Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  But the conflict has not ended, and the fight between the two rival forces—capitalism and socialism—goes on. There can be no permanent compromise between the two, although there have been, and there may be in the future, temporary arrangements and treaties between the two. Russia and communism stand at one pole, and the great capitalist countries of Western Europe and America stand at the other. Between the two, the liberals, the moderates, and the centre parties are disappearing everywhere. The conflict and the discontent are really caused by complete economic upsets and increasing misery all over the world, and till some equilibrium establishes itself this tussle must continue.

  Of the many abortive revolutions that have taken place since the war, the German one is the most interesting and revealing, and I shall therefore tell you something about it. I have already told you of the failure of the socialists in all European countries to live up to their ideals and promises, when the war came. They were swept away by the fierce nationalism of each country, and forgot the international ideal of socialism in the mad blood-lust of war. On the very verge of the World War, on July 30, 1914, the German Social Democratic Party leaders declared against the sacrifice of “a single drop of blood of a German soldier” for the imperialist designs of the Hapsburgs. (The quarrel at the time was between Austria and Serbia over the murder of the Archduke Franz-Ferdinand of Austria.) Five days later the party supported the war, and so did other similar parties in other countries. Indeed, the Austrian socialist leader actually talked of adding Poland and Serbia to the Austrian Empire, and said that this would be no annexation!

  Early in 1918 the Bolshevik appeals to the workers of Europe produced a marked effect on German workers, and there were big strikes in the munition factories. This produced a very serious situation for the German imperial government, and might even have resulted in disaster. The socialist leaders thereupon saved the situation by joining the strike committee and breaking the strike from within.

  On November 4, 1918, a naval mutiny broke out in Kiel in northern Germany. The great battleships of the German navy had been ordered to put out to sea, but the sailors and stokers refused to do so. The troops that were sent out to suppress them went over to them and made common cause. The officers were deposed or arrested, and councils (Soviets) of workers and soldiers were formed. It was just like the early beginnings of the Soviet Revolution in Russia, and it seemed to be spreading all over Germany. Immediately the Social Democratic leaders appeared at Kiel and succeeded in diverting the sailors’ and workers’ attention into other channels. These sailors, however, left Kiel with their arms and spread out all over the country carrying the seeds of revolt.

  The revolutionary movement was spreading. In Bavaria (South Germany) a republic was proclaimed. Still the Kaiser stuck on. On November 9 a general strike began in Berlin. All work was stopped, and there was hardly any violence, as the whole garrison of the city went over to the side of the revolution. The old order had visibly collapsed, and the question was, what would take its place. Some communist leaders were on the point of proclaiming a Soviet or republic, when a Social Democrat leader forestalled them by proclaiming a parliamentary republic.

  So the German Republic came into existence. But it was a shadow republic, for nothing was really changed. The Social Democrats who were in command of the situation left almost everything as it was; they took a few high posts, ministerships, etc., and the army, the civil service, the judicial service, and the whole administration continued as it was in the Kaiser’s days. Thus, as the title of a recent book says, “The Kaiser Goes: The Generals Remain”. Revolutions are not made or strengthened in this way. A real revolution must change the political, the social, and the economic structure. It is absurd to expect that a revolution will survive if power is left in the hands of its enemies. The German Social Democrats, however, did this very thing and gave full opportunities to opponents of the Revolution to prepare for and organize its downfall. The old militarists were still the bosses in Germany.

  The new Social Democratic government did not like the Kiel sailors wandering about the country spreading revolutionary ideas. They tried to suppress these sailors in Berlin, and there were violent conflicts early in January 1919. The German communists thereupon tried to establish a Soviet government, and called upon the city masses for help. They got some help from the people and took possession of government buildings, and for about a week in January—known as the “Red Week” in Berlin— they seemed to be in power in the city. But the response from the masses was not sufficient, as most of the people were puzzled and did not know what to do. The regular soldiers in Berlin were also puzzled, and they remained neutral. As these soldiers could not be relied upon, the Social Democrats enrolled some special volunteer troops for the purpose, and with their help they crushed the communist rising. The fighting was cruel, and no quarter was given. Some days after the fighting was over, two of the communist leaders, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, were tracked down to a place where they were in hiding and murdered in cold blood. This murder, and the subsequent acquittal of the people who had been responsible for it, created great bitterness between the communists and the Social Democrats. Karl Liebknecht was the son of Wilhelm Liebknecht, the famous old socialist fighter of the nineteenth century, whose name has already appeared in a previous letter of mine. Rosa Luxemburg was also an old worker, and a great friend of Lenin. As it happened, both Liebknecht and Luxemburg had been opposed to the communist rising which resulted in their death.

  The communists had been crushed by the Social Democratic Republic, and, soon after, a constitution for the Republic was drawn up at Weimar; hence it is known as the Weimar Constitution. Within three months a fresh change threatened the Republic, this time from the other side. The reactionaries staged a counterrevolution against the Republic, and the old generals figured prominently in it. This revolt is known as the “Kapp Putsch”—Kapp was the leader and “putsch” is the German word for such a rising. The Social Democratic government ran away from Berlin, but the workers of Berlin put an end to the “putsch” by a sudden general strike, a complete stoppage of all activities, which brought the life of the great city to a standstill. Kapp and his friends had now to run away from Berlin before the organized workers, and the Social Democratic leaders returned again to take charge of the government. In marked contrast with their treatment of the communists, the government was quite gentle with the Kappist rebels. Many of them were officers drawing pensions, and, in spite of their rebellion, even the pensions continued.

  A similar counter-revolutionary “putsch” or rising was organized in Bavaria. It failed, but the chief interest of it is that the organizer was a petty Austrian officer, Hitler, who today is the Dictator of Germany.

  The result of all this was that although the German Republic carried on in name, it grew weaker and weaker. The split between the socialists, the Social Democrats and communists, weakened both, and the reactionaries, who openly denounced the Republic, grew more and more organized and aggressive. The big landowners—“Junkers” they are called in Germany—and the big industrialists gradually pushed out the few socialist elements that had remained in the government. The Peace Treaty of Versailles came as a great shock to the German people, and this was exploited by the reactionaries to their own advantage. Under this treaty Germany had to disarm and to give up her huge army. She was only allowed to keep a small army of 100,000. The result was that outwardly there was disarmament and in reality a great quantity of arms were hidden away. Huge “private armies” grew up—that is, volunteers belonging to different parties. The conservative nationalists volunteer army was called the Steel Helmets; the communists workers’ volunteers were the Red Front; and later Hitler’s followers formed the “Nazi” troops.

  I have told you a lot about these early post-war years in Germany, and I could tell you much more to show how revolution hovered in the air and fought with the counter-revolution. In different parts of Germany, in Bavaria and Saxony, there were also r
isings. Much the same conditions prevailed in Austria, which the peace treaty reduced to a tiny fraction of its former self. This small country, with a huge capital city, Vienna, was entirely German, in language and culture. It became a republic on November 12, 1918, the day after the Armistice. It wanted to become a part of Germany, but the Allied Powers strictly prohibited this, although this was a natural thing to do. This proposed union of Austria and Germany is referred to by the German word “anschluss”.1

  In Austria, as in Germany, the Social Democrats were in power to begin with, but fearful and lacking confidence in themselves, they followed a policy of compromise with the bourgeois parties. The result was a great weakening of the Social Democrats and the passing of the government into other hands. As in Germany, private armies grew up, and finally a reactionary dictatorship was established. For a long time there was a conflict between the socialist city of Vienna and the conservative farmers of the countryside. The socialist Vienna municipality became famous for its fine housing and other schemes for the working classes.

  In Hungary a revolution broke out as early as October 3, 1918, five weeks before the war ended. In November a republic was proclaimed. Four months later, in March 1919, a second revolution took place. This was a Soviet revolution under the leadership of a communist, Bela Kun, who had been associated with Lenin previously. A Soviet government was established, and it was in power for some months. Thereupon the conservative and reactionary elements in the country invited a Rumanian army to come to their help. The Rumanians came most willingly, helped to crush Bela Kun’s government, and then settled down to loot the country. They only left when the Allied Powers threatened to take action against them. As the Rumanians withdrew, the Hungarian conservatives organized a private army or bands of volunteers to terrorize over all the liberal or advanced elements in the country, so as to prevent any further attempt at revolution. Thus began in 1919 the “White Terror” of Hungary, as it is called, which is considered “one of the bloodiest pages of post-war history”. Hungary is still partly feudal, and these feudal landlords combined with the big industrialists, who had made huge fortunes during the war, to murder and terrorize not only communists but workers generally and social democrats and liberals and pacifists and even Jews. Ever since then Hungary has been under a reactionary dictatorship. There is a parliament for show purposes, but the ballot is open—that is, voting for members of parliament is public—and the police and the army see to it that only persons welcome to the dictatorship are elected. No public meetings on political questions are tolerated.

  I have considered in this letter some of the post-war happenings in Central Europe, the reactions of the war and defeat and the Russian Revolution on what used to be the Central Powers. The amazing economic effects of the war, and how they have brought capitalism to its present unhappy pass, we shall have to deal with separately. The net result of what I have written about in this letter is that social revolution seemed to be imminent in Europe during those post-war days. This fact helped Soviet Russia, because none of the great imperialist Powers dared to attack her whole-heartedly for fear of the bad effect on its own working class. The revolution, however, did not come off, except in little bits which were crushed. In the crushing and the avoiding of this social revolution the social democrats played a prominent part, although their whole party was based on the theory of such a social revolution. It would appear that these social democrats hoped or believed that capitalism would die a natural death. Therefore, instead of attacking it vigorously, they helped to preserve it for the time being. Or it may be that their huge and wealthy party machine was comfortable enough and too much involved in the existing order to take the risk of social upheaval. They tried to steer a middle course, with the result that they bungled the job completely and lost even what they had. Recent events in Germany have made this clearer than ever.

  Another factor dominating these post-war years is the growth of the spirit of violence. It is curious that while in India the gospel of non-violence was being preached, nearly all over the world violence was in action, naked and unabashed, and was being glorified. The war was largely responsible for this, and afterwards the clashes between different class interests. As these clashes became more obvious and intense, violence grew. Liberalism almost disappeared and nineteenth-century democracy fell into disfavour. Dictators appeared on the scene.

  I have dealt with the defeated Powers in this letter. The victorious Powers had similar troubles, though England and France escaped having any rising or upheaval as in Central Europe. Italy had a great upheaval, producing strange results which deserve separate treatment.

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  A New Way of Paying Old Debts

  June 15, 1933

  We find thus that after the World War, Europe, as indeed the whole world to some extent, was like a seething cauldron. The peace of Versailles and the other treaties did not improve matters. The new map of Europe settled some old national problems by freeing the Poles and the Czechs and the Baltic peoples. But at the same time it created fresh national problems by putting part of the Austrian Tyrol under Italy, and part of Ukraine under Poland, and by other unhappy territorial distributions in eastern Europe. The most curious and irritating arrangement was that of the Polish Corridor and Danzig. Central and eastern Europe was “balkanized” by the creation of many small new states, which meant more frontiers, more customs barriers, more brutal hatreds.

  Apart from these treaties of 1919, Rumania managed to take Bessarabia, which used to be a part of south-western Russia. This has since been a matter of dispute and argument between the Soviets and Rumania. Bessarabia has been called “the Alsace-Lorraine on the Dnieper”.

  A far bigger question than that of territorial changes was that of Reparations—that is, the amount defeated Germany was to be made to pay to the victorious Allies as costs and damages caused by the war. No exact sum was laid down in the Treaty of Versailles, but subsequent conferences fixed these reparations at the enormous sum of £6,600,000,000, to be paid in annual instalments. It was impossible for any country to pay this vast sum, much less could defeated and exhausted Germany do so. Germany protested without result, and then, having no choice, paid two or three instalments by borrowing from the United States. She did so to gain time, and hoped to get the whole question reconsidered. It was obvious to her and to most others that she could not go on paying huge sums for generations.

  Very soon Germany’s financial system went to pieces, and the government did not have enough money either to pay external debts, like reparations, or even to meet internal obligations. Payments to other countries had to be made in gold. When these payments were not made on the fixed dates, there was default. Within Germany, however, the government could pay in currency notes, and so they adopted the device of printing more and more paper notes. By printing paper notes money is not created; what is created is credit. People use these notes because they know that they can get them changed for gold or silver if they want to. Behind these notes there is always some amount of gold kept in the banks to keep up the value of the notes. Paper money thus performs a very useful function, as it saves a lot of gold and silver from day-today use and increases credit. But if a government goes on printing paper money and issuing these notes without any limit and without any regard to the amount of gold in the banks, then the value of this money is bound to fall. The more the printing the less the value, the less does it perform its function of credit. This process is called inflation. This is exactly what happened in Germany in 1922 and 1923. The German Government, wanting more money for its expenses, printed more notes. This resulted in sending up prices of everything else, but in lowering the price of the German mark itself as compared to the pound, the dollar, or the franc. So the government had to print more marks, and again the mark fell. This process went on to fantastic lengths, till a dollar or pound came to be worth billions of paper marks. In fact the paper mark almost ceased to have any value. A postage stamp for a letter cost a million paper ma
rks! And all other prices were similarly graded and constantly changing.

  This German inflation and astounding fall of the mark did not take place of its own accord. It was deliberately brought about by the German Government to help them to get out of their financial difficulties and to a large extent it did so. For the government and municipalities and other debtors easily paid off all their internal German debts with the worthless paper marks. Of course they could not pay off debts in and to foreign countries in this way, as no one there would accept their paper money. In Germany they could enforce acceptance by law. In this way the government and every debtor got rid of a troublesome burden of debt. But they did so at a tremendous cost of suffering. All the people suffered during this inflation, but most of all the middle classes suffered, for most of these people were getting fixed salaries or had other fixed incomes. Of course as the mark fell these salaries went up, but they never went up enough to keep pace with the falling mark. The lower middle classes were almost wiped off by this inflation, and we have to remember this when we consider the remarkable happenings in Germany in subsequent years. For these discontented déclassé middle classes now formed a powerful army of the disaffected, full of revolutionary possibilities. They drifted into the private armies that were growing up round the principal parties, and most of them went to Hitler’s new party, the National Socialists or Nazis.