Witness to the German Revolution

by Victor Serge

  On Thursday August 9, Chancellor Cuno, the man of bankruptcy and famine, the man whom the whole of the press and public opinion believed to be on the way out, appeared before the Reichstag, asked for a vote of confidence and got it: the SPD observed benevolent neutrality towards him. Throughout this memorable session he looked just like a man who was finished, overwhelmed by his responsibilities. He began his speech with the words: “In a few days…”—he was interrupted by a shout of, “In a few days the dollar will be worth ten million!” Faced with jeers from the Communists, he put his head down and mumbled that “the government will be ruthless in quelling disturbances.” The majority gave him his vote of confidence and the next day the Berliner Tageblatt announced that “from now on there can be no question of a cabinet crisis.” Stinnes’ paper, the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, published an editorial praising him for speaking “so clearly, so strongly, so determinedly.” Herr Cuno was still there. It was Friday… And on Saturday Herr Cuno went.

  All the bourgeois parties had told this bankrupt—the SPD nodding its approval—“You can stay in power!” The working class shouted: “Get out!” And he got out.

  He acted wisely. For two days the courtyards of the Reichstag were besieged by innumerable delegations from the factories which had come to demand Herr Cuno’s resignation. On Friday, August 10, there was virtually a general strike throughout Germany. The big factories in Berlin began passive resistance, systematic go-slow and then more vigorous action. Berlin metalworkers stopped work. Printers too—in particular those working for the Reichsbank; a tube strike had just been ineffectively stifled. In Hamburg, work stopped in the docks. At Lübeck in Saxony, at Emden, at Brandenburg, at Gera, at Lausitz, at Hanover, at Lea, huge mass movements stopped production, brought massive crowds onto the streets, sometimes turned into rioting, and confronted shopkeepers and capitalists with the immediate threat of a revolution.

  Thereupon the SPD convened its parliamentary fraction to revise its decisions of two days earlier. Three bourgeois parties, the Catholic Center, the German Democratic Party and the German People’s Party, immediately endorsed the SPD program for a coalition (vigorous financial measures, revision of taxation policy on the basis of stimulating real values,91 struggle against inflation, orientation towards the re-establishment of the gold mark, wages based on stable values, purging of illegal organizations from the Reichswehr, a solution to the problem of reparations compatible with the unity and sovereignty of the German people, membership of the League of Nations). The Stresemann cabinet was formed. The leader is an ambitious old businessman, with a reputation for energy, former leader of the National Liberal Party and now leader of the German People’s Party, at the service of Herr Stinnes. His Great Coalition means an alliance between the plutocracy and the social democracy, from Stinnes to Noske, to overcome bankruptcy and fight against revolution.

  Stinnes’s man, the former business agent of the association of Saxon industrialists, the “progressive” former monarchist, has united, in order to govern this Germany of starving and exhausted workers, with the eminent “Marxist” of the Austrian school, Hilferding, formerly of the USPD, author of Finance Capital, former editor of Freiheit,92 the greatest theoretician, after Kautsky, of reformist socialism—and one of the benevolent gravediggers of the Socialization Commission93 in 1918. As minister of the interior, he has kept the social democrat Oeser, and at the ministry of justice he has reinstalled the social democrat Radbruch, notorious for outrageous extraditions. While this brilliant coalition was being established in power—uniting all the parties of a ruthlessly selfish bourgeoisie, which has just driven the nation to the brink of the abyss, with a social democracy which crawls on its belly to it—workers’ blood was flowing almost everywhere in Germany… For there have been 50 deaths, 50 murders of workers in three days…

  Some causes and effects of bankruptcy

  The Great Coalition has a fine mess to deal with. In less than a week, the economic crisis has worsened in unbelievable proportions. On August 7 the dollar was quoted at New York as worth 2,127,600 marks; on August 9 it was worth 6,500,000 marks. The same day a bushel of corn cost 2.08 dollars at New York and 2.45 dollars at Berlin. Corn was noticeably more expensive at Berlin than in the land of the dollar. Prices rose prodigiously. From August 7 to August 8, they doubled or tripled (a single egg went from 15,000 marks to 30,000; a pound of potatoes from 15,000 to 30,000; a pound of flour from 70,000 to 150,000; rice from 50,000 to 200,000; coffee from 600,000 to 1,800,000). In three days the price of bread tripled, going from 82,000 to 160,000 marks, then to 240,000. From August 7 to 8 the price of clothing and shoes leaped even higher still. The cheapest men’s shoes went from 3,500,000 to 9,500,000. A tram ticket cost 20,000 and a newspaper 30,000. Now the Frankfurter Zeitung’s wholesale trade index for July already showed an increase of 617 percent. For these startling figures to have any precise meaning, they must once more be compared to wages. At the beginning of August, wholesale prices were 286,248 times what they had been before the war; wages were 87,000 times pre-war wages. So workers of 1923 have lost two thirds of their 1914 wages. In general German workers’ wages vary between five and 25 (pre-war) centimes94 for an hour’s labor. As for those with retirement or invalidity pensions, we know some who in July got a monthly payment of 10,800 marks (one tram journey). In the face of this prodigious daily price rise, retailers—themselves grabbed by the throat by the wholesalers—limited or stopped sales, afraid of not being able to replenish their stocks. The working woman had her money refused by the cautious grocer. A shortage of milk, butter, eggs, potatoes, vegetables. On Thursday, August 9, retailers went on strike and the big stores shut in solidarity, demanding from the government that they should be allowed to fix prices in gold marks—for a working population paid in paper marks! To make things worse, the Reichsbank shut its doors, overwhelmed by the demand for paper money. For eight days there had been a shortage of notes. They had been ceaselessly printing notes of five, ten and 20 million marks—now they are even using private printshops to print assignats95 for 50 and a 100 million. The city of Berlin is putting old notes in circulation overprinted so as to increase the value by a thousand times. The banks were issuing checks for five million marks, sometimes typewritten ones which few people accepted.

  The report by the minister of finance, Hermes, to the Reichstag, brought some staggering revelations. The Reich’s public debt, which on January 1 stood at 1,629 billion on August 4 reached 210 million gold marks. In the first ten days in August the state debt rose by 40 percent while its income, at the end of July, scarcely covered 4 percent of expenditure. In the last few days, they didn’t cover more than 2 percent. In other words, the German state no longer had any income.

  How well a capitalist state functions! Manufacturers and traders calculate in dollars, and only do business in dollars and other stable foreign currencies. The mark, as we have said before, is only the counterfeit money which the boss slips into the workers’ hands every Saturday—and which the boss, the financier and the speculator also hand over to the taxman, when they agree to pay their taxes after six months or two years delay. The Reichsbank has given credit in gold to commerce and industry which has been repaid in paper money that had declined in value. In a year, it has thus given the capitalists nearly 50 million gold marks—and this impoverishment of the state is one of the main causes of the death agony of the mark. When the head of the Reichsbank, Herr Haverstein, was asked what proof of the extent of need was provided by those asking for foreign currency, the worthy financier answered coldly: “A businessman’s word.”

  The state coffers no longer contain a single coin of any value. The gold reserve has been given to the bandits of high finance. No more food in the towns, no more wages, not even any more paper money available to give the appearance of wages.—The social democracy has in fact betrayed, lulled and enfeebled a part of the working-class population. French militarism has crushed it in the Ruhr, and is now willing to unite with Stinnes and
Noske against a working class rising. But all the same, things cannot go on in this way. Under the pressure of an irresistible strike movement and of food riots, the Cuno government, before collapsing, made the Reichstag vote for a series of laws which finally obliged commerce, industry and the banks to pay something: a 400 percent increase on company tax, a new tax on large incomes, varying between 200 percent and 1,600 percent of the old rate; a requirement for industrialists to pay double the deductions from workers’ wages (taxes on wages); a tax in gold on agriculture (1.5 marks per month for a property worth 2,000 pre-war marks). The terrified bourgeoisie had understood the necessity to make sacrifices.

  The general strike

  As I write, the general strike, called throughout Germany by the factory committees, seems to be spreading, despite the formation of a new government and the repeated calls from the leaders of the ADGB for a return to work. The factory committees have, in the present situation, a role which is in some ways reminiscent of that of the soviets at the beginning of the February Revolution in Russia in 1917. They bring together the most vigorous elements from all the workers’ parties, and they constitute a genuine proletarian power in the face of the government. Now the whole of Berlin stops when confronted with their little red posters; there is excitement and discussion, but nobody dares deface them. The spontaneous strike movement of the last few days, marked by strikes of metalworkers in Berlin, of miners in Saxony and dockers in Hamburg, has been channeled, led and united by the factory committees. Everywhere the movement has been formally condemned and sabotaged by the reformist union leaders. Everywhere the social democracy and the police lined up together against it. On Saturday in Hamburg, there were several killed. At Wilhelmsburg on Monday, six died. At Hanover, Noske, the social democratic chief official, gave the order to fire on the crowd: 20 deaths. At Greiz, 15. At Aachen, 10. At Zeitz (near Halle), 20. At Jena, the fascists and the municipal police went into action together, and there were some 30 killed and wounded. At Wroclaw, there are reports of one killed and 30 wounded. At Kulmbach one was killed, at Krefeld four, at Ratibor four, at Strassfurt one. But it is impossible to list all these events which keep on happening, in ever greater numbers, hour after hour. Everywhere there are reports of attempts to ransack shops, of the looting of stocks of potatoes from markets by housewives, of large demonstrations by strikers, of vicious attacks by police, of dead—workers—and wounded. At Halle and Leipzig, strikers have confiscated the cattle belonging to landowners in the surrounding area, killed some and distributed the meat.

  At Halle, the fascists of the Stahlhelm attacked the newspaper offices, and there was a pitched battle. Not far away, at Helmstedt, Young Germans96 attacked Communists and left one dead.

  In accordance with a new press decree, signed by Cuno and Ebert on August 10, which provides for the suspension and confiscation of newspapers calling for violence against the republic, the Berlin edition of Die Rote Fahne in Berlin has been seized on two occasions. In Hamburg, the senate has declared martial law. In all the working-class centers, the army and police are patrolling.

  In Berlin, municipal employees, workers in gas and electricity supply, and the trams and underground, a substantial number of railway workers, some of the printers from the Reichsbank and at least three quarters of the workers in large scale industry are on strike. Technische Nothilfe97 is running train services in the suburbs. The situation remains “grave”—that means the movement is strong—in Hamburg, Szczecin, Halle, Leipzig, Dresden, Hanover, Lübeck and Wroclaw.

  The demands are as follows: immediate resignation of Cuno, confiscation of food stocks to ensure that the poor section of the population is fed, withdrawal of the decree forbidding the formation of workers’ hundreds,98 a minimum wage of 60 gold pfennigs99 per hour, unemployment pay in proportion to the original rate, freeing of political prisoners. These are clearly political and economic demands. The first has already been won, and those about wages and food supplies have found an echo in the conditions put by the SPD to the bourgeois parties for the formation of the Stresemann government.

  A battle won

  The factory committees decided to end the strike on Wednesday, August 15. The government has instructed the press to play down the importance of the strike movement. It is nonetheless the case that the factory committees, which have achieved a united front of SPD, USPD,100 Communists and members of no party, and which in reality are standing on the platform of Communist demands, with unconditional support from the KPD, have just fought a major battle, though not yet the decisive one, and they have won it.1. The general strike has removed Cuno from power.

  2. It has mobilized masses despite the opposition of the SPD and the union leaders.

  3. It has imposed material sacrifices and a new financial policy on the bourgeoisie.

  4. It has driven the SPD into a corner and obliged it to become discredited through the Great Coalition.

  5. It has extended and strengthened Communist influence. 101 In these solemn hours, the whole proletariat has seen that it could really rely on our party alone.

  Even the mass of the SPD rank and file, as is shown by numerous local demonstrations and especially the social democratic conference at Brunswick, are clearly hostile to collaboration with the bourgeoisie. The Great Coalition is the work of the “Socialist” leaders. Now there will be a period of relative peace which should give it time to discredit itself more fully in the eyes of the petty bourgeoisie and backward workers in whom the name of a Hilferding still inspires some vague hope.

  Stresemann’s finance minister was Rudolf Hilferding, a self-styled Marxist and former member of the USPD. But the new government was powerless in the face of hyperinflation, and its only strategy was to attack wages.

  Reports from Germany

  The Great Coalition at work Correspondance internationale, September 8, 1923

  The official campaign against wages

  The new ministers of the Reich are turning out to be almost as wordy as M. Poincaré. While the French prime minister is making speeches on the tombs of his dead, these ministers are making speeches about the gaping hole into which their moribund Germany is going to fall. Stresemann of the upper bourgeoisie and the socialist Hilferding are at one in affirming that if their government fails, it will be “Germany’s last constitutional government.” “We are democracy’s last resort.” Probably they are right. But let’s watch them at work. Or rather let’s listen to them, for what they mainly do is talk.

  They talk with particular emphasis of certain things they want us to remember. On August 22, Herr Stresemann told the party leaders that he would not hesitate to take dictatorial measures and that it was essential to increase exports and limit imports. Financiers and politicians assented. On August 23, to the Reichstag’s budget committee, a major speech by citizen Hilferding. “Extreme gravity of situation, brink of the abyss, possible disappearance of Germany (sic).” The government, which itself is showing a deficit—and to some tune!—is obliged to subsidize private industry which is showing a deficit. “Without control of trading in the dollar, there cannot be any foreign or domestic policy.” “Wages have reached and often exceed the peacetime level.” The next day, Herr Stresemann, speaking to the association of manufacturers and traders, explained the allusion of his social democratic accomplice: industry will do its sums in gold. “As for wages, we must not dream of bringing them back to the level they reached in the flourishing Germany of yesteryear, they must be appropriate for the difficult situation we are facing at present…” At least he is speaking in a straightforward fashion. On August 28, interviewed by one of the staff of the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten (Latest News from Munich ), Herr Stresemann, who is clearly obsessed with the point, came back to it once again. “Wages higher than before the war are becoming a great danger.” On August 31, Herr Raumer, economics minister, insisted in a programmatic speech that wages had risen quicker than the mark had lost value; moreover, it was necessary to work harder, to export more… On
Sunday, September 2, in Stuttgart, Stresemann joined in the chorus: the propertied classes must make sacrifices but the working classes must work harder.

  So here we have a clear and consistent government campaign. The sacrifices which will be “imposed” on property owners have a place in it solely to serve as a counterbalance to the much more real sacrifices they want to impose on the workers. In all these speeches, three ideas recur time after time:1. wages are too high

  2. it is necessary to work harder (longer hours)

  3. salvation lies in exports…

  But from now on prices of coal, food, clothing, paper in Germany are above world prices, so German industry cannot attempt to regain its ability to compete except by gnawing away at wages… And this task has been enthusiastically taken up by the Great Coalition government which Kautsky calls the “last arrow in Germany’s quiver” (Arbeiterzeitung, Vienna). The metaphor is well chosen. For this arrow is being fired by the social democrats into the back of the German workers.

  At the same time Stinnes’s paper, Die Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, is pursuing some significant campaigns:1. against the payment of civil servants’ salaries quarterly, in advance

  2. against high wages (!)

  3. against the overestimates it has noted in the official cost of living index

  4. for the need to work harder

  The paper of the big industrial employers expresses its satisfaction at the support given to the exploiters by the SPD in these charming terms: “When the train is running off the rails, you don’t look at the color of the brakes.” We shall see whether the socialist brakes can stop the Stinnes train from going off the rails…

  In any case, one thing is sure: the social democrats in the Great Coalition are nothing but the accomplices and the tools—and consciously at that—of economic and political reaction.