Witness to the German Revolution

by Victor Serge

  In the style of Nicholas II

  On October 7, Herr von Kahr issued in Bavaria a new decree forbidding, on pain of imprisonment, the editing, printing or publication of any Communist publication whatsoever, in any form whatsoever. The style of Herr von Kahr’s edicts is reminiscent of the ukases of the late Tsar Nicholas II—whose reign did not end happily despite the repeated use of such measures over many years…134

  But in fact General Müller, the representative of Ebert and Gessler in Dresden, has effectively suppressed the Communist press just as comprehensively. (The Sächsische Arbeiterzeitung, imitating the example of the nationalist Völkischer Beobachter in Munich, has nonetheless continued to appear in Leipzig.)

  In red Thuringia, General Reinhardt has taken on the job of disarming the working class and has ordered (Gotha, October 4) the handing over within nine hours of all weapons in the possession of individuals, under threat of death! Demonstrations and strikes are banned.

  Red Germany

  Under the combined pressure of the military dictatorship, of the offensive of large scale industry against the eight-hour day, of Bavarian fascism, of the sabotage of production ordered by the employers, and of deep poverty, working-class Germany is emerging from the profound lethargy into which it had been plunged by forty years of reformist socialism.

  The red German bloc has been formed. For some days Saxony and Thuringia have had workers’ governments composed of left social democrats and Communists. These two governments have made a pact of alliance similar to the one that unites, within the two states, the (left) SPD and the KPD. Their program of working-class defense includes the “republicanization of the Reichswehr.”

  “That’s a nice mess!” will exclaim, in Pantin or Montsouris,135 someone who understands nothing at all. “Communist ministers demanding the ‘republicanization’ of the German army!”

  Let us explain to this intransigent revolutionary that the SPD ministers have established in Germany the dictatorship of the revolutionary army precisely in order to save both their own ministerial jobs and the investments of the big bourgeoisie: while our comrades in Saxony and Thuringia are entering the Zeigner and Frölich governments, under martial law and military dictatorship, in order, despite everything, to organize the arming of the proletariat. Let us also explain to him that the “republican” purging of a reactionary army, when the word “republic” merely means frustrating the will of the kings of iron and coal, may be a revolutionary action.

  It may very well be that a historical proof of this will soon be given to us by red Germany. The situation there is, in fact, of such gravity that it cannot be overstated. All workers’ freedoms have been suppressed, the right to strike has been suppressed, the Communist press has been suppressed, the workers’ hundreds have been disarmed and effectively made unable to make their existence known: the Saxon police—headed by a social democrat—is actively infiltrated by fascist gangs; in Dresden, General Reinhardt, a former accomplice of Kapp,136 is governor, and the whole of the German bourgeoisie is getting ready to put an end to red Saxony and Thuringia!

  The workers in the two states can feel and see the ambush being organized all around them. One military provocation would suffice to leave them with no alternative but a general strike—the only weapon left to them—and hence insurrection, since strikes are banned and the rigours of martial law mean immediate armed repression…

  Not to act, for these proletarians of red Germany, would mean agreeing to be treated as the losers in the social war without even having joined battle. But to act would mean rising in open revolt against the dictatorship of the generals and giving white Germany the go-ahead for an all-out attack.

  The fate of the German revolution—and hence of the German proletariat in the next ten or 20 years—is being decided at this moment in a quadrilateral at the angles of which are Erfurt, Dresden, Leipzig and Vogtland. Remember those names, comrades!

  A significant verdict

  At this moment, there are a flood of indications of the determined will of the reactionaries to engage battle everywhere. In Prussia, public opinion has been closely following the trial of a small Prussian landowner from the outskirts of Potsdam, Karl von Kaehne. Everything in this case has general significance.

  Von Kaehne was accused of having killed a young worker called Laase who had been gathering wood137 on his grounds. Von Kaehne and his sons, whom he had raised as ferocious junkers,138 had already been prosecuted several times for assault and battery against poor people who lacked respect for their property. One of the von Kaehnes, having once come across a peasant who was picking mushrooms on his estate, had beaten him to the ground there and then. Against old von Kaehne there was the most serious circumstantial evidence to accuse him of murder. As for his character as a landowner and a tough Prussian junker, he proudly displayed it to the jury, with statements of the following kind:

  “We are still armed and nobody has the right to criticize us for defending our property. I don’t shoot at respectable people, but I am not afraid of shooting at scum.” He admitted having stated, when told that the body of a prowler had been found on his land: “Let it stay there for the pigs to eat!”

  The Potsdam jury found this quite acceptable and acquitted him (October 4). There are judges in Potsdam, good judges for the landowners, judges who know their jobs.

  Potsdam is one of the citadels of reaction. Nonetheless, the police had to protect the acquitted man from an angry crowd who jeered the jurymen and wanted to lynch Herr von Kaehne with cries of, “Death to the bloody dog!”

  The iron and coal chancellor

  All capitalist countries have simultaneously two sorts of rulers: monarchs and ministers who pass away, and financiers and businessmen who endure. Thus Germany today has two chancellors. One, without money, without a press at his command, without any social influence other than that of his masters, who yesterday assumed powers that are much more apparent than real, and who will leave again tomorrow; meanwhile he bears all the formal responsibility. The other one owns mines, factories, estates, banks and newspapers; he is not accountable to anyone for anything; he is above the laws; he makes public opinion, cabinets, war and peace; he is irremovable. One is only the executor of the thankless governmental tasks of the bourgeoisie. The other is the brain of the bourgeoisie.

  Stresemann and Hugo Stinnes

  In the division of roles, the former—surrounded by his social democratic satellites—has as his main job to prepare the way for the latter.

  Indeed, for the last few days Herr Stinnes has been behaving very publicly as the true master of Germany. Negotiations have not yet started between Messrs Stresemann and Poincaré. But Herr Stinnes is negotiating—in secret—with General Degoutte. Scarcely had he reprieved the cabinet of the Great Coalition when he addressed to it the ultimatum of October 9, summed up in the following ten points:1. Compensation for the coal confiscated by the French during the Ruhr occupation

  2. Compensation for the tax contributions imposed by the Reich on coal

  3. Cancellation of this tax as far as the Ruhr is concerned

  4. The right to dispose freely of coal supplies

  5. Priority for the Ruhr in supplies of food and raw materials

  6. Abolition of the coal commissariat

  7. Recognition of the right of industrialists to negotiate with the French authorities and…

  8. …to resolve current questions with them

  9. Possible participation of industrialists in a Franco-German state company of Rhineland railways

  10. Working day of eight and a half hours in the mines and ten hours everywhere else

  The government was summoned to respond to the iron chancellor 139 before Tuesday, October 9, at noon. Acting in advance of his reply, the Ruhr industrialists have required miners to extend the working day.

  Never has the official government of a country been treated with such contemptuous arrogance by its true masters. Herr Stresemann and citizen Robert Schmidt have acc
epted without complaint the humiliation inflicted by Stinnes and have broken off all their current work in order to examine his “proposals.”

  The best part of all this is to see Herr Hugo Stinnes presenting himself as a victim—an all-powerful one!—of the economic war in the Ruhr, and (patriotically) demanding indemnities, compensation and privileges…

  Herr Hugo Stinnes

  Herr Hugo Stinnes developed his industrial and financial strength under the old imperial regime. The prosperity of the Empire was his prosperity. The Kaiser’s armaments enriched him: he was the major supplier of coal to the manufacturers of cannons, his partners.

  During the war Herr Hugo Stinnes continued to get richer: each shell manufactured in Germany brought him a profit; each corpse rotting on a battlefield brought him a profit… And on top of this he was plundering Belgian industry.

  After the war Herr Stinnes joined up with the victors to exploit more or less all the nations of the earth, concluded a profitable reparations agreement with M. de Lubersac, and extended his empire over Vienna and Czechoslovakia.

  The fall of the mark made him one of the profiteers who benefited from Germany’s ability to sell at reduced prices. The war in the Ruhr meant that a substantial part of the Reich’s gold reserves found their way into his safes.

  Germany’s capitulation will bring him large indemnities; the coming reparations agreement will be a goldmine to him; and the terrible poverty of the German nation will bring him to dictatorship…

  Herr Hugo Stinnes is the magnate who owns the Rhineland coal syndicate, the German company for the coal trade and shipping, the Dortmund mining company, the German-Luxemburg mining and smelting company, the power stations of Aachen and Westphalia, the Gelsenkirchen mines, the Rhine and Elbe electricity company, that of Bochum, the Bohlen steel mills, the Siemens-Rheinelbe-Schuckert electrical and mining company, etc.

  He owns several large daily papers: Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (General German News), Rheinische Westfälische Zeitung (Rhine and Westphalia News); he has an influence on the Lokal Anzeiger (Berlin), the Tag, the Deutsche Zeitung (German News), Hamburger Nachrichten (Hamburg Reports)… In each important city in Germany, there is at least one paper in his service. No precise evaluation of his wealth and power is possible.

  He can negotiate on equal terms with the representatives of French imperialism; he has the habit of giving orders—and the right to give them—to Berlin governments. And he knows exactly what he wants.

  What he wants

  For the moment, in domestic politics, what he wants amounts to two things: To impose the ten-hour working day on the German people

  In order to do so, to take power, full power, dictatorship

  His Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung is carrying on consistent agitation for these aims. Let’s take another look at the last few issues. The leading article on October 9 was devoted to a diatribe against those whose are sabotaging the intensification of labor and to a defense of the ten-hour day. The previous day the leading article proclaimed “The age of dictators”; Professor Richard Sternfeld referred to Sylla, Richelieu, Cesare Borgia, Cromwell and even Lenin.

  If the German worker worked two hours a day more (without eating any more), then Herr Stinnes, Herr Klöckner, Herr Krupp and Herr Otto Wolff 140 think they could “pay the reparations” without losing anything—in fact the very reverse! In return for which, Senegalese bayonets would allow them to digest in peace…

  In reality, the problem is much more complex. We doubt whether the harshest economic dictatorship, even exercised by the iron chancellor, could raise German production, the stagnation of which has profound causes which would only be cured by dictatorship if it were exercised by the proletariat. For the main causes are: exhaustion of a constantly undernourished labor force

  the poor condition of the plant of an industry which has experienced the fall in value of the mark

  the scandalously high profits of capital.

  To kill Die Rote Fahne

  After a fortnight’s suspension, the Berlin Communist paper Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag) had just reappeared. Four issues had appeared—it comes out twice a day—when Herr Gessler, minister cum dictator, saw fit, yesterday (October 10) to suspend it afresh, this time until further notice. In fact, after a fortnight’s suspension, there could be no question of a suspension of less than three weeks or a month at the minimum. Till further notice is even better. The measure applies to all the Communist journals of Berlin and the surrounding area which might attempt to take the place of Die Rote Fahne. This paper has seen the number of subscribers rising constantly for some months. It is obvious that repeated suspensions—we are up to the fourth or fifth in a short period of time—are bound to completely disrupt its services, make it lose contact with its audience, and deprive it of its subscribers. That’s the result they trying to achieve.

  Thus throughout almost the whole of Germany, swarming with fascist and nationalist newspapers, martial law has had the result of suppressing the Communist press and it alone. At Munich, von Kahr has suppressed it permanently. In Berlin, Herr Gessler and in Saxony, General Müller, have suppressed it until further notice. Elsewhere other generals…

  We have also learned that numerous arrests of Communists have just taken place in Wroclaw (October 10). Most of the leaders of branches of the KPD in Silesia, and all the editorial staff of the Silesische Arbeiter Zeitung (Silesian Workers’ News) are said to be behind bars. The semi-official Vossische Zeitung (Voss News) admits candidly that the aim of these arrests is to suppress “Communist propaganda for a workers’ and peasants’ government!”

  Let’s note this frank statement which is quite remarkable at a time when propaganda for a fascist dictatorship is being developed without the democratic and social democratic government obstructing it in the slightest way. Let’s remember the Russian Revolution. Three months before the October Revolution, the eloquent Kerensky suppressed and suspended Pravda, imprisoned the Bolsheviks, kept Trotsky in a cell, hunted down Lenin and Zinoviev, while Kornilov, Savinkov and Denikin were allowed to conspire as they pleased.141 Herr Stresemann is wrong not to study recent history… History which might repeat itself!

  46,844,781,444,537,903?

  On September 30 the floating debt of Germany exceeded 46 trillion marks, to be precise, 46,844,781,444,537,903. But the dollar was only at 150__200 million. Today, October 12, it is quoted at five billion.

  On September 30, Berlin had 160,000 unemployed.

  The KPD and the Comintern were actively preparing for a bid for power in late October; Serge was obviously aware of these plans, although he could not discuss them in an open publication. The establishment of “workers’ governments” in Saxony and Thuringia was part of the preparation for imminent insurrection; at the same time the situation was causing growing tensions within the SPD.

  Constitutional dictatorship

  Correspondance internationale, October 20, 1923

  It’s no longer the case that the situation is getting more tense every day. Now it’s every single hour that brings us some grave news.

  The Reichstag met on Saturday (October 13) and voted for the Enabling Act, giving exceptional powers which Herr Stresemann had demanded. We know that at the first session, two days before, in the course of which the lamentable spectacle of the impotence of the Great Coalition was displayed, the cabinet had been frustrated, mainly because the radical minority142 abstained on the vote. I don’t know in detail whether it voted and how. It isn’t important. But it remained in the chamber to make up the quorum. Hence the dis-solution of the Reichstag was avoided. So now we’ve got a “constitutional dictatorship” and a “strong man.” The strong man is Herr Stresemann—since the Bavarian deputies and the SPD opposition remained on the floor of parliament.

  To tell the truth, this comic performance, tinged with tragedy, doesn’t fool anyone. The Great Coalition no longer has any authority. The most influential bourgeois elements belonging to it want a right wing dictatorship an
d are not very concerned with parliament, and even less with the SPD ministers. They are exercising dictatorship by making it more specific, by strengthening it every day. Herr Stinnes and Vögler143 dictate the government’s domestic policy. Herr von Kahr carries out his own policy and doesn’t give a damn for the chancellor in Berlin. As for the social democrats, they fall into two categories: those who feel cheated, defeated by reaction, but without the slightest will to action, clutching on to an outdated dream of loyal opposition and the keeping up of republican appearances; and those who can see civil war coming and are turning towards the Communists.

  Let’s note the absolute uselessness, in parliamentary and all terms, of the parties of the middle and small bourgeoisie, the DDP and the Catholic Center, although they enjoy a strong parliamentary representation. The small and medium bourgeoisie, bankrupt or well on the way to it, no longer has any real prestige or influence. The time has now come for the plutocrats, for the mining syndicate, for Stinnes and for the military adventurers who are promising to provide them with a praetorian guard144—Hitler, Ehrhardt and Rossbach.

  Eve of battle in red Saxony

  For the last few days Saxony has had three Communist ministers, Brandler, Böttcher and Heckert. Thuringia will have the same in the next few days. Nothing is more unusual, more preposterous than this event. In a country under martial law, where waves of riots are spreading from one frontier to the other, where the Communist press has been suppressed, where hundreds of Communists have been in prison for years, here are revolutionaries quite calmly entering governments solely in order—they make no secret of it!—to organize the resistance of the proletariat to the counterrevolution, that is, to prepare for civil war.