on whom the mantle of Bebel was about to fall, quoted Lassalle's dicta against violent revolutions, and endorsed Kautsky's statements:
If I speak of war as a means of revolution, that does not say that I desire war. ”

“ Like their English contemporaries, these Prussian liberals were not simon-pure democrats: as well-to-do middle-class people, they themselves were entrenched in the three-class electoral system of their country and could see no good reason for introducing a universal manhood suffrage which might imperil their majority in the House of Representatives and endanger glorious "liberty", especially since the workingmen, to enjoy the blessings of this liberty, had no need of the ballot. The workers had no need of direct parliamentary representation ”

“ Consequently, the world-situation is such that despite all the peace-loving assurances which ruling sovereigns give on occasion after occasion, armaments by land and sea are continually reinforced, the debts of nations and their loads of taxes are continually mounting up, and a feeling of anxiety, as at the advent of an immense catastrophe, continually strengthens its hold on the civilized peoples and forbids them peacefully enjoying the fruits of their labor. ”

“ Numerical gains to the Socialist cause were far greater, during the period, from among trade-unionists—the "aristocracy of labor"—than from among the lowest orders of the laboring class. Trade-unionists turned naturally to Socialism as soon as the government impaired the right of association, but they were far less interested in the theoretical side of Socialism than in the practical. ”

“ But if the working class is recognized as possessing equal rights, then will the tasks of this class increase and likewise its responsibility; and it is indeed quite possible that from the day on which the workingman perceives himself a factor possessing equal rights we shall allow ourselves to speak on the naval question. Only for the present must we on principle refuse to vote "a single man, a single penny". ”

“ In general, the Lassalleans had their say in the programme of the new organization, much to the chagrin of Karl Marx in distant London, and the Eisenachers contented themselves with democratizing the form of party administration. The comparative ease with which agreement was reached is proof positive of the fact that the mere "moderation" of Lassalle's fundamental principles had never been the real reason for the revolt of Liebknecht and Bebel. ”

“ Liebknecht himself, like Marx and Engels, trusted the feudal aristocracy of Prussia less than that of England and disliked Lassalle's flirtations with Bismarck as well as the autocratic organization of the General Association of German Workingmen. But a difference of quite another sort better explains the bitterness with which Liebknecht and his disciple Bebel subsequently assailed Schweitzer and the General Association. Bebel was a Saxon and Liebknecht was a native of Hesse, and both men shared the South Germans' fear and hatred of Prussia. ”

“ In 1895 Liebknecht was condemned to four months' imprisonment for lèse-majesté for having declared at the Congress of Breslau that "Under cover of the highest power in the State, injury is done the Social Democracy; under the cover of the highest power in the State, the gauntlet is thrown down to our party and we are provoked to mortal combat". But the Social Democrats had already derived too many advantages from their martyrdoms really to wish a complete cessation of persecution after 1890. ”

“ In the universal prosperity of the present time [wrote Marx and Engels in 1850] , when the productive forces of bourgeois society are developing as luxuriantly as is possible under bourgeois conditions, there can be no question of an effective revolution. Such a revolution is possible only in periods when the two factors of modern productive force and bourgeois productive methods are in conflict with each other. [3]
In the Karl Marx of 1850 is an almost pessimistic fatalism in sharp contrast to the romantic enthusiasm of a Ledru-Rollin, a Mazzini, or a Kossuth. ”