[55]A long chapter could be written upon this subject alone. The trail of German revolutionary governments (but not the national cabinet) is slimy with graft, robbery and nepotism. Eichhorn, in the two months that he held the office of Berlin's Police President, made not a single one of the daily reports required of him and never accounted for moneys passing through his hands. Himself drawing salary fromRostaand also as police-president, he appointed his wife to a highly paid clerkship and his young daughter drew a salary for receiving visitors. An Independent Socialist minister's wife drew a large salary for no services. TheVollzugsratemployed a hundred stenographers and messengers who had nothing to do except draw their salaries. The53er Ausschuss, a committee of marines and soldiers which took entire charge of the admiralty and conducted its affairs without any regard to the national government, voted itself sums larger than had been required to pay all the salaries of the whole department in other days. The police captain of a Berlin suburb, a youthful mechanic, received ninety marks a day, his wife was made a clerk at fifty marks, and he demanded and received an automobile for his private use. The first revolutionary military commandant of Munich tried to defraud a bank of 44,000 marks on worthless paper. TheVollzugsratnever made an honest accounting for the tremendous sums used by it. Hundreds of soldiers' and workmen's committees constituted themselves into soviets in tiny villages and paid themselves daily salaries equaling the highest weekly pay that any of them had ever earned. Robbery through official requisition became so common that the people had to be warned against honoring any requisitions.
[55]A long chapter could be written upon this subject alone. The trail of German revolutionary governments (but not the national cabinet) is slimy with graft, robbery and nepotism. Eichhorn, in the two months that he held the office of Berlin's Police President, made not a single one of the daily reports required of him and never accounted for moneys passing through his hands. Himself drawing salary fromRostaand also as police-president, he appointed his wife to a highly paid clerkship and his young daughter drew a salary for receiving visitors. An Independent Socialist minister's wife drew a large salary for no services. TheVollzugsratemployed a hundred stenographers and messengers who had nothing to do except draw their salaries. The53er Ausschuss, a committee of marines and soldiers which took entire charge of the admiralty and conducted its affairs without any regard to the national government, voted itself sums larger than had been required to pay all the salaries of the whole department in other days. The police captain of a Berlin suburb, a youthful mechanic, received ninety marks a day, his wife was made a clerk at fifty marks, and he demanded and received an automobile for his private use. The first revolutionary military commandant of Munich tried to defraud a bank of 44,000 marks on worthless paper. TheVollzugsratnever made an honest accounting for the tremendous sums used by it. Hundreds of soldiers' and workmen's committees constituted themselves into soviets in tiny villages and paid themselves daily salaries equaling the highest weekly pay that any of them had ever earned. Robbery through official requisition became so common that the people had to be warned against honoring any requisitions.
[55]A long chapter could be written upon this subject alone. The trail of German revolutionary governments (but not the national cabinet) is slimy with graft, robbery and nepotism. Eichhorn, in the two months that he held the office of Berlin's Police President, made not a single one of the daily reports required of him and never accounted for moneys passing through his hands. Himself drawing salary fromRostaand also as police-president, he appointed his wife to a highly paid clerkship and his young daughter drew a salary for receiving visitors. An Independent Socialist minister's wife drew a large salary for no services. TheVollzugsratemployed a hundred stenographers and messengers who had nothing to do except draw their salaries. The53er Ausschuss, a committee of marines and soldiers which took entire charge of the admiralty and conducted its affairs without any regard to the national government, voted itself sums larger than had been required to pay all the salaries of the whole department in other days. The police captain of a Berlin suburb, a youthful mechanic, received ninety marks a day, his wife was made a clerk at fifty marks, and he demanded and received an automobile for his private use. The first revolutionary military commandant of Munich tried to defraud a bank of 44,000 marks on worthless paper. TheVollzugsratnever made an honest accounting for the tremendous sums used by it. Hundreds of soldiers' and workmen's committees constituted themselves into soviets in tiny villages and paid themselves daily salaries equaling the highest weekly pay that any of them had ever earned. Robbery through official requisition became so common that the people had to be warned against honoring any requisitions.
The Independent Socialists' ascendancy in the executive body was assured on December 5th, when an election washeld to fill two vacancies among the soldier members. Two Independents were chosen, which gave that party sixteen of the council's twenty-eight members.
Even by this time the shift of sentiment in the ranks of Independent Socialism had proceeded to a point where this party's continued ascendancy would have been as great a menace to democratic government as would Liebknecht's Spartacans. Adolph Hoffmann, the party's Prussian Minister of Cults, openly declared that if an attempt were made to summon the national assembly it must never be permitted to meet, even if it had to be dispersed as the Russian Bolsheviki dispersed the constituent assembly in Petrograd, and his pronouncement was hailed with delight byDie Freiheit, the party's official organ in Berlin, and by Independents generally. Emil Eichhorn, who was once one of the editors ofVorwärtsbut now prominent in the Independent Socialist party, and who had been appointed police-president of Berlin, was on the payroll ofRosta, the Russian telegraph agency which served as a central for the carrying on of Bolshevik propaganda in Germany. He did as much as any other man to make the subsequent fighting and bloodshed in Berlin possible by handing out arms and ammunition to Liebknecht's followers, and by dismissing from the city's Republican Guard—the soldier-policemen appointed to assist and control the policemen—men loyal to the new government.
The Spartacans were feverishly active. Liebknecht and his lieutenants organized and campaigned tirelessly.Der rote Soldatenbund(the Red Soldiers' League) was formed from deserters and criminals and armed with weapons furnished by Eichhorn from the police depots, stolen from government stores or bought with money furnished by Russian agents. The funds received from this source were sufficient also to enable the Spartacan leaders to pay their armed supporters twenty marks a day, a sum which proved a great temptation to many of the city's unemployed whose sufferings had overcome their scruples.
The first demonstration of strength by the Spartacans came on November 26th, when they forcibly seized thePiechatzek Crane Works and the Imperator Motor Company, both big Berlin plants. Spartacan employees assisted Liebknecht's red soldiery to throw the management out. The funds and books of both plants were seized, soldiers remained in charge and plans were made to run the plants for the sole benefit of the workers. The cabinet ordered the plants restored to their owners, and the order was obeyed after it became apparent that theVollzugsrat, although in sympathy with the usurpers, did not dare oppose the cabinet on such an issue.
The openly revolutionary attitude of the Liebknecht cohorts and their insolent defiance of the government, resulted in armed guards being stationed in front of all public buildings in Berlin. But here was again exhibited that peculiar unpractical kink in the Socialist mentality: the guards were directed not to shoot!
The reason for the existence of this kink will be apparent to one who has read carefully the preceding chapters regarding Socialism's origin and the passages therein reporting the attitude of the two wings of the party in the Reichstag following Admiral von Capelle's charges in the autumn of 1917. The first article in the Socialist creed is solidarity. "Proletarians of all lands: Unite!" cried Marx and Engels in their Communist Manifesto seven decades ago. The average Socialist brings to his party an almost religious faith; for hundreds of thousands Socialism is their only religion. All members of the party are their "comrades," the sheep of one fold, and their common enemies are thebourgeoiselements of society, the wolves. Black sheep there may be in the fold, but they are, after all, sheep, and like must not slaughter like,Genossenmust not shootGenossen.
The supporters of the government were to learn later by bitter experience that some sheep are worse than wolves, but they had not yet learned it. Spartacans coolly disarmed the four guards placed at the old palace in Unter den Linden and stole their guns. They disarmed the guards at the Chancellor's Palace, the seat of the government, picked the pockets and stole the lunch of the man in charge of the machine-gun there, and took the machine-gun away in theirautomobile. They staged a demonstration against Otto Wels, a Majority Socialist who had been appointed city commandant, and had no difficulty in invading his private quarters because the guards posted in front had orders not to shoot and were simply brushed aside. When the demonstration was ended, the Spartacans proceeded on their way rejoicing, taking with them the arms of the government soldiers.
The Spartacans were by this time well equipped with rifles, revolvers and ammunition, and had a large number of machine-guns. They secured one auto-truck full of these from the government arsenal at Spandau on a forged order. They even had a few light field guns and two or three minethrowers. In the absence of any opposition except the futile denunciations of thebourgeoispress and theVorwärts, their numbers were increasing daily and they were rapidly fortifying themselves in various points of vantage. Neukölln, one of the cities making up Greater Berlin, was already completely in their power. The Workmen's and Soldiers' Council of this city consisted of seventy-eight men, all of whom were Spartacans. This council forcibly dissolved the old city council, drove the mayor from the city hall and constituted itself the sole legislative and administrative organ in the city. A decree was issued imposing special taxes upon all non-Socialist residents, and merchants were despoiled by requisitions enforced by armed hooligans.
The "Council of Deserters, Stragglers and Furloughed Soldiers" announced a number of meetings for the afternoon of December 6th to enforce a demand for participation in the government. The largest of these meetings was held in the Germania Hall in the Chausseestrasse, just above Invalidenstrasse and near the barracks of theFranzer, as the Kaiser Franz Regiment was popularly known. The main speaker was a man introduced as "Comrade Schultz," but whose Hebraic features indicated that this was a revolutionary pseudonym. He had hardly finished outlining the demands of "us deserters" when word came that theVollzugsrathad been arrested. It developed later that some misguided patriots of the old school had actually made an attempt to arrest the members of this council, which had developedinto such a hindrance to honest government, but the attempt failed.
The report, however, threw the meeting into great excitement. A motion to adjourn and march to the Chancellor's Palace to protest against the supposed arrest was carried and the crowd started marching down Chausseestrasse, singing the laborers' Marseillaise. At the same time the crowd present at a similar meeting in a hall a few blocks away started marching up Chausseestrasse to join the Germania Hall demonstrants. Both processions found their way blocked by a company ofFranzer, drawn up in front of their barracks, standing at "ready" and with bayonets fixed. The officer in command ordered the paraders to stop:
"Come on!" cried the leaders of the demonstration. "They won't shoot their comrades!"
"Come on!" cried the leaders of the demonstration. "They won't shoot their comrades!"
But theFranzerhad not yet been "enlightened." A rattling volley rang out and the deserters, stragglers and furloughed paraders fled. Fifteen of them lay dead in the street and one young woman aboard a passing street car was also killed.
The incident aroused deep indignation not only among the Spartacans, but among the Independent Socialists as well. The bulk of the Independents were naturally excited over the killing of "comrades," and the leaders saw in it a welcome opportunity further to shake the authority of the Majority Socialist members of the government. Even theVorwärts, hesitating between love and duty, apologetically demanded an investigation. The government eventually shook off all responsibility and it was placed on the shoulders of an over-zealous officer acting without instructions. This may have been—indeed, probably was—the case. The cabinet's record up to this time makes it highly improbable that any of its members had yet begun to understand that there are limits beyond which no government can with impunity permit its authority to be flouted.
The day following the shooting saw the first of those demonstrations that later became so common. Liebknecht summoned a meeting in the Siegesallee in the Tiergarten. Surrounded by motor-trucks carrying machine-guns mannedby surly ruffians, he addressed the assembled thousands, attacking the government, demanding its forcible overthrow and summoning his hearers to organize a Red Guard.
It is significant that, although actual adherents of Spartacus in Berlin could at this time be numbered in thousands, tens of thousands attended the meeting. Between the Spartacans and thousands of Independent Socialists of the rank and file there were already only tenuous dividing lines.
The Independent Socialist trio in the cabinet had been compelled to give up—at least outwardly—their opposition to the summoning of a national assembly. Popular sentiment too plainly demanded such a congress to make it possible to resist the demand. Also the Majority members of the cabinet had been strengthened by two occurrences early in December. Joffe, the former Russian Bolshevik ambassador, had published his charges against Haase, Barth and Cohn, and, although these were merely a confirmation of what was generally suspected or even definitely known by many, they had an ugly look in the black and white of a printed page and found a temporary reaction which visibly shook the authority of these men who had accepted foreign funds to overthrow their government.
The other factor strengthening the hands of Ebert, Scheidemann and Landsberg was the manner of the return of the German front-soldiers.
Gratifying reports had come of the conduct of these men on their homeward march. Where the soldiers of theétappehad thrown discipline and honor to the winds and straggled home, a chaotic collection of looters, the men who, until noon on November 11th, had kept up the unequal struggle against victorious armies, brought back with them some of the spirit that kept them at their hopeless posts. They marched in good order, singing the old songs, and scores of reports came of rough treatment meted out by them to misguidedGenossenwho tried to compel them to substitute the red flag for their national or state flags, or for their regimental banners.
The first returning soldiers poured through the Brandenburger Tor on December 10th. A victorious army could not have comported itself differently. The imperial black-white-red, the black-and-white of Prussia, the white-and-blue of Bavaria and the flags of other states floated from the ranks of the veterans. Flowers decked their helmets. Flowers and evergreens covered gun-carriages and caissons, flowers peeped from the muzzles of the rifles. Women, children and old men trudged alongside, cheering, laughing, weeping. Time was for the moment rolled back. It was not December, 1918, but August, 1914.
The people greeted the troops as if they were a conquering army. They jammed the broad Unter den Linden; cheering and handclapping were almost continuous. The red flags had disappeared from the buildings along the street and been replaced by the imperial or Prussian colors. Only theKultusministerium, presided over by Adolph Hoffmann, illiterate director of schools and atheistic master of churches, stayed red. The flag of revolution floated over it and a huge red carpet hung challengingly from a second-story window.
It was evident on this first day, as also on the following days, that red doctrines had not yet destroyed discipline and order. The men marched with the cadenced step of veterans, their ranks were correctly aligned, their rifles snapped from hand to shoulder at the command of their officers. The bands blared national songs as the long lines of field-gray troops defiled through the central arch of the great gate, once sacredly reserved for the royal family.
A hush fell on the waiting crowds. The soldiers' helmets came off. A massed band played softly and a chorus of school-children sang the old German anthem:
Wie sie so sanft ruh'n,Alle die Seligen,In ihren Gräbern.
Wie sie so sanft ruh'n,Alle die Seligen,In ihren Gräbern.
Ebert delivered the address of welcome, which was followed by three cheers for "the German Republic." It was no time for cheers for the "German Socialist Republic." The soldiers had not yet been "enlightened."
The scenes of this first day were repeated on each day of the week. The self-respecting, sound attitude of the front-soldiers angered the Spartacans and Independents, but was hailed with delight by the great majority of the people. TheVollzugsrat, resenting the fact that it had not been asked, as the real governing body of Germany, to take part officially in welcoming the soldiers, sent one of its members to deliver an address of welcome. He had hardly started when bands began to play, officers shouted out commands, the men's rifles sprang to their shoulders and they marched away, leaving him talking to an empty square.
The six-man cabinet announced that a national assembly would be convened. The date tentatively fixed for the elections was February 2d, which was a compromise, for the Majority Socialists wanted an earlier date, while the Independent trio desired April. It was announced also that a central congress of all Germany's workmen's and soldiers' councils had been summoned to meet in Berlin on December 16th. This congress was to have power to fix the date for the national assembly and to make the necessary preparations.
No definite rules were laid down covering the manner of choosing delegates to the congress. Despite the consequent possibility that the elections of delegates would be manipulated by the less scrupulous Spartacans and Independents, the congress chosen was a remarkably representative body. The numerical weakness of the two radical wings of Socialism found striking illustration in the makeup of the congress. Of its total membership of some four hundred and fifty, the Spartacans and Independents together had only about forty delegates. That this accurately represented the proportionate strengths of the conservative and the radical camps was proved at the elections for the national assembly a month later, when the Independents, with four per cent of the total popular vote, again had one-eleventh of the Majority Socialists' forty-four per cent. In considering the rôle played by the radicals in the second phase of the revolution it must be remembered that the majority of their strength lay in Berlin, where they eventually won a greater followingthan that of the old party. If Berlin and the free cities of Hamburg and Bremen could have been isolated from the empire and allowed to go their own way, ordered government in Germany would have come months sooner.[56]
[56]It is not merely in very recent times that the largest cities have become the strongholds of radicalism. In a session of the Prussian Diet on March 20, 1852, a deputy charged the government with lack of confidence in the people. Bismarck replied: "The deputy having declared here that the government distrusts the people, I can say to him that it is true that I distrust the inhabitants of the larger cities so long as they let themselves be led by self-seeking and lying demagogues, but that I do not find the real people there. If the larger cities rise up again in rebellion, the real people will have ways of bringing them to obedience, even if these must include wiping them off the face of the earth."
[56]It is not merely in very recent times that the largest cities have become the strongholds of radicalism. In a session of the Prussian Diet on March 20, 1852, a deputy charged the government with lack of confidence in the people. Bismarck replied: "The deputy having declared here that the government distrusts the people, I can say to him that it is true that I distrust the inhabitants of the larger cities so long as they let themselves be led by self-seeking and lying demagogues, but that I do not find the real people there. If the larger cities rise up again in rebellion, the real people will have ways of bringing them to obedience, even if these must include wiping them off the face of the earth."
[56]It is not merely in very recent times that the largest cities have become the strongholds of radicalism. In a session of the Prussian Diet on March 20, 1852, a deputy charged the government with lack of confidence in the people. Bismarck replied: "The deputy having declared here that the government distrusts the people, I can say to him that it is true that I distrust the inhabitants of the larger cities so long as they let themselves be led by self-seeking and lying demagogues, but that I do not find the real people there. If the larger cities rise up again in rebellion, the real people will have ways of bringing them to obedience, even if these must include wiping them off the face of the earth."
The following account of the sessions of the central congress is copied from the author's diary of those days. There is nothing to add to or take from the estimates and comments set down at that time.
"December 16th. The Central Congress of Germany's Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils convened today in theAbgeordnetenhaus(Prussian Diet). There are about four hundred and fifty delegates present, including two women. There is a fair sprinkling of intelligent faces in the crowd, and the average of intelligence and manners is far above that of the Berlin Soldiers' Council. None of the delegates keeps his hat on in the chamber and a few who have started smoking throw their cigars and cigarettes away at the request of the presiding officer, Leinert from Hanover, who was for some years a member of the Prussian Diet and is a man of ability and some parliamentary training."After organization, which is effected with a show of parliamentary form, Richard Müller, chairman of the executive committee of theVollzugsrat, mounts the speaker's tribune to give an extended report of the committee's activities. The report, which turns out to be really a defense of the committee, gets a cool reception. TheVollzugsrathas drifted steadily to the left ever since it was appointed, and is strongly Independent Socialist and Spartacan, and it is already evident that the Majority Socialists have an overwhelming majority in the Congress."Chairman Leinert interrupts Müller's speech with anannouncement that aGenossehas an important communication to make. A man who declares that he speaks 'in the name of at least 250,000 of Berlin's proletariat, now assembled before this building,' reads a series of demands. The first, calling for the strengthening of the socialist republic, is greeted with general applause, but then come the familiar Spartacan (Bolshevik) demands for the disarming of thebourgeoisie, weaponing of 'the revolutionary proletariat,' formation of a Red Guard (loud cries of 'No!'), and 'all power to remain in the hands of the workmen's and soldiers' councils.' In other words, the Russian Soviet republic."A half dozen officer-delegates present join in the protests against the demands. Loud cries of 'raus die Offiziere!' (out with the officers!) come from a little group of Spartacans and Independent Socialists at the right of the room. Order is finally restored and Müller completes his defense of theVollzugsrat."A delegate moves that 'Comrades Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg be invited to attend the session as guests with advisory powers, in view of their great services to the revolution.'[57]The motion is voted down, five to one. It is renewed in the afternoon, but meets the same fate, after a turbulent scene in which the Spartacans and their Independent Socialist allies howl and shout insults at the top of their voices.
"December 16th. The Central Congress of Germany's Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils convened today in theAbgeordnetenhaus(Prussian Diet). There are about four hundred and fifty delegates present, including two women. There is a fair sprinkling of intelligent faces in the crowd, and the average of intelligence and manners is far above that of the Berlin Soldiers' Council. None of the delegates keeps his hat on in the chamber and a few who have started smoking throw their cigars and cigarettes away at the request of the presiding officer, Leinert from Hanover, who was for some years a member of the Prussian Diet and is a man of ability and some parliamentary training.
"After organization, which is effected with a show of parliamentary form, Richard Müller, chairman of the executive committee of theVollzugsrat, mounts the speaker's tribune to give an extended report of the committee's activities. The report, which turns out to be really a defense of the committee, gets a cool reception. TheVollzugsrathas drifted steadily to the left ever since it was appointed, and is strongly Independent Socialist and Spartacan, and it is already evident that the Majority Socialists have an overwhelming majority in the Congress.
"Chairman Leinert interrupts Müller's speech with anannouncement that aGenossehas an important communication to make. A man who declares that he speaks 'in the name of at least 250,000 of Berlin's proletariat, now assembled before this building,' reads a series of demands. The first, calling for the strengthening of the socialist republic, is greeted with general applause, but then come the familiar Spartacan (Bolshevik) demands for the disarming of thebourgeoisie, weaponing of 'the revolutionary proletariat,' formation of a Red Guard (loud cries of 'No!'), and 'all power to remain in the hands of the workmen's and soldiers' councils.' In other words, the Russian Soviet republic.
"A half dozen officer-delegates present join in the protests against the demands. Loud cries of 'raus die Offiziere!' (out with the officers!) come from a little group of Spartacans and Independent Socialists at the right of the room. Order is finally restored and Müller completes his defense of theVollzugsrat.
"A delegate moves that 'Comrades Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg be invited to attend the session as guests with advisory powers, in view of their great services to the revolution.'[57]The motion is voted down, five to one. It is renewed in the afternoon, but meets the same fate, after a turbulent scene in which the Spartacans and their Independent Socialist allies howl and shout insults at the top of their voices.
[57]Neither Liebknecht nor Luxemburg had been chosen as delegate, although desperate efforts were made to have them elected.
[57]Neither Liebknecht nor Luxemburg had been chosen as delegate, although desperate efforts were made to have them elected.
[57]Neither Liebknecht nor Luxemburg had been chosen as delegate, although desperate efforts were made to have them elected.
"Liebknecht, who has entered the building while this was going on, addresses his followers in the street in front from the ledge of a third-story window. The '250,000 of Berlin's proletariat' prove to be about seven thousand, nearly half of them women and girls and a great majority of the rest down-at-the-heels youths. His speech is the usual Bolshevik rodomontade. A middle-aged workman who leaves the crowd with me tells me:"'Two-thirds of the people there are there because they have to come or lose their jobs. One has to eat, you know.'"I learned later in the day that many of the paraders hadbeen induced to attend by the representation that it was to be a demonstration in favor of the national assembly. It is also asserted that others were forced by Spartacans with drawn revolvers to leave their factories."December 17th. The second day's session of the Congress was marked by a virulent attack on Ebert by Ledebour, between whom and Liebknecht there is little difference. The reception of his speech by the delegates again demonstrated that the Majority Socialists make up nine-tenths of the assembly. Barth also took it upon himself to attack Ebert and to disclose secrets of the inner workings of the cabinet. Ebert answered with an indignant protest against being thus attacked from the rear. Barth has the lowest mentality of all the six cabinet members, and I am informed on good authority that he has an unsavory record. His alleged offenses are of a nature regarded by advanced penologists as pathological rather than criminal, but however that may be, he seems hardly fitted for participation in any governing body."Liebknecht's followers staged another demonstration like that of yesterday. The Congress had decided that no outsiders should be permitted again to interrupt the proceedings, but a delegation of some forty men and women from the Schwarzkopff, Knorr and other red factories, bearing banners inscribed with Bolshevik demands, insisted on entering and nobody dared oppose them. They filed onto the platform and read their stock resolutions, cheered by the little group of their soul-brothers among the deputies and by fanatics in the public galleries. Beyond temporarily interrupting the proceedings of the Congress they accomplished nothing."The incompetence—to use no stronger word—of theVollzugsratwas again demonstrated today, as well as its careless financial methods."December 18th. A well-dressed German who stands beside me in the diplomatic gallery insists on explaining to all occupants of the gallery that it is intolerable that the speaker now in the tribune should be permitted to speak of the late 'revolt.' 'It was not a revolt; it was a revolution, and theyought to compel him to call it that,' he says. How typical of the mentality of a great number of the delegates themselves! They have spent precious hours discussing Marx and Bebel and the brotherhood of man—which, however, appears to extend only to the proletariat—but only two or three clear heads have talked of practical things. The failure of the Socialists generally to realize that it is not now a question of doing what they would like to do, but what they must do, is extraordinary and amazing. One speaker has read nearly a chapter from one of Bebel's books. 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.[58]
"Liebknecht, who has entered the building while this was going on, addresses his followers in the street in front from the ledge of a third-story window. The '250,000 of Berlin's proletariat' prove to be about seven thousand, nearly half of them women and girls and a great majority of the rest down-at-the-heels youths. His speech is the usual Bolshevik rodomontade. A middle-aged workman who leaves the crowd with me tells me:
"'Two-thirds of the people there are there because they have to come or lose their jobs. One has to eat, you know.'
"'Two-thirds of the people there are there because they have to come or lose their jobs. One has to eat, you know.'
"I learned later in the day that many of the paraders hadbeen induced to attend by the representation that it was to be a demonstration in favor of the national assembly. It is also asserted that others were forced by Spartacans with drawn revolvers to leave their factories.
"December 17th. The second day's session of the Congress was marked by a virulent attack on Ebert by Ledebour, between whom and Liebknecht there is little difference. The reception of his speech by the delegates again demonstrated that the Majority Socialists make up nine-tenths of the assembly. Barth also took it upon himself to attack Ebert and to disclose secrets of the inner workings of the cabinet. Ebert answered with an indignant protest against being thus attacked from the rear. Barth has the lowest mentality of all the six cabinet members, and I am informed on good authority that he has an unsavory record. His alleged offenses are of a nature regarded by advanced penologists as pathological rather than criminal, but however that may be, he seems hardly fitted for participation in any governing body.
"Liebknecht's followers staged another demonstration like that of yesterday. The Congress had decided that no outsiders should be permitted again to interrupt the proceedings, but a delegation of some forty men and women from the Schwarzkopff, Knorr and other red factories, bearing banners inscribed with Bolshevik demands, insisted on entering and nobody dared oppose them. They filed onto the platform and read their stock resolutions, cheered by the little group of their soul-brothers among the deputies and by fanatics in the public galleries. Beyond temporarily interrupting the proceedings of the Congress they accomplished nothing.
"The incompetence—to use no stronger word—of theVollzugsratwas again demonstrated today, as well as its careless financial methods.
"December 18th. A well-dressed German who stands beside me in the diplomatic gallery insists on explaining to all occupants of the gallery that it is intolerable that the speaker now in the tribune should be permitted to speak of the late 'revolt.' 'It was not a revolt; it was a revolution, and theyought to compel him to call it that,' he says. How typical of the mentality of a great number of the delegates themselves! They have spent precious hours discussing Marx and Bebel and the brotherhood of man—which, however, appears to extend only to the proletariat—but only two or three clear heads have talked of practical things. The failure of the Socialists generally to realize that it is not now a question of doing what they would like to do, but what they must do, is extraordinary and amazing. One speaker has read nearly a chapter from one of Bebel's books. 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.[58]
[58]This may appear to be an extravagant comparison, but it is so near the truth that I let it stand.
[58]This may appear to be an extravagant comparison, but it is so near the truth that I let it stand.
[58]This may appear to be an extravagant comparison, but it is so near the truth that I let it stand.
"December 19th. The Congress tonight changed the date for the National Assembly from February 16th to January 19th. Hardly forty of the delegates opposed the change. These forty—Independents and Spartacans—tried vainly to have a resolution passed committing Germany to the Russian Soviet system, but the vast majority would have none of it. Haase spoke in favor of the National Assembly. If he maintains this course his coöperation with the three Majority members of the cabinet will be valuable, but he is a trimmer and undependable."The Congress was enabled by a bolt of the Independents to accomplish another valuable bit of work, viz., the appointment of a new centralVollzugsratmade up entirely of Majority Socialists. It includes some excellent men, notably Cohen of Reuss, whose speech in advocacy of the National Assembly and of changing its date has been the most logical and irrefutable speech made during the Congress, and Leinert, first chairman of the Congress. With the support of this new executive committee the cabinet will have noexcuse if it continues to shilly-shally along and fails to exhibit some backbone."But I am apprehensive. A scraggly-bearded fanatic in one of the public galleries today repeatedly howled insults at Majority Socialist speakers, and, although repeated remonstrances were made, nobody had enough energy or courage to throw him out. Leinert once threatened to clear the galleries if the demonstrations there were repeated. The spectators promptly responded with hoots, hisses and the shaking of fists, but the galleries were not cleared."German government in miniature! The same mentality that places guards before public buildings and orders them not to use their weapons!Sancta simplicitas!"
"December 19th. The Congress tonight changed the date for the National Assembly from February 16th to January 19th. Hardly forty of the delegates opposed the change. These forty—Independents and Spartacans—tried vainly to have a resolution passed committing Germany to the Russian Soviet system, but the vast majority would have none of it. Haase spoke in favor of the National Assembly. If he maintains this course his coöperation with the three Majority members of the cabinet will be valuable, but he is a trimmer and undependable.
"The Congress was enabled by a bolt of the Independents to accomplish another valuable bit of work, viz., the appointment of a new centralVollzugsratmade up entirely of Majority Socialists. It includes some excellent men, notably Cohen of Reuss, whose speech in advocacy of the National Assembly and of changing its date has been the most logical and irrefutable speech made during the Congress, and Leinert, first chairman of the Congress. With the support of this new executive committee the cabinet will have noexcuse if it continues to shilly-shally along and fails to exhibit some backbone.
"But I am apprehensive. A scraggly-bearded fanatic in one of the public galleries today repeatedly howled insults at Majority Socialist speakers, and, although repeated remonstrances were made, nobody had enough energy or courage to throw him out. Leinert once threatened to clear the galleries if the demonstrations there were repeated. The spectators promptly responded with hoots, hisses and the shaking of fists, but the galleries were not cleared.
"German government in miniature! The same mentality that places guards before public buildings and orders them not to use their weapons!Sancta simplicitas!"
It will be observed that the foregoing report, comparatively lengthy though it is, fails to record an amount of legislative business commensurate with the length of the session. And yet there is little to add to it, for but two things of importance were done—the alteration of the date for holding the elections for the National Assembly and the appointment of the newVollzugsrat. Outside this the accomplishments of the Congress were mainly along the line of refusing to yield to Independent and Spartacan pressure designed to anchor the soviet scheme in the government. New light is thrown on the oldVollzugsratby the fact that it had invited the Russian Government to send delegates to the Congress. The cabinet had learned of this in time, and a week before the Congress was to assemble it sent a wireless message to Petrograd, asking the government to abstain from sending delegates "in view of the present situation in Germany." The Russians nevertheless tried to come, but were stopped at the frontier.
The manner in which Haase and Dittmann had supported their Majority Socialist colleagues in the cabinet by their speeches during the Congress had demonstrated that, while there were differences between the two groups, they were not insurmountable. The events of the week following the Congress of Soviets, however, altered the situation completely.
It has been related how, in the days preceding the actualrevolution in Berlin, the so-called "People's Marine Division" had been summoned to the capital to protect the government. It was quartered in the Royal Stables and the Royal Palace, and was entrusted with the custody of the Palace and its treasures.
It speedily became apparent that a wolf had been placed in charge of the sheepfold. The division, which had originally consisted of slightly more than six hundred men, gradually swelled to more than three thousand, despite the fact that no recruiting for it nor increase in its numbers had been authorized. A great part of the men performed no service whatever, terrorized inoffending people, and, as investigation by the Finance Ministry disclosed, stole everything movable in the Palace.
The division demanded that it be permitted to increase its numbers to five thousand and that it be made a part of the Republican Soldier Guard in charge of the city's police service. This demand was refused by the City Commandant, Otto Wels, since the ranks of the Soldier Guard were already full. A compromise was eventually reached by which those of the division who had formerly been employed on police duty and who were fathers of families and residents of Berlin, would be added to the police force if the Marine Division would surrender the keys to the Palace which it was looting. The Marines agreed to this, but failed to surrender the keys. On December 21st a payment of eighty thousand marks was to be made to them for their supposed services. Wels refused to hand over the money until the keys to the Palace had been surrendered.
Wels had incurred the deep hatred of the more radical elements of the capital by his sturdy opposition to lawlessness. He was almost the only Majority Socialist functionary who had displayed unbending energy in his efforts to uphold the authority of the government, and public demonstrations against him had already been held, in which he was classed with Ebert and Scheidemann as a "bloodhound." The leaders of the Marine Division decided reluctantly to give up the Palace keys, but they would not hand them over to the hated Wels. Early in the afternoonof December 23d they sought out Barth, the member of the cabinet who stood closest to them, and gave the keys to him. Barth telephoned to Wels that the keys had been surrendered. Wels pointed out that Ebert was the member of the cabinet in charge of military affairs, and declared that he would pay out the eighty thousand marks only upon receipt of advices that the keys were in Ebert's possession.
The delivery to Barth of the keys had been entrusted two marines who constituted the military post at the Chancellor's Palace. These men, informed of Wels's attitude, occupied the telephone central in the palace, and informed Ebert and Landsberg that Dorrenbach, their commander, had ordered that no one be permitted to leave or enter the building. An hour later, at five-thirty o'clock, the Marines left the building, but in the evening the whole division appeared before the palace and occupied it.
Government troops, summoned by telephone, also appeared, and an armed clash appeared imminent. Ebert, however, finally induced the Marines to leave on condition that the government troops also left.
While this was going on, a detachment of Marines had entered Wels's office, compelled him at the point of their guns to pay out the eighty thousand marks due them, and had then marched him to the Royal Stables, where he was locked up in a cellar and threatened with death. Ebert, Scheidemann and Landsberg, without consulting their colleagues, ordered the Minister of War to employ all force necessary for the release of Wels. At the last moment, however, negotiations were entered into and Wels was released shortly after midnight on the Marines' terms.
Spartacans and radical Independents took the part of the Marines. Richard Müller, Ledebour, Däumig and other members of the defunct originalVollzugsratwere galvanized into new opposition. Ledebour's "Revolutionary Foremen of Greater Berlin Industries" demanded the retirement of the Independent Socialist members of the cabinet, and the demand was approvingly published byDie Freiheit, the party's official organ. The head and forefront of the Majority cabinet members' offending was their order tothe War Minister to use force in upholding the government's authority, and radical revolutionists condemn force when it is employed against themselves.
The position of Haase and Dittmann as party leaders was seriously shaken. The left wing of their party, led by Eichhorn and Ledebour, was on the point of disavowing them as leaders and even as members of the party. At the party's caucuses in Greater Berlin on December 26th, held to nominate candidates for delegates to the coming National Assembly, Ledebour refused to permit his name to be printed on the same ticket with Haase's, and Eichhorn secured 326 votes to 271 for the party's head.
On the evening of the same day the Independents in the cabinet submitted eight formulated questions to theVollzugsrat, in which this body was asked to define its attitude as to various matters. TheVollzugsratanswered a majority of the questions in a sense favorable to the Independents. Its answer to one important question, however, gave the Independents the pretext for which they were looking. The question ran:
"Does theVollzugsratapprove that the cabinet members Ebert, Scheidemann and Lansberg on the night of December 23d conferred upon the Minister of War the authority, in no manner limited, to employ military force against the People's Marine Division in the Palace and Stables?"
"Does theVollzugsratapprove that the cabinet members Ebert, Scheidemann and Lansberg on the night of December 23d conferred upon the Minister of War the authority, in no manner limited, to employ military force against the People's Marine Division in the Palace and Stables?"
The executive council's answer was:
"The people's commissioners merely gave the order to do what was necessary to liberate Comrade Wels. Nor was this done until after the three commissioners had been advised by telephone by the leader of the People's Marine Division that he could not longer guarantee the life of Comrade Wels. TheVollzugsratapproves."
"The people's commissioners merely gave the order to do what was necessary to liberate Comrade Wels. Nor was this done until after the three commissioners had been advised by telephone by the leader of the People's Marine Division that he could not longer guarantee the life of Comrade Wels. TheVollzugsratapproves."
TheVollzugsratitself presented a question. It asked:
"Are the People's Commissioners prepared to protect public order and safety, and also and especially private and public property, against forcible attacks? Are they also prepared to use the powers at their disposal to prevent themselves and their organs from being interfered with in their conduct of public affairs by acts of violence, irrespective of whence these may come?"
"Are the People's Commissioners prepared to protect public order and safety, and also and especially private and public property, against forcible attacks? Are they also prepared to use the powers at their disposal to prevent themselves and their organs from being interfered with in their conduct of public affairs by acts of violence, irrespective of whence these may come?"
The Independents, for whom Dittmann spoke, hereupon declared that they retired from the government. Thus they avoided the necessity of answering theVollzugsrat'squestion. In a subsequent statement published in their press the trio declared that the Majority members were encouraging counter-revolution by refusing to check the power of the military. They themselves, they asserted, were a short while earlier in a position to take over the government alone, but they could not do so since their principles did not permit them to work with a Majority SocialistVollzugsrat. What they meant by saying that they could have assumed complete control of the cabinet was not explained, and it was probably an over-optimistic statement. There is no reason to believe that the Independents had up to this time been in a position enabling them to throw the Majority Socialists out of the cabinet.
Ebert, Scheidemann and Landsberg, in a manifesto to the people, declared that the Independents had, by their resignations, refused to take a stand in favor of assuring the safety of the state. The manifesto said:
"By rejecting the means of assuring the state's safety, the Independents have demonstrated their incapacity to govern. 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."
"By rejecting the means of assuring the state's safety, the Independents have demonstrated their incapacity to govern. 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."
TheVollzugsratelected 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 SocialistVolkswachtof Breslau. Loebe, however, never assumed office, and the cabinet consisted of five members until it was abolished by act of the National Assembly in February.
The Majority Socialists staged a big demonstration on Sunday, December 29th, in favor of the new government. Thousands of thebourgeoisiejoined in a great parade,which ended with a tremendous assembly in front of the government offices in the Wilhelmstrasse. The size and character of the demonstration showed that the great majority of Berlin's law-abiding residents were on the side of Ebert and his colleagues.
The Majority Socialists did not take over the sole responsibility for the government with a light heart. They had begun to realize something of the character of the forces working against them and were saddened because they had been compelled to abandon party traditions by relying upon armed force. Yet there was clearly no way of avoiding it. The Spartacans were organizing their cohorts in Bremen, Hamburg, Kiel and other cities, and had already seized the government of Düsseldorf, where they had dissolved the city council and arrested Mayor Oehler. The Soviets of Solingen and Remscheid had accepted the Spartacan program by a heavy majority. The state government of Brunswick had adopted resolutions declaring that the National Assembly could not be permitted to meet. At a meeting of the Munich Communists Emil Mühsam[59]had been greeted with applause when he declared that the summons for the assembly was "the common battle-cry of reaction." Resolutions were passed favoring the nullification of all war-loans.[60]
[59]Mühsam was one of the characteristic types of Bolsheviki. For years he had been an unwashed, unshorn and unshaven literary loafer in Berlin cafés, whose chief ability consisted in securing a following of naïve persons willing to buy drinks for him.
[59]Mühsam was one of the characteristic types of Bolsheviki. For years he had been an unwashed, unshorn and unshaven literary loafer in Berlin cafés, whose chief ability consisted in securing a following of naïve persons willing to buy drinks for him.
[59]Mühsam was one of the characteristic types of Bolsheviki. For years he had been an unwashed, unshorn and unshaven literary loafer in Berlin cafés, whose chief ability consisted in securing a following of naïve persons willing to buy drinks for him.
[60]The left wing of the Independent Socialist Party already demanded nullification, and the whole party drifted so rapidly leftward that a platform adopted by it in the first week of the following March definitely demanded nullification.
[60]The left wing of the Independent Socialist Party already demanded nullification, and the whole party drifted so rapidly leftward that a platform adopted by it in the first week of the following March definitely demanded nullification.
[60]The left wing of the Independent Socialist Party already demanded nullification, and the whole party drifted so rapidly leftward that a platform adopted by it in the first week of the following March definitely demanded nullification.
The Spartacans (on December 30th) had reorganized as the "Communist Laborers' Party of Germany—Spartacus League." Radek-Sobelsohn, who had for some weeks been carrying on his Bolshevik propaganda from various hiding places, attended the meeting and made a speech in which he declared that the Spartacans must not let themselves be frightened by the fear of civil war. Rosa Luxemburg openly summoned her hearers to battle.
The authority of the national government was small in any event, and was openly flouted and opposed in someplaces. Sailors and marines had organized the Republic of Oldenburg-East Frisia and elected an unlettered sailor named Bernhard Kuhnt as president. The president of the Republic of Brunswick was a bushelman tailor named Leo Merges, and the minister of education was a woman who had been a charwoman and had been discharged by a woman's club for which she had worked for petty peculations. Kurt Eisner, minister-president of Bavaria, was a dreamy, long-haired Communist writer who had earlier had to leave the editorial staff ofVorwärtsbecause of an utter lack of practical common-sense. He was a fair poet and an excellent feuilletonist, but quite unfitted to participate in governmental affairs. His opposition to the national government severely handicapped it, and the Bavarian state government was at the same time crippled by the natural antagonism of a predominantly Catholic people to a Jewish president.
To the south the Czechs had occupied Bodenbach and Tetschen in German Bohemia, and were threatening the border. To the east the Poles, unwilling to await the awards of the peace conference, had seized the city of Posen, were taxing the German residents there for the maintenance of an army to be used against their own government, and had given notice that a war loan was to be issued. Paderewski, head of the new Polish Government, had been permitted to land at Danzig on the promise that he would proceed directly to Warsaw. Instead, he went to Posen and made inflammatory speeches against the Germans until the English officer accompanying him was directed by the British Government to see that the terms of the promise to the German government were obeyed. The German Government, endeavoring to assemble and transport sufficient forces to repel Polish aggressions against German territory, found opposition among the Spartacans and Independent Socialists at home, and from the Bolshevik Brunswick authorities, who announced that no government troops would be permitted to pass through the state, or to be recruited there. Government troops entering Brunswick were disarmed. The state government gave the Berlin cabinet notice that decrees of theMinister of War had no validity in Brunswick. General Scheuch, the Minister of War, resigned in disgust.
What later became an epidemic of strikes began. Seventy thousand workers were idle in Berlin. Upper Silesia reported serious labor troubles throughout the mining districts, due to Russian and German Bolshevist agitators and Poles.
A less happy New Year for men responsible for the affairs of a great state was doubtless never recorded.
In the six weeks that Emil Eichhorn had been Police-President of Berlin the situation in his department had become a public scandal. The arming of the criminal and hooligan classes by this guardian of public safety, which had at first been carried on quietly, was now being done openly and shamelessly, and had reached great proportions. Liebknecht and Ledebour, Spartacan and Independent, were in constant and close fellowship with him. A considerable part of the Republican Soldier Guard had been turned from allegiance to the government that had appointed them and could be reckoned as adherents of Eichhorn. The Berlin police department had become animperium in imperio.
TheVollzugsratconducted a formal investigation of Eichhorn's official acts. The investigation, which was conducted honestly and with dignity, convicted the Police-President of gross inefficiency, insubordination, diversion and conversion of public funds, and conduct designed to weaken and eventually overthrow the government.Vorwärtswas able to disclose the further fact that Eichhorn had throughout his term of office been drawing a salary of 1,800 marks monthly from Lenine'sRosta, the Bolshevik propaganda-central for Germany. TheVollzugsratremoved Eichhorn from office.
Eichhorn, relying on the armed forces at his disposal and doubtless equally on the probability that a Socialist government would not dare use actual force againstGenossen, refusedto comply with the order for his removal. The more ignorant of his followers—and this embraced a great proportion—saw in theVollzugsrat'saction the first move in that counter-revolution whose specter had so artfully been kept before their eyes by their leaders.
It is a current saying in England that when an Englishman has a grievance, he writes to theTimesabout it. When a German has a grievance, he organizes a parade and marches through the city carrying banners and transparencies, and shoutinghoch! (hurrah!) for his friends andnieder! (down) with his enemies. On Sunday, January 5th, a great demonstration was staged as a protest against Eichhorn's removal. It is significant that, although Eichhorn was an Independent Socialist, the moving spirit and chief orator of the day was the Spartacan Liebknecht. This, too, despite the fact that at the convention where the Spartacus League had been reorganized a week earlier, the Independents had been roundly denounced as timorous individuals and enemies of Simon-Pure Socialism. Similar denunciations of the Spartacans had come from the Independents. The psychology of it all is puzzling, and the author contents himself with recording the facts without attempting to explain them.
Sunday's parade was of imposing proportions, and it was marked by a grim earnestness that foreboded trouble. The organizers claimed that 150,000 persons were in the line of march. The real number was probably around twenty thousand. Transparencies bore defiant inscriptions. "Down with Ebert and Scheidemann, the Bloodhounds and Grave-diggers of the Revolution!" was a favorite device. "Down with the Bloodhound Wels!" was another. Cheers for "our Police-President" and groans for the cabinet were continuous along the line of march. The great mass of the paraders were ragged, underfed, miserable men and women, mute testimony to the sufferings of the war-years.
Liebknecht addressed the paraders. Counter-revolution, he declared, was already showing its head. The Ebert-Scheidemann government must be overthrown and the realfriends of the revolution must not shrink from using violence if violence were necessary. Others spoke in a similar vein.
Conditions appeared propitious for thecoupthat had been preparing for a month. Late Sunday evening armed Spartacans occupied the plants of theVorwärts,Tageblatt, the Ullstein Company (publishers ofDie MorgenpostandBerliner Zeitung-am-Mittag), theLokal-Anzeigerand the Wolff Bureau.
The Spartacans in theVorwärtsplant published on Monday morningDer rote Vorwärts(the RedVorwärts). It contained a boastful leading article announcing that the paper had been taken over by "real revolutionists," and that "no power on earth shall take it from us." The Liebknechtians also seized on Monday the Büxenstein plant, where theKreuz-Zeitungis printed. There was much promiscuous shooting in various parts of the city. Spartacans fired on unarmed government supporters in front of the war ministry, killing one man and wounding two. There were also bloody clashes at Wilhelm Platz, Potsdamer Platz and in Unter den Linden.
TheVollzugsratrose to the occasion like abourgeoisgoverning body. It conferred extraordinary powers on the cabinet and authorized it to use all force at its disposal to put down the Bolshevist uprising. That it was Bolshevist was now apparent to everybody. The cabinet, still hesitant about firing onGenossen, conferred with the Independents Haase, Dittmann, Cohn and Dr. Rudolf Breitscheid, the last named one of the so-called "intellectual leaders" of the Independent Socialists. These men wanted the government to "compromise." The cabinet declared it could listen to no proposals until the occupied newspaper plants should have been restored to their rightful owners. The delegation withdrew to confer with the Spartacan leaders. These refused flatly to surrender their usurped strongholds.
Several lively street battles marked the course of Tuesday, January 7th. The Spartacans succeeded in driving the government troops from the Brandenburger Tor, but after a short time were in turn driven out. Spartacan and IndependentSocialist parades filled the streets of the old city. The government did nothing to stop these demonstrations. Haase and the other members of Monday's delegation spent most of the day trying to induce the government to compromise. Their ingenious idea of a "compromise" was for the entire cabinet to resign and be replaced by a "parity" government made up of two Majority Socialists, two Independents and two Spartacans. This, of course, would have meant in effect a government of four Bolsheviki and two Majority Socialists. Despite their traditions of and training in party "solidarity," the cabinet could not help seeing that the "compromise" proposed would mean handing the government over bodily to Liebknecht, for Haase and Dittmann had long lost all power to lead their former followers back into democratic paths. The bulk of the party was already irrevocably committed to practical Bolshevism. The scholarly Eduard Bernstein, who had followed Haase and the other seceders from the Majority Socialists in 1916, had announced his return to the parent party. In a long explanation of the reasons for his course he denounced the Independents as lacking any constructive program and with having departed from their real mission. They had become, he declared, a party committed to tearing down existing institutions. Other adherents of the party's right wing refused to have anything to do with the new course.
The night of January 7th was marked by hard fighting. Spartacans repeatedly attacked government troops at the Anhalt Railway Station in the Königgrätzerstrasse, but were repulsed with heavy losses. They also attacked the government troops defending the Potsdam Railway Station, a quarter of a mile north from the Anhalt Station, but were also repulsed there. Government soldiers, however, had considerable losses in an unsuccessful attempt to retake the Wolff Bureau building at Charlottenstrasse and Zimmerstrasse. On Wednesday, the section of the city around the Brandenburger Tor was again filled with parading Bolsheviki, but the government had plucked up enough courage and decision to decree that no parades should be permitted to enter Wilhelmstrasse, where the seat of government issituated. Spartacans attempted to invade this street in the afternoon, but scattered when government soldiers fired a few shots, although the soldiers fired into the air. The Independent go-betweens again assailed the cabinet in an effort to secure the "compromise" government suggested the day before. The delegation was hampered, however, both by the fact that the cabinet realized what such a compromise would mean and by the fact that the Independents could promise nothing. The Spartacans stubbornly refused to surrender the captured newspaper plants, and the Independents themselves were committed to the retention in office of Eichhorn.
Eichhorn, still at his desk in Police Headquarters, refused even to admit to the building Police-President Richter of Charlottenburg, who had been named as his successor, and he and his aides were still busily arming deluded workingmen and young hooligans of sixteen and seventeen, as well as some women. The People's Marine Division announced that it sided with the government, but it played little part in its defense.
The rattle of machine-guns and the crack of rifles kept Berliners awake nearly all night. The hardest fighting was at theTageblattplant, in front of the Foreign Office and the Chancellor's Palace, and around the Brandenburger Tor. Thursday morning found the government decided to put an end to the unbearable conditions. It was announced that no parades would be tolerated and that government soldiers had been ordered to shoot to kill if any such aggregations disobeyed orders to disperse. Spartacus, realizing that the government meant what it said, called no meetings, and the streets were free of howling demonstrants for the first time since Sunday.
The government further addressed a proclamation to the people, addressing them this time asMitbürger(fellow-citizens), instead ofGenossen. It announced that negotiations had been broken off with the rebels, and assailed the dishonest and dishonorable tactics of the Independent Socialists represented by the Haase-Dittmann delegation.Die FreiheitandDer rote Vorwärtsassailed the government;still the proclamation had a good effect and decent elements generally rallied to the government's support. The day's fighting was confined to theTageblattplant, where three hundred Bolsheviki were entrenched to defend the liberty of other people's property. The place could have been taken with artillery, but it was desired to spare the building if possible.
Friday passed with only scattered sniping. The Spartacans and their Independent helpers grew boastful. They had not yet learned to know what manner of man Gustav Noske, the new cabinet member, was. They made his acquaintance early Saturday morning. Before the sun had risen government troops had posted themselves with artillery and mine-throwers a few hundred yards from theVorwärtsplant. The battle was short and decisive. A single mine swept out of existence the Spartacans' barricade in front of the building, and a few more shots made the building ripe for storm. The government troops lost only two or three men, but more than a score of Bolsheviki were killed and more than a hundred, including some Russians and women, were captured. TheVorwärtsplant was a new building and much more valuable than some of the other plants occupied by the Spartacans, but it was selected for bombardment because the cabinet members wished to show, by sacrificing their own party's property first, that they were not playing favorites.
The fall of theVorwärtsstronghold and the firm stand of the government disheartened the mercenary and criminal recruits of the Spartacans. Police Headquarters, the real center of the revolutionary movement, was taken early Sunday morning after a few 10.5-centimeter shells had been fired into it. The official report told of twelve Spartacans killed, but their casualties were actually much higher. Eichhorn had chosen the better part of valor and disappeared. The Bolsheviki occupying the various newspaper plants began desertingen masseover neighboring roofs and the plants were occupied by government troops without a contest. News came that Liebknecht's followers had also abandoned the Boetzow Brewery in the eastern part of the city,one of their main strongholds. Late in the afternoon they also fled from the Silesian Railway Station, where they had been storing up stolen provisions, assembling arms and ammunition and preparing to make a last desperate stand.
The government, averse though it was to the employment of force to maintain its authority, had realized at the beginning of December the increasing strength of the Spartacans, and had begun assembling a military force of loyal soldiers in various garrisons outside the city. Three thousand of these troops now marched into the city. Hundreds of the men in the ranks carried rifles slung across officers' shoulder-straps. They marched as troops ought to march, sang patriotic songs and looked grimly determined. For miles along their route they were greeted by frantic cheering and even by joyous tears from the law-abiding citizens who had been terrorized by the scum of a great capital.[61]