What Germany Thinks Part 9

[Footnote 63: "Protokoll uber die Verhandlungen des Parteitags der Soz.

Dem. Partei Deutschlands zu Erfurt, 1891."]

This is an instance of what Germans call _Ruckversicherung_, or a covering insurance. Having pledged themselves never to leave the Fatherland in the lurch--and the pledge was repeated on many occasions--they were free to babble to French, English and Italian Socialists about the blessings of internationalism, general strikes, and eternal peace. But there is no single instance on record to show that German Socialists considered any other benefits of internationalism, except those which served the purposes of their own nationalism.

At Halle, 1890, Liebknecht said: "These ideas are indisputably correct.

n.o.body,[64] no matter how enthusiastic he may be for the international cause, will dare to maintain that we have no national duties. National and international are not opposing principles. The word 'national' must be rightly understood. It includes only a certain, limited portion of international humanity. The part belongs to the whole, and international merely means going beyond the boundary-posts of the nation, the narrower limits of the native land; to extend one's horizon to include the whole; to consider humanity as one family and the world as a home."

[Footnote 64: Liebknecht was wrong. There are dupes who hold that their international obligations come before their national duties, and unfortunately in the ranks of these traitors, English M.P.'s may be found, who receive 400 per annum from the British State, presumably to aid them in injuring the British cause.]

The error into which British Socialists have fallen--or been led--is their att.i.tude towards militarism. German Democrats have never denounced the bearing of arms; they have admitted that arms will always be necessary, pre-supposing that the world continues along the same lines of development as heretofore.

They have only objected to the existing _form_[65] of militarism, but otherwise they have always been unanimous that military training should be compulsory and universal. Their British _Genossen_ (comrades) have either misunderstood or wilfully perverted these teachings. German Socialists have unswervingly insisted upon every man learning the use of arms, while their British followers have preached absolute disarmament and done their utmost to betray this country into weakening herself below the minimum necessary to guard the land, and to maintain the country's pledges to the world.

[Footnote 65: Kautsky: "Die Internationalitat und der Krieg" (Vorwarts Publishing House, Berlin, 1915), p. 26. "We have fought against the military system not to make the land defenceless, but in order to introduce another system in its place, which will give us the necessary guarantees that the army will always be the tool of the civil authorities and never their master. When the latter is the case we call such a condition 'militarism,' and it is against that alone that we fight." Seeing that military power is absolutely subordinated to the civil authorities in the case of Great Britain (Mutiny Acts), then according to the principles of German Socialists their British colleagues were wrong in all the efforts which they have made against the armed powers of these islands.]

In Halle, Herr Bebel made this statement: "I have already made it clear that I consider the efforts of the so-called peace friends towards disarmament to be useless (_aussichtslos_), because it is unthinkable that the rival States would agree to legal restrictions concerning disarmament. If such were made, each would endeavour by secret preparations to out-do the other. War and national enmity are necessary products of society, and the existing cla.s.s distinctions."

The Germans were quite logical in this matter; in effect they said--the existing States and forms of government make militarism necessary, and war inevitable. Therefore we declare war to the knife on every existing government, including Russian Czarism, British const.i.tutionalism, German autocracy and American republicanism. They are one and all rotten, unjust and inhuman. Our programme includes their complete overthrow and the erection in their stead of a _Volksstaat_ (People's State).

The position is perfectly simple, and to those who are sufficiently ignorant and nave this programme promises an universal salvation, as delirious in its joy as that expected by African races when bending the knee before images of wood and stone. German Socialists are pledged just as irrevocably to the doctrines of brute force as are the Junker and military powers in the German Fatherland. What is their industrial and cla.s.s warfare but an attempt to enforce the doctrine of might is right?

In the official programme drawn up at Erfurt, 1891, there is a paragraph stating a claim for _uneingeschranktes Koalitionsrecht_ (absolute and unlimited right of coalition), which means that the ma.s.ses may unite to enforce what they will, and annihilate whom they please. The same rights of coalition are denied to anyone else, and in the coal-strikes in South Wales[66] we have a lurid example--such instances could not be found in Germany--of the absolute and unlimited right of coalition at the risk of undoing any and every other right.

[Footnote 66: The strikes during the present war.--Author.]

The point is this: German Socialists have declared their intention to give no allegiance to any existing form of government and to overthrow them at the earliest possible moment. Do British Socialists accept this part of the programme?

Throughout German Social Democratic literature we find Mr. Ramsay Macdonald referred to as _Genosse_ Ramsay Macdonald, which means that he is considered a full member of the brotherhood. If that is really the case, and if he accepts their programme as one to be followed here he would be favouring the subst.i.tution of the _volksstaat_ for the British const.i.tutional monarchy.

In face of this it may be asked why do British members of the Socialist party take an oath on entering the House of Commons, and why do they accept 400 per annum to support a national State, if they have pledged themselves internationally to overthrow it?

The author admits his inability to solve the riddle, but during the years 1902-1914 he has heard members of all non-Socialist German parties a.s.sert that the German Socialists do not recognize any religious oath, and sections of the Socialists admit this position. As a party they are professedly atheistic; therefore when the might of the German State compels them to take an oath--they take it with an inward _Ruckversicherung_.

In a word, false-swearing is permitted, when one is obliged by circ.u.mstances, to take an oath to authorities whose right and might the oath-taker does not admit. So long ago as 1892 the Social Democrats were publicly charged with condoning perjury in order to rescue fellow members from the results of breaches of the law. Judge Schmidt in a court at Breslau said in that year: "Social Democrats have never concealed the fact that they are hostile to any religious form of oath.

For them the religious importance and responsibility of an oath has no meaning whatever." Numerous German judges and authors have expressed themselves in a similar strain.

Readers who are interested in the point are referred to the report[67]

of the Socialist Congress held in Berlin, October, 1892. The party leaders endeavoured to gloss the matter over with righteous indignation and ambiguous phrases, but it nevertheless remains a fact that the desire to counteract effectively, a tendency to perjury among Socialists led the German Government a few years later to make perjury punishable by penal servitude up to ten years.

[Footnote 67: All these reports may be seen in the British Museum Reading Room. Press mark is: 08072d.]

Before leaving the _Volksstaat_ the author only wishes to state that it lays the axe on every conception of morality, religion and social order which we esteem. In the place of existing conditions, it would erect a mob tyranny more degrading to the individual than Czarism or Republicanism. The mines of Siberia and the tinned-meat factories of Chicago may enslave the body, but the _Volksstaat_, as portrayed by Socialist writers and speakers, promises an intellectual tyranny--hopeless alike to body and soul; and those who have had an opportunity to observe the brutal tyranny called "party discipline"

which rules the German Social Democrats, will bear the present writer out in saying that its like, could only be found inside the German army.

The strongest, best organized and most thoroughly disciplined political party in the world has repeatedly expressed its unalterable determination to place national before international interests, whenever these two should seem to be at variance. In the light of these declarations, the action of German Socialists in giving unreserved support to the German Government in this war, is not altogether surprising.

Furthermore, this foundation-stone in their policy ought never to have been left out of consideration when pondering over their ecstatic utterances on peace and internationalism.

The communistic manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, first published in London in the German language in 1847, contains the following: "Men say that we Communists wish to destroy the nationality of the native land. Workmen have no Fatherland. It is impossible to take away what they do not possess. The Communists scorn to conceal their views and intentions. We declare openly, that their aims can only be attained by the violent overthrow of all existing social orders. Let the ruling cla.s.ses tremble before a communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing but their chains to lose, while they have a world to gain."[68]

[Footnote 68: "Envy and greed are the two powerful levers by which the Social Democrats are endeavouring to lift the world off its hinges. They live by the destruction of every ideal." Treitschke in the "Preussische Jahrbucher," vol. 34.]

German Socialists have incorporated these principles _in theory_ in their programme, but _in practice_ they do not hold them, especially if their own skins are endangered, together with the Government which is threatened by "violent overthrow." That is the sum total of their extensive defence--literature published _since_ the outbreak of the present war. In its naked reality that is what the guarantee-insurance policy covered. So long as no danger threatened their own lives, goods and chattels, such eloquence as the following extracts were shouted into the world; but when they personally stood face to face with the Moloch upon which for years they had heaped contemptuous abuse, then national (_i.e._, personal) interests came first.

Herr Fischer, in his capacity as president of the Socialist Congress in Berlin, 1892, said:

"The reception of French delegates at Halle, and of Liebknecht at Ma.r.s.eilles, have proved incontrovertibly that the struggling French proletarians are of one mind and heart with German Social Democracy. Let the chauvinists, burning with hate on this and that side the Rhine, urge us on to war; let the diplomats and Governments of both countries sacrifice the well-being of the two nations to militarism and the war-bogey. The working-men in the two countries stretch out their hands to each other over the frontiers as pioneers of true culture and morality. They are convinced that there is only one enemy which separates them, and that it is their common task to fight against and annihilate this one enemy--capitalism."

"Now as ever, we Social Democrats reply to the Government's military and economic policy this parole: Not a man and not a farthing will be voted for this system!"[69]

[Footnote 69: Social Democrat members of the Reichstag in their report to the annual congress held in Cologne, 1893.]

These quotations have been intentionally taken from speeches, etc., published in the early nineties of the last century. If necessary, it would be an easy matter to fill several volumes of similar matter from the annual congress reports down to 1913; from the vast ma.s.s of German Social Democratic literature published between 1890 and 1914; and from the hundred party newspapers and reviews circulated in the Fatherland, Yet in the face of all these a.s.surances it seemed to us that the German Socialists had shamefully betrayed their principles on August 4th, 1914, by giving their unreserved support to "Germany's Holy War."[70]

[Footnote 70: In all Germany, and among all cla.s.ses, this has become the popular designation of the European war: "_Unser_ heiliger Krieg."]

Probably the betrayal was not so shameful as it seemed, because the fact was not made known in this country that the German Socialists had but imitated Bismarck's policy with Russia and Austria. (Bismarck concluded a treaty, with the one Power, then behind that Power's back he concluded a _Ruckversicherungsvertrag_ with the other, _i.e._, a covering insurance policy intended to protect him against all risks.)

During a quarter of a century, German Social Democrats have been the most ardent and insistent pioneers of internationalism and anti-militarism. But it has not been so generally known that they too have protected their rear by a _Ruckversicherung:_ (1.) They have consistently taught that every man must learn to bear arms, and that both man and woman must be prepared to make any sacrifice for their Fatherland. (2.) They have always held that national interests must be considered before international palaver.

In Chapter I. we have seen that up till July 28th, 1914, the German Social Democratic Party considered Austria and Germany to be entirely responsible for the European crisis. They had then no shadow of doubt, that Austria alone was guilty for bringing the danger of a European war to their very doors; from that point we again take up the story.[71]

[Footnote 71: In all the ma.s.s of literature published by German Socialists during the war I have found only one mention of their first att.i.tude to the war danger. On the first anniversary of the ultimatum to Serbia (July 23rd, 1915) the _Leipziger Volkszeitung_ contains these lines in a leading article: "To-day we may not repeat that which we wrote about the ultimatum in our issue of July 24th, 1914. But there was no doubt in any section of the Press, that Europe stood on the brink of war from the moment that ultimatum was despatched."]

Three days later they tacitly agreed that Russia was the guilty party and acquiesced in the mobilization of the German army. On August 1st this proclamation occupied the front page of their seventy-seven daily papers:

"PARTEIGENOSSEN! Military law has been proclaimed. Any hour may bring with it the outbreak of the world war. Thereby the severest trials will be imposed upon, not only our nation, but upon the whole of our continent.

"Up till the last minute the internationalists have done their duty, and on the other side of our frontiers every nerve is being strained to preserve peace and to make war impossible.

"If our earnest protests, our repeated endeavours have been without success, it is because the conditions under which we live have once again proved stronger than our will, and the will of our workmen brothers. Hence, whatever comes, we must now face it with firmness.

"The horrible self-laceration of the European peoples, is the cruel confirmation of our warnings to the ruling cla.s.ses for more than a generation; we have spoken admonishingly and in vain.

"_Parteigenossen_ (comrades), we shall not live through coming events in fatalistic indifference; we shall remain true to our cause; we shall hold firmly together, permeated by the sublime greatness of our cultural mission.

"The women, on whom the burden of events presses two and threefold, have above all, in these serious times, the task of working in the spirit of Socialism for the high ideals of humanity, so that a repet.i.tion of this dreadful catastrophe may be averted, and this war may be the last.

"The stern regulations of martial law strike the workmen's movement with terrible force. Imprudent actions, useless and falsely-conceived sacrifices, damage in this moment not only the individual, but also our cause.

"Comrades, we appeal to you to persevere in the unshakable confidence that the future belongs, in spite of all, to nation-binding Socialism, to justice and humanity.

"DER PARTEIVORSTAND.

(The leaders of the party.)

"Berlin, July 3ist, 1914."

With these words, millions of German Socialists, represented by four and a quarter million voters and a hundred and eleven members of the Reichstag, tacitly denied their previous protestations, that Austrian Imperialism was letting loose the war-fury on Europe. There are rumours of a secret consultation with the German Chancellor, but that is of little import in this place. The leaders of this huge party proclaimed on July 25th that Austria was the blood-guilty power and maintained this att.i.tude in spite of bloodshed till 11 p.m. on July 28th. By what lightning-change Austria's original guilt was transferred to Russia by July 31st is not recorded.