S. Miles Bouton

“ Scheming politicians for months afterward painted on every wall the spectre of counter-revolution, and it proved a powerful weapon of agitation against the more conservative and democratic men in charge of the country's affairs, but counter-revolution from above—and that was what these leaders falsely or ignorantly pretended to fear—was never possible from the time the armistice was signed until the peace was made at Versailles. Counter-revolution ever threatened the stability of the government, but it was the gory counter-revolution of Bolshevism. ”

“ For the German Socialists were the avowed and uncompromising enemies of the existing government; they were advocates of a republic; they were the outspoken enemies of all authority except the authority of their own class, for which they assumed to be the only legitimate spokesmen, and they were, like Socialists the world over, internationalists first and patriots second. No government could be expected to help its bitterest opponents to power by giving places of honor and profit to their representatives. ”

“ And thus, while Germans loyal to their government hailed the revolution as the downfall of a powerful enemy, the masses, starving through this terrible Kohlrübenwinter, cold, miserable, dispirited by the bloody sacrifices from which few families had been exempt, infected unconsciously by the doctrines of international Socialism and skillfully propagandized by radical agitators, began to wonder whether, after all, their salvation did not lie along the route taken by the Russians. ”

“ I abdicate for my person and my house! All the dynasties in Germany collapse in an instant. The army has no leader, the front disintegrates, the soldiers stream in disorder across the Rhine. The revolutionaries join hands, murder, incendiarism and plundering follow, and the enemy assists. I have no idea of abdicating. The King of Prussia [pg 179] may not be false to Germany, least of all at a time like this. I, too, have sworn an oath, and I will keep it."
Hindenburg and Groener (Ludendorff's successor) shared the Kaiser's opinion at this time that abdication was not to be thought of. ”

“ It was hunger that handicapped the efforts of the Ebert-Haase government throughout its existence and it was hunger that proved the best recruiting agent for Liebknecht and the other elements that were trying to make democracy impossible in Germany. If any people with experience of hunger were asked to choose between the absolutism of Peter the Great with bursting granaries and the most enlightened democracy with empty bins, democracy would go away with its hands as empty as its bins. ”

“ Upon peoples for whom the flags of their respective countries are still emblems of interests transcending any conceivable interests of peoples outside their own state boundaries, emblems of an idea which must be unquestioningly and unthinkingly accepted and against which no dictates of the brotherhood of other men or the welfare of other human beings have any claim to consideration, the Socialists would impose over night their idea of a world without artificial state lines, and would substitute the red flag for those emblems which the majority of all mankind still reverence and adore. ”

“ But Socialism throve on oppression. In politics, as in religion, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. It would be praising any statesman of the '80's too highly to say that he had learned that ideas cannot be combated with brute force, for the rulers of the world have not yet learned it. But Bismarck did perceive that, to give any promise of success, opposition to Socialism must be based upon constructive statesmanship. To many of the party's demands no objection could be made by intelligent society. ”

“ Haase, Ledebour and other members of the group issued a manifesto in June, 1916, wherein it was declared that the people were starving and that the only replies made by the government to their protests took the form of a severe application of martial law. "The blockade should have been foreseen," said the manifesto. "It is not the blockade that is a crime; the war is a crime. The consolation that the harvest will be good is a deliberate deception. All the food in the occupied territories has been requisitioned, and people are dying of starvation in Poland and Serbia." ”

“ He was created a general, for it could not be suffered that a mere civilian should occupy the highest post in the empire next to the Kaiser. The Kaiser rarely showed himself in public in civilian attire.
It was but natural that the members of the officer-corps held an exalted opinion of their own worth and dignity. Militarism is everywhere tarred with the same stick, and army officers, if freed from effective civil control, exhibit in all lands the same tendency to arbitrariness and to a scorn and contempt for mere civilians. ”

“ There was and still is something about the very word "revolution" which is repugnant to all who love ordered and orderly government. It conjures up pictures of rude violence, of murder, pillage and wanton destruction. It violates the sentiments of those that respect the law, for it is by its very nature a negation of the force of existing laws. It breaks with traditions and is an overcoming of inertia; and inertia rules powerfully the majority of all peoples.
The average American is comparatively little versed in the history of other countries. ”

“ The basic idea of Socialism goes back to the eighteenth century, but its name was first formulated and applied by the Englishman Robert Owen in 1835. Essentially this school of political thought maintains that land and capital generally—the "instruments of production"—should become the property of the state or society. "The alpha and omega of Socialism is the transformation of private competing aggregations of capital into a united collective capital." ”

“ Militarism, in the aspects discussed, was a purely internal affair and concerned only the German people themselves. But there was another aspect, and it was this that made it a menace to the peace of the world and to true democracy.
The very possession of an admirable weapon is a constant temptation to use it. This temptation becomes stronger in proportion as it springs with inclination. The Germans of the last fifty years were not a bellicose people. They had suffered too greatly from wars within the recollection of millions of men and women still living. ”

“ It is inherent in the profession that officers generally are inclined to desire war, if for no other reason, than because it means opportunities for advancement and high honors. Beyond this, the German officer's training and traditions taught him that war was in itself a glorious thing.
In trying to understand the influences that dominated the government of Germany in its relations to foreign countries it must be clearly realized and remembered that the real rulers of Germany came from the caste that had for nearly two centuries furnished the majority of the members of the officer-corps. ”

“ There is no leisure class among the Junkers. They are all workers, patriotic, honest and devoted to the Emperor and the Fatherland. If it is possible that government by one class is to be suffered, then the Prussian Junkers have proved themselves more fit for rule than any class in history. Their virtues are Spartan, their minds narrow but incorruptible, and their bravery and patriotism undoubted. ”

“ This attitude of Socialism is comprehensible and logical, for no student of world history can deny that an established church has been in all ages and still is one of the strongest bulwarks of an autocratic state. From the very dawn of organized government, centuries before the Christian era, the priesthood, where it did not actually govern, has powerfully upheld the arm of civil authority and property rights. ”

“ At first the bourgeoisie, as planners of the overthrow, took control of the authority of the state and exercised it for their own ends. The proletariat, which had learned its own strength and resources in the revolutionary contests, used its power to compel a further development of the revolution in a more radical direction and eventually compelled the first holders of authority to give way to a government more responsive to the demands of the lower classes. ”

“ Not even the most reactionary of the old German governments would have dared abuse its power in this manner. It may be doubted whether the revolutionary government was at all conscious of the impropriety of its course, but even if it had been it would have made no difference. One of the great sources of strength of Socialism is its conviction that all means are sacred for the furtherance of the class struggle.
The Spartacans had boasted that the elections would not be permitted to be held, but the decided attitude of the government made their boast an empty one. ”

“ With an impudent shamelessness impossible to understand, even when one realizes what they had suffered, these self-confessed cowards and betrayers of honest men now had the effrontery to form a "Council of Deserters, Stragglers and Furloughed Soldiers," and to demand equal representation on all government bodies and in the Soviets. Liebknecht played the chief rôle in organizing these men, but Ledebour, already so radical that he was out of sympathy even with the reddest Independent Socialists, and certain other Independents and Spartacans assisted. ”

“ And in any event, to apply the standards of abstract ethical reasoning to patriotism is fatal. The result may be to leave a residue of traditional and racial attachment to one's state, but that is not sufficient, in the present stage of human society, for the maintenance of a strong government. Patriotism of the my-country-right-or-wrong type must, like revealed religion, be accepted on faith. German patriotism was never of this extreme type, and in attacking it the Socialists made greater headway than would have been the case in most countries. ”

“ From the acceptance of the economic tenets of national Socialism to advocacy of internationalism is but a small step, easy to take for one who, in joining the Socialist party, finds himself the associate of men who address him as "comrade" and who look forward to a day when all men, white, black or yellow, shall also be comrades under one flag and enlisted in one cause—the cause of common humanity. ”

“ Only a few leaders are clear-sighted enough to insist that it is more important just now to save Germany from disintegration and the German people from starvation than to impose the doctrines of internationalism upon a world not yet ready for them. The members of the average high school debating club in any American city have a keener sense for practical questions than has the great majority of this Congress. ”

“ One can say, without fear of intelligent contradiction, that no other country ever possessed as highly trained and efficient officers as Germany at the outbreak of the war. There were martinets among them, and the discipline was at best strict, but the first article of their creed was to look after the welfare of the men committed to their charge. Drawn from the best families and with generations of officer-ancestors behind them, they were inspired by both family and class pride which forbade them to spare themselves in the service of the Fatherland. ”

“ The parliamentary system of Prussia was archaic and designed to make impossible any really democratic government or a too severe limitation upon the powers of the King. It was, like the Imperial Parliament, made up of two chambers, a House of Lords and a Diet. The upper chamber, the House of Lords, was composed of men appointed by the King, either for a fixed term or for life. It goes without saying that all these men were strong supporters of the monarchic system and outspoken enemies of democracy. No legislation could be enacted against their will. ”

“ Every European people regards its constitution merely as a fundamental law, and ascribes no sacrosanct character to it. Hence the departure from the American requirement of an affirmative vote of three-fourths of the states. On the other hand, the framers of the Weimar constitution, by providing for a direct vote of the people, rendered it impossible for an aggressive and unscrupulous minority to force through an amendment against the wishes of a majority of the people. ”

“ It is but recently, indeed within the last five years, that as universal and free a suffrage has been adopted by other European countries, and there are still many which impose limitations unknown to the German Constitution. Every male subject who had attained the age of twenty-five years and who had not lost his civil rights through the commission of crime, or who was not a delinquent taxpayer or in receipt of aid from the state or his community as a pauper, was entitled to vote. ”

“ The Independent Socialists had "made the revolution." They claimed the right to determine its development. The bourgeoisie, itself incapable of restoring the old order and, for the most part, not desiring to do so, supported the parent Socialist Party as the lesser of two evils. The Independents found themselves without the power to determine what course "their revolution" should take. All revolutionary history showed that this course would not be that desired by the Independent leaders and promised by them to their radical followers. ”

“ For us the revolution is not a party watchword, but the most valuable possession of the whole wealth-producing folk.
"We take over their tasks as people's commissioners with the oath: All for the revolution, all through the revolution. But we take them over at the same time with the firm purpose to oppose immovably all who would convert the revolution of the people into terror by a minority."
The Vollzugsrat elected to fill the three vacancies: Gustav Noske, still governor of Kiel: Herr Wissell, a member of the old Reichstag, and Herr Loebe, editor of the Socialist Volkswacht of Breslau. ”

“ Sweeping socialization of all industries, regulation of wages and hours of work, the protection of society against criminals, the raising of revenue, the abolishing of capitalism and capitalists—these things were less simple than they had seemed. To socialize the administration of the state was not difficult, for that was a mechanism which had been built up. But society, as these novices in government now comprehended more clearly than before, is an organism which has [pg 202] grown up. The product of centuries of growth cannot be recklessly made over in a few weeks. ”

“ These men realize no more than himself the fact that existing social conditions are the result of historical development and that they cannot be violently and artificially altered without destroying the delicate balance of the whole machine. And since this is the state of mind of the majority of the "comrades," even the wisest leaders can apply the brakes only with great moderation, for the leader who lags too far behind the majority of his party ceases to be a leader and finds his place taken by less intelligent or less scrupulous men. ”