The New Germany Part 9

Nor, when we come to examine const.i.tutional history, is there any real difference between the democracy of the Council system and the democracy of Parliament. They are the same in origin and will probably be the same in development. For Parliament, it must be remembered, grew out of a Council with an industrial suffrage--land tenure--which was later reinforced by a general industrial suffrage through the Boroughs and their Guild organisations. But, for the first two centuries of its existence, say 1100 to 1295, Parliament, the National Council of our Angevin Kings, was a _Soviet_, a _Betriebsrat_. It was to this body that we owe our Magna Charta of 1215, the foundation of our democracy. And, in the fourteenth clause of the Great Charter, the clause const.i.tuting Parliament, we read that the summons was to be sent direct to the Archbishops and Bishops, Earls and Greater Barons, and, through the Sheriff, to all those "who hold of us in chief." It was this latter body of tenants of the Crown that became the Knights of the s.h.i.+re in our House of Commons. The Knights of the s.h.i.+re represented the landed industrial interest as directly as the representatives of the Boroughs represented other forms of industry and commerce. Of course, later, the regional and representative system gradually overlaid and obscured the original industrial basis, much as it has done with the Council system in Russia and is doing in Germany.

The Council system in Germany has, in three months, indeed, covered the course that took our Parliamentary system three centuries. This corresponds roughly to the increased pace of political development to-day. If we were to translate the Council movement of to-day into the terms of the Parliamentary movement of seven centuries ago, we might say that, before our present democracy could begin, industry had to be nominally socialised by the principle that all land was held of the King, and a strong central government established on a popular basis of industrial councils, with equal representation for the two other estates, the feudal or military and the clerical or official.

For we can see the progenitors of the Soldiers' Councils of to-day in the feudal courts of yesterday, and of the Civil Service bureaucracy of to-day in the chancellors and justiciars of yesterday. Thus we may, if we like, see in the short history of the Russian Council movement an epitome of our whole const.i.tutional history. Or, we may compare the present Council movement in England with the political situation early in the thirteenth century, when the Greater Barons, progenitors of our Captains of Industry, were about to force clause 14 of Magna Charta and a National Whitley Council on a Civil Service of arrogant ascetics, who were vainly trying to retain power for a silly and selfish ruling cla.s.s. In applying this a.n.a.logy to the present day, the Parliament of to-day would be no more than a survival of a previous const.i.tutional epoch, a Witanagemot applying Anglo-Saxon Dooms. And this will, any way, give an idea of the way parliaments are looked upon to-day by German workmen. Possibly, in the end, the representative and regional system will rule the roost again, and will force the industrial suffrage upstairs into a House of Lords that will, in time, exercise mainly the judicial functions peculiar to its original industrial character. But we have first to get our Magna Charta and our Statutes of Westminster.

That the Council system of to-day is a truer democracy than existing Parliamentary systems is also shown practically by its being a much surer and safer machine for the realisation of public opinion.

Theoretically, the pyramidal piling up of Councils, each represented in a superior Council, until a Central Council caps the pile, would seem to be indirect election raised to infinity; and indirect election is theoretically undemocratic. But this was not the conclusion forced on one in Germany when one compared the working of the two systems.

The inferiority in the position of politicians, owing their power to the Parliamentary system, compared with that of those based on the Council system, was very striking. The Parliamentarians never knew where they were or what was what. Out of touch, necessarily, with their enormous const.i.tuencies, they seemed to be always crawling about with their ears to the ground, dependent on agents and reporters of every sort, even on the Press, for an idea of what was going on. As they never knew where the hounds were, they could not use such knowledge of the country as they had to lead the field. The leaders of the Council movement, on the other hand, had an immediate indication of every trend of opinion in the changing composition of the lower strata of Councils; and their difficulty was rather to control the energies that came pouring up to them through the system. The Parliamentary leader seemed like a water finder, wandering about and waiting for the twig to twiddle, while the Council leader was more like a marine engineer with his eye on the pressure gauge and his hand on the lever. Perhaps indirect election is only undemocratic when the function of the lower body is mainly to elect to a higher, but becomes democratic when it has vital functions of its own that are merely controlled by the higher body.

And yet another point and a paradox. Whereas the results of Council representation of opinion in Germany are not revolutionary, the results of the Parliamentary system are becoming more and more so, and not only in Germany but in Great Britain. The failure of the Parliamentary system to express the forces making for change--a failure not confined to Germany--and the fict.i.tious relations.h.i.+p between the elector and the elected has two results. It diverts a large part of these forces of progress into various forms of direct action, all of them revolutionary, whether actively so, such as street fighting, or pa.s.sively so, such as strikes. It also gives a revolutionary character to the periodical elections. For the vast const.i.tuencies vote merely along the line of the least common multiple of their mob minds. This line is generally a vague dissatisfaction; and unless it be diverted by "stunts" or otherwise diddled, will result in violent pendulum swings. Under these impulses Parliament will become still less representative, and will tend to be either revolutionary or reactionary. For an exaggerated majority is the extremists' opportunity.

The Council movement, on the other hand, slowly changing from below upwards, should never drop much behind the drift of opinion, and consequently should be in little danger of being driven ahead of it.

The German Parliament, as the results of an election decided by this L.C.M. motive of the mob mind--a motive of a.s.suring power to whichever party seemed to offer the best prospect of peace abroad and at home--is to-day reactionary. Whereas the political condition of Germany to-day is such that it absolutely must have a Government responsive to the requirements of reconstruction, or relapse into civil war. The Weimar Parliament is so dead that only civil war can galvanise it to action. If reinforced by a Council system, the Weimar Party Government and the Preuss Federal Const.i.tution would perhaps have steam enough to work.

The Councils are as essential to Germany to-day as the Commons were to us a century ago. Indeed, our insistence on the supremacy of the Weimar a.s.sembly as a guarantee for the maintenance of peace, can be paralleled by our insistence a century ago on the maintenance of Upper Houses in the const.i.tutions of the States revolutionised from France.

The function of the territorially elected Parliament will, in Germany, and probably everywhere, become more and more that of an Upper House; while the industrially elected Congress will be the creative and constructive inst.i.tution. The whole difficulty lies in finding a working compromise, or rather co-operation. Just as Feudalism imposed its political system which survives in the House of Lords, just as Liberalism imposed its system as represented in the House of Commons, which now obviously requires supplementing, so Socialism must have its political system in the Councils. This is not revolution but evolution. The revolution comes from thwarting and threatening it.

FOOTNOTES:

[F] They have since been replaced by two anti-revolutionary bodies, a sort of gendarmerie and a local middle cla.s.s militia (Einwohnerwehr).

The Frei-corps have become the Reichswehr.

[G] The re-organisation and reconstruction of our political and economic existence calls for the co-operation of the whole effective population.

The revolution has given us the means of such reconstruction in the Council system. In order to give the Council system its full development and a better foundation, fresh elections to the Workmen's Councils are indispensable.

1. All hand and head workers over 10 years without distinction of s.e.x who earn their living by labour of public utility without exploiting the labour of others are ent.i.tled to vote. Are also ent.i.tled those who employ a limited number of helpers for their livelihood, as doctors, druggists, writers, jurists, artists, etc.--as also small industrials and craftsmen who do not employ others.

2. Are excluded from voting those owners of means of production who use them to their own advantage and always through the labour of others.

Also those who rent a private-capitalist industry or inst.i.tutions worked by the labour of others. Also those who live from ground rents or interest as also those like Directors, etc., paid in percentage fees.

3. Elections to Workmen's Councils are by proportional representation and by professions or industries. Great industries form distinct electoral bodies while medium and small industries will be a.s.sociated.

Professions and professional groups that do not work with other employes within a particular industry will form professional electoral bodies; employes in domestic service, housewives, unemployed and invalids will be provided for in special regulations.

Further instructions as to the electoral regulations and procedure will be issued shortly.

The Executive Council, RICHARD MuLLER, FRITZ PROLAT.

CHAPTER VI

THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

Coming back from Germany to Great Britain one finds oneself in the position of an explorer returned from a new world. For our Edwardian England knows to-day as little of the real conditions in Central Europe as Elizabethan England knew of Central Africa. And our Press cartoonists and Propaganda caricaturists have filled the blank s.p.a.ces of our mental maps with fancy pictures of monsters whom they label Boches and Bolsheviks, Huns and Spartacists, just as did the old cartographers. Whereas these fancy pictures are no more like the real wild beasts of Europe than the Unicorns and Behemoths of the old maps were like the rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses of Africa; and anyway are about as important an element in the problems of Central Europe to-day as the hippopotamuses are in those of Central Africa.

The difficulty is that our natural intuitions of policy and our natural instincts of humanity have been for five years persistently perverted and distorted. We do not know that we are seeing everything as in a gla.s.s darkly, and that we are being prevented from coming face to face with real facts and forces. That is why in this summer of 1919, as in that summer of five years ago, appeals to our conscience and common sense are useless. We are letting ourselves be hurried hopelessly and helplessly into the worst of peaces, as we then let ourselves be hurried into the worst of wars. But with this difference; that five years ago the princ.i.p.al criminals were the Junkers and War Lords of Germany; to-day they are the Jingoes and Peace Delegates of the Entente. The Germans have paid, or are paying, the penalty of trusting their War Lords; both those Germans who pa.s.sively submitted to that folly and those who actively protested against it. We, too, shall all have to pay for putting our trust in our Princes of the Peace. We are paying--many of my old corps have already paid with their lives--for the mistakes of our diplomatists with the Russian Revolution. We shall pay for their mistakes with the German Revolution when we too come face to face with realities again.

For that is the main difference between the Germans and ourselves to-day. They have been reduced to realities. The artificialities of their shoddy Kaiser and their shallow Kultur have fallen in ruins round them. The monstrous military machine they built up for their own protection, and used for the oppression of Europe, is smashed. There remains just the German burgher and the German worker, both slow-witted simple souls. So slow and simple indeed, that they have allowed a few hundred German bureaucrats to go on governing them; thereby giving us a wrong impression of what they are thinking and wanting. In reality the Germans to-day are like the Russians of two years ago, a molten ma.s.s awaiting a new mould, ready to be inspired by such new political ideas as may be instilled into them. In Germany now a new idea will take root, flower and bear fruit in a few days. I have watched the process myself with ideas imported from England. But instead of throwing open the western frontier of Germany to free commerce and communication we maintained our blockade and our boycott, thereby forcing New Germany to turn to the East for its ideals and inst.i.tutions. And now comes this Treaty with a further development of this same policy of blockade and boycott. Germany is for a generation or so to be sentenced to loss of its sovereign rights, confiscation of its whole estate and penal servitude. We have overlooked the opportunity we had of making Germany a moral dependency, a natural ally looking at the world from our political point of view, absorbing our ideas and a.s.sociating itself with our ideals; and we have abused the opening given us by unlimited military power in order to attempt the material exploitation of Germany. We might have made Germany a racial and regional border province of Anglo-Saxondom, and a barrier against the Asiatic irruption that is once again advancing against Europe across the Russian plains. We have preferred to try and reduce it to another Ireland--an Ireland of seventy millions with Russia at its back. I am reminded of the remark of a German politician: "Give us an open door and we shall be no worse than poor relations; build a Chinese wall against us and you will make us into Tartars."

An adequate criticism of the Treaty that we are proposing to force on Germany would be as long as the Treaty itself. There are two main difficulties in such criticism; one is that, owing to the secret preparation of the Treaty and the public indifference as to its provisions, very few people in England have any idea even of what the financial and economic clauses amount to. German protests are ignored, of course, as mere "squealing." We have a general feeling that what is bad for the Germans is good for the world; and, anyway, we don't want to be bothered with Germany any more.

The other difficulty is the Treaty's formlessness and its want of design. A careful comparison of the articles and their appendices suggests that the essential policy of the whole is a compromise between, or rather a cobbling together of, two contradictory points of view, the French and the Anglo-Saxon; while in its externals it is an attempt to camouflage European Imperialism with American Idealism.

In the Jehad we have just fought against Germany, the low material object of the French was to extirpate; while that of the English was rather to enslave. The high moral object of the French was to rescue Alsace-Lorraine; the high moral object of the English was to protect Belgium. Consequently, reading the Treaty is something like reading the Koran. The mind cannot get the point of view or purpose. It loses itself in dicta, as determinative in detail for the weal or woe of mankind as they are disconnected in themselves and dissociated from any general doctrine, or even from any especial dogma. One soon gives up trying to grasp the Treaty. And one puts it aside with the consoling thought that "the Koran or the Sword" is good enough for those who, like the Huns, are not "people of the Law"; and that everything depends on the "idjra," the "interpretative effort" of future pundits.

There is something tragic about such petty killings and cruelties as those ordained by the sinister reactionaries of the Eden Hotel in Berlin. But there is something ludicrous about the miseries and murders _en ma.s.se_ organised by the highly respectable reactionaries of the Hotel Majestic. It is as though we:--

had resolved to extirpate the vipers With twenty Balliol men and forty lady typers.

On the morning of that Thursday in May, the German reading public took up its morning paper with a sigh of relief that the long suspense was ended--and dropped it again with a gasp of despair. But Germany wore its rue with a difference. The opposition to the Treaty was of two kinds. The original split of the Independent idealists with the Majoritarian real-politikers had been over foreign policy--first in the prosecution of the war, then in the preparation for peace. These Independents condemned such crimes as the U-boat war and the military murders of Miss Cavell and Captain Fryatt, uncompromisingly. Their main reason for leaving the Coalition Socialist Government in December was that they could not get their liberal policy carried in respect either of Poland and the Baltic provinces, or as to a frank recognition of responsibility for the war and full reparation to France and Belgium.

Their main objection to the present Government had been that it prejudiced the German political revolution and spiritual renascence in the eyes of the Entente. And they now, as representing the main forces of idealism in Germany, opposed the peace terms on international not on national grounds--as a conspiracy against the peace and prosperity of the European worker, not as a combination against the power and progress of the German Empire. Consequently, as the main body of the workers, that is, the driving power of the country, were of this party and had moreover been forced out of practical politics by the reaction party, when the terms were published there was no spontaneous explosion of emotion in Germany. Crus.h.i.+ng as they were, there was no moral force to oppose against them; either national, as a century before in revolutionary France, or international, as a year before in revolutionary Russia.

The whole tone of private conversations and of Press _communiques_ on Thursday and Friday showed that the Government with individual exceptions, would sign the terms. And further the whole tradition of the Majority-Socialist and of the Centrum rank and file suggested that they would in this follow the lead of the Government and give it a parliamentary majority. Indeed, such pa.s.sive acquiescence reflected accurately enough the prevalent point of view in a disorganised and devitalised community.

Late on that Friday night, judging from an account given me of the proceedings in the Cabinet and from general considerations, I telegraphed that Germany would sign even such conditions as those published.[H]

But where all is negative and minus, a very small positive and plus factor can make itself predominant. The Democratic party represented politically such nationalist idealism as was left. Theodor Wolff, in the _Berliner Tageblatt_, started a campaign for non-signature, at first only with the compromising support of the extreme Right. Within a few hours the feeble Government and half-famished capital came under pressure from two points--Paris and the provinces.

The German delegation to Paris had been made very representative in order to strengthen the Government in eventually imposing unacceptable terms on various interests; but the effect of their week's wait in their wired pen at Fontainebleau seems to have been to give them all an incipient attack of "barb wire fever." As the guiding brain of the Cabinet, Landsberg had been subst.i.tuted for David on the delegation owing to personal and political reasons, and as influential Majority Socialists were on it also, this was serious. Opposition to signature appeared in the Cabinet; and the leading article in Sunday's _Vorwarts_ by Stampfer, the editor, who had gone to Paris hoping to meet his French _confreres_ indicated that the Majority Socialists were also dividing on the question of signature.

Accordingly the Democratic parliamentary party having declared unanimously against signature, the Centrum and Majority Socialists followed suit with large majorities--only five in the latter party voting for signature. The Government Press then began to challenge the Independents to make good their professed policy; with the intention of forcing them to form a Government which would take the odium of signing. The Independent leaders were approached on these lines.

The Independents found themselves in a difficulty. At first they were inclined to accept, but realised in time that if they did so they would be utterly prejudiced both politically and popularly. Moreover, their Left wing and the Communists would not join any Government on a Parliamentary basis; while the Majority Socialists would probably help the Right in throwing them out again on a nationalist reaction as soon as they had signed. They accordingly decided to declare for signature, but to refuse to relieve the Government from the responsibility for its own policy.

The parliamentary situation accordingly developed by Monday into the usual deadlock. But in Germany the parliamentary situation represents, even less than elsewhere, the realities of life. The meeting of the a.s.sembly on Monday, which was to be a national demonstration, was a failure both in staging and in steam. Held in the University aula, under the great fresco of Fichte rallying the German youth to its resurrection after the peace of Tilsit, it only served to accentuate the difference between the nationalist idealism that rebuilt Germany in the last century and the internationalist idealism that may rebuild it now. For, in this a.s.sembly of more or less compromised and wholly commonplace elderly politicians there was nothing vital or novel. The set speeches had mostly been written by propaganda officials and the very applause had been planned beforehand.

On the following day were open-air meetings, which gave a better index of public opinion. Of the two I saw, the first was a big Majority Socialist gathering, addressed by Fischer on the Koenigsplatz in a speech curiously like Scheidemann's. Thence a crowd that, if small, was select, one might say "super" select, demonstrated before the Hotel Adlon, the centre of the foreign correspondents and Missions, until dispersed by a rather dilatory detachment. But the foreign correspondents of course responded to these efforts for their entertainment and enlightenment with sensational "stories" of "Scenes in Berlin."

The conclusion I came to was that those German working men who were still under trade unionist and party leaders, would, with the middle cla.s.s, follow the Government lead in this, as in anything else.

The other meeting, in a remote workmen's quarter, was addressed by the Independent Breitscheidt, whose every point was punctuated by guttural growls from half-starved workmen and women. The recital of Germany's renunciations and restrictions under the Treaty was listened to in silence; but the conclusion that the old _regime_, if victorious, would have done this and worse was received with an emphatic "sehr richtig" (quite true). The interruptions from two middle-cla.s.s youths near me, to the effect that an Englishman or Frenchman saying what Breitscheidt had said in London or Paris would have to run for his life--true enough too--were badly received. "Fat cheeks," screamed a haggard woman, pointing out that the young men were chubby. "Frei-Corps puppies," shouted a workman, giving the explanation of their being well fed. And it would have gone hard with them if the Independent leaders had not intervened to get them clear.

The speaker's conclusions that the peace must be signed at once, that it must be signed by those responsible for it, and that thereafter there would be an "Independent" Government, was received with a diminuendo of a.s.sent. The poorer and less political German workman wanted peace, but had no will to power.

There was indeed no fight left in Germany; though I doubt if anyone in England realises how near the conditions imposed by Paris went to provoking a desperate appeal to arms. When it became evident that no mitigation of importance was to be got, every member of the Government of any character, whether reactionary or radical, resigned; leaving only men like Landsberg and Erzberger. While the revolutionary opposition persisted in their refusal to take the responsibility of signing. When it became obvious that this "Rump" was prepared to sign, and that the Weimar a.s.sembly would support it in doing so, a military conspiracy was organised to prevent signature by a _coup d'etat_.

Weimar, the week before signature, filled with generals, and small bodies of Frei-Corps threatened the complaisant Cabinet. But obviously the coercion of Weimar into refusing signature was not enough, and would only have resulted in a second revolution rather than a reaction. The main operation was to have been a march south to Berlin and Weimar, of the Army of the East in West Prussia. But, at the last moment, these Frei-Corps refused to move. The better elements of them had volunteered to defend the frontiers against Poles and Russians, not to overthrow the National a.s.sembly at the orders of reactionary generals. The worse elements were ready to fight their own countrymen, the revolutionaries, given a superiority of ten to one; but had no stomach for a last ditch defence against the Entente with the odds reversed. So Landsberg and Erzberger, the Jew and the Jesuit, by extraordinary and characteristic exertions, secured signature by a Cabinet of nonent.i.ties under the burly and worthy Trades Union boss, Bauer.

I do not propose to criticise the different provisions of the Treaty of Versailles or show in detail where they are unjust and why they are unsound. But it may be of use to report the effect that certain of these provisions have had in Germany and will have in Europe; and to represent how the force on which this treaty depends for its execution--the static force of an enormous Entente preponderance in the Balance of Power, comes into collision with the forces at work in Europe--the dynamic forces of the industrial revolution that are at present more active in Germany than anywhere else.

First, then, as to its injustice and the effect this is having in Germany. There are three main foci of public opinion in Germany as in every country: Right, Centre and Left: Conservative, Liberal and Radical: Upper Middle and Lower: Privilege, Property and Proletariat; or, however else you may chose to denote the eternal political triangle. The Treaty deals each of these two blows; one blow slashes off its right hand and the other slaps it in the face. And it is the insult and not the injury that will most affect the future of Europe.

Let us take the Conservative idealists first--the Prussian landowner, the Berlin official, the Bavarian cleric, the officer, and the student. The surrender of West Prussia and Danzig to Poland, and the severance of East Prussia for its future inclusion in a Baltic Federation, mean the loss of its right arm to this ruling cla.s.s. An idea of how it appears to them can be given, perhaps, by supposing that we had lost the war, that Germany had set up Ireland and Scotland as separate States, had annexed Wales to Ireland on racial grounds, had included therein Shrops.h.i.+re and Ches.h.i.+re with their ancient county families, and had made a corridor across Wess.e.x to Weymouth, cutting off Somerset and Devon, while Cornwall went to a new State of Brittany. I do not mean, of course, that this would be exactly similar, but that the blow to the sensibilities of our patriots would be as severe. Should we not have a halo cast about the Victorian, the Elizabethan, the Alfredian and the Arthurian legends that would make the lost provinces a Holy Land to be redeemed at any sacrifice?

Fortunately Germans are not like English in this and the territorial settlement may last our time, though it will lead to unintended results. The gloomy comment to me of a Polish conservative on the Danzig settlement was that in two generations Poland would be Jew-German. The even more gloomy view of a Russian radical was that, unless Bolshevism made good, the whole middle belt of Baltic States, with Poland, Lithuania, and the Ukraine, would fall under German bourgeois influence. While, most pessimistic of all, a cosmopolitan Jew considered that the result of breaking up Austria and barring off Germany must be to Balkanise Central and Eastern Europe first, and to Bolshevise it afterwards. All one can say, is, that where such revolutionary forces are loosened as are now at large in Central Europe, German nationalism offered us a stronger line to hold than that of Lithuanian or Ukrainian or even Polish independence.

And we might have held both lines, but for that slap in the face. The time I spent in Germany after the publication of the peace was made painful, not by the Danzig or Saar questions, but by the menace of penal proceedings against individual Germans. If our object was to find something that would impress our hatred and contempt on the Germans we succeeded. Only the most moderate of those with nationalist opinions could speak of it at all: the majority, thereafter, closed their doors to me as an English-man. If anything could have rehabilitated the Kaiser, we should have done it by putting him at the head of men, like submarine Commanders, who, in German eyes, had done desperate deeds to break a barbarous blockade. Our prosecution in fact outraged both the sense and sensibilities of all German gentlemen as much as the crimes themselves had outraged ours. This may seem fanciful, but it is a fact. If action is taken under these criminal clauses we shall light such a candle to the memories of our dead as will some day set Europe on fire again. Whether we could ever have proceeded by international action to trace the responsibility for military murders, such as those of Miss Cavell and Captain Fryatt, without arousing a national sense of wrong in Germany, no longer matters; we cannot do so now.

Next, as to the effect of the Treaty on the Liberals, the moderates, the men of property. If the ideals of the Conservatives and their interests in land made them nationalist, the ideals of the Liberals and their interests in industry tended to make them imperialist. And the Treaty cuts off Germany from all imperial ideals and cripples it in industry.