[1]Enthüllungen über den Communisten-Prozess zu Köln, von Karl Marx, Einleitung von Fr. Engels, p. 3.
[1]
Enthüllungen über den Communisten-Prozess zu Köln, von Karl Marx, Einleitung von Fr. Engels, p. 3.
[2]Enthüllungen, Introduction, p. 11.
[2]
Enthüllungen, Introduction, p. 11.
[3]P. 47.
[3]
P. 47.
[4]For the official documents connected with the International, see R. Meyer’sEmancipationskampf des vierten Standes, vol. i. 2nd ed.
[4]
For the official documents connected with the International, see R. Meyer’sEmancipationskampf des vierten Standes, vol. i. 2nd ed.
[5]Oscar Testu,L’Internationale, p. 153.
[5]
Oscar Testu,L’Internationale, p. 153.
[6]Der Bürgerkrieg in Frankreich.
[6]
Der Bürgerkrieg in Frankreich.
To understand the modern development of Germany, we must recall a few of the leading facts of its history. German history is largely a record of disunion, and this became chronic at the Reformation, which divided the country between two conflicting forms of religion. The religious struggle had its culmination and its catastrophe in the Thirty Years’ War.
Seldom, if ever, in the history of the world, has a calamity so awful befallen a people so highly endowed and so well fitted to excel in all the paths of progress. In every respect—economical, political, and moral—Germany in the Thirty Years’ War received wounds from which she has hardly recovered even to-day. Division and weakness at home invited interference and aggression from abroad. For generations it was the corner-stone of French policy to foster the divisions of Germany, and so to maintain her supremacy in Western Europe.
The victories of the Great Frederick, the works of her great writers—Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe, and of her great philosophers—Kant, Fichte, Schelling, andHegel, and the mighty struggles of the War of Liberation in 1813, did much to restore the national consciousness of Germany. But the disunion continued, and in her industrial organisation she was far behind England and France. Feudalism survived, especially in the regions east of the Elbe, far into the nineteenth century. The power-loom was not introduced, even into the more progressive Rhine country, till the middle of the nineteenth century.
The results of the War of Liberation were, for the German people, most disappointing. After throwing off the French yoke, citizen and peasant alike found that the enthusiasm and devotion with which they had spent blood and treasure had been in vain. The German princes took to themselves all the fruits of victory, and the old abuses continued to flourish under the oldrégime. The only considerable reforms were those which had been established in the Rhine country by the hereditary enemy, the French, and which the German reaction did not venture to abolish.
In these circumstances we need not wonder that a profound and brooding discontent began to occupy the best German minds. A Fatherland which was disunited at home and weak abroad, princely despotisms which fostered servility and raised a barrier to progress, backward methods and institutions which were all the more galling when contrasted with the pre-eminence which Germany had attained in literature and philosophy—how could any patriot be satisfied with such a wretched condition of affairs? Thus it happened thatGermany took a leading part in the revolutionary troubles of 1848. Both at Vienna and Berlin the oldrégimewas for a time overturned; and a national Parliament met at Frankfort. But the German reformers were not united; they had no clear aims; and there was little or no material strength behind them. The reaction had been taken by surprise. But it wielded the organised military power, and so was able to act whilst the Liberals talked and proposed. Before the troubled year had come to a close the reaction was triumphant both in Vienna and Berlin.
Then a time of darkness which could be felt, and which apparently was as hopeless as ever, followed in Germany. Parliaments were dispersed. Many who had shared in the struggle were put to death or imprisoned. In 1849 Switzerland counted within her borders as many as 11,000 German refugees, most of whom eventually found a home in America. It appeared as if only one failure the more had been made in the toilsome march of human progress.
But it was not an entire failure. The revolutionary disturbances had at least proved that many of the old institutions were untenable, and must in whole or in part be removed. It was found necessary to make some concessions to Liberalism. Much of the old feudalism was set aside.
Above all, both in the middle and working class there had arisen a new spirit which only awaited the opportunity that was sure to come. The opportunity arrived a few years afterwards, when the forces whichhave made the Germany of to-day came into action. In the new circumstances it was an interesting question how far thebourgeoisieand the working class could march together. It is a standing charge brought against German Liberalism by the Social Democrats, that it has never led the progressive forces against the reaction with any degree of courage or resolution. They maintain that in the revolutionary struggles of 1848 the German Liberals never trusted the working class, that when the choice came to be made between the reaction and a strenuous democratic policy supported by the proletariat, they preferred to transact with the reaction, and so committed treason on the sacred cause of progress. On this question largely turns the history of recent German politics. It is a wide and complicated question which can be rightly answered only by due consideration of the facts of the historical situation.
The middle class had triumphed both in France and England. But the industrial revolution which naturally brings with it the rule of the middle class, was in Germany much later than in France and England. In 1848 the German middle class was still in its infancy, and had neither the insight nor the material means to lead the democracy against the reaction with any prospect of success; nor was it reasonable to expect that it should.
Further, it may be maintained that the German working class, following the example of their French brethren, has been too ready to enter on revolutionarycourses, and by thus exciting the alarm and suspicion of all sober-minded men, has done vital injury to the cause of rational and hopeful progress. There can be no doubt that for those who are bent on revolutionary courses, and those who are content with what is usually comprehended under the name of liberalism, the parting of the ways must come sooner or later. That is no reason why the parting should be premature. If they can with mutual advantage make their way along a common road against their common enemy, feudalism and the reaction, why should they not do so?
Unfortunately for German Liberals and the energetic Democratic party, there was no common way. The parting came at the very outset, and it may be regarded as inevitable. The chief aim of the Democrats was universal suffrage, and for a time at least universal suffrage in Germany, as in France, meant the strengthening of Conservatism. In Germany, as in France, universal suffrage would give the deciding power at the polls to the peasantry and the rural population generally which were under the control of the reaction, and which largely outnumbered the urban population. The German Liberals did not wish universal suffrage, as it was not in their interest. They treated the working men and their leaders with scant courtesy or consideration. They wished to utilise them as subordinates, or, at the best, as dependent allies. If the workmen were not willing to be thus treated, the Liberals were ready to show them the door.
The working men were not willing to be so treated,and they turned to Lassalle, with the result which we have already briefly narrated. As time went on the gulf between Liberals and Democrats widened, and the democratic working men became Social Democrats. It was a breach which may fairly be regarded as extremely hurtful to the sound political development of Germany. On one hand it has led to the result that the German middle class has never with resolution and comprehensiveness of purpose led the democracy along the path on which a really free German State might have been established. Partly from choice, partly from the necessities of its position, the German middle class has followed the policy of making for itself the best terms it could with the reaction; and the socialists say that this meant the sacrifice of democratic ideals to the material interests of the middle class. ‘The treason of thebourgeoisie,’ ‘the abdication by thebourgeoisie’ of its historic place at the head of the democratic movement: these phrases sum up the worst accusations brought by the Social Democrats against the German middle class.
On the other hand, the working men, finding themselves neglected or repudiated by those who, according to the natural laws of historical development, should for a time at least have been their leaders, gave ear, it may be prematurely, to men of revolutionary views and antecedents like Lassalle and Karl Marx; and in this manner was formed a revolutionary party which in many ways has not had a salutary organic relation to the main stream of German life. It is in fact the reactionwhich has profited by the division between thebourgeoisieand the working class.
We shall now return to the history of the Universal Working Men’s Association which, as we have seen, was founded by Lassalle in 1863.[1]At the death of the founder in 1864 the membership of the Association amounted to 4610, a small number, but we must recollect that it had existed for only about fifteen months.
Lassalle, in his will, had recommended as his successor Bernhard Becker, a man totally unqualified for such a difficult post. At the founding of the Association it had been thought good that the president should exercise a species of dictatorship. This arrangement might be suitable so long as the office was filled by a Lassalle. It was not easy to get a competent man of any kind. In such a novel organisation we need not say that there were hardly any members of ability and experience. Lassalle’s choice was therefore extremely limited. The most capable of his adherents undoubtedly was Von Schweitzer, a young man who belonged to a patrician house of Frankfort on the Main, but his reputation was so far from stainless that the German workmen for some time refused to have anything to do with him. Becker was elected, and conducted the affairs of the Association with more energy than wisdom,while the Countess Hatzfeldt, as the intimate friend of Lassalle, used her wealth and social position to control its fortunes in a way little calculated to satisfy the self-respecting German working men. It was a time of confusion and uncertainty in the Association; of suspicion, jealousy, and contention among its leading members. There would be no profit, however, in narrating the squabbles which disturbed the progress of the Association in its helpless infancy.
Indeed, if we consider the matter with some measure of sympathy and impartiality, it would hardly have been natural had it been otherwise. Let us try to realise from what low estate the German working men were now endeavouring to rise. We must remember that the German workman had no share or experience in government, either local or national. The right of combination, of free speech in a free meeting, and even of free movement, had been denied him for generations. He could hardly turn to the right hand or the left without coming into collision with the police and the courts of law. He had no leaders whom he could trust. The German working men, it is scarcely an exaggeration to say, had in the sphere of social and political action everything to learn. Under conditions which were most trying and uncertain they had to shape out a policy which suited their interests and ideals; they had to learn to know each other and to work in union, and they had to find trustworthy and capable leaders.
Nameless misery and degradation prevailed in toomany of the industrial regions on the Rhine in Saxony and Silesia. Men, women, and children were worked for fifteen hours a day. Hand labour was disappearing with the wonted unspeakable suffering before the machinery brought in by the industrial revolution. Both the hand labour and the factory labour of Germany suffered under the pressure of the competition of the more advanced mechanical industry of England.
In the lot of the German working man there had been neither light, leading, nor hope. The men who represented State and Church, law and learning, and who should have been responsible for his guidance, were too often found among his oppressors.
In view of facts like these need we wonder that Lassalle, with all his eloquence and energy, found it difficult to rouse the German working men out of their apathy and hopelessness? Under such depressing circumstances it was no particular disgrace for an ordinary man like Bernhard Becker to fail. Becker’s tenure of the presidency was of short duration. He was succeeded by Tölcke, a man of ability and energy; but at his entrance into office the prospects of the Association were not bright. The funds in its treasury amounted to only six thalers or eighteen shillings. If finance be the test of success the Association founded by Lassalle was indeed at a very low ebb.
The brightest feature in the early history of the Association was theSozialdemokrat, a paper founded by Schweitzer at the end of 1864, and which had onits list of contributors the names of Marx and Engels. But even here the evil fortune of the Association clung to it. In a series of articles on Bismarck, Schweitzer had given expression to views regarding that statesman which were highly displeasing to the two revolutionists in England, and they publicly renounced all connection with the paper. Following Lassalle, Schweitzer had shown his readiness to join hands with the Conservatives of Prussia when circumstances made it advisable in the interests of the Social Democracy. Such a policy met with no favour in the eyes of Marx and Engels. They demanded from Schweitzer the same energetic opposition to the feudal and reactionary party as he showed to the Progressists. Schweitzer claimed the right to shape his tactics in accordance with the situation of affairs in Prussia, which he knew better than men living in exile. A socialist who could take a lucid and comprehensive view of the theories which he professed, a man of the world of real insight and tact, Schweitzer, by his articles in theSozialdemokrat, rendered effectual service to the Association and to the socialist cause in Germany at a most critical time in their history.
During those years the political condition of Germany was most uncertain and chaotic, and the Association had to grope its way through the darkness as best it could. It was a new party composed of members who had no experience of common action, and who had with much labour and perplexity to work out a set of common convictions. Under the circumstancesa clear line of policy was impossible. The first mighty step out of this political chaos was made in 1866, when Bismarck, after defeating Austria, established the North German Confederation. The elections to the North German Diet, which was now established, were based on universal suffrage. The first North German Diet met in 1867, and in the same year Schweitzer was elected president of the Association founded by Lassalle. How were the Social Democrats of Germany to relate themselves to the new order of things? Before answering this question we must say something of important movements which were proceeding on the Social Democratic side.
The adherents of the Universal Working Men’s Association were drawn chiefly from Prussia and North Germany. In Saxony and South Germany there had meanwhile grown up a new working men’s party, from which Schweitzer encountered the most strenuous opposition. Under the influence of the new life which prevailed in Germany in the years following 1860, many workmen’s unions were established. As it was dangerous to make too open a profession of a political object these unions adopted the name of workmen’s educative associations (Arbeiterbildungsvereine). Some of these working men’s associations had attached themselves to Lassalle, but from the first many had held aloof from him. Many of these associations had been founded and promoted under liberal democratic influences, and their aim may generally be described as political and educational rather than economical; butit would be more accurate still to describe them as having no clear aims, and as on the look-out for a policy rather than possessing one. It is certain that as Saxons and South Germans they were to a large degree inspired by the hatred to the growing ascendency of Prussia which prevailed around them.
Shortly after the founding of the Lassalle Association a Union of the working men’s associations which continued loyal to the Progressist party was founded at Frankfort in 1863, and was intended to form a bulwark against the influence of Lassalle. But this Union of associations speedily began to move in the direction of democracy and through democracy to socialism. Two men were chiefly responsible for this result, Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel.
Liebknecht had taken an active part in the revolutionary disturbances in Germany in 1848, had been a member of the group of exiles that gathered round Karl Marx in London, and from him had imbibed the principles of international revolutionary socialism. He had joined the Universal Association of Lassalle, but he never enjoyed the entire confidence of his chief. Liebknecht counted Luther among his ancestors, and was descended from the learned middle class of Germany. His friend, August Bebel, was a working man, who, being left an orphan at an early age, had been educated at charity schools. Brought up to the handicraft of turner, Bebel continued with the most laudable diligence and thoroughness to educate himself. By his acquirements, his natural talent and his force ofcharacter, he soon gained considerable influence among his comrades. Bebel before long became a force in the German workmen’s unions.
At first Bebel was merely a radical of strong convictions, and he had no love for a socialistic agitation like that of Lassalle which was to adapt itself so much to Prussian nationalism. It was only a question of time, however, when a nature so thorough and strenuous would make the transition from radicalism to socialism. As the representative man of the German workmen’s educative associations, we see him making his way in a few short years to Social Democracy, and the associations followed him step by step. Influential members soon expressed their preference for universal suffrage. The Union of associations at its meeting in Stuttgart in 1865 declared for universal suffrage, whilst their organ in the same year repudiated the Schulze-Delitzsch schemes in the most emphatic language. In 1866 a great meeting of workmen’s associations at Chemnitz in Saxony adopted a programme which on its political side was entirely democratic, and on its economic side made considerable advances towards socialism. At its congress in Nuremberg in 1868 the Union by a large majority declared its adhesion to the principles of the International. In a great congress at Eisenach in 1869 they founded the Social Democratic Working Men’s Party, and in the same year sent representatives to the International Congress at Basel. The Union which had been designed by the Progressists as a bulwark against Social Democracy had proved aroadway by which the workmen marched into the enemy’s camp.
Thus two socialist parties were established in Germany, the Lassalle Association, which had its membership chiefly in Prussia, and the Eisenach Party, which found support in Saxony and South Germany. Both parties were represented in the North German Diet, in which at one time as many as six socialists sat. They now had a tribune from which to address the German people, but it cannot be said that they were particularly grateful to Bismarck for the opportunity which he had given them. To men of the revolutionary party of 1848, whose ideal had been the unification of Germany under the free initiative of the people, the work of Bismarck could not appear a very delightful consummation, even though it was accompanied with the gift of universal suffrage. Schweitzer regarded the North German Confederation as a very unpleasant and very unwelcome, but yet irrevocable fact, with which the Social Democracy would need to find a way of getting on, on whose basis they would have to establish themselves as the extreme opposition if they wished to continue a political party.
Liebknecht, on the other hand, looked upon the North German Confederation as a reactionary work of violence and injustice that must be overthrown. In order not to strengthen it he repudiated all practical participation in the legislative measures of the Diet. The parliamentary tribune was only a platform from which he could hurl his protest against the new arrangementof things among the masses of the German people. In his opinion the creation of Bismarck meant the division, weakening, and servitude of Germany, and history would march over its ruins.
During the Franco-German War of 1870-71 the flood of patriotic enthusiasm for a time almost submerged the socialistic agitation. At the commencement of hostilities Liebknecht and Bebel refrained from voting on the question of a war loan; they disapproved alike of the policy of Prussia and of Bonaparte. The other socialist deputies, including Schweitzer, voted for it, as the victory of Napoleon would mean the overthrow of the socialist workmen in France, the supremacy of the Bonapartist soldiery in Europe, and the complete disintegration of Germany. But after the fall of the French Empire all of them voted against a further loan and recommended the speediest conclusion of peace with the Republic, without annexation of French territory. Such views did not meet with much acceptance in Germany, either from Government or people. Several of the socialist leaders were thrown into prison. At the first election to the German Reichstag in 1871 the socialists counted only 102,000 votes, and returned two members.
Soon afterwards Schweitzer announced his intention of retiring from the leadership of the Universal Working Men’s Association. He had been defeated at the general election. His position at the head of the Association, which, as we have seen, was a species of dictatorship, was no longer tenable. His trials andstruggles with the Prussian police and courts of justice, the troubles he experienced in the midst of his own party, the persecution and calumny which he endured from the opposing Eisenach party, the sacrifice of time and money, of health and quiet, which were inseparable from such a post, had made it a very uneasy one. He had conducted the affairs of the Association with a tact, insight, and appreciation of the situation to which his successors in the leadership of the German socialists have apparently never been able to attain. He died in Switzerland in 1875.
About the same time, in the spring of 1871, came the tidings of the great rising of the working class in the Commune at Paris. Mass meetings of German workmen were held in Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover, Dresden, Leipzic, and other large towns, to express their sympathy with their French brethren in the struggle which they were waging. In the Reichstag Bebel made a speech which contained the following passage:—‘Be assured that the entire European proletariat, and all that have a feeling for freedom and independence in their heart, have their eyes fixed on Paris. And if Paris is for the present crushed, I remind you that the struggle in Paris is only a small affair of outposts, that the main conflict in Europe is still before us, and that ere many decades pass away the battle-cry of the Parisian proletariat, war to the palace, peace to the cottage, death to want and idleness, will be the battle-cry of the entire European proletariat.’[2]
When the war fever of 1871 subsided the socialistic agitation resumed its course, and it was fostered by the wild speculations of the time, and by the industrial crisis which followed it. At the elections of 1874 the socialist party polled 340,000 votes and returned nine members.
From Lassalle’s first appearance on the scene in 1862, the socialistic agitation had encountered the German police at every step of its career. Its leaders were prosecuted and thrown into prison. Meetings were broken up, newspapers and organisations were suppressed. The free expression of opinion on the platform and through the press was curtailed in every way.
Such experience taught the socialist leaders the advantage and necessity of union in face of the common enemy. The retirement of Schweitzer from the control of the Lassalle party in 1871 had removed the most serious obstacle to union. Hasenclever had been elected president in his stead, but it was felt that the party had outgrown the autocratic guidance which had been helpful and perhaps necessary to it in its early years. All the tendencies and influences of the time served to bring the Lassalle and the Eisenach parties together. They were pursuing the same aims under the same conditions, against the same opposition; and there was really nothing now to keep them apart except the recollection of old rivalries and animosities which soon faded under the pressure of their practical difficulties.
Under these circumstances the process of union waseasy, and the fusion of the Eisenach and Lassalle parties was effected in a congress at Gotha in 1875. At this congress 25,000 regular members were represented, of whom 9000 belonged to the Marx party and 15,000 to that of Lassalle. The united body assumed the name of the Socialistic Working Men’s Party of Germany, and drew up a programme, which, as the most important that till that time had been published by any socialistic organisation, deserves to be given entire.[3]
The union of the two parties thus accomplished was the starting-point of a new career of prosperity for the German Social Democracy. At the election of 1877 the new party polled nearly half a million votes, and returned twelve members to the Reichstag. This result was largely due to the admirable organisation to which the socialistic propaganda had now attained. A staff of skilful, intelligent, and energetic agitators advocated the new creed in every town of Germany, and they were supported by an effective machinery of newspapers, pamphlets, treatises, social gatherings, and even almanacs, in which the doctrines of socialism were suggested, inculcated, and enforced in every available way. At all the great centres of population—in Berlin, Hamburg, and in the industrial towns of Saxony and on the Rhine—the Social Democrats threatened to become the strongest party.
Such a rate of progress, and the aggressive attitude of the spokesmen of the party, naturally awakened the apprehensions of the German rulers. They resolved tomeet it by special legislation. The Social Democrat programme contained nothing that was absolutely inconsistent with the idea of a peaceful development out of the existing state. As we have seen, it is a principle of the Marx socialism that its realisation depends on the inherent tendencies of social evolution; but the process can be hastened by the intelligent and energetic co-operation of living men, and as this co-operation may take the shape of revolutionary force, and was actually in Germany assuming a most aggressive and menacing attitude, both on the platform and in the press, it was inevitable that the German Government should adopt measures to repress it.
The occasion of the anti-socialist legislation was found in the attempts of Hödel and Nobiling on the Emperor’s life in 1878. It is needless to say that neither attempt was authorised by the Social Democratic party. The two men had no official connection with the party. Both were weak in character and intellect. Their feeble brains had been excited by the socialistic doctrines which were fermenting around them. No further responsibility for their acts attaches to the Social Democratic party, whose principles and interests were entirely opposed to such attempts at assassination.
The Bill introduced after the attempt of Hödel was rejected by the Reichstag. On the attempt of Nobiling the Government dissolved the Reichstag and appealed to the country, with the result that a large majority favourable to exceptional legislation was returned. At the general election the socialist vote declined from493,000 to 437,000. Severe anti-socialist laws were speedily carried by the new Reichstag.
A most interesting feature of the discussions which took place in connection with the exceptional legislation was the attitude of Bismarck. Now when the great statesman is no more it is specially necessary to state that he approached the subject of socialism with an open-mindedness which does him honour. He felt it his duty to make himself acquainted with all the facts relating to his office, and took particular pains to understand the new social and economic problems which were engaging the attention of the country.
In a sitting of the Reichstag on September 17, 1878, he did not hesitate to express his sympathy and even respect for Lassalle. He explained how he had met Lassalle three or four times at the request of the latter, and had not regretted it. Referring to baseless rumours that had been circulated to the effect that he had been willing to enter into negotiation with the agitator, he stated that their relations could not have taken the form of a political transaction, for Lassalle had nothing to offer him, and there could be no bargain when one of the parties had nothing to give. ‘But Lassalle had something,’ Bismarck went on to say, ‘that attracted me exceedingly as a private man. He was one of the cleverest and most amiable men with whom I ever met; a man who was ambitious in great style, and by no means a republican; he had a very strongly marked national and monarchical feeling, the idea which he strove to realise was the German Empire, and thereinwe had common ground. Lassalle was ambitious in the grand style; it was doubtful, perhaps, whether the German Empire should close with the Hohenzollern dynasty or the dynasty Lassalle, yet his feeling was monarchical through and through.... Lassalle was an energetic and most intellectual man, whose conversation was very instructive; our talks lasted for hours, and I always regretted when they came to an end.... I should have been glad to have had a man of such endowments and genius as neighbouring landlord.’
It should be added also that Bismarck saw no objection in principle to the scheme of productive associations with State help recommended by Lassalle. Such experiments were not unreasonable in themselves, and were entirely consistent with the range of duties recognised by the State as he understood them; but the course of political events had not left him the necessary leisure. Before leaving this matter we should note that, as regards universal suffrage and the scheme of productive associations with State help, Bismarck and Lassalle had common ground, on which they could have co-operated without sacrifice of principle on either side.
In his speech in the Reichstag of September 17, 1878, the Chancellor also explained the origin of his hostility to the Social Democracy. One of its leading representatives, either Bebel or Liebknecht, had in open sitting expressed his sympathy with the Commune at Paris. That reference to the Commune had been a ray of light on the question; from that time he felt entirely convinced that the Social Democracy was an enemyagainst which the State and society must arm themselves.
As we have seen, it was Bebel who had used the objectionable language in the Reichstag; but Liebknecht had never been backward in the frank and uncompromising expression of views of a similar nature. Such views were not the passing feeling of the hour; they were the statement of firm and settled conviction, and may fairly be taken as representative of the beliefs and convictions of the German Social Democracy in general. The Social Democrats were hostile to the existing order in Germany, and they did not hesitate to say so. In these circumstances it is hardly necessary to say that a collision with a Government like that directed by Bismarck was inevitable.
Bismarck himself was a Prussian Junker who had become a great European statesman, but in many ways he remained a Junker to the end of his life. With rare sagacity and strength of will he had shaped the real forces of his time towards the great end of uniting the Fatherland and restoring it to its fitting place among the nations of Europe. To use his own words, he had lifted Germany into the saddle, and his task afterwards was to keep her there. The methods, however, by which he had accomplished the first part of his task, were scarcely so suitable for the accomplishment of the second.
In the now united Germany he found two enemies which appeared to menace the new structure which he had so laboriously reared, the Black International, orthe Ultramontane party, and the Red International, or the Social Democrats. These enemies he tried to suppress by the high-handed methods which had been familiar to him from his youth. He was about fifty-six years of age when the German Empire was established. It was too much to expect of human nature that he should at so late a time of life break away from his antecedents as Prussian Junker and statesman, and adopt the methods which would make Germany a free as well as a united State.
Yet it is only right to say that he went a considerable distance on this desirable path. Both as realist statesman and as patriot he wished to have the German people on his side. When he attempted to suppress the Social Democracy by methods which are not worthy of a free and enlightened nation, he did so in all seriousness, as a German patriot. He was a man working under the human limitations of his birth, antecedents, and position. On the other hand, the Social Democrats had endured oppression for many generations from the classes which Bismarck represented. They had now risen in anger out of the lower depths of society as an organised party, demanding that the hereditary oppression should cease. Considered in this aspect the anti-socialist legislation of Bismarck was only a new phase in a secular process. Time has not yet fully revealed the means by which a process of this kind can be brought to a close.
The anti-socialist laws came into force in October 1878. Socialist newspapers and meetings were at oncesuppressed, and the organisation of the party was broken up. Generally, it may be said that during the operation of the laws the only place in Germany in which the right of free speech could be exercised by the socialists was the tribune of the Reichstag, and the only organisation permitted to them was that formed by the representatives of the party in the Reichstag. As time went on the minor state of siege was established in Berlin, Hamburg, Leipzig, and other towns, and the police did not hesitate to exercise the power thereby put into their hands of expelling Social Democratic agitators and others who might be objectionable to them.
For some time confusion, and to some extent dismay, prevailed among the Social Democrats. But ere long they found that their union and their power did not depend on any formal organisation. As Marx had taught, the organisation of the factory necessarily brings with it the organisation of the proletariat. A well-drilled working class is a natural and inevitable result of modern industrial evolution, which nofiatof the law can disturb, if the workmen have the intelligence to understand their position and mission. Thus the German workman realised that the union in which he trusted was beyond the reach of repressive laws, however cunningly devised and however brutally exercised.
The want of an organ, however, was greatly felt, and accordingly, in September 1879, theSocialdemocrat, International Organ of the Socialdemocracy of German Tongue, was founded at Zürich. From 1880 it was edited by Eduard Bernstein with real abilityand conscientious thoroughness. Every week thousands of copies were despatched to Germany, and, in spite of all the efforts of the police, were distributed among the Social Democrats in the Fatherland. In 1888 it was removed to London, whence it was issued till the repeal of the anti-socialist laws in 1890.
The efforts of Bismarck against socialism apparently had a temporary success, for in 1881, the first election after the passing of the laws, the voting power of the party sank to about 312,000. But it was only temporary, and probably it was more apparent than real. The elections in 1884 showed a marked increase to 549,000, and in 1887 to 763,000. These symptoms of growth, however, were vastly exceeded by the results of the poll in 1890, when the number of Social Democratic votes swelled to 1,427,000. They were now the strongest single party of the Empire.
In all the large towns of the Empire, and especially in the largest of all, such as Berlin, Hamburg, and Leipzig, where the minor state of siege had been proclaimed, the socialists could show an enormous increase of votes. Till about 1885 the Social Democrats had, by their own confession, made very little progress in country districts, or among the Catholic population either of town or country. At the election of 1890 there was evidence of a very considerable advance in both quarters. The election sounded the knell of Bismarck’s system of repression, and the anti-socialist laws were not renewed.
The Social Democrats thus came out of the struggleagainst Bismarck with a voting power three times as great as it had been when the anti-socialist laws were passed. The struggle had proved the extraordinary vitality of the movement. The Social Democrats had shown a patience, resolution, discipline, and, in the absence of any formal organisation, a real and effective organisation of mind and purpose which are unexampled in the annals of the labour movement since the beginning of human society. They had made a steady and unflinching resistance to the most powerful statesman since the first Napoleon, who wielded all the resources of a great modern State, and who was supported by a press that used every available means to discredit the movement; and, as a party, they had never been provoked to acts of violence. In fact, they had given proof of all the high qualities which fit men and parties to play a greatrôlein history. The Social Democratic movement in Germany is one of the most notable phenomena of our time.
After the anti-social legislation had ceased the Social Democratic party found that its first task was to set its house in order. At a party meeting at Halle in 1890 an organisation of the simplest kind was adopted. The annual meeting forms the highest representative body of the party. The party direction was to consist of two chairmen, two secretaries, one treasurer, and also of two assessors chosen by a Board of Control of seven members. TheSozialdemokrat, which, as we have seen, had for some time been published in London, was discontinued, and theVorwärtsof Berlin was appointed the central organ of the party.
In 1891, at the party meeting at Erfurt, a new programme, superseding that of Gotha, was adopted; and as it may fairly be regarded as the most developed expression of the Social Democratic principles yet put forth by any body of working men, we give it here entire for the perusal and study of our readers.[4]
‘The economic development of thebourgeoissociety leads by a necessity of nature to the downfall of the small production, the basis of which is the private property of the workman in his means of production. It separates the workman from his means of production, and transforms him into a proletarian without property, whilst the means of production become the monopoly of a comparatively small number of capitalists and great landowners.
‘This monopolising of the means of production is accompanied by the supplanting of the scattered small production through the colossal great production, by the development of the tool into the machine, and by gigantic increase of the productivity of human labour. But all advantages of this transformation are monopolised by the capitalists and great landowners. For the proletariat and the sinking intermediate grades—small tradesmen and peasant proprietors—it means increasing insecurity of their existence, increase ofmisery, of oppression, of servitude, degradation, and exploitation.
‘Ever greater grows the number of the proletarians, ever larger the army of superfluous workmen, ever wider the chasm between exploiters and exploited, ever bitterer the class struggle betweenbourgeoisieand proletariat, which divides modern society into two hostile camps, and is the common characteristic of all industrial lands.
‘The gulf between rich and poor is further widened through the crises which naturally arise out of the capitalistic method of production, which always become more sweeping and destructive, which render the general insecurity the normal condition of society, and prove that the productive forces have outgrown the existing society, that private property in the means of production is incompatible with their rational application and full development.
‘Private property in the instruments of production, which in former times was the means of assuring to the producer the property in his own product, has now become the means of expropriating peasant proprietors, hand-workers, and small dealers, and of placing the non-workers, capitalists, and great landowners in the possession of the product of the workmen. Only the conversion of the capitalistic private property in the means of production—land, mines, raw material, tools, machines, means of communication—into social property, and the transformation of the production of wares into socialistic production, carried on for and throughsociety, can bring it about that the great production and the continually increasing productivity of social labour may become for the hitherto exploited classes, instead of a source of misery and oppression, a source of the highest welfare and of all-sided harmonious development.
‘This social transformation means the emancipation, not merely of the proletariat, but of the entire human race which suffers under the present conditions. But it can only be the work of the labouring class, because all other classes, in spite of their mutually conflicting interests, stand on the ground of private property in the means of production, and have as their common aim the maintenance of the bases of the existing society.
‘The struggle of the working class against capitalistic exploitation is of necessity a political struggle. The working class cannot conduct its economic struggle, and cannot develop its economic organisation, without political rights. It cannot effect the change of the means of production into the possession of the collective society without coming into possession of political power.
‘To shape this struggle of the working class into a conscious and united one, and to point out to it its inevitable goal, this is the task of the Social Democratic party.
‘In all lands where the capitalistic method of production prevails, the interests of the working classes are alike. With the extension of the world commerce and of the production for the world market, the conditionof the workmen of every single land always grows more dependent on the condition of the workmen in other lands. The emancipation of the working class is therefore a task in which the workers of all civilised countries are equally interested. Recognising this the Social Democratic party of Germany feels and declares itself at one with the class-conscious workers of all other countries.
‘The Social Democratic party of Germany therefore contends, not for new class privileges and exclusive rights, but for the abolition of class rule and of classes themselves, and for equal rights and equal duties of all without distinction of sex and descent. Proceeding from these views it struggles in the present society, not only against exploitation and oppression of the wage-workers, but against every kind of exploitation and oppression, whether directed against class, party, sex, or race.
‘Proceeding from these principles the Social Democratic party of Germany now demands—
‘1. Universal, equal, and direct suffrage, with vote by ballot, for all men and women of the Empire over twenty years of age. Proportional electoral system; and, till the introduction of this, legal redistribution of seats after every census. Biennial legislative periods. Elections to take place on a legal day of rest. Payment of representatives. Abolition of all limitation of political rights, except in the case of disfranchisement.
‘2. Direct legislation through the people, by means ofthe right of proposal and rejection. Self-government of the people in Empire, State, Province, and Commune. Officials to be elected by the people; responsibility of officials. Yearly granting of taxes.
‘3. Training in universal military duty. A people’s army in place of the standing armies, decision on peace and war by the representatives of the people. Settlement of all international differences by arbitration.
‘4. Abolition of all laws which restrict or suppress the free expression of opinion and the right of union and meeting.
‘5. Abolition of all laws which, in public or private matters, place women at a disadvantage as compared with men.
‘6. Religion declared to be a private matter. No public funds to be applied to ecclesiastical and religious purposes. Ecclesiastical and religious bodies are to be regarded as private associations which manage their own affairs in a perfectly independent manner.
‘7. Secularisation of the school. Obligatory attendance at the public people’s schools. Education, the appliances of learning, and maintenance free in the public people’s schools, as also in the higher educational institutions for those scholars, both male and female, who, by reason of their talents, are thought to be suited for further instruction.
‘8. Administration of justice and legal advice to be free. Justice to be administered by judges chosen bythe people. Appeal in criminal cases. Compensation for those who are innocently accused, imprisoned, and condemned. Abolition of capital punishment.
‘9. Medical treatment, including midwifery and the means of healing, to be free. Free burial.
‘10. Progressive income and property taxes to meet all public expenditure, so far as these are to be covered by taxation. Duty of making one’s own return of income and property. Succession duty to be graduated according to amount and relationship. Abolition of all indirect taxes, customs, and other financial measures which sacrifice the collective interest to the interests of a privileged minority.
‘For the protection of the working class the Social Democratic party of Germany demands—
‘1. An effective national and international protective legislation for workmen on the following bases:—
‘(a) Fixing of a normal working day of not more than eight hours.
‘(b) Prohibition of money-making labour of children under fourteen years.
‘(c) Prohibition of night work, except for those branches of industry which from their nature, owing to technical reasons or reasons of public welfare, require night work.
‘(d) An unbroken period of rest of at least thirty-six hours in every week for every worker.
‘(e) Prohibition of the truck system.
‘2. Supervision of all industrial establishments, investigation and regulation of the conditions of labour in town and country by an imperial labour department, district labour offices, and labour chambers. A thorough system of industrial hygiene.
‘3. Agricultural labourers and servants to be placed on the same footing as industrial workers; abolition of servants’ regulations.
‘4. The right of combination to be placed on a sure footing.
‘5. Undertaking of the entire working men’s insurance by the Empire, with effective co-operation of the workmen in its administration.’
If we consider the above programme we shall see that collectivism is set forth as the goal of a long process of historical evolution. But this goal is to be attained by the conscious, intelligent, and organised action of the working class of Germany in co-operation with the working classes of other lands. This is the twofold theme of the first part of the programme. The second part is a detailed statement of the social-political arrangements and institutions, by which on and from the basis of the existing society the German Social Democracy may move towards the goal. The goal, collectivism, is therefore the central point of the programme.
The programme, it will be observed, is a lengthy one about which many treatises might be written, and indeed it sums up a world of thought, on which the Social Democratic mind has been exercised for morethan a generation. It will be seen that the materialistic conception of history and the theory of surplus value of Marx are not expressed in the programme, though theymaybe taken as underlying it by those who emphasise those two leading principles of Marx. The Social Democracy of Germany, therefore, is not committed to the special theories of Marx to the extent that is commonly supposed, though the general lines on which the programme is constructed owe their elucidation greatly more to him than to any other man. The various points of the programme will, we may be assured, be subjects of discussion and of education for the industrious and intelligent working class of Germany for many a year to come. It embodies their thoughts and interests, their aspirations and ideals, in the social economic and political sphere, but it represents no fixed system of dogma. It is meant to be a living creed, mirroring a living movement.
We have thus briefly sketched the rise of the German Social Democratic party from 1863 to 1890. It is a short period, but full of change and trouble. The party has come victoriously through a very hard school. We have seen how low and feeble were the beginnings of the party. We have seen also how hard at every step of its career has been its experience of the German police. Indeed the Prussian and German executive has left no means untried to suppress and destroy the movement.
Looking back on the development of the party we cannot doubt that at certain decisive stages greaterwisdom and insight might have been shown by its leaders. The ascendency of Prussia should have been recognised as an inevitable fact which unquestionably made for progress in the unification of Germany. In this aspect at least the work of Bismarck was profoundly progressive. We may safely assume that the unification and regeneration of Germany would never have been accomplished by a talking apparatus like the Frankfort Parliament of 1848; and we can see no other force that could have succeeded except the military power of Prussia. And we may further add that the present policy of the Social Democratic party in refusing to vote for the budgets, if it were seriously to weaken the German executive, would in the existing state of Europe be disastrous in the last degree. That men like Liebknecht should hate the Junker party as the hereditary oppressors of the poor was natural; but the Junkers have had and still have a great historic function as the heads of the forces political and military which have again made Germany a nation. Their way of making the new Germany has not been the ideal way, let us say; but it has been the way of fact, and no exercise of revolutionary impatience of Marx or Liebknecht has been able to arrest or reverse the fact.
Trained in the school of adversity, the German Social Democratic party has been obliged to learn circumspection and to acquire all the virtues of discipline, patience, sobriety, and self-control. Some of its members, among whom Most and Hasselman were prominent,strongly urged a policy of anarchic resistance to authority, but this tendency was strenuously opposed by the vast majority. Most and Hasselman, on refusing to submit to the party discipline, were eventually expelled. Every attempt to encourage the theory or practice of anarchism in the German Social Democratic party has been sternly and almost unanimously suppressed by the party. It succeeded only to a slight degree in cases where it was promoted by the agents of the German police for their own evil ends.
A most wholesome effect of the adverse experience of the Social Democratic party was that it sifted from their ranks all who were not thoroughly in earnest in the cause of the working man. It is a grave misfortune of new movements like socialism that it attracts from the middle and upper classes all manner of faddists and crotchety enthusiasts and adventurers, vapid and futile talkers, acrid and morbid pessimists, who join the movement, not from real love of the cause, but because it gives them an opportunity to scheme and harangue, and to lash out at the vices of the existing society. From this dangerous class the German Social Democratic party was saved by the anti-socialist legislation at a time when socialism was becoming fashionable.
It is a most significant feature in the development of the German Social Democracy that it has attained to its present advanced position without the help of any leader of commanding talent. It has had many loyal chiefs. For over fifty years, during which exile, privation, discouragement, prosecution, and imprisonmentwere followed by a season of comparative triumph, Liebknecht was at all times the consistent and unflinching champion of the revolutionary cause. Bebel’s service for the working man now extends to about forty years, and has been not less consistent and courageous. Many others, such as Hasenclever, Auer, and Vollmar, have served with ability for many years. But none of those named can be considered men of remarkable gifts. Bernstein and Kautsky, who may be described as the leading theorists of the party in recent years, have shown wide knowledge, judgment, and clearness of vision, but they would be the last to lay claim to the endowments that give Marx and Lassalle their high place in the history of the working class. These things being so, we must regard the German Social Democracy as a movement which owes its rise no doubt to the initiative of two men of original force, but which in its development finds its basis in the minds and hearts of the proletariat of the Fatherland.
In the absence of other guidance the Social Democratic party has been a centre and a rallying-point to the German workmen. While all else was uncertain, dark, and hostile, the party could be relied upon to give friendly and disinterested counsel. The strikes which from time to time broke out among the German workmen received the most careful advice and consideration from the Social-Democratic leaders, and those leaders soon found that the strikes were the most impressive object-lessons in arousing the class-consciousness of the workmen. Whole masses of the working men wentover to the Social Democracy under the severe practical teaching of the strike.
The cause of the German Social Democracy has therefore called forth the most entire devotion among all ranks of its members. When Liebknecht and Bebel were condemned to two years’ imprisonment in a fortress after the great trial at Leipzig, in 1872, they were glad, they said, to do their two years because of the splendid opportunity it had given them for socialistic propaganda in the face of Germany. During the fortnight the trial had lasted they had in the course of their defence been able to dispel prejudices and misunderstandings, and so to educate German opinion in socialism.
But the 10th of March 1878 saw a demonstration which of all the events and incidents in the history of the German Social Democracy may well be regarded as the most deeply significant. It was the funeral of August Heinsch. August Heinsch was a simple workman, a compositor; but he had deserved well of the proletariat by organising its electoral victories in Berlin. He had died of consumption, called by the socialists the proletarian malady, because it is so frequently due to the insanitary conditions under which work is carried on. In the case of August Heinsch the malady was at least aggravated by his self-sacrificing exertions in the common cause, and the workmen of Berlin resolved to honour his memory by a solemn and imposing demonstration. As the body was borne to the cemetery through the working men’s districts in East Berlin,black flags waved from the roofs and windows, and the vast crowds of people, reckoned by the hundred thousand, who filled the streets, bared their heads in respectful sympathy. Many thousands of workmen followed the bier in serried ranks to the last resting-place.
Of all the achievements of the German Social Democracy it may be reckoned the most signal that it has so organised the frugal, hard-working and law-abiding proletariat of the Fatherland, and has inspired them with the spirit of intelligent self-sacrifice in their common cause. The programme and principles of the party have received modification in the past, and will no doubt receive it in the future, for the German Social Democracy is a reality and a movement instinct with vitality. The new times will bring new needs, which will require new measures. They will bring also, we hope, a wider and clearer vision and a mellower wisdom, as without wisdom even organised power is of little avail.
In view of the loyalty and devotion of the working men, it is all the more incumbent on the leaders of the German Social Democratic party that they should now guide it along paths which will be wise, practical, and fruitful. It has too long been their evil fortune or their own deliberate choice to stand apart from the main movement of German life. They have had little part in the work of State, municipality, or country commune. The party began in opposition to the great co-operative movement of Germany.
It is most important that the theories and ideals of the German Social Democratic party should be fairly tested and corrected by their application to the practical work of society. The leaders of the party agree in their preference for legal and peaceful methods. In this point they and the representatives of the existing order might find common ground which may form a basis for better relations in the future.