THE HERRENKLUB AND THE FALL OF BRUENING 327

The declaration has been explained away> but there is really no
argument against those who hold that it was the announcement
of civil war. It was Hitler's answer to the critics in his party who
again deplored compromise with the bourgeois. Frick the legalist
and historian explained that there was really no compromise.
Contemporary history showed them the example of Mussolini
who used the bourgeois for his own ends and tricked them not
with the promise but with the actuality of a coalition. This was
only a promise. It was cold comfort for Hugenberg or would
have been had he not been surer of his ground than even Hitler
knew.

Meantime on the Left embarrassment was succeeding embar-
rassment. The Socialist leadership was facing up to its last
dilemma; behind them the trade unions were growling into revolt
and for the first time the drift of the younger elements to Com-
munism began to cause serious alarm. A united Left front was
out of the question. There were only two alternatives; to support
the government or to outbid the Communists. The latter was
impossible for the leadership; the former was therefore inevitable.
But the theory of inevitability was not shared by the ordinary
party member and the revolt of the nine in March was a warning
that could not be neglected. The ban on meetings and on the press
and the attempt to interfere with illegal forces hit the Socialists
no less, if less obviously, than the extremists. Their own press was
by no means tender to the government; their own meetings were
by no means unseditious from the official point of view and the
Reichsbanner of which they had now secured control and were
seeking—or rather enthusiastic individuals were seeking—to turn
into a Socialist force of defence for the constitution might just
as easily come under the ban as the Red Fighting Front or the
Storm Troopers. If the new "Iron Front" were assailed they could
hardly abandon it; with nearly a million organized "troops" at
the disposal of the extremists and the steady declaration of Reichs-
wehr leaders that the national forces were non-political, they could
hardly leave themselves defenceless.

The government decrees, too^ were now bearing ever more
hardly on the working class. While very considerable sums were