Witness to the German Revolution

by Victor Serge

  Now Germany has acquired two substitute dictators on the same day: von Kahr in Bavaria and Gessler in Berlin. On September 26 the Bavarian government suddenly took the decision to confer extraordinary dictatorial powers on Herr von Kahr, appointed General State Commissioner. For some days a Bavarian coup had been expected; the reactionary pro-fascist Munich government was making preparations. On the significance of these events, Vorwärts, which had a great deal at stake, said some very shrewd things. The difference between the Munich cabinet and the Bavarian ultra-fascists consists in one thing only: the latter believe the time is now ripe to resolve the situation by striking at “Bolshevism which is growing in Berlin”; the former think it is better to wait a little while yet. On the question of principle they agree.

  So the establishment of reinforced martial law in Bavaria and the nomination of von Kahr had the effect of sounding the alarm throughout the Reich. Von Kahr is an old “fanatical anti-socialist” (Vorwärts). Whether he imposes his will on Hitler and Ludendorff or whether he comes to an agreement with them, in either case Bavaria forms a fortified camp of reaction from which we can expect daring raids to be launched any day.

  The government of the Reich provided its reply the same evening by establishing in turn reinforced martial law throughout German territory. All constitutional liberties are suspended. Penalties for political crimes have been stepped up. Death penalty for high treason, insurrection, riot, resistance to lawful force, etc. Herr Gessler, the Reichswehr minister, has full powers to apply this decree immediately.

  Herr Gessler! The measure is, it is said, in defense of the republic, and was made necessary by the Bavarian threat. And it is to Herr Gessler that the social democratic ministers and citizen Ebert have given the responsibility of applying it: Gessler, the official decoy for the fascist leaders of the Reichswehr, their friend, their accomplice, Gessler, whose chief collaborator is von Seeckt! So much naïvety must be suspect. The reactionary Reichswehr, organized in secret nationalist associations, commanded by the imitation dictator Gessler, will only march all out against the working class. All the provisions of the decree establishing martial law can moreover be applied much more easily to the Communists than to the Bavarian fascists. This final attempt by Stresemann and Hilferding to prevent civil war therefore seems in reality merely to increase the immediate possibilities for the reactionaries.

  But only the immediate possibilities, for, in the present state of the working-class forces, it is certainly not reaction which will have the last word.

  The fascist advance

  The other Sunday Herr von Knilling, Bavarian prime minister, addressed a scarcely veiled ultimatum to the Reich government. On September 23 at the “German evening” in Augsburg, in the presence of Ludendorff, captain D. Heiss addressed his audience in these very words: “The time has come for rifles, machine-guns and our pair of cannon to go into action… And if we don’t have the horses, then we shall harness ourselves to our guns!” “The Bavarian fist will resolve in Berlin the problem of German liberty.” Ludendorff showed his approval.

  That day’s issue of the National Socialist Völkischer Beobachter carried the headline: “Let us arm ourselves for civil war.”

  These are not just words. Hitler is officially mobilizing his “shock troops.” On September 22, the police proceeded to arrest a number of railway workers: to be precise, 25. The same day in Munich fascists from the Oberland fired on workers in the street, wounding one seriously.

  Attacks on homes followed by disgraceful acts of brutality—in the Italian style—became widespread in Bavaria.

  On September 22 again, at the other end of Germany, 16,000 fascists mobilized by the Olympia association gathered in Hohenburg (Mecklenburg).

  On September 25, not far from Leipzig, on the frontier between Saxony and Prussia, there were clashes between fascists and Communists, leaving 11 wounded.

  Elsewhere disturbances over food continued. Those in Dresden provided the bourgeois press with grounds for a continuing campaign for intervention by the Reich—and the Reichswehr in Saxony. In Upper Silesia—at Gleiwitz—the police opened fire.

  The Reichswehr is “ready for any eventuality.” Despite the revelations of Herr Zeigner and the efforts of the social democrats, the “democratic” minister Gessler is remaining at its head because he has “the confidence of the leaders” and the blessing of General von Seeckt. The green police have received supplies of grenades and, it is said, gas masks. The association of civil servants in the Bavarian state has issued a circular warning its members that they must obey the Bavarian government, even one born of a coup d’état. The Berlin government responds by instructing them only to obey its orders. One more scrap of paper for Herr von Knilling’s wastepaper basket. Fascism is thus preparing to wring the neck of Ebert’s republic and, after a sufficient number of summary executions, to impose its regeneration program: “eradication of Jewish Marxism, ten-hour working day.”

  The Great Coalition government is making its task easier by striking at the left. On September 24, it suspended Die Rote Fahne and all the Communist publications in Berlin for 15 days. However, Vorwärts, to create a diversion for social democrats, has discovered clandestine arms stocks in Berlin—truly not what we were short of—“supplied, if we take his word for it, by a military attaché at the Soviet embassy.” Are these people more blind than dishonest, or more dishonest than blind? A cruel enigma!

  Figures

  From September 13 to 19, there was a normal rise of 165 percent in the cost of living. The minimum necessary for a week for a worker’s family with two children was 1,400,563,440 marks. Nearly one and a half billion. The usual wage for a man working a full day is half that sum.

  In August, 43 percent of industrial enterprises were in a precarious or bad state. At the end of August, the situation on the labor market was as follows: 7.06 percent of metal workers, 4.53 percent of textile workers, 12.9 percent of printers and 12.6 percent of clothing workers were unemployed. 16.58 percent of metal workers, 46.19 percent of textile workers, 32.09 percent of printers and 57.98 percent of clothing workers were working short time. Between July and August the number of unemployed had more than doubled, while the number of workers on short time had increased almost threefold.

  From September 7 to 21, the sum of Reich banknotes in circulation rose from 518.8 billion to 1,182 billion, that is, more than a trillion. In the same period, the gold reserves fell by 20 million.

  On September 22, citizen Hilferding managed to lower the rate of exchange of the dollar to less than a 100 million (it had previously reached 325 million, with an average of about 200 million, in the preceding days). But the retail prices based on a dollar standard of over 200 million did not go down. Between September 15 and 21 we can observe an increase of 148 percent in the wholesale prices index. Who is being robbed? The poor.

  The extraordinary commissioner in charge of confiscating foreign currency, Herr Fellinger, is organizing police raids in the streets and in cafés. The first ones have brought in about 16,000 gold marks. Woe betide the passerby if he happens to have one solitary dollar in his wallet. But respect for the banks!

  By the end of September the crisis was deepening. National unity was under serious threat with growing demands for separatism in the Rhineland and Bavaria. The conflict between Bavaria and the national government continued. The threat from the right was shown by the unsuccessful attempt of a right wing officer, Buchrucker, to seize the fortresses of Küstrin and Spandau near Berlin.

  Red Sunday in Düsseldorf

  Correspondance internationale, October 6, 1923

  Sixteen killed, and about a 100 wounded. Such is the outcome of the “peaceful” separatist demonstrations in Düsseldorf, today, September 30. French soldiers intervened to restore order, siding exclusively with the demonstrators for the “Rhineland Republic” who had attacked the blue police. The tragic incidents in Düsseldorf have occurred at a time when the whole of Germany, disturbed by persistent rumors comin
g from the occupied territories, is expecting the proclamation of a Rhineland Republic as a signal for civil war and the carving up of Germany.

  For some time French intrigues have been going on there. Many Rhineland industrialists think it is in their interests to unite with powerful French capitalism and make a clean break with a Germany where revolution is impending. There is a feverish agitation going on in the occupied regions calling for the creation of a buffer state to “ensure peace between France and Germany.”

  Make no mistake about it. Desired by French and Rhineland capitalists, whose only homeland is their safe full of money, the proclamation of a Rhineland Republic would create a double and terrible danger at the very heart of Western Europe. There would be the risk of war and indeed the certainty of war some time in the future: for just as Great Britain could not accept, 110 years ago, Napoleonic hegemony over the Confederation of the Rhine, so Great Britain today will not permit France to have hegemony over the continent, for that would bring her ruin and death. There would be the danger, nay the certainty, indeed the immediate certainty, of a growth of reactionary forces in Germany. Herr Wulle, one of the leaders of extremist nationalism, just recently told a journalist of our acquaintance in the lobby of the Reichstag: “The day after the Rhineland declares independence, we shall take those responsible by the throat throughout Germany.” In any case, independence for the Rhineland would immediately give a powerful impulse to the nationalist movement. It would become the starting point for ceaseless agitation in favor of a war of revenge. Furthermore, it would have the consequence of separating the working-class masses of the rest of Germany from those in the Rhineland, thus weakening the workers’ Germany of tomorrow. It is for these very serious reasons, for the peace of Europe and for the German revolution which is the only way of guaranteeing it, that the KPD opposes Rhineland separatism with all its strength.

  Pseudo-dictatorship to the right

  With a few days distance, it is beginning to be easier to see what was really behind the recent events in Munich and Berlin that led to the establishment of two dictatorships which are different but very similar, those of Herr Gessler and Herr von Kahr. Von Kahr, endowed with dictatorial powers, recently declared to the fascist paper Völkischer Beobachter that he considered himself as a temporary replacement for King Rupprecht and that he would rule against the left. His first measures confirm these statements and are consistent with his past as a committed separatist. They are as follows:1. Cancellation, as far as Bavaria is concerned, of the law on the defense of the republic, which was issued by the Reich government just after the murder of Rathenau;

  2. Dissolution of the social democratic defence organizations;

  3. Dismissal of the liberal mayor of Nuremberg, Luppe, who some time ago asked for the support of the Reich police against the fascist gangs;

  4. Search of the premises of the social democratic Münchener Post, with an impressive display of strength (armored cars and cars equipped with machine guns).

  No action has as yet been taken against Hitler’s gangs, which are continuing to mobilize. There is even better. Herr Gessler, dictator for the Reich, has suspended the Völkischer Beobachter, which nonetheless continues to appear under the protective guardianship of Herr von Kahr.

  So what happened at Munich? What the Pan-German nationalists, with Hitler and Ludendorff, wanted to do outside the law was done within the law by the royalist nationalists. The coup was carried out in the name of the law.

  And what happened in Berlin? Being powerless to affect this situation, the Stresemann-Hilferding government endorsed it by establishing military dictatorship throughout the whole Reich. At the personal request of President Ebert, the exercise of this power has been entrusted to Gessler, the Reichswehr minister, the member of the government who is closest to the Bavarians. At Munich, dictatorial authority has reverted to Herr Gessler’s direct subordinate, General von Lossow, for whom von Kahr exercises the functions of general state commissioner. Pure diplomatic conjuring! General von Lossow is the friend and in effect subordinate of von Kahr. While the latter cancels the laws of the Reich—you really can’t act more straightforwardly!—Crown Prince Rupprecht, prime minister von Knilling, and General von Lossow accompany him at a solemn military ceremony, the review of the traditional company of the Reichswehr at Munich on September 30, which ends with shouts of “Long live the king!”

  In the face of monarchist, reactionary Bavaria, the dictatorship in the Reich is only an imitation dictatorship, a question of form and appearances and apparently, totally futile.

  Genuine dictatorship to the left

  The bourgeois and social democratic government in Berlin cannot and will not take any effective measures against Bavarian reaction. And it knows very well that the Reichswehr would not obey orders. But while it was officially established in response to von Kahr’s appointment in Munich, Gessler’s dictatorship is creating an intolerable situation in the red states of Saxony and Thuringia. It is well known that the left social democratic prime minister of Saxony, Zeigner, has long been contemptuously boycotted by the Reichswehr authorities, whose reactionary maneuvers he has obstinately denounced. President Ebert and all his fellow thinkers who are SPD ministers responded to him by placing workers’ Saxony under the dictatorship of the Reichswehr lieutenant general Müller, who already on September 27 announced the dissolution of the legally constituted workers’ hundreds. For the moment general Müller is hesitating to enforce this measure. But he is ruling Dresden after the fashion of the captain general of Barcelona.127 His decree of September 27 sets out seven points (which I have abbreviated):1. From today I exercise full powers […]

  2. Army officers and those ranking with officers have all the rights of police officials […]

  3. No new printed publication of any sort may be issued without my prior authorization […]

  4. All street demonstrations are banned; for meetings in closed premises prior permission must be obtained from myself.

  5. It is forbidden to stop work in industries necessary for public life (water, gas, electricity, coal and potash mines, transport, food).

  6. Public assemblies are banned.

  7. All breaches of these decrees will be severely punished […]

  Thus the workers of democratic Saxony, deprived of the right to strike and of all constitutional rights, no longer have any means of legal defense. The socialist government of Saxony—which is displaying a rather woeful caution—has been canceled at the stroke of a pen. The slightest sign of protest by Saxon workers can only be outside the law, and the Reichswehr is authorized by the Great Coalition to repress it with the greatest rigour!

  The KPD has launched the call for a political general strike. Tomorrow perhaps this general strike will spread to workers’ Saxony, which will not easily accept the rule of the sabre and jackboot of the Reichswehr. What will happen then? The whole bourgeoisie, including that belonging to the Great Coalition, has for months been in full agreement on this point with the people in Munich: “The scandal of Saxony and Thuringia is crying out to high heaven and must be brought to an end.” (Maretsky, a DVP deputy, supporter of the Great Coalition, in Tag.) Against a revolutionary movement, consciously provoked by General Müller, a united front would be immediately established including fascists of every shade, whether Bavarian, separatist, Pan-German or whatever, plus the Reichswehr and the democratic and social democratic government forces. So we can see the extent of the danger and the unscrupulous behavior of the citizen ministers Schmidt, Hilferding, Sollmann and Radbruch who are consciously preparing the repression of the workers’ movement in Saxony and Thuringia using the methods of Noske, even if afterwards they get themselves hanged by Ludendorff.

  Doubtless they believe they will have an even greater chance of being hanged if a socialist revolution triumphs in Central Germany.

  Those who understand nothing

  While the German Communists are confronting this complex and dangerous situation, while they are ma
king great efforts to fortify the last proletarian bastion of central Europe against an imminent attack by the reactionaries, people who obviously understand nothing, either of Communist thought, or of what is happening in Germany (even though they belonged to the French Communist Party not long ago128) are writing things of precisely this sort:

  “In the French context, the Radek-Rosmer129 plan would be the equivalent of the advocacy of French national defense in L’Humanité by such names as Léon Daudet.”130 Poor wretches! You have to be very blind or very dishonest to confuse the national defense of an imperialist state with the “national” defense of an internationalist workers’ revolution that is about to begin; or to fail to understand that in a country where the yoke of a foreign imperialism is added to that of national capitalism, the masses have as a result a double feeling of revolt which constitutes the most powerful revolutionary force; or not to understand that if the German Communists failed to recognize it, they would guarantee the victory of nationalist fascism, and the carve-up of Germany would establish, in a Balkanized central Europe, a lasting reinforcement of capitalist disorder.

  But here let’s pick out a cutting from Germania (of September 19), organ of the Catholic Center. In a “Political letter from Württemberg” the writer bitterly deplores the fact that Communist propaganda has penetrated among the Württemberg peasants who until recently only felt the influence of the Catholic Center and the National Socialists. Germania, whose competence we shall not challenge, is thus bearing witness to the value and success of the KPD’s tactics towards the nationalist movement.

  Well above the dollar

  For some days we have been paying five million marks for a newspaper, 4.5 million for a suburban railway ticket (third class) or a local phone call, six million for a letter abroad and everything else in proportion. With a rate against the dollar which in the last few days has varied between 160 and 200 million, a newspaper at 40, 50 or 60 French centimes131 a copy, the same for the tram and the rest in proportion. In this respect Montag Morgen has published a curious diagram of the rise in prices and the rise of the dollar. On August 6, the rise of prices was more or less proportional to that of the dollar. After August 20, the cost of living rose noticeably faster than the dollar. If both were rated at 100 on August 1, the difference between them was: dollar 509, cost of living 1,567. On September 17, the difference had increased further: dollar 1,210, cost of living 1,931. On September 24, the cost of living had increased more than twice as much as the rate of exchange: dollar 13,364, cost of living 39,200.