The crisis in the German social-democracy : (the "Junius" pamphlet)

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HE CRISIS IN THE
GERMAN
CIAL-DEMOCRACY

(Th'3 "Junius" Pamphlet)

By
ROSA LUXEMBURG

Price

25 Cents

NEW YORK

THE SOCIALIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY

24^ 'JSth STREET, BROOKLYN. N. Y.

1919

UCSB LIBRAE

The Crisis in the

German
Social - Democracy

(The "Junius" Pamphlet)

By Rosa Luxemburg

NEW YORK

The Socialist Publication Society
243— 55th St., Brooklyn. N.Y.

1910

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2007 with funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/crisisingermansoOOIuxeiala

PREFACE

This is a reprint of a book which, in the former edition,
also published by us, was wrongly attributed to three
authors : Karl Liebknecht, Franz Mehring, and Rosa Lux-
emburg. We are now in possession of conclusive informa-
tion that Rosa Luxemburg is the sole author. Our origin-
ally assigning it to the three names above mentioned was
due to the fact that authorship had been ascribed to the
"Spartacus Group," and, following the general consensus
of the German Socialist press, we repeated the statement
that the authorship lay with the entire group.

Accordingly, it is Comrade Rosa Luxemburg's picture
which now appears as frontispiece, instead of Karl Lieb-
knecht's. No changes have been made in the text itself.

The Socialist Publication Society.

THE CRISIS IN THE GERMAN
SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY

CHAPTER I.

The scene has thoroughly changed. The six weeks' march to
Paris has become a world drama. Mass murder has become a
monotonous task, and yet the final solution is not one step nearer.
Capitalist rule is caught in its own trap, and cannot ban the spirit
that it has invoked.

Gone is the first mad delirium. Gone are the patriotic street
demonstrations, the chase after suspicious looking automobiles, the
false telegrams, the cholera-poisoned wells. Gone, the mad
stories of Russian students who hurl bombs from every bridge
of Berlin, or Frenchmen flying over Nuremberg; gone the
excesses of a spy-hunting populace, the singing throngs, the
coffee-shops with their patriotic songs; gone the violent mobs,
ready to denounce, ready to persecute women, ready to whip
themselves into a delirious frenzy over every wild rumor; gone
the atmosphere of ritual murder, the Kishineff air that left the
policeman at the corner as the only remaining representative of
himian dignity.

The show is over. The curtain has f dlen on trains filled with
reservists, as they pull out amid the joyous cries of enthusiastic
maidens. We no longer see their laughing faces, smiling cheerily
from the train windows upon a war-mad population. Quietly they
trot through the streets, with their sacks upon their shoulders.
And the public, with a fretful face, goes about its daily task.

Into the disillusioned atmosphere of pale daylight there rings
a different chorus ; the hoarse croak of the hawks and hyenas of
the battlefield. Ten thousand tents, guaranteed according to
specifications, 100,000 kilo of bacon, cocoa powder, coffee sub-
stitute, cash *on immediate delivery. Shrapnell, drills, ammuni-

8 THE CRISIS

tion bags, marriage bureaus for war widows, leather belts, war
orders— only serious propositions considered. And the cannon
fodder that was loaded upon the trains in August and September
is rotting on the battlefields of Belgium and the Vosges, while
profits are springing, like weeds, from the fields of the dead.

Business is flourishing upon the ruins. Cities are turned into
shambles, whole countries into deserts, villages into cemeteries,
whole nations into beggars, churches into stables ; popular rights,
treaties, alliances, the holiest words and the highest authorities
have been torn into scraps ; every sovereign by the grace of God
is called a fool, an unfaithful wretch, by his cousin on the other
side; every diplomat calls his colleague in the enemy's country a
desperate criminal ; each government looks upon the other as the
evil genius of its people, worthy only of the contempt of the
world. Himger revolts in Venetia, in Lisbon, in Moscow, in
Singapore, pestilence in Russia, misery and desperation every-
where.

Shamed, dishonored, wading in blood and dripping with filth,
thus capitalist society stands. Not as we usually see it, playing the
roles of peace and righteousness, of order, of philosophy, of
ethics — as a roaring beast, as an orgy of anarchy, as a pestilential
breath, devastating culture and humanity — ^so it appears in all its
hideous nakedness.

And in the midst of this orgy a world tragedy has occurred;
the capitulation of the Social-Democracy. To close one's eyes
to this fact, to try to hide it, would be the most foolish, the most
dangerous thing that the international proletariat could do. "The
Democrat (i. e. the revolutionary middle-class)" says Karl Marx,
"emerges from the most shameful downfall as spotlessly as he
went innocently into it. With the strengthened confidence that he
must win, he is more tiian ever certain that he and his party need
no new principles, that events and conditions must finally come to
meet them." Gigantic as his problems are his mistakes. No

THE CRISIS 9

firmly fixed plan, no orthodox ritual that holds good for all times,
shows him the path that he must travel. Historical experience is
his only teacher, his Via Dolorosa to freedom is covered not only
with unspeakable suffering, but with countless mistakes. The
goal of his journey, his final liberation, depends entirely upon the
proletariat, on whether it understands to learn from its own mis-
takes. Self criticism, cruel, unsparing criticim that goes to the very
root of the evil is life and breath for the proletarian movement.
The catastrophe into which the world has thrust the socialist
proletariat is an unexampled misfortune for humanity. But
Socialism is lost only if the international proletariat is unable to
measure the depths of the catastrophe and refuses to understand
the lesson that it teaches.

The last forty-five years in the development of the labor move-
ment are at stake. The present situation is a closing of its ac-
counts, a summing up of the items of half a century of work. In
the grave of the Paris Commune lies buried the first phase of the
European labor movement and the first International. Instead of
spontaneous revolution, revolts, and barricades, after each of
which the proletariat relapsed once more into its dull passiveness,
there came the systematic daily struggle, the utilization of bour-
geois parliamentarism, mass organization, the welding of the
economic with the political struggle, of socialist ideals with the
stubborn defense of most immediate interests. For the first time
the cause of the proletariat and its emancipation were led by the
guiding star of scientific knowledge. In place of sects and
schools, Utopian undertakings and experiments in every country,
each altogether and absolutely separate from each other, we
found a uniform, international, theoretical basis, that united the
nations. The theoretical works of Marx gave to the working-
class of the whole world a compass by which to fix its tactics
from hour to hour, in its journey toward the one unchanging
goal.

The bearer, the defender, the protector of this new method was

10 THE CRISIS

the German Social-Democracy. The war of 1870 and the down-
fall of the Paris Commune had shifted the centre of gravity of
the European labor movement to Germany. Just as France was
the classic country of the first phase of the proletarian class-
struggle, as Paris was the torn and bleeding heart of the European
working-class of that time, so the German working-class became
the vanguard of the second phase. By innumerable sacrifices in
the form of agitational work it has built up the strongest, the
model organization of the proletariat, has created the greatest
press, has developed the most effective educational and propa-
ganda methods. It has collected under its banners the most
gigantic labor masses, and has elected the largest representative
groups to its national parliament.

The German Social-Democracy has been generally acknowl-
edged to be the purest incarnation of Marxian Socialism. It has
held and wielded a peculiar prestige as teacher and leader in the
second International. Friedrich Engels wrote in his famous fore-
word to Marx's "Class-Struggle in France": "Whatever may
occur in other countries, the German Social-Democracy occupies
a particular place and, for the present at least, has therefore a
particular duty to perform. The two million voters that it sends
to the ballot boxes, and the young girls and women who stand
behind them as non-voters, are numerically the greatest, the most
compact mass, the most decisive force of the proletarian interna-
tional army." The German Social-Democracy was, as the "Wiener
Arbeiter-Zeitung" wrote on August 5th, 1914, the jewel of the
organization of the classconscious proletariat. In its footsteps
the French, the Italian and the Belgian Social Democracies, the
labor movements of Holland, Scandinavia, Switzerland and
United States followed more or less eagerly. The Slav nations,
the Russians and the Social-Democrats of the Balkan looked up
to the German movement in boundless, almost unquestioning ad-
miration. In the second International the German Social-De-
mocracy was the determining factor. In every congress, in the

THE CRISIS 11

meetings of the International Socialist Bureau, everything waited
upon the opinion of the German group.

Particularly in the fight against militarism and war the posi-
tion taken by the German Social-Democracy has always been
decisive. "We Germans cannot accept that," was usually suf-
ficient to determine the orientation of the International. Blindly
confident, it submitted to the leadership of the much admired,
mighty German Social-Democracy. It was the pride of every
Socialist, the horror of the ruling classes of all countires.

And what happened in Germany when the great historical
crisis came? The deepest fall, the mightiest cataclysm. No-
where was the organization of the proletariat made so completely
subservient to imperialism. Nowhere was the state of siege so
uncomplainingly borne. Nowhere was the press so thoroughly
gagged, public opinion so completely choked off; nowhere was
the political and industrial class-struggle of the working-class so
entirely abandoned as in Germany.

But the German Social-Democracy was not only the strongest
body, it was the thinking brain of the International as well.
Therefore the process of self-analysis and appraisement must
begin in its own movement, with its own case. It is in honor
bound to lead the way to the rescue of international Socialism, to
proceed with the unsparing criticism of its own shortcomings.

No other party, no other class in capitalist society can dare to
expose its own errors, its own weaknesses, before the whole world
in the clear mirror of reason, for the mirror would reflect the his-
torical fate that is hidden behind it. The working-class can always
look truth in the face even when this means bitterest self -accusa-
tion; for its weakness was but an error and the inexorable laws
of history give it strength and assure its final victory.

This unsparing self-criticism is not only a fundamental
necessity, but the highest duty of the working-class as well. We
have on board the highest treasure of humarity, and the proletariat

12 THE CRISIS

is their ordained protector. While capitalist society, shamed and
dishonored, rushes through the bloody orgy to its doom, the
international proletariat will gather the golden treasures that were
allowed to sink to the bottom in the wild whirlpool of the world-
war in the moment of confusion and weakness.

One thing is certain. It is a foolish delusion to believe that we
need only live through the war, as a rabbit hides under the bush
to await the end of a thunderstorm, to trot merrily off in his old
accustomed gait when all is over. The world-war has changed
the condition of our struggle, and has changed us most of all.
Not that the laws of capitalist development or the life and death
conflict between capital and labor have been changed or mini-
mized. Even now, in the midst of the war, the masks are falling,
and the old well-known faces grinning at us. But evolution has
received a mighty forward impetus through the outbreak of the
imperialist volcano. The enormity of the tasks that tower before
the socialist proletariat in the immediate future make the past
struggles of the labor movement seem but a delightful idyll in
comparison.

Historically the war is ordained to give to the cause of labor
a mighty impetus. Marx, whose prophetic eyes foresaw so many
historic events as they lay in the womb of the future, writes, in
"The Class-Struggle in France," the following significant pass-
age: "In France the middle class does what should normally be
done by the industrial bourgeoisie (i. e. to fight for the demo-
cratic republic) ; but who shall solve the problems of labor?
They will not be solved in France. They will be proclaimed in
France. They will nowhere be solved within national boundaries.
Qass war in France will revert into a world war. The solution
will begin only when the world war has driven the proletariat into
the leadership of that nation which controls the world market, to
the leadership of England. The revolution that will here find,
not its end, but its organizatory beginning, is no short-lived
one. The present generation is like the Jews who were led by

THE CRISIS IS

Moses through the wilderness. Not only must it conquer a new
world, it must go down to make way for those who will be better
able to cope with its problems."

This was written in 1850, at a time when England was the
only capitalistically developed nation, when the English proletariat
was the best organized and seemed destined through the in-
dustrial growth of its nation to take the leadership in the inter-
national labor movement. Read Germany instead of England,
and the words of Karl Marx become an inspired prohpecy of the
present world war. It is ordained to drive the Grerman prole-
tariat "to the leadership of the people, and thus to create the or-
ganizatory beginning of the great international conflict between
labor and capital for the political supremacy of the world."

Have we ever had a different conception of the role to be
played by the working-class in the great world-war? Have we
forgotten how we were wont to describe the coming event, only
a few short years ago? "Then will come the catastrophe. All
Europe will be called to arms, and sixteen to eighteen million
men, the flower of the nations, armed with the best instruments
of murder will make war upon each other. But I believe that
behind this march there looms the final crash. Not we, but they
themselves will bring it. They are driving things to the extreme,
they are leading us straight into a catastrophe. They will harvest
what they have sown. The Goetterdaemmerung of the bourgeois
world is at hand. Be sure of that. It is coming." Thus spoke
Bebel, the speaker of our group in the Reichstag in the Morocco
debate.

An official leaflet published by the Party, "Imperialism and
Socialism," that was distributed in hundreds of thousands of
copies only a few years ago, closes with the words: "Thus the
struggle against militarism daily becomes more and more clearly
a decisive struggle between capital and labor. War, high prices
and capitalism — peace, happiness for all. Socialism ! Yours is the

14 THE CRISIS

choice. History is hastening onward toward a decision. The
proletariat must work unceasingly at its world mission, must
strengthen the power of its organization and the clearness of its
understanding. Then, come what will, whether it will succeed, by
its power, in saving humanity from the horrible cruelties of the
world-war, or whether capitalism shall sink back into history,
as it was bom, in blood and violence, the historic moment will
find the working-class prepared, and preparedness is every-
thing."

The official handbook for socialist voters, in 191 1, the date of
the last Reichstag elections, contains, on page 42, the following
comments on the expected world-war: "Do our rulers and our
ruling classes dare to demand this awful thing of the people?
Will not a cry of horror, of fury and of indignation fill the
country and lead the people to put an end to this murder? Will
they not ask: 'For whom and for what? Are we insane that
we should be treated thus or should tolerate such treatment?' He
who dispassionately considers the possibility of a great European
world-war can come to no other conclusion."

"The next European war will be a game of va-banque, whose
equal the world has never seen before. It will be, in all proba-
bility, the last war."

With such words the Reichstag representatives won their 110
seats in the Reichstag.

When in the summer of 1911 the "Panther" made its spring
to Agadir, and the noisy clamor of German imperialists brought
Europe to the precipice of war, an international meeting in Lon-
don, on the 4th of August, adopted the following resolution :

"The German, Spanish, English, Dutch and French delegates
of labor organizations hereby declare their readiness to oppose
■every declaration of war with every means in their power. Every
nationality here represented pledges itself, in accordance with
the decisions of its national and international congresses to oppose
all criminal machinations on the part of the ruling classes."

THE CRISIS 15

But when in November, 1910, the International Peace Congress
met at Basel, when the long train of labor representatives entered
the Minster, a presentiment of the coming hour of fate made
them shudder and the heroic resolve took shape in every breast.

The cool, sceptical Victor Adler cried out: "Comrades, it is
most important that we here, at the common source of our
strength, that we, each and every one of us take from hence the
strength to do in his country what he can, through the forms and
means that are at his disposal, to oppose this crime of war. And
if it should be accomplished, if we should really be able to pre-
vent war, let this be the cornerstone of our coming victory. That
:s the spirit that animates the whole International.

"And when murder and arson and pestilence sweep over civi-
lized Europe — we can think of it only with horror and indigna-
tion, and protests ring from our hearts. And we ask, are the
proletarians of today really nothing but sheep to be led mutely
to the slaughter?"

Troelstra spoke in the name of the small nations, in the name
of the Belgians as well:

"With their blood and with all that they possess the proletariat
of the small nations swear their allegiance to the International
in everything that it may decide to prevent war. Again we repeat
that we expect, when the ruling classes of the large nations call
the sons of the proletariat to arms to satiate the lust for power
and the greed of their rulers, in the blood and on th,e lands of the
small peoples, we expect that then the sons of the proletariat,
under the powerful influence of their proletarian parents and of
the proletarian press, will think thrice before they harm us,
their friends, in the service of the enemies of culture."

And Jaures closed his speech, after the anti-war manifesto of
the International Bureau had been read:

"The International represents the moral forces of the world!
And when the tragic hour strikes, when we must sacrifice our-

16 THE CRISIS

selves, this knowledge will support and strengthen us. Not
lightly, but from the bottom of our hearts we declare that we
are ready for all sacrifices 1"

It was like a Ruetli pledge. The whole world looked toward
the Minster of Basel, where the bells, slowly and solemnly, rang to
the approaching great fight between the armies of labor and
capital.

On the third of September, 1913, the social-democratic deputy,
David, spoke in the German Reichstag:

"That was the most beautiful hour of my life. That I here
avow. When the chimes of the Minster rang in the long train
of international Social-Democrats, when the red flags were
planted in the nave of the church about the altar, when the emis-
saries of the people were greeted by the peels of the organ that
resounded the message of peace, that was an impression that I
can never forget ....

"You must realize what it was that happened here. The masses
have ceased to be willess, thoughtless herds. That is new in the
history of the world. Hitherto the masses have always blindly
followed the lead of those who were interested in war, who drove
the peoples at each others' throats to mass murder. That will
stop. The masses have ceased to be the instruments, the yeomen
of war profiteers."

A week before the war broke out, on the 26th of July, 1914,
the German party papers wrote :

"We are no marionettes; we are fighting with all our might,
against a system that makes men the powerless tools of blind
circumstances, against this capitalism that is preparing to change
Europe, thirsty for peace, into a smoking battlefield. If destruc-
tion takes its course, if the determined will for peace of the
German, of the international proletariat, that will find expression
in the next few days in mighty demonstrations^ should not be

THE CRISIS 17

able to prevent the world-war, then it must be at least, the last
war, it must be the Goetterdaemmerung of capitalism."

On the 30th of July, 1914, the central organ of the German
Social-Democracy cried out:

"The socialist proletariat rejects all responsibility for the events
that are being precipitated by a ruling class that is blinded, and
on the verge of madness. We know that for us new life will
spring from the ruins. But the responsibility falls upon the rulers
of today.

"For them it is a question of existence!

"Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht!"

And then came the awful, the incredible 4th of August, 1914.

Did it have to come ? An event of such importance cannot be
a mere accident. It must have its deep, significant, objective
causes. But perhaps these causes may be found in the errors of
the leader of the proletariat, the Social-Democracy itself, in the
fact that our readiness to fight has flagged, that our courage and
our convictions have forsaken us. Scientific Socialism has
taught us to recognize the objective laws of historical develop-
ment. Man does not make history of his own volition, but he
makes history nevertheless. The proletariat is dependent in its
actions upon the degree of righteousness to which social evolu-
tion has advanced. But again, social evolution is not a thing apart
from the proletariat; it is in the same measure its driving force
and its cause as well as its product and its effect. And though
we can no more skip a period in our historical development than
a man can jump over his shadow, it lies within our power to ac-
celerate or to retard it.

Socialism is the first popular movement in the world that has
set. itself a goal and has established in the social life of man a
conscious thought, a definite plan, the free will of mankind. For
this reason Friedrich Engels calls the final victory of the socialist
proletariat a stride by human kind from the animal kingdom into

18 THE CRISIS

the kingdom of liberty. This step, too, is bound by unalterable
historical laws to the thousands of rungs of the ladder of the past
with its tortuous, sluggish growth. But it will never be accom-
plished, if the burning spark of the conscious will of the masses
does not spring from the material conditions that have been
built up by past development. Socialism will not fall as manna
from heaven. It can only be won by a long chain of powerful
struggles, in which the proletariat, under the leadership of the
Social-Democracy, will learn to take hold of the rudder of society
to become, instead of the powerless victim of history, its con-
scious guide.

Friedrich Engels once said :

"Capitalist society faces a dilemma, either an advance to
Socialism or a reversion to barbarism." What does a "reversion
to barbarism" mean at the present stage of European civilization?
We have read and repeated these words thoughtlessly, without a
conception of their terrible import. At this moment one glance
about us will show us what a reversion to barbarism in capitalist
society means. This world-war means a reversion to barbarism.
The triumph of imperialism leads to the destruction of culture,
sporadically during a modern war, and forever, if the period of
world- wars that has just begun is allowed to take its damnable
course to the last ultimate consequence. Thus we stand today,
as Friedrich Engels prophesied more than a generation ago, be-
fore the awful proposition: Either the triumph of imperialism
and the destruction of all culture, and, as in ancient Rome,
depopulation, desolation, degeneration, a vast cemetery; or, the
victory of Socialism, that is, the conscious struggle of the inter-
national proletariat against imperialism, against its methods,
against war. This is the dilemma of world history, its inevitable
choice, whose scales are trembling in the balance, awaiting the
decision of the proletariat. Upon it depends the future of cul-
ture and humanity. In this war imperialism has been victorious.
Its brutal sword of murder has dashed the scales, with overbear-

THE CRISIS 19

ing brutality, down into the abyss of shame and misery. If the
proletariat learns from this war and in this war to exert itself,
to cast oif its serfdom to the ruling classes, to become the lord of
its own destiny, the shame and misery will not have been in vain.
The modern working-class must pay dearly for each realiza-
tion of its historic mission. The road to the Golgotha of its
class liberation is strewn with awful sacrifices. The Jime-
combatants, the victims of the Commune, the martyrs of the
Russian Revolution — an endless line of bloody shadows. They
have fallen on the field of honor, as Marx wrote of the heroes
of the Commune, to be enshrined forever in the great heart of
the working-class. Now millions of proletarians are falling on
the field of dishonor, of fratricide, of self-destruction, the slave-
song on their lips. And that, too, has not been spared us. We
are like the Jews whom Moses led through the desert. But we
are not lost, and we will be victorious if we have not forgotten
how to learn. And if the modern leaders of the proletariat do not
know how to learn, they will go down "to make room for those
who will be more able to cope with the problems of a new world."

20 THE CRISIS

CHAPTER II.

"We are now facing the irrevocable fact of war. We are
threatened by the horrors of invasion. The decision, today, is
not for or against war; for us there can be but one question:
By what means is this war to be conducted? Much, aye every-
thing, is at stake for our people and its future, if Russian
despotism, stained with the blood of its own people, should be
the victor. This danger must be averted, the civilization and the
independence of our people must be safeguarded. Therefore we
will carry out what we have always promised: In the hour of
danger we will not desert our fatherland. In this we feel that
we stand in harmony with the International, which has always
recognized the right of every people to its national independence,
as we stand in agreement with the International in emphatically
denouncing every war of conquest. Actuated by these motives^
we vote in favor of the war credits demanded by the Govern-
ment."

With these words the Reichstag group issued the counter-
sign that determined and controlled the position of the German
working-class during the war. Fatherland in danger, national
defense, people's war for existence, Kultur, liberty — ^these were
the slogans proclaimed by the parliamentary representatives of the
Social-Democracy. What followed was but the logical sequence.
The position of the Party and the labor union press, the patriotic
frenzy of the masses, the civil peace, the disintegration of the
International, all these things were the inevitable consequence
of that momentous orientation in the Reichstag.

If it is true that this war is really a fight for national existence,
for freedom, if it is true that these priceless possessions can be
defended only by the iron tools of murder, if this war is the
holy cause of the people, then everything else follows as a matter
of course, we must take everything that the war may bring as a

THE CRISIS 21

part of the bargain. He who desires the purpose must be satis-
fied with the means. War is methodical, organized, gigantic
murder. But in normal human beings this systematic murder is
possible only when a state of intoxication has been previously
created. This has always been the tried and proven method of
those who make war. Bestiality of action must find a com-
mensurate bestiality of thought and senses; the latter must pre-
pare and accompany the former. Thus the "Wahre Jacob" of
August 28th, 1914, with its brutal picture of the German
thresher, the Party papers of Chemnitz, Hamburg, Kiel, Frank-
furt a. M., Koburg and others, with their patriotic drive in
poetry and prose, were the necessary narcotic for a proletariat
that could rescue its existence and its liberty only by plimging
the deadly steel into its French and English brothers. These
chauvinistic papers are after all a great deal more logical and
consistent than those others who attempted to imite hill and
valley, war with humanity, murder with brotherly love, the voting
for war credits with socialist internationalism.

If the stand taken by the German Reichstag group on the
fourth of August was correct, then the death sentence of the
proletarian International has been spoken, not only for this war,
but for ever. For the first time since the modern labor move-
ment exists there yawns an abyss between the commandments
of international solidarity of the proletariat of the world and the
interests of freedom and nationalist existence of the people; for
the first tirne we discover that the independence and liberty of the
nations command that workingmen kill and destroy each other.
Up to this time we have cherished the belief that the interests of
the peoples of all nations, that the class interests of the proletariat
are a harmonious unit, that they are identical, that they cannot
possibly come into conflict with one another. That was the basis
of our theory and practice, the soul of our agitation. Were we
mistaken in the cardinal point of our whole world philosophy?
We are holding an inquest over international Socialism.

22 THE CRISIS

This world war is not the first crisis through which our inter-
national principles have passed. Our Party was first tried forty-
five years ago. At that time, on the 21st of July, 1870, Wilhelm
Liebknecht and August Bebel made the following historical
declaration before the Reichstag:

"The present war is a dynastic war in the interest of the
Bonaparte dynasty, as the war of 1866 was conducted in the
interest of the Hohenzollern dynasty.

"We cannot vote for the funds which are demanded from the
Reichstag to conduct this war because this would be, in effect,
a vote of confidence in the Prussian government. And we know
that the Prussian government, by its action in 1866, prepared
this war. At the same time we cannot vote against the budget,
lest this be construed to mean that we support the conscienceless
and criminal policies of Bonaparte.

"As opponents, on principle, of every dynastic war, as Social-
ist-Republicans and members of the 'International Working-
men's Association' which, without regard to nationality, has
fought all oppressors, has tried to unite all the oppressed into
a great band of brothers, we cannot directly or indirectly lend
support to the present war. We therefore refuse to vote, while
expressing the earnest hope that the peoples of Europe, taught
by the present unholy events, will strive to win the right to con-
trol their own destinies, to do away with the present rule of
might and class as the cause of all social and national evil."

With this declaration the representatives of the German prol-
etariat put their cause clearly and unreservedly under the banner
of the International and definitely repudiated the war against
France as a national war of independence. It is well known
that Bebel many years later, in his memoirs, stated that he would
have voted against the war loan had he known, when the vote
was taken, the things that were revealed in the years that
followed.

Thus, in a war that was considered by the whole bourgeois

THE CRISIS 23

public, and by a powerful majority of the people under the influ-
ence of Bismarckian strategy, as a war in the national life interest
of Germany, the leaders of the German Social-Democracy held
firmly to the conviction that the life interest of a nation and the
class interest of the proletariat are one, that both are opposed to
war. It was left to the present world war and to the Social-
Democratic Reichstag group to uncover, for the first time, the
terrible dilemma — either you are for national liberty — or for inter-
national Socialism.

Now the fundamental fact in the declaration of our Reichstag
group was, in all probability, a sudden inspiration. It was simply
an echo of the crown speech and of the Chancellor's speech of
August fourth. "We are not driven by the desire for conquest,"
we hear in the crown speech, "we are inspired by the unalterable
determination to preserve the land upon which God has placed
us for ourselves, and for all coming generations. From the docu-
ments that have been presented to you, you will have seen how
My Government, and above all My Chancellor strove, to the last,
to avert the utmost. We grasp the sword in self-defense, with a
clear conscience and a clean hand." And Bethmann-Hollweg de-
clared: "Gentlemen, we are acting in self-defense, and necessity
knows no law. He who is threatened as we are threatened, he
who is fighting for the highest aims can be guided by but one
consideration, how best to beat his way out of the struggle. We
are fighting for the fruits of our peaceful labor, for the heritage
of our great past, for the future of our nation." Wherein does
this differ from the social-democratic declaration? 1. We have
done everything to preserve peace, the war was forced upon us
by others. 2. Now that the war is here we must act in self-
defense. 3. In this war the German people is in danger of losing
everything. This declaration of our Reichstag group is an
obvious rehashing of the government declaration. As the latter
based their claims upon diplomatic negotiations and imperial tele-
grams, so the socialist group points to peace demonstrations of

24 THE CRISIS

the Social-Democracy before the war. Where the crown speech
denies all aims of conquest, the Reichstag group repudiates a war
of conquest by standing upon its Socialism. And when the
Emperor and the Chancellor cry out, "We are fighting for the
highest principles. We know no parties, we know only Ger-
mans," the social-democratic declaration echoes: "Our people
risks everything. In this hour of danger we will not desert our
Fatherland." Only in one point does the social-democratic
declaration differ from its government model, it placed the danger
of Russian despotism in the foreground of its orientation, as a
danger to German freedom. The crown speech says, regarding
Russia: "With a heavy heart I have been forced to mobilize
against a neighbor with whom I have fought upon so many battle
fields. With honest sorrow I have seen a friendship faithfully
kept by Germany, fall to pieces." The social-democratic group
changed this sorrowful rupture of a true friendship with the
Russian Tsar into a fanfare for liberty against despotism, used
the revolutionary heritage of Socialism to give to the war a
democratic mantle, a popular halo. Here alone the social-demo-
cratic declaration gives evidence of independent thought on the
part of our Social-Democrats.

As we have said, all these things came to the Social Democracy
as a sudden inspiration on the fourth of August. All that they
'had said up to this day, every declaration that they had made,
down to the very eve of the war, was in diametrical opposition
to the declaration df the Reichstag group. The "Vorwaerts"
wrote on July 25th, when the Austrian ultimatum to Servia was
published :

"They want the war, the unscrupulous elements that influence and
determine the Wiener Hofburg. They want the war — it has been
ringing out of the wild cries of the black-yellow press for weeks.
They want the war — the Austrian ultimatum to Servia makes it plain
and clear to the world.

"Because the blood of Franz Ferdinand and his wife flowed under
the shots of an insane fanatic, shall the blood of thousands of workers

THE CRISIS 25

and fanners be shed? Shall one insane crime be purged by another
even more insane? . , . The Austrian ultimatum may be the torch
that will set Europe in flames at all four corners.

"For this ultimatum, in its form and in its demands, is so shameless,
that a Servian Government that should humbly retreat before this
note, would have to reckon with the possibility of being driven out
by the masses of the people between dinner and dessert. . . .

"It was a crime of the chauvinistic press of Germany to egg on our
dear Ally to the utmost in its desire for war. And beyond a doubt,
Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg promised Herr Berchtold our support.
But Berlin is playing a game as dangerous as that being played
by Vienna."

The "Leipziger Volkszeitung" wrote on July 24th:

"The Austrian military party has staked everything on one card,
for in no country in the world has national and military chauvinism
anything to lose. In Austria chauvinistic circles are particularly bank-
rupt; their nationalistic howls are a frantic attempt to cover up
Austria's economic ruin, the robbery and murder of war to fill its
coffers ..."

The "Dresden Volkszeitung" said, on the same day :

"Thus far the war maniacs of the Wiener Ballplatz have failed to
furnish proof that would justify Austria in the demands it has made
upon Servia. So long as the Austrian Government is not in a posi-
tion to do this, it places itself, by its provocative and insulting attacks
upon Servia, in a false position before all Europe. And even if Servia's
guilt was proven, even if the assassination in Serajewo had actually
been prepared under the eyes of the Servian Government, the demands
made in the note are far in excess of normal bounds. Only the most
unscrupulous war lust can explain such demands upon another
state. . ."

The "Muenchener Post," on July 25th, wrote :

"This Austrian note is a document unequalled in the history of the
last two centuries. Upon the findings of an investigation whose con-
tents have, till now, been kept from the European public, without
court proceedings against the murderer of the heir-presumptive and
his spouse, it makes demands on Servia, the acceptance of which
would mean national suicide to Servia. . ."

%6 THE CRISIS

The "Schleswig-Holstein Volkszeitung" declared, on the 24th of
Juiy:

"Austria is provoking Servia. Austria-Hungary wants war, and is
committing a crime that may drown all Europe in blood. . . Austria
is playing va banque. It dares a provocation of the Servian state that
the latter, if it is not entirely defenseless, will certainly refuse to
tolerate. . .

"Every civilized person must protest emphatically against the
criminal behavior of the Austrian rulers. It is the duty of the
workers above all, and of all other human beings who honor peace
and civilization, to try their utmost to prevent the consequences of
the bloody insanity that has broken out in Vienna."

The "Magdeburger Volksstimme" of July 25th said :

"Any Servian Government that even pretended to consider these
demands seriously would be swept out in the same hour by the Parlia-
ment and by the people.

"The action of Austria is the more despicable because Berchtold
is standing before the Servian Government and before Europe with
empty hands.

"To precipitate a war such as this at the present time, means to
invite a world war. To act thus shows a desire to disturb the peace
of an entire hemisphere. One cannot thus make moral conquests, or
convince non-participants of one's own righteousness. It can be
safely assumed that the press of Europe, and with it the European
governments, will call the vainglorious and senseless Viennese states-
men energetically and unmistakably to order."

On July 24th the "Frankfurter Volksstimme" wrote:

"Upheld by the agitation of the clerical press, which mourns in Franz
Ferdinand its best friend and demands that his death be avenged
upon the Servian people, upheld by German war patriots whose lan-
guage becomes daily more contemptible and more threatening, the
Austrian Government has allowed itself to be driven to send an ulti-
matum to Servia couched in language that, for presumptuousness,
leaves little to be desired; containing demands whose fulfillment by
the Servian Government is manifestly impossible."

On the same day the "Elberf elder Freie Presse" wrote :
"A telegram of the semi-official Wolf Bureau reports the terms of
the demands made on Servia by Austria. From these it may be

THE CRISIS * 27

gathered that the rulers in Vienna are pushing toward war with
all their might. For the conditions imposed by the note that was
presented in Belgrade last night are nothing short of a protectorate
of Austria over Servia. It is eminently necessary that the diplomats
of Berlin make the war agitators of Vienna und€rstand that Germany
will not move a finger to support such outrageous demands, that a
withdrawal of the threats would be advisable."

The "Bergische Arlbeiterstimme" of Solingen writes:

"Austria demands a conflict with Servia, and uses the assassination
at Serajewo as a pretext for putting Servia morally in the wrong.
But the whole matter has b^en approached too clumsily to influence
European public opinion.

"But if the war agitators of the Wiener Ballplatz believe that their
allies of the Triple Alliance, Germany and Italy, will come to their
assistance in a conflict in which Russia, too, will be involved, they
are suffering from a dangerous illusion. Italy would welcome the
weakening of Austria-Hungary, its rival on the Adriatic and in the
Balkans, and would certainly decline to burn its fingers to help
Austria. In Germany, on the other hand, the powers that be — even
should they be so foolish as to wish it — would not dare to risk the
life of a single soldier to satisfy the criminal lust for power of the
Hapsburgers without arousing the fury of the entire people."

Thus the entire working-class press, without exception, judged
the war's causes a week before its outbreak. Obviously the ques-
tion was one of neither the existence nor the freedom of Ger-
many, but a shamefid adventure of the Austrian war party ; not
a question of self-defense, national protection and a holy war
forced upon us in the name of freedom, but a bold provocation, an
abominable threat against foreign, Servian, independence and
liberty.

What was it that happened on August fourth to turn this
clearly defined and so unanimously accepted attitude of the
Social-Democracy upside down? Only one new factor had ap-
peared— the White Book that was presented to the Reichstag by
the German Government on that day. And this contained, on
page 4, the following:

28 THE CRISIS

"Under these circumstances Austria must say to itself that it
is incompatible with the dignity and the safety of the monarchy
to remain inactive any longer in face of the occurrences across
the border. The Austrian Imperial Government has notified us
of this, their attitude, and has begged us to state our views. Out
of a full heart we could but assure our Ally of our agreement
with this interpretation of conditions and assure him that any
action that would seem necessary to put an end to Servian
attempts against the existence of the Austrian monarchy would
meet with our approval. We fully realized that eventual war
measures undertaken by Austria must bring Russia ioto the situ-
ation and that we, in order to carry out our duty as ally, might
be driven into war. But we could not, realizing as we did that
the most vital interests of Austria-Hungary were threatened,
advise our ally to adopt a policy of acquiescence, that could not
possibly be brought into accord with its dignity, nor could we
refuse to lend our aid in this attitude.

"And we were particularly prevented from taking this stand by
the fact that the persistent subversive Serbian agitation serious-
ly jeopardized us. If the Serbians had been permitted, with the
aid of Russia and France, to continue to threaten the existence
of the neighboring monarchy, there would have ensued a gradual
collapse of Austria and a subjection of all the Slavic races under
the Russian sceptre, which would have rendered untenable the
situation of the Germanic race in Central Europe. A morally
weakened Austria, succumbing before the advance of Russian
Panslavism, would no longer be an ally on which we could count
and depend, as we are obliged to do in view of the increasingly
menacing attitude of our neighbors to the East and to the West
We therefore gave Austria a free hand in her proceedings against
Serbia. We have had no share in the preparations."

These were the words that lay before the social-democratic
Reichstag group on August 4th, the only important and deter-

THE CRISIS 29

mining phrases in the entire White Book, a concise declaration of
the German Government beside which all other yellow, grey, blue,
orange books on the diplomatic passages that preceded the war
and its most immediate causes become absolutely irrevelant and
insignificant. Here the Reichstag group had the key to a correct
judgment of the situation in hand. The entire social-democratic
press, a week before, had cried out that the Austrian ultimatum
was a criminal provocation of the world war and demanded
preventative and pacific action on the part of the German Gov-
ernment. The entire socialist press assiuned that the Austrian
ultimatum had descended upon the German Government like a
bolt from the blue as it had upon the German public. But now
the White Book declared, briefly and clearly : 1. That the Aus-
trian Government had requested German sanction before taking
a final step against Servia. 2. That the German Government
clearly understood that the action tmdertaken by Austria would
lead to war with Servia, and ultimately, to European war. 3. That
the German Government did not advise Austria to give in, but
on the contrary declared that an acquiescent, weakened Austria
could not be regarded as a worthy ally of Germany. 4. That
the German Government assured Austria, before it advanced
against Servia, of its assistance under all circumstances, in case
of war, and finally, 5. That the German Government, withal, had
not reserved for itself control over the decisive ultimatum from
Austria to Servia, upon which the whole world war depended, but
had left to Austria "an absolutely free hand."

All of this our Reichstag group learned on August 4th. And
still another fact it learned from the Government — ^that German
forces already had invaded Belgium. And from all this the
Social-Democratic group concluded that this is a war of defense
against foreign invasion, for the existence of the fatherland, for
"Kultur," a war for liberty against Russian despotism.

Was the obvious background of the war, and the scenery that
so scantily concealed it, was the whole diplomatic performance

80 THE CRISIS

that was acted out at the outbreak of the war, with its clamor
about a world of enemies, all threatening the life of Germany,
all moved by the one desire to weaken, to humiliate, to subjugate
the German people and nation — were all these things such a
complete surprise? Did these factors actually call for more
judgment, more critical sagacity than they possessed? Nowhere
was this less true than of our Party. It had already gone through
two great German wars, and in both of them had received mem-
orable lessons.

Even a poorly-informed student of history knows that the war
of 1866 against Austria was systematically prepared by Bismarck
long before it broke out, and that his policies, from the very
beginning, led inevitably to a rupture and to war with Austria.
The Crown Prince himself, the later Emperor Frederick, in his
memoirs under the date of November 14th of that year, speaks
of this purpose of the Chancellor:

"He (Bismarck), when he went into office, was firmly resolved
to bring Prussia to a war with Austria, but was very careful
not to betray this purpose, either at that time or on any other
premature occasion to his Majesty, until the time seemed
favorable."

"Compare with this confession," says Auer in his brochure
'Die Sedanfeier und die Sozialdemokratie,' "the proclamation
that King William sent out 'to my people.' "

"The Fatherland is in danger! Austria and a large part of
Germany have risen in arms against us.

"It is only a few years ago since I, of my own free will, without
thinking of former misunderstandings, held out a fraternal hand
to Austria in order to save a German nation from foreign dom-
ination. But my hopes have been blasted. Austria cannot forget
that its lords once ruled Germany ; it refuses to see in the younger,
more virile Prussia an ally, but persists in regarding it as a dan-
gerous rival. Prussia — so it believes — ^must be opposed in all its

THE CRISIS 31

aims, because whatever favors Prussia harms Austria. The old
unholy jealousy has again broken out; Prussia is to be weakened,
destroyed, dishonored. All treaties with Prussia are void, Ger-
man lords are not only called upon, but persuaded, to sever their
alliance with Prussia. Wherever we look, in Germany, we are
surrounded by enemies whose war cry is — Down with Prussia!"

Praying for the blessings of heaven, King William ordered a
general day of prayer and penance for the 18th of July, saying:

"It has not pleased God to crown with success my attempts
to preserve the blessings of peace for my people."

Should not the official accompaniment to the outbreak of the
war on August 4th have awakened in the minds of our group
vivid memories of long remembered words and melodies? Had
they completely forgotten their party history?

But not 'enough! In the year 1870 there came the war with
France, and history has united its outbreak with an unforgettable
occurrence; the Ems dispatch, a document that has become a
classic byword for capitalist-government art in war making, and
which marks a memorable episode in our party history. Was it
not old Liebknecht, was it not the German Social-Democracy who
felt in duty bound, at that time, to disclose these facts and to
show to the masses "how wars are made ?"

Making war simply and solely for the protection of the Father-
land was, by the way, not Bismarck's invention. He only carried
out, with characteristic unscrupulousness, an old, well known and
truly international recipe of capitalist statesmanship. When and
where has there been a war since so-called public opinion has
played a role in governmental calculations, in which each and
every belligerent party did not, with a heavy heart, draw the
sword from its sheath for the single and sole purpose of defend-
ing its Fatherland and its own righteous course from the shameful
attacks of the enemy? This legend is as inextricably a part of
the game of war as powder and lead. The game is old. Only,
that the Social-Deraocra:tic Party should play it is new.

THE CRISIS

CHAPTER III.

Our Party should have been prepared to recognize the real
aims of this war, to meet it without surprise, to judge it by its
deeper relationship according to their wide political experience.
The events and forces that led to August 4th, 1914, were no
secrets. The world had been preparing for decades, in broad
daylight, in the widest publicity, step by step and hour by hour,
for the world war. And if today a number of Socialists threaten
with horrible destruction the "secret diplomacy" that has brewed
this deviltry behind the scenes, they are ascribing to these poor
wretdies a magic power that they little deserve, just as the Boto-
kude whips his fetish for the outbreak of a storm. The so-called
captains of nations are, in this war, as at all times, merely chess-
men, moved by all-powerful historic events and forces, on the
surface of capitalist society. If ever there were persons capable
of understanding these events and occurrences, it was the mem-
bers of the German Social-Democracy.

Two lines of development in recent history lead straight to
the present war. One has its origin in the period when the so-
called national states, i. e. the modern states, were first constituted,
from the time of the Bismarckian war against France. The war
of 1870, which, by the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, threw the
French Republic into the arms of Russia, split Europe into two
opposing camps and opened up a period of insane competitive
armament, first piled up the fire-brands for the present world
conflagration. Bismarck's troops were still stationed in France
when Marx wrote to the "Braunschweiger Ausschuss":

"He who is not deafened by the momentary clamor and is not
interested in deafening the German people, must see that the war
of 1870 carries with it, of necessity, a war between Germany and
Russia, just as the war of 1866 bore the war of 1870. I say
of necessity, unless the unlikely should happen, unless a revolu-

THE CRISIS 33

tion breaks out in Russia before that time. K this does not occur,
a war between Germany and Russia may even now be regarded
as 'un fait accompli.' It depends entirely upon the attitude of the
German victor to determine whether this war has been useful or
dangerous. If they take Alsace-Lorraine, then France with
Russia will arm against Germany. It is superfluous to point out
the disastrous consequences."

At that time this prophecy was laughed down. The bonds
which united Russia and Prussia seemed so strong that it was
considered madness to believe in a union of autocratic Russia with
Republican France. Those who supported this conception were
laughed at as madmen. And yet everything that Marx has
prophesied has happened, to the last letter. "For that is," says
Auer in his Sedanfeier, "social-democratic politics, seeing things
clearly as they are, and difTering therein from the day-by-day
politics of the others, bowing blindly down before every momen-
tary success."

This must not be misunderstood to mean that the desire for
revenge for the robbery accomplished by Bismarck has driven
the French into a war with Germany, that the kernel of the
present war is to be found in the much discussed "revenge for
Alsace-Lorraine." This is the convenient nationaHst legend of
the German war agitator, who creates fables of a darkly-brooding
France that "cannot forget" its defeat, just as the Bismarckian
press-savants ranted of the dethroned Princess Austria who
could not forget her erstwhile superiority over the charming Cin-
derella Prussia. As a matter of fact revenge for Alsace-
Lorraine has become the theatrical property of a couple of
patriotic clowns, the "Lion de Belfort" nothing more than an
ancient survival.

The annexation of Alsace-Lorraine long ago ceased to play a
role in French politics, being superseded by new, more pressing
cares; and neither the government nor any serious party in
France thought of a war with Germany because of these terri-

34 THE CRISIS

tories. If, nevertheless, the Bismarck heritage has become the fire-
brand that started this world conflagration, it is rather in the
sense of having driven Germany on the one hand, and France,
and with it all of Europe, on the other, along the downward
path of military competition, of having brought about the Franco-
Russian alliance, of having united Austria with Germany as an
inevitable consequence. This gave to Russian Czarism a tremen-
dous prestige as a factor in European politics. Germany and
France have systematically fawned before Russia for her favor.
At that time the links were forged that united Germany with
Austria-Hungary, whose strength, as the words quoted from the
"White Book" show, lie in their "brotherhood in arms," in the
present war.

Thus the war of 1870 brought in its wake the outward political
grouping of Europe about the axes of the Franco-German
antagonism, and established the rule of militarism in the lives of
the European peoples. Historical development has given to this
rule and to this grouping an entirely new content. The second
line that leads to the present world war, and which again bril-
liantly justifies Marx's prophecy, has its origin in international oc-
currences that Marx did not live to see, in the imperialist develop-
ment of the last 25 years.

The growth of capitalism, spreading out rapidly over a recon-
stituted Europe after the war period of the 60s and 70s, particu-
larly after the long period of depression that followed the in-
flation and the panic of the year 1873, reaching an unnatural
zenith in the prosperity of the 90s, opened up a new period of
storm and danger among the nations of Europe. They were
competing in their expansion toward the non-capitalist countries
and zones of the world. As early as the 80s a strong tendency
toward colonial expansion became apparent. England secured
control of Egypt and created for itself, in South Africa, a power-
ful colonial empire. France took possession of Tunis in North
Africa and Tonkin in East Asia; Italy gained a foothold in

THE CRISIS 35

Abyssinia ; Russia accomplished its conquests in Central Asia and
pushed forward into Manchuria ; Germany won its first colonies
in Africa and in the South Sea, and the United States joined
the circle when it procured the Phillipines with "interests" in
Eastern Asia. This period of feverish conquests has brought on,
beginning with the Chinese- Japanese War in 1895, a practically
uninterrupted chain of bloody wars, reaching its height in the
great Chinese invasion, and closing with the Russo-Japanese War
of 1904.

All these occurrences, coming blow upon blow, created new,
extra-European antagonisms on all sides : between Italy and France
in Northern Africa, between France and England in Egypt, be-
tween England and Russia in Central Asia, between Russia and
Japan in Eastern Asia, between Japan and England in China,
between the United States and Japan in the Pacific Ocean — a
very restless ocean, full of sharp conflicts and temporary alliances,
of tension and relaxation, threatening every few years to break
out into a war between European powers. It was clear to every-
body, therefore, (1) that the secret underhand war of each
capitalist nation against every other, on the backs of Asiatic and
African j)eoples must sooner or later lead to a general reckoning,
that the wind that was sown in Africa and Asia, would return to
Europe as a terrific storm, the more certainly since increased
armament of the European States was the constant associate of
these Asiatic and African occurrences; (2) that the European
world war would have to come to an outbreak as soon as the
partial and changing conflicts between the imperialist states
found a centralized axis, a conflict of sufficient magnitude to
group them, for the time being, into large, opposing factions.
This situation was created by the appearance of German im-
perialism.

In Germany one may study the development of imperialism,
crowded as it was into the shortest possible space of time, in
concrete form. The unprecedented rapidity of German indus-

36 THE CRISIS

trial and commercial development since the foundation of the
Empire, brought out during the 80s two characteristically
peculiar forms of capitalist accumulation; the most pronounced
growth of monopoly in Europe and the best developed and most
concentrated banking system in the whole world. The monop-
olies have organized the steel and iron industry, i. e., the branch
of capitalist endeavor most interested in government orders, in
militaristic equipment and in imperialistic undertakings (railroad
building, the exploitation of mines, etc.) into the most influential
factor in the nation. The latter has cemented the money in-
terests into a firmly organized whole, with the greatest, most
virile energy, creating a power that autocratically rules the
industry, commerce and credit of the nation, dominant in private
as well as public affairs, boundless in its powers of expansion,
ever hungry for profit and activity, impersonal, and therefore
liberal-minded, reckless and unscrupulous, international by its
very nature, ordained by its capacities to use the world as its
stage.

Germany is under a personal regime, with strong initiative and
spasmodic activity, with the weakest kind of parliamentarism,
incapable of opposition, uniting all capitalist strata in the sharp-
est opposition to the working class. It is obvious that this live,
unhampered imperialism, coming upon the world stage at a time
when the world was practically divided up, with gigantic ap-
petites, soon became an irresponsible factor of general unrest.

This was already foreshadowed by the radical upheaval that
took place in the military policies of the Empire at the end of
90's. At that time two naval budgets were introduced which
doubled the naval power of Germany and provided for a naval
program covering almost two decades. This meant a sweeping
change in the financial and trade policy of the nation. In the
first place, it involved a striking change in the foreign policy of
the Empire. The policy of Bismarck was founded upon the
principle that the Empire is and must remain a land power, that

THE CRISIS 37

the German fleet, at best, is but a very dispensible requisite for
coastal defence. Even the secretary of state, Hollmann, de-
clared in March, 1897, in the Budget Commission of the Reich-
stag: "We need no navy for coastal defence. Our coasts pro-
tect themselves," With the two naval bills an entirely new
program was promulgated : on land and sea, Germany first ! This
marks the change from Bismarckian continental policies to
"Welt-Politik," from the defensive to the offensive as the end
and aim of Germany's military program. The language of these
facts was so unmistakable that the Reichstag itself furnished the
necessary commentary. Lieber, the leader of the Centrum at
that time, spoke on the 11th of March, 1896, after a famo.us speech
of the emperor on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the
founding of the German Empire, which had developed the new
program as a forerunner to the naval bills, in which he mentioned
"shoreless naval plans" against which Germany must be pre-
pared to enter into active opposition. Another Centrum leader,
Schadler, cried out in the Reichstag on March 23rd, 1898, when
the first naval bill was under discussion, "The nation believes that
we cannot be first on land and first on sea. You answer, gentle-
men, that is not what we want ! Nevertheless, gentlemen, you are
at the beginning of such a conception, at a very strong begin-
ning!" When the second bill came, the same Schadler declared
in the Reischstag on the fifth of February, 1900, referring to
previous promises that there would be no further naval bills,
"and today comes this bill, which means nothing more and noth-
ing less than the inauguration of a world fleet, as a basis of
support for world policies, by doubling our navy and binding
the next two decades by our demands." As a matter of fact
the government openly defended the political program of its new
course of action. On December 11th, 1899, Von Buelow, at that
time state secretary of the foreign office, in a defence of the
second naval bill stated, "when the English speak of *a greater
Britain,' when the French talk of *la nouvelle France,' when

38 THE CRISIS

the Russians open up Asia for themselves, we too have a right to
aspire to a greater Germany. If we do not create a navy suffi-
cient to protect our trade, our natives in foreign lands, our mis-
sions and the safety of our shores, we are threatening the most
vital interests of our nation. In the coming century the German
people will be either the hammer or the anvil." Strip this of its
coastal defence ornamentation, and there remains the colossal
program: greater Germany, as the hammer upon other nations.

It is not difficult to determine the direction toward which
these provocations, in the main, were directed. Germany was to
become the rival of the world's great naval force — England.
And England did not fail to understand. The naval reform
bills, and the speeches that ushered them in, created a lively un-
rest in England, an unrest that has never again subsided. In
March, 1910, Lord Robert Cecil said in the House of Commons,
during a naval debate: "I challenge any man to give me a
plausible reason for the tremendous navy that Germany is build-
ing up, other than to take up the fight against England." The
fight for supremacy on the ocean that lasted for one and a half
decades on both sides and culminated in the feverish building of
dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts, was, in efiFect, the war
between Germany and England. The naval bill of December
11, 1899, was a declaration of war by Germany, which England
answered on August 4, 1914.

It should be noted that this fight for naval supremacy had
nothing in common with the economic rivalry for the world
market. The English "monopoly of the world market" which
ostensibly hampered German industrial development, so much
discussed at the present time, really belongs to the sphere of
those war legends of which the ever green French "Revanche" is
^ the most useful. This "monopoly" had become an old time
fairy tale, to the lasting regret of the English capitalists. The
industrial development of France, Belgium, Italy, Russia, India
and Japan, and above all, of Germany and America, had put an

THE CRISIS 39

«

end to this monopoly of the first half of the 19th century. Side
by side with England, one nation after another stepped into the
world market, capitalism developed automatically, and with'
gigantic strides, into world economy.

English supremacy on the sea, which has robbed so many
social-democrats of their peaceful sleep, and which, it seems to
these gentlemen, must be destroyed to preserve international
socialism, had, up to this time, disturbed German capitalism so
little that the latter was able to grow up into a lusty youth,
with bursting cheeks, under its "yoke." Yes, England itself, and
its colonies, were the cornerstone for German industrial growth.
And similarly, Germany became, for the English nation, its most
important and most necessary customer. Far from standing in
each other's way, British and German capitalist development
were mutually highly interdependent, and united by a far-reach-
ing system of division of labor, strongly augmented by England's
free trade policy. German trade and its interests in the world
market, therefore, had nothing whatever to do with a change of
front in German politics and with the building of its fleet.

Nor did German colonial possessions at that time come into
conflict with the English control of the seas. German colonies
were not in need of protection by a first-class sea power. No
one, certainly not England, envied Germany her possessions.
That they were taken during the war by England and Japan,
that the booty had changed owners, is but a generally accepted
war measure, just as German imperialist appetites clamor for
Belgium, a desire that no man outside of an insane asylum would
have dared to express in time of peace. Southeast and South-
west Africa, Wilhelmsland or Tsingtau would never have
caused any war, by land or by sea, between Germany and Eng-
land. In fact, just before the war broke out, a treaty regulating
a peaceable division of the Portuguese colonies in Africa between
these two nations had been practically completed.

40 THE CRISIS

When Germany unfolded its banner of naval power and world
policies it announced the desire for new and far reaching con-
quest in the world by German imperialism. By means of a first
class aggressive navy, and by military forces that increased in
a parallel ratio, the apparatus for a future policy was established,
opening wide the doors for unprecedented possibilities. Naval
building and military armaments became the glorious business of
German industry, opening up a boundless prospect for further
operations by trust and bank capital in the whole wide world.
Thus, the acquiescence of all capitalist parties and their rallying
under the flag of imperialism was assured. The Centrum fol-
lowed the example of the National Liberals, the staunchest de-
fenders of the steel and iron industry, and, by adopting the naval
bill it had loudly denounced in 1900, became the party of the
government. The Progressives trotted after the Centrum when
the successor to the naval bill — ^the high-tariff party — came up;
while the Junkers, the staunchest opponents of the "horrid navy"
and of the Canal, brought up the rear as the most enthusiastic
porkers and parasites of the very policy of sea-militarism and
colonial robbery they had so vehemently opposed. The Reich-
stag election of 1907, the so-called Hottentot Elections, found
the whole of Germany in a paroxism of imperialistic enthusiasm,
firmly united under one flag, that of the Germany of von Buelow,
the Germany that felt itself ordained to play the role-of the ham-
mer in the world. These elections, with their spiritual progrom
atmosphere, were a prelude to the Germany of August 4th, a
challenge not only to the German working class, but to other
capitalist nations as well, a challenge directed to no one in
particular, a mailed fist shaken in the face of the entire world.

THE CRISIS 41

CHAPTER IV.

Turkey became the most important field of operations of Ger-
man imperialism ; the "Deutsche Bank," with its enormous Asiatic
business interests, about which all German oriental policies center,
became its pacemaker. In the 50's and 60's Asiatic Turkey
worked chiefly with English capital, which built the railroad from
Smyrna and leased the first stretch of the Anatolian railroad,
up to Ismid. In 1888 German capital appeared upon the scene
and procured from Abdul Hamid the control of the railroad
that English capital had built and the franchise for the new
stretch from Ismid to Angora and branch lines to Scutari, Brussa,
Konia and Kaizarili. In 1899 the Deutsche Bank secured con-
cessions for the building and operation of a harbor and improve-
ments in Hardar Pasha, and the sole control over trade and tariff
collections in the harbor. In 1901 the Turkish Government
turned over to the Deutsche Bank the concession for the great
Bagdad railroad to the Persian Gulf, in 1907 for the drainage
of the Sea of Karaviran and the irrigation of the Koma plain.

The reverse of this wonderful work of "peaceful culture" is
the "peaceful" and wholesale ruin of the farming population of
Asia Minor. The cost of this tremendous undertaking was
advanced, of course, by the Deutsche Bank on the security of a
widely diversified system of public indebtedness. Turkey will
be, to all eternity, the debtor of Messrs. Siemens, Gwinner,
Helfferich, etc., as it was formerly that of English, French and
Austrian capital. This debtor, now, was forced not only to
squeeze enormous sums out of the state to pay the interest on
these loans, but, in addition, to guarantee a net income upon the
railway thus built. The most modern methods of transportation
were grafted upon a primitive, in many cases purely agricultural,
population. From the unfruitful soil of farming sections that
had been exploited unscrupulously, for years, by an oriental

42 THE CRISIS

despotism, producing scarcely enough to feed the jJopulation
after the huge state debts had been paid, it is practically impossi-
ble to secure the profits demanded by the railroads. Freight and
traveling are exceedingly undeveloped, since the industrial and
cultural character of the region is most primitive, and can im-
prove only at a slow rate. The deficit that must be paid to
raise the required profit is, therefore, paid by the Turkish Gov-
ernment in the form of a so-called kilometer guarantee. Euro-
pean Turkey was built up according to this system by Austrian
and French capital, and the same system has been adopted by the
Deutsche Bank in its operations in Asiatic Turkey. As bond and
surety that the subsidy will be paid, the Turkish Government
has handed over to the representatives of European capital, the
so-called Executive Board in control of public debt, the main
source of Turkish national income, which has given to the
Deutsche Bank the right to collect the tithe from a number of
provinces. In this way, for instance, the Turkish Govern-
ment paid, from 1893 to 1910, for the railroad to Angora and
for the line from Eskishehir to Konia, a subsidy of about
9,000,000 Frcs. The tithes thus leased by the Turkish Govern-
ment to its European creditors are ancient payments rendered in
produce such as corn, sheep, silk, etc. They are not collected
directly but through sub-lessees, somewhat similar to the famous
tax-collectors, so notorious in pre-revolutionary France, the state
selling the right to raise the amount requjred from each vilayet
(province) by auction, against cash payment. When the specu-
lator or company has thus procured the right to collect the tithe
of a vilayet, it, in turn, sells the tithe of each individual sanjak
(district) to other speculators, who again divide their portion
among a veritable band of smaller agents. Since each one
of these collectors must not only cover his own expenses but
secure as large a profit as possible besides, the tithe grows like
a landslide as it approaches the farmer. If the lessee has been
mistaken in his calculation, he seeks to recompense himself at

THE CRISIS 43

the expense of the farmer. The latter, practically always in
debt, waits impatiently for the time when he can sell his crop.
But after his grain is cut he must frequently wait for weeks be-
fore the tithe collector comes to take his portion. The collector,
who is usually graindealer as well, exploits this need of the
farmer whose crop threatens to rot in the field, and persuades
him to sell at a reduced price, knowing full well that it will be
easy to secure the assistance of public officials and particularly
of the muktar (town mayor) against the dissatisfied. When no
tax-collector can be found the government itself collects the
tithe in produce, puts it into storage houses and turns it over
as part payment to the capitalists. This is the inner mechanism
of the "industrial regeneration of Turkey" by European capital.

Thus a twofold purpose is accomplished. The farming popu-
lation of Asia Minor becomes the object of a well organized
process of exploitation in the interest of European, in this case
German, financial and industrial capital. This again promotes
rhe growth of the German sphere of interest in Turkey and lays
the foundation for Turkey's "political protection." At the same
time the instrument that carries out the exploitation of the farm-
ing population, the Turkish Government, becomes the willing
tool and vassal of Germany's foreign policies. For many year<5
Turkish finance, tariff policies, taxation and state expenditures
have been under European control. German influence has made
itself particularly felt in the Turkish military organization.

It is obvious from the foregoing, that the interests of German
imperialism demand the protection of the Turkish State, to the
extent at least of preventing its complete disintegration. The
liquidation of Turkey would mean its division between England,
Russia, Italy, and Greece among others and the basis for a large-
scale operation by German capital would vanish. Moreover, an
extraordinary increase in the power of Russia, England and the
Mediterranean States would result. For (jerman imperialism,
therefore, the preservation of this accommodating apparatus of

44 THE CRISIS

the "independent Turkish State," the "integrity" of Turkey is a
matter of necessity. And this necessity will exist until such time
as this state will fall, having been consumed from within by
German capital, as was Egypt by England and more recently
Morocco by France, into the lap of Germany. The well known
spokesman of German imperialism, Paul Rohrbach, expressed this
candidly and honestly when he said:

"In the very nature of things Turkey, surrounded on all sides
by envious neighbors, must seek the support of a power that has
practically no territorial interests in the Orient. That power is
Germany. We, on the other hand, would be at a disadvantage
if Turkey should disappear. If Russia and England fall heir to
the Turkish State, obviously it will mean to both of these states
a considerable increase in power. But even if Turkey should
be so divided that we should also secure an extensive portion,
it would mean for us endless difficulties. Russia, England, and
in a certain sense France and Italy as well, are neighbors of
present Turkish possessions and are in a position to hold and
defend their portion by land and by sea. But we have no direct
connection with the Orient. A German Asia Minor or Mesopo-
tamia can become a reality only if Russia, and in consequence
France as well, should be forced to relinquish their present politi-
cal aims and ideals, i. e., if the world-war should take a decisive
turn in favor of German interests." — {The War and German
Policy, page 36).

Germany swore solemnly on November 8th, 1898, in Damascus,
by the shadow of the great Saladin, to protect and to preserve
the Mohammedan world and the green flag of the Prophet, and
in so doing strengthened the regime of the bloody Sultan Abdul
Hamid for over a decade. It has been able, after a short period
of estrangement, to exert the same influence upon the Young
Turk regime. Aside from conducting the profitable business of
the Deutsche Bank, the German mission busied itself chiefly with
the reorganization and training of Turkish militarism, under

THE CRISIS 45

German instructors with von der Goltz Pascha at the head. The
modernization of the army, of course, piled new burdens upon
the Turkish farmers, but it was a splendid business arrangement
for Krupp and the Deutsche Bank. At the same time Turkish
militarism became entirely dependent upon Prussian militarism,
and became the centre of German ambitions in the Mediterranean
and in Asia Minor.

That this "regeneration" of Turkey is a purely artificial at-
tempt to galvanize a corpse, the fate of the Turkish revolutions
best shows. In the first stage, while ideal considerations stii)
predominated in the Young Turkish movement, when it was stiU
fired with ambitious plans and illusions of a real springtime of
life and of a rejuvenation for Turkey, its political sympathies
were decidedly in favor of England. This country seemed to
them to represent the ideal state of modern liberal rule, while
(Germany, which had so long played the role of protector of the
holy regime of the old sultan was felt to be its natural opponent.
For a while it seemed as if the revolution of 1908 would mc.in
the bankruptcy of German oriental policies. It seemed certain
that the overthrow of Abdul Hamid would go hand in hand
with the downfall of German influence. As the Young Turks
assumed power, however, and showed their complete inability to
carry out any modern industrial, social or national reform on a
large scale, as the counter-revolutionary hoof became more and
more apparent, they turned of necessity to the tried and proven
methods of Abdul Hamid, which meant periodic bloody massacres
of oppressed peoples, goaded on until they flew at each other's
throats, boundless, truly oriental exploitation of the farming
population became the foundation of the nation. The artificial
restoration of rule by force again became the most important
consideration for "Young Turkey" and the traditional alliance
of Abdul Hamid with Germany was reestablished as the deciding
factor in the foreign policy of Turkey.

The multiplicity of national problems that threaten to dis-

46 THE CRISIS

rupt the Turkish nation make its regeneration a hopeless under-
taking. The Armenian, Curdian, Syrian, Arabian, Greek, and
(up to the most recent times) the Albanian and Macedonian
questions, the manifold economic and social problems that exist
in the different parts of the realm, are a serious menace. The
growth of a strong, a hopeful, capitalism in the neighboring
Balkan states and the long years of destructive activity of inter-
national capital and international diplomacy stamp every attempt
to hold together this rotting pile of timber as nothing but a re-
actionary undertaking. This has long been apparent, particularly
to the German Social-Democracy. As early as 1896, at the
time of the Cretan uprising, the German Party press was filled
with long discussions on the Oriental problem, that led to a
revision of the attitude taken by Marx at the time of the Crimean
war and to the definite repudiation of the "integrity of Turkey"
as a heritage of European reaction. Nowhere was the Young
Turkish regime, its inner sterility and its counter-revolutionary
character, so quickly and so thoroughly recognized as in the Ger-
man Social-Democratic press. It was a real Prussian idea, this
building of strategic railroads for rapid mobilization, this sending
of capable military instructors to prop up the cnmibling edifice
of the Turkish State.

In 191^ the Young Turkish regiment was forced to abdicate
to the counter-revolution. Characteristically, the first act of
"Turkish regeneration" in this war was a coup d'etat, the annihi-
lation of the constitution. In this respect too tTiere was a formal
leturn to the rule of Abdul Hamid.

The first Balkan war brought bankruptcy to Turkish militar-
ism, in spite of German training. And the present war, into
which Turkey was precipitated as Germany's "charge," will lead,
with inevitable fatality, to the further or to the final liquida-
tion of the Turkish Empire.

The position of German militarism — and its essence, the inter-
ests of the Deutsche Bank — has brought the German Empire in

THE CRISIS 47

the Orient into opposition to all other nations. Above all to
England. The latter had not only rival business relations and
fat profits in Mesopotamia and Anatolia which were forced to
retreat before their German rivals. This was a situation that
English capitalism grudgingly accepted. But the building of
strategic railroad, and the strengthening of Turkish militarism
under German influence was felt by England to be a sore point,
in a strategic question of its world political relations; lying as it
did at the cross roads between Central Asia, Persia and India, on
the one side, and Egypt on the other.

"England," writes Rohrbach in his Bagdadbahn, "can be at-
tacked and mortally wounded on land in Egypt. The loss of
Egypt will mean to England not only the loss of control over the
Suez Canal and its connections with India and Asia, but probably
the sacrifice of its possessions in Central and Eastern Africa as
well. A Mohammedan power like Turkey, moreover, could exer-
cise a dangerous influence over the 60 millions of Mohammedan
subjects of England in India, in Afghanistan and Persia, should
Turkey conquer Egypt. But Turkey can subjugate Egypt only
if it possesses an extended system of railroads in Asia Minor and
Syria, if by an extension of the Anatalion Railway it is able
to ward off an English attack upon Mesopotamia, if it increases
and improves its army, if its general economic and financial con-
ditions are improved."

And in his The War and German Policies, which was published
after the outbreak of the war, he says :

"The Bagdad Railroad was destined from the start to bring
Constantinople and .the military strongholds of the Turkish
Empire in Asia Minor into direct connection with Syria and the
provinces on the Euphrates and on the Tigris. Of course it was
to be foreseen that this railway, together with the projected and,
partly or wholly, completed railroads in Syria and Arabia, would
make it possible to use Turkish troops in the direction of Egypt.
No one will deny^that, should the Turkish-German alliance re-

48 THE CRISIS

main in force, and under a number of other important conditions
whose reaHzation will be even more difficult than this alliance,
the Bagdad Railway is a political life insurance policy for Ger-
many."

Thus the semi-official spokesman of German imperialism openly
revealed its plan and its aims in the Orient. Here German policies
were clearly marked out, and an aggressive fundamental tend-
ency most dangerous for the existing balance of world power,
with a clearly defined point against England, was disclosed. Ger-
man oriental policies became the concrete commentary to the
naval policy inaugurated in 1899.

With its program for Turkish integrity, Germany came into
conflict with the Balkan states, whose historic completion and
inner growth are dependent upon the liquidation of European
Turkey. It came into conflict with Italy, finally, whose imperial-
istic appetite was likewise longing for Turkish possessions. At
the Morocco Conference at Algeciras in 1905, Italy already sided
with England and France. Six years later the Italian expedi-
tion to Tripolis, which followed the Austrian annexation of
Bosnia and gave the signal for the Balkan War, already indicated
a withdrawal of Italy, foreshadowed the disruption of the Triple
Alliance and the isolation of German policies on this side as well.
The other tendency of German expansionist desires in the west
became evident in the Morocco affair. Nowhere was the negation
of the Bismarck policy in Germany more clearly shown. Bis-
marck, as is well known, supported the colonial aspirations of
France in order to distract its attention from Alsace-Lorraine.
The new course of Germany, on the other hand, ran exactly
counter to French colonial expansion. Conditions in Morocco
were quite different from those that prevailed in Asiatic Turkey.
Germany had few legitimate interests in Morocco. To be sure,
German imperialists pufiFed up the claims of the German firm of
Mannesmann, which had made a loan to the Moroccan sultan
and demanded mining concessions in return, into a national issue.

THE CRISIS 49

But the well known fact that both of these rival groups in Mo-
rocco, the Mannesmann as well as the Krupp-Schneider Company
are a thoroughly international mixture of German, French and
Spanish capitalists, prevents anyone from seriously speaking of
a German sphere of interest. The more symptomatic was the
determination and the decisiveness with which the German
Empire, in 1905,«suddenly announced its claim to participation
in the regulation of Moroccan affairs, and protested against
French rule in Morocco. This was the first world-political clash
with France. In 1895 Germany, together with France and Rus-
sia, assumed a threatening attitude toward victorious Japan to
prevent it from exploiting its victory over China at Shimonoseki.
Five years later it went arm in arm. with France all along the
line on a plundering expedition against China. Morocco caused
a radical reorientation in Germany's relations with France. The
Morocco crisis which, in the seven years of its duration, twice
brought Europe to the verge of war between France and Ger-
many, was not a question of "revenge" for continental conflicts
between the two nations. An entirely new conflict had arisen,
German imperialism had come into competition with that of
France. In the end, Germany was satisfied with the French
Congo region, and in accepting this admitted that it had no spe-
cial interests to protect in Morocco itself. This very fact gave
to the German attack in Morocco a far reaching political signifi-
cance. The very indefinitiveness of its tangible aims and demands
betrayed its insatiable appetite, the seeking and feeling for prey —
it was a general imperialistic declaration of war against France.
The contrast between the two nations here was brought into
the limelight. On the one hand, a slow industrial development,
a stagnant population, a nation living on its investments, con-
cerned chiefly with foreign financial business, burdened with a
large number of colonial possessions that it could hold together
only with the utmost difficulty. On the other hand, a mighty
young giant, a capitalism forging toward the first place among

50 THE CRISIS

nations, going out into the world to hunt for colonies, English
colonies were out of the question. So the hunger of German im-
perialism, besides feeding on Asiatic Turkey, turned at once to
the French heritage. The French colonies moreover were a con-
venient bait with which Italy might eventually be attracted and
repaid for Austrian desires of expansion on the Balkan peninsula,
and be thus more firmly welded into the Triple Alliance by mutual
business interests. The demands Germany made upon French
imperialism were exceedingly disturbing, especially when it is
remembered that Germany, once it had taken a foothold in any
part of Morocco, could at any time set fire to the entire French
North-African possessions, whose inhabitants were in a chronic
state of incipient warfare with the French conquerors, by sup-
plying them with ammunition. Germany's final withdrawal for
suitable compensation did away with this immediate danger. But
they could not allay the general disturbance in France and the
world-political conflict that had been created.

Its Morocco policy not only brought Germany into conflict
with France but with England as well. Here in Morocco, in the
immediate neighborhood of Gibraltar, the second important
center of world-political interests of the British Government,
the sudden appearance of German imperialism with its demands,
and the drastic impresslveness with which these demands were
supported, were regarded as a demonstration against England as
well. Furthermore the first formal protest of 1911 was directed
specifically against the agreement of 1904 between England and
France concerning Egypt and Morocco. Germany insisted briefly
and definitely that England be disregarded In all further regula-
tions of Moroccan aflfalrs. The effect that such a demand was
certain to have on German-English relations is obvious. The
situation was commented upon in the Frankfurter Zeitung of
November 8, 1911, by a London correspondent:

"This is the outcome : a million negroes in Congo, a great
katzenjammer and a furious resentment against perfides Albion.

THE CRISIS 51

The katzenjammer Germany will live down. But what is to
become of our relations with England? As they stand today
matters are untenable. According to every historic probability
they will either lead to something worse, that is war, or they
will have to be speedily patched up . . . The trip of the Panther
was, as a Berlin correspondent so well said in the Frankfurter
Zeitung the other day, a dig into the ribs of France to show that
Germany is still here. . . Concerning the effect that this event
would create here, Berlin cannot possibly entertain the slightest
doubt. Certainly no correspondent in London was for a moment
in doubt that England would stand energetically on the side of
France. How can the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung still
insist that Germany must treat with France alone? For several
hundred years Europe has been the scene of a steadily increasing
interweaving of political interests. The misfortune of one, ac-
cording to the laws of politics, fills some with joy, others with
apprehension. When two years ago Austria had its difficulties
with Russia, Germany appeared upon the scene with shimmering
armor, although Vienna, as was afterwards stated, would have
preferred to settle matters without German intervention. It is
very unlikely that England, having just emerged from a period
of anti-German feeling, should consider that our dealings with
France are none of- its business. In the last analysis, it was a
question of might; for a dig in the ribs, be it ever so friendly,
is a very tangible matter. For no one can be quite sure when a
blow on the teeth may follow. Since then the situation has be-
come less critical. At the moment when Lloyd George spoke, the
danger of a war between Germany and England was acute. Are
we justified in expecting a different attitude from Sir Edward
Grey after the policies that he and his followers have been
pursuing? If Berlin entertained such ideas then it seems to me
that the German foreign policies have been weighed and found
wanting."

Thus did our imperialistic policies create sharp conflicts in

62 THE CRISIS

Asia Minor and in Morocco, between England and Germany,
between Germany and France. But what of German relations
with Russia? In the murderous spirit that took possession of
the German public during the first weeks of the war everything
seemed credible. The German populace believed that Belgian
women had gouged out the eyes of the German wounded, that
Cossacks ate tallow candles, that they had taken infants by the
legs and torn them to pieces; they believed that Russia aspired
to the annexation of the German empire, to the destruction of
German "Kultur," to the introduction of absolutism from Kiel
to Munich, from the Warthe to the Rhine. The Social-Democratic
Chemnitzer Volksstimme wrote on August 2nd:

"At this moment we all feel it our duty to fight first against the
Russian knout. German women and children shall not become the
victims of Russian bestiality, German territory must not fall into
the hands of the cossacks. For if the Entente is victorious, not the
French Republicans, but the Russian Tsar will rule over Germany.
In this moment we defend everything that we possess of German
culture and German freedom against a pitiless and barbarous foe."

On the same day the Fraenkische Tagespost cried out :

"Shall the cossacks, who have already taken possession of our
border towns, in their onrush on our country, bring destruction to
our cities? Shall the Russian Czar, whose love of peace the Social-
Democrats refused to trust even on the day when his peace manifesto
was published, who is the worst enemy of the Russian people them-
selves, rule over one man of German blood?"

And the Koenigsberger Volksseitung wrote on August 3rd :

"Not one of us can doubt, whether he is liable for military service
or not, that he must do everything to keep these worthless vandals
from our borders so long as the war may last. For if they should
be victorious, thousands of our comrades will be condemned to hor-
rible prison sentences. Under the Russian scepter there is no such
thing as self-expression of the people, no social-democratic press is al-
lowed to exist, social-democratic meetings and organizations are pro-

THE CRISIS 53

hibited. We cannot conceive for a moment the possibility of a Rus-
sian victory. While still upholding our opposition to war, we will all
work together to protect ourselves against these vandals that rule
the Russian nation."

We shall later enter a little more fully into the relations that
exist between German culture and Russian Czarism. They form
a chapter by itself in the position of the German Social-
Democracy on the war. This much may be said now, one might
with as much justification assume that the Czar desires to annex
Europe, or the moon, as to speak of his desire to annex Germany.
In the present war only two nations are threatened in their
national existence, Belgium and Servia. While we howled about
safeguarding the national existence of Germany, our cannon were
directed against these two states. It is impossible to discuss with
people who still believe in the possibilrty of ritual murder. But
to those who do not act from mob instinct, who do not think
in terms of clumsy slogans that are invented to catch the rabble,
who guide their thoughts by historic facts, it must be obvious that
Russian Czarism cannot have such intentions. Russia is ruled by
desperate criminals, but not by maniacs. And after all, the
policies of absolutism, in spite of all their characteristic differ-
ences, have this similarity in all nations, that they live not on thin
air but upon very real possibilities, in a realm where concrete
things come into the closest contact with each other. We need
have no fear of the arrest of our German comrades and their ban-
ishment to Siberia, nor of the introduction of Russian absolutism
into Germany. For the statesmen of the bloody Czar, with all
their mental inferiority, have a clearer materialistic conception
of the situation than some of our party editors. These statesmen
know very well that political forms of government cannot be
"introduced" anywhere and everywhere according to the desire
of the rulers ; they know full well that every form of government
is the outcome of certain economic and social foundations, they
know from bitter experience that even in Russia itself conditions

64 THE CRISIS

are almost beyond their power to control ; they know, finally, that
reaction in every country can use only the forms that are in
accord with the nature of the country, and that the absolutism
that is in accord with our class and party conditions is the Hohen-
zollern police state and the Prussian three-class electoral system.
A dispassionate consideration of the whole situation will show
that we need not fear that Russian Czarism, even if it should win
a complete victory over Germany, would feel called upon to do
away with these products of German culture.

In reality the conflicts that exist between Germany and Rus-
sia are of an entirely different nature. These differences are
not to be found in the field of inner politics. Quite the contrary :
their mutual tendencies and internal relationships have established
a century-old traditional friendship between the two nations.
But in spite of and notwithstanding their solidarity on questions
of inner policy, they have come to blows in the field of foreign,
world-political hunting grounds.

Russian imperialism, like that of western nations, consists of
widely diversified elements. Its strongest strain is not, how-
ever, as in Germany or England, the economic expansion of
capital, hungry for territorial accumulation, but the political
interests of the nation. To be sure, Russian industry can show
a considerable export to the Orient, to China, Persia and Central
Asia, and the Czarist Government seeks to encourage this export
trade because it furnishes a desirable foundation for its sphere
of interest. But national policies here play an active, not a
passive, role. On the one hand, the traditional tendencies of a
conquest-loving Czardom, ruling over a mighty nation whose
population today consists of 173 millions of human beings, de-
mand free access to the ocean, to the Pacific Ocean on the East,
to the Mediterranean on the South, for industrial as well as for
strategic reasons. On the other hand, the very existence of
absolutism, and the necessity of holding a respected place in the
world-political field, and finally the need of financial credit in

THE CRISIS 55

foreign countries, without which Czarism cannot exist, all play
their important part. We must add to these, as in every other
monarchy, the dynastic interest. Foreign prestige and temporary
forgetfulness of inner problems and difficulties are well known
family remedies in the art of ruling, when a conflict arises be-
tween the government and the great mass of the people.

But modem capitalist interests are becoming more and more
a factor in the imperialist aims of the Czarist nation. Russian
capitalism, still in its earliest youth, cannot hope to perfect its
development under an absolutist regime. On the whole it has
advanced little beyond the primitive stage of home industry. But
it sees a gigantic future before its eyes in the exploitation of the
nation's natural resources. As soon as Russia's absolutism is swept
away, of this there can be no doubt, Russia will develop rapidly
into the foremost capitalist nation, provided always that the in-
ternational situation will give it the time necessary for such
development. It is this hope, and the appetite for foreign markets
that will mean increased capitalistic development even at the
present time, that has filled the Russian bourgeoisie with imperial-
istic desires and led them to eagerly voice their demands in the
coming division of the world's resources. This historic desire
is actively supported by very tangible immediate interests. There
are, in the first place, the armament industry and its purveyors.
In the second place the conflicts with the "enemy within," the
revolutionary proletariat, have given to the Russian bourgeoisie
an increased appreciation of the powers of militarism and the
distracting effects of a world-political evangel. It has bound
together the various capitalist groups and the nobility under one
counter-revolutionary regime. The imperialism of bourgeois
Russia, particularly among the Liberals, has grown enormously
in the stormy atmosphere of the revolutionary period, and has
given to the traditional foreign policies of the Romanoffs a
modern stamp. Chief among the aims of the traditional policies
of monarchic Russia, as well as of the more modern appetites of

56 THE CRISIS

the Russian bourgeoisie, are the Dardanelles. They are, accord-
ing to the famous remark made by Bismarck, the latchkey to the
Russian possessions on the Black Sea. Since the eighteenth cen-
tury, Russia has waged a number of bloody wars against Turkey,
has undertaken its mission as the liberator of the Balkans, for the
realization of this goal. For this ideal, Russia has piled up
mountains of dead in Ismael, in Navarin, in Sinope, Silistria and
Sebastopol, in Plevna and Shipka. To the Russian muzhik, the
defense of his Slavic and Christian brothers from the horrors of
Turkish oppression has become as potent a war legend as the
defense of German culture and freedom against the horrors of
Russia has become to the German Social-Democracy.

But the Russian bourgeoisie also was much more enthusiastic
over the Mediterranean prospect than for its Manchurian and
Mongolian "mission." The liberal bourgeoisie of Russia criti-
cised the Japanese war so severely as a senseless adventure,
because it distracted the attention of Russian politics from the
problem that was to them more important, the Balkans. And in
another way, the unfortunate war with Japan had the same
effect. The extension of Russian power into Eastern and Cen-
tral Asia, lo Thibet and down Into Persia necessarily aroused a
feeling of discomfort in the minds of English imperialists. Eng-
land, fearing for its enormous Indian empire, viewed the Asiatic
movements of Russia with growing suspicion. In fact, at the
beginning of the present century the English-Russian conflict in
Asia was the strongest world-conflict in the international situa-
tion. Moreover this will be, in all probability, the most critical
issue in future world-political developments when the present
war is over. The crushing defeat of Russia in 1904 and the sub-
sequent outbreak of the Russian revolution only temporarily
changed the situation. The apparent weakening of the empire
of the Czar brought about a relaxation of the tension between
England and Russia. In 1907 a treaty was signed between the
two nations providing for a mutual control of Persia that estab-

THE CRISIS 57

lished, for the time being, friendly and neighborly relations in
Central Asia. This kept Russia from undertaking great projects
in the East, and her energies reverted all the more vigorously
to their old occupation, Balkan politics. Here the Russia of the
Czar came for the first time into sharp conflict with German
culture, after a century of faithful and well-founded friendship.
The road to the Dardanelles leads over the corpse of Turkey.
But for more than a decade Germany has regarded the "integ-
rity" of this corpse as its most important world-political task.
Russian methods in the Balkans had changed at various times.
Embittered by the ingratitude of the liberated Balkan Slavs who
tried to escape from their position as vassals to the Czarist Gov-
ernment, Russia for a time supported the program of Turkish
integrity with the silent understanding that the division of that
country should be postponed to some more auspicious time. But
today the final liquidation of Turkey coincides with the plans
of both Russian and English politics. The latter aims to unite
Arabia and Mesopotamia, and the Russian territories that lie
between Egypt and India, under British rule, into a great Mo-
hammedan empire, thus conserving its own position in India and
Egypt. In this way Russian imperialism, as in earlier times
English imperialism, came into opposition with that of Germany.
For this privileged exploiter of Turkish disintegration had taken
up her position as sentinel on the Bosphorus.

Russian interests came to a clash in the Balkans not only
directly with Germany but with Austria as well. Austrian im-
perialism is the political complement of German imperialism,
at the same time its Siamese twin brother and its fate.

Germany, having isolated herself on all sides by her world
policy, has in Austria her only ally. The alliance with Austria
is old, having been founded by Bismarck in 1879. But since that
time it has completely changed its character. Like the enmity
toward France, the alliance with Austria received an entirely new
content through the development of the last decades. In 1879

58 THE CRISIS

its chief purpose was the mutual defense of the possessions gained
in 'the wars of 1864-1870. The Bismarck Triple Alliance was
conservative in character, especially since it signified Austria's
final renunciation of admission to the German federation of states,
its acceptance of the state of aflfairs created by Bismarck, and
the military hegemony of Greater Prussia, The Balkan aspir-
ations of Austria were as distasteful to Bismarck as the South-
African conquests of Germany. In his Gedanken und Erin-
nerungen he says :

"It is natural that the inhabitants of the Danube region should
have needs and aspirations that extend beyorid the present boun-
daries of their monarchy. The German national constitution
points out the way along which Austria can form a union of the
political and material interests that exist between the most eas-
tern Rumanian tribe and the Bay of Cattaro. But the duty of the
German Empire does not demand that it satisfy the desires of its
neighbors for increased territory with the blood and wealth of
its subjects."

He expressed the same thought still more drastically when he
uttered the well known sentiment that, to him, the whole of Bos-
nia was not worth the bone of a Pomeranian grenadier. Indeed,
a treaty drawn up with Russia in 1884 proves conclusively that
Bismarck never desired to place the Triple Alliance at the service
of Austrian annexationist desires. By this treaty, the German
Empire promised, in the event of a war between Austria and,
Russia, not to support the former, but rather to observe a "bene-
volent neutrality."

But since imperialism has taken hold of German politics, its
relations to Austria have changed as well. Austria-Hungary lies
between Germany and the Balkan, in other words, on the road
over the critical point in German Oriental politics. To make
Austria its enemy at this time would mean complete isolation,
and complete abdication by Grermany of its world-political plan.

THE CRISIS 59

But the weakening of Austria, which would signify the final li-
quidation of Turkey, with a consequent strengthening of Russia,
the Balkan States, and England, would probably accomplish the
national unification of Germany, but would, at the same time,
wipe out, forever, its imperialistic aspirations. The safety of the
Hapsburg monarchy has therefore logically become a necessary
complement to German imperialism, the preservation of Turkey
its chief problem.

But Austria means a constant latent state of war in the Bal-
kans. For Turkish disintegration has promoted the existence and
growth of the Balkan States in the immediate neighborhood of
the Hapsburg monarchy, and the resulting state of chronic in-
cipient warfare. Obviously the existence of virile and indepen-
dent national states on the border of a monarchy that is made
up- of fragments of these same nationalities, which it can rule
only by the whip-lash of dictatorship must hasten its downfall.
Austrian Balkan politics and particularly its Serbian relations
have plainly revealed its inner decay. Although its imperialistic
appetites wavered between Saloniki and Durazzo, Austria was
not in a position to annex Servia, even before the latter had
grown in strength and size through the two Balkan wars. For
the forcible annexation of Servia would have dangerously
strengthened in its interior one of the most refractory South
Slavic nationalities, a people that even now, because of Austria's
stupid regime of reaction, can scarcely be held in check. But
neither can Austria tolerate the normal independent development
of Servia or profit from it by normal commercial relations. For
the Habsburg monarchy is not the political expression of a capi-
talist state, but a loose syndicate of a few parasitic cliques, striv-
ing to grasp everything within reach, utilizing the political power?
of the nation so long as this weak edifice still stands. For the
benefit of Hungarian agrarians, and for the purpose of increas-
ing the prices of agricultural products, Austria has forbidden

60 THE CRISIS

Servia to send cattle and fruits into Austria, thus depriving this
nation of farmers of its most important market. In the interests
of Austrian monopoUes it has forced Servia to import industrial
products exclusively from Austria, and at the highest prices. To
keep Servia in a state of economic and political dependence, it
prevented Servia from imiting on the East with Bulgaria, to se-
cure access to the Black Sea, and from securing access to the
Adriatic, on the West, by prohibiting the acquisition of a harbor
in Albania. In short, the Balkan policy of Austria was nothing
more than a barefaced attempt to choke off Servia. Also, it was
directed against the establishment of mutual relations between,
and against the inner growth of the Balkan States, and was, there-
fore, a constant menace for them.

Austrian imperialism constantly threatened the existence and
development of the Balkan States; now by the annexation of
Bosnia, now by its demands upon the Sanjak of Novibazar and
on Saloniki, now by its encroachments upon the Albanian coast.
To satisfy these tendencies on the part of Austria, and to meet
the competition of Italy as well, the caricature of an independent
Albania under the rule of a German nobleman was created after
the second Balkan war, a country which was, from the first hour,
little more than the plaything of the intrigues of imperialistic
rivals.

Thus the imperialistic policies of Austria during the last decade
were a constant hindrance to the normal progressive development
of the Balkans, and led to the inevitable alternative: either the
Habsburg monarchy or the capitalist development of the Balkan
States.

Emancipated from Turkish rule, the Balkan now faced its
new hindrance, Austria, and the necessity of removing it from its
path. Historically the liquidation of Austria-Hungary is the
logical sequence of Turkish disintegration, and both are in direct
line with the process of historical development.

THE CRISIS 61

There was but one solution: war — a world war. For behind
Servia stood Russia, unable to sacrifice its influence in the Bal-
kans and its role of "protector" without giving up its whole im-
perialisitc program in the Orient as well. In direct conflict with
Austrian politics, Russia aimed to unite the Balkan States under
a Russian protectorate, to be sure. The Balkan union that had
almost completely annihilated European Turkey in the victorious
war of 19 1 2 was the work of Russia, and was directly and inten-
tionally aimed against Austria. Inspite of Russian efforts, the
Balkan union was smashed in the second Balkan war. But Ser-
via, emerging the victor, became dependent upon the friendship
of Russia in the same degree as Austria had become Russia's
bitter enemy. Germany, whose fate was firmly linked to that
of the Habsburg monarchy, was obliged to back up the stupid
Balkan policy of the latter, step by step, and was thus brought
into a doubly aggravated opposition to Russia.

But the Balkan policies of Austria, furthermore, brought Aus-
tria into conflict with Italy, which was actively interested in the
dissolution of the Turkish and Austrian Empires. The imperial-
ism of Italy has found in the Italian possessions of Austria a
most popular cloak for its own annexationist desires. Its eyes
are directed especially toward the. Albanian coast of the Adriatic,
should a new regulation of Balkan affairs take place. The Triple
Alliance, having already sustained a severe blow in the Tnpoli-
tan war, was destroyed by the acute crisis in the Balkans durmg
the two Balkan wars. The Central Powers were thus brought
into conflict with the entire outside world. German imperialism,
chained to two decaying corpses, was steering its course directly
toward a world war.

Moreover, Germany embarked upon this course with a full
realization of its consequences. Austria, as the motive power,
was rushing blindly into destruction. Its clique of clerical-mili-
tarist rulers with the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his right

62 THE CRISIS

hand man Baron von Chlumezki at the head, fairly jumped at
every excuse to strike the first blow. In 1909 Austria framed up
the famous documents by Professor Friedmann, exposing what
purported to be a widespread, criminal conspiracy of the Serbs
against the Habsburg monarchy, for the sole purpose of infus-
ing the German nations with the necessary war-enthusiasm.
These papers had only one slight drawback — they were forced
from beginning to end. A year later the rumor of the hc-rible
martyrdom of the Austrian consul Prohaska in Ueskub was buii-
ly spread for days to serve as the spark that would ignite the keg
of powder, while Prohaska roamed unmolested and happy
through the streets of Ueskub. Then came the assassination at
Serajewo, a long desired, truly shameful crime. "If ever a blood
sacrifice has had a lib^erating, releasing effect, it was the case
here," rejoiced the spokesman of German imperiaHsm. Among
Austrian imperialists the rejoicing was still greater, and they
decided to use the noble corpses while they were still warm.
After a hurried conference with Berlin, war was virtually de-
cided and the ultimatum sent out as a flaming torch that was to
set fire to the capitalist world at all four comers.

But the occurrence at Serajewo only furnished the immediate
pretext. Causes and conflicts for the war had been overripe for
a long time. The conjuncture that we witness today was
ready a decade ago. Every year, every political occurrence of
recent years has but served to bring war a step nearer : the Tur-
kish revolution, the annexation of Bosnia, the Morocco crisis,
the Tripolis expedition, the two Balkan wars. All military bills
of the last years were drawn up in direct preparation for this
war; the countries of Europe were preparing, witli open eyes,
for the inevitable final contest. Five times during recent years
this war was on the verge of an outbreak: in the summer of 1905,
when Germany for the first time made her decisive demands in
the Morocco crisis ; in the summer of 1908, when England, Rus-

THE CRISIS 63

sia and France threatened with war after the conference of the
monarchs in Reval over the Macedonian question, and war was
prevented only by the sudden outbreak of the Turkish revolution ;
jn the beginning of 1909 when Russia replied to the Bosnian an-
nexation with a mobilization, when Germany in Petersburg for-
mally declared its readiness to go to war on the side of Austria ;
in the summer of 191 1 when the "Panther" was sent to Agadir,
an act that would certainly have brought on war if Germany had
not finally acquiesced in the Morocco question and allowed itself
to be compensated with the Congo concession ; and finally, in the
beginning of 1913, when Germany, in view of the proposed Rus-
sian invasion of Albania, a second time threatened Petersburg
with its readiness for warlike measures.

Thus the world war has been hanging fire for eight years. It
was postponed again and again only because always one of the
two sides in question was not yet ready with its military prepara-
tions.

So, for instance, the present world war was imminent at the
time of the "Panther" adventure in 191 1 — without a murdered
Grand Duke, without French fliers over Nuremberg, without a
Russian invasion into East Prussia. Germany simply put it off
for a more favorable moment — one need only read the frank ex-
planation of a German imperialist: "The German government
has been accused by the so-called pan-Germans of weakness in
the Morocco crisis in 191 1." Let them disabuse their minds of
this false impression. It is a fact that, at the time when we sent
the "Panther" to Agadir, the reconstruction of the North-East
Sea Canal was still in progress, that building operations on Helgo-
land for the construction of a great fort were nowhere near com-
pletion, that our fleet of dreadnoughts and accessories, in com-
parison with the English sea power, was in a far more unfavor-
able position than was the case three years later.

Compared to the present time, 1914, the canal as well as Helgo-

64 .THE CRISIS

land were in a deplorable state of unreadiness, were partially ab-
solutely useless for war purposes. Under such circumstances,
where one knows that one's chances will be far more favorable in
a few years, it would be worse than foolish to provoke a war.
First the German fleet had to be put in order; the great mili-
tary bill had to be pushed through the Reichstag. In the sum-
mer of 1914 Germany was prepared for war, while France was
still laboring over its three years military service program, while
in Russia neither the army nor the naval program were ready.
It was up to Germany to utilize the auspicious moment."

The same Rohrbach, who is not only the most serious represen-
tative of imperialism in Germany, but is also in intimate touch
with the leading circles m German politics and is their semi-offi-
cial mouthpiece, comments upon the situation in July, 1914, as
follows. "At this time there was only one danger, that we might
be morally forced, by an apparent acquiescence on the part of
Russia, to wait until Russia and France were really prepared."
In other words, Germany feared nothing so much as that Russia
might give in. "With deep pain we saw our untiring efforts to
preserve world peace shipwrecked, etc., etc."

The invasion of Belgium, therefore, and the accomplished fact
of war was not a bolt from the blue. It did not create a new, un-
heard of situation. Nor was it an event that came, in its political
associations, as a complete surprise to the social-democratic
group. The world war that began officially on August 4th, 1914,
was the same world war toward which German imperialism had
been driving for decades, the same war whose coming the Social-
Democracy had prophesied year after year. This same war has
been denounced by social-democratic parliamentarians, news-
papers and leaflets a thousand times as a frivolous imperialistic
crime, as a war that is against every interest of culture and
against every interest of the nation.

And, indeed, not the "existence and the independent develop-

THE CRISIS 65

ment of Germany in this war" are at stake, inrjpite of ^iie reiura
tions of the social-democratic press, but the immediate profits of
the "Deutsche Bank" in Asiatic Turkey and the future profits of
the "Mannesmann" and "Krupp" interests in Morocco, the exist-
ence and the reactionary character of Austria, "this heap of or-
iganized decay, that calls itself the Habsburg monarchy," as the
"Vorwaerts" wrote on the 25th of July, 1914; Hungarian pigs
and prunes, paragraph 14, the "Kultur" of Friedmann-Prohaska,
the existence of Turkish rule in Asia Minor and of counter-revo-
lution on the Balkan.

Our party press was filled with moral indignation over the fact
that Germany's foes should drive black men and barbarians, Ne-
groes, Sikhs and Maoris into the war. Yet these peoples play a
role in this war that is approximately identical with that played
by the socialist proletariat in the European states. If the Maoris
of New Zealand were eager to risk their skulls for the English
king, they showed only as much understanding of their own in-
terests as the German Social-Democratic group that traded the
existence, the freedom and the civilization of the German people
for the existence of the Habsburg monarchy, for Turkey and for
the vaults of the "Deutsche Bank."

One difference there is between the two. A generation ago,
Maori negroes were still cannibals and not students of Marxian
philosophy.

66 THE CRISIS

CHAPTER V.

But Czarism! In the first moments of the war this was un-
doubtedly the factor that decided the position of our party. In
its declaration, the social-democratic group had given the slogan :
Against Czarism! And out of this the socialist press has made
a fight for European culture.

The Frankfurter Volksstimme wrote on July 31 :

"The German Social-Democracy has always hated Czardom
as the bloody guardian of European reaction: From the time
that Marx and Engels followed, with far-seeing eyes, every move-
ment of this barbarian government, down to the present day,
where its prisons are filled with political prisoners, and yet it
trembles before every labor movement. The time has come when
we must square accounts with these terrible scoundrels, under
the German flag of war."

The Pfaelzische Post of Ludwighaf en wrote on the same day :

"This is a principle that was first established by our August
Bebel. This is the struggle of civilization against barbarism, and
in this struggle the proletariat will do its share."

The Muenchener Post of August ist:

"When it comes to defending our country against the bloody
Czardom we will not be made citizens of the second class."

The Halle Volkshlatt wrote on August 5th :

"If this is so, if we have been attacked by Russia, and every-
thing seems to corroborate this statement — then the Social-De-
mocracy, as a matter of course, must vote in favor of all means
of defense. With all our strength we must fight to drive Czar-
ism from our country !"

And on August i8th :

"Now that the die is cast in favor of the sword, it is not only

THE CRISIS 67

the duty of national defense and national existence that puts the
weapon into our hands as into the hands of every German, but
also the realization that in the enemy whom we are fighting in the
east we are striking a blow at the foe of all culture and all pro-
gress. . . . The overthrow of Russia is synonymous with the vic-
tory of freedom in Europe. . . "

On August 5th, the Braunschweiger Volksfreund wrote :

"The irresistible force of military preparation drives every-
thing before it. But the class-conscious labor movement obeys,
not an outside force, but its own conviction, when it defends the
ground upon which it stands, from attack in the east."

The Essener Arbeiterzeitung cried out on August 3rd :

"If this country is threatened by Russia's determination, then
the Social-Democrats, since the fight is against Russian Blood-
Czarism, against the perpetrator of a million crimes against f ree;-
dom and culture, will allow none to excell them in the fulfilment
of their duty, in their willingness to sacrifice. Down with Czar-
ism! Down with the home of Barbarism! Let that be our
slogan !"

Similarly the Bielef elder Volkswacht writes on August 4th :

"Everywhere the same cry: against Russian Despotism and
faithlessness."

The Elberf eld party-organ on August 5th :

"All western Europe is vitally interested in the extermination
of rotten murderous Czarism. But this human interest is crushed
by the greed of England and France to check the profits that
have been made possible by German capital."

The Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne :

"Do your duty, friends, wherever fate may place you. You
are fighting for the civilization of Europe, for the independence
of your fatherland, for your own welfare."

The Schleswig-Holstein Volkszeitung of August 7th writes :

68 THE CRISIS

"Of course we are living in an age of capitalism. Of course
we will continue to have class struggles after the great war is
over. But these class struggles will be fought out in a freer
state, they will be far more confined to the economic field than
before. In the future the treatment of Socialists as outcasts, as
citizens of the second class, as politically rightless will be im-
possible, once the Czardom of Russia has vanished."

On August nth, the Hamburger Echo cried:

"We are fighting to defend ourselves not so much against Eng-
land and France as against Czarism. But this war we carry on
with the greatest enthusiasm, for it is the war for civilization."

And the Luebeck party-organ declared, as late as September
4th:

"If European liberty is saved, then Europe will have German
arms to thank for it. Our fight is a fight against the worst enemy
of all liberty and all democracy."

Thus the chorus of the German party press sounded and re-
sounded.

In the beginning of the war the German government accepted
the proffered assistance. Nonchalantly it fastened the laurels of
the liberator of European culture to its helmet. Yes, it en-
deavored to carry through the role of the "liberator of nations,"
though often with visible discomfort and rather awkward grace.
It flattered the Poles and the Jews in Russia, and egged one na-
tion on against the other, using the policies that had proven so
successful in their colonial warfare, where again and again they
played up one chief against the other. And the Social-Democrats
followed each leap and bound of German imperialism with re-
markable agility. While the Reichstag group covered up every
shameful outrage with a discrete silence the social-democratic
press filled the air with jubilant melodies, rejoicing in the liber-
ty that "German riflebutts" had brought to the poor victims of
Czarism.

THE CRISIS 69

Even the theoretical organ of the party, the Neue Zeit, wrote
on the 28th of August :

"The border population of the "little father's" realm greeted
the coming of the German, troops with cries of joy. For these
Poles and Jews have but one conception of their fatherland, that
of corruption and rule by the knout. Poor devils, really father-
landless creatures, these downtrodden subjects of bloody Nicho-
las. Even should they desire to do so, they could find nothing to
defend but their chains. And so they live and toil, hoping and
longing that Grerman rifles, carried by German men, will crush
the whole Czarist system. ... A clear and definite purpose still
lives in the German working-class, though the thunder of a world-
war is crashing over its head. It will defend itself from the allies
of Russian barbarism in the west to bring about an honorable
peace. It will give to the task of destroying Czarism the last
breath of man and beast."

After the social-democratic group had stamped the war as a
war of defense for the German nation and European culture, the
social-democratic press proceeded to hail it as the "savior of the
oppressed nations." Hindenburg became the executor of Marx
and Engels.

The memory of our party has played it a shabby trick. It for-
got all its principles, its pledges, the decision of international
congresses just at the moment when they should have found
their application. And to its great misfortune, it remembered
the heritage of Karl Marx and dug it out of the dust of passing
years at the very moment when it could serve only to decorate
Prussian militarism, for whose destruction Karl Marx was wil-
ling to sacrifice "the last breath of man and beast." Long for-
gotten chords that were sounded by Marx in the Neue Rheini-
sche Zeitung against the vassal state of Nicholas I, during the
German March Revolution of 1848, suddenly reawakened in the
ears of the German Social-Democracy in the year of Our Lord

70 THE CRISIS

1914, and called them to arms, arm in arm with Prussian jun-
kerdom against the Russia of the Great Revolution of 1905.

This is where a revision should have been made; the s'ogan^•
of the March Revolution should have been brought into accord
with the historical experiences of the last seventy years.

In 1848 Russia Czarism was, in truth, "the guardian of Europ-
ean reaction." The product of Russian social conditions, firmly
rooted in its medieval, agricultural state, absolutism was the
protector and at the same time the mighty director of monarchi-
cal reaction. This was weakened, particularly in Germany,
where a system of small states still obtained. As late as 185 1 it
was possible for Nicholas I, to assure Berlin through the Prus-
sian consul von Rochow "that he would, indeed, have been pleased
to see the revolution destroyed to the roots when general von
Wrangel advanced upon Berlin in November, 1848." At another
time, in a warning to Manteuffel, the Czar stated, "that he relied
upon the Imperial Ministry, under the leadership of His High-
ness, to defend the rights of the crown against the chambers,
and give to the principles of conservatism their due." It was
possible for the same Nicholas I to bestow the Alexander Nevski
order on a Prussian Ministerial President in recognition of his
"constant efforts ... to maintain legal order in Prussia."

The Crimean war worked a noticeable change in this respect.
It ended with the military and therefore with the political bank-
ruptcy of the old system. Russian absolutism was forced to
grant reforms, to modernize its rule, to adjust itself to capitalist
conditions. In so doing, it gave its little finger to the devil who
already holds it firmly by the arm, and will eventually get it alto-
gether. The Crimean War was, by the way, an instructive exam-
ple of the kind of liberation that can be brought to a downtrod-
den people "at the point of the gun." The military overthrow at
Sedan brought France its republic. But this republic was not the

THE CRISIS 71

gift of the Bismarck soldiery. Prussia at that time, as today,
can give to other peoples nothing but its own junker rule. The
republican France was the ripe fruit of inner social struggles
and of the three revolutions that had preceded it. The crash at
Sebastopol was in effect similar to that of Jena, But because
there was no revolutionary movement in Russia, it led to the out-
ward renovation and reaifirmation of the old regime.

But the reforms that opened the road for capitalist develop-
ment in Russia during the 6o's were possible only with the money
of a capitalist system. This money was furnished by western
European capital. It came from Germany and France, and has
created a new relationship that has lasted down to the present
day. Russian absolutism is now subsidized by the western
European bourgeoisie. No longer does the Russian Ruble "roll
in diplomatic chambers" as Prince William of Prussia bitterly
complained in 1854, "into the very chambers of the King." On
the contrary, German and French money is rolling to Petersburg
to feed a regime that would long ago have breathed its last with-
out this life-giving juice. Russian Czarism is today no longer
the product of Russian conditions; its root lies in the capitalist
conditions of western Europe. And the relationship is shifting
from decate to decade. In the same measure as the old root of
Russian absolutism in Russia itself is being destroyed, the new,
west-European root is growing stronger and stronger. Besides
lending their financial support, Germany and France, since 1870,
have been vieing with each other to lend Russia their political
support as well. As revolutionary forces arise from the womb
of the Russian people itself to fight against Russian absolutism,
they meet with an ever growing resistence in western Europe,
which stands ready to lend to threatened Czarism its moral and
political support. So when, in the beginning of the 8o's the older
Russian socialist movement severely shook the Czarist govern-
ment and partly destroyed its authority within and without, Bis-

7^ THE CRISIS

marck made his treaty with Russia and strengthened its position
in international politics.

Capitalist development, tenderly nurtured by Czarism with its
own hands, finally bore fruit : in the 90's the revolutionary move-
ment of the Russian proletariat began. The erstwhile "guard-
ian of reaction" was forced to grant a meaningsless constitution,
to seek a new protector from the rising flood in its own country.
And it found this protector — in Germany. The Germany of Bue-
low must pay the debt of gratitude that the Prussia of Wrangei
and Manteuffel had incurred. Relations were completely reversed.
Russian support against the revolution in Germany is superseded
by German aid against the revolution in Russia. Spies, outrages,
betrayals — a demagogic agitation, like that which blessed the
times of the Holy Alliance, was unleashed in Germany against
the fighters for the cause of Russian freedom, and followed them
to the very doorsteps of the Russian Revolution. In the Koenigs-
berg trial of 1904 this wave of persecution was at its height. This
trial threw a scathing light upon a whole historical development
since 1848 and showed the complete change of relations between
Russian absolutism and European reaction. "Tua res agitur!"
cried a Prussian Minister of Justice to the ruling classes of Ger-
many, pointing to the tottering foundation of the Czarist regime.
"The establishment of a democratic republic in Russia would
strongly influence Germany," declared First District-Attorney
Schulze in Koenigsberg. "When my neighbor's home burns my
own is also in danger." And his assistant Casper also empha-
sized : "it is naturally not indifferent to Germany's public interests
whether this bulwark of absolutism stands or falls. Certainly the
flames of a revolutionary movement may easily spring over into
Germany. . ."

The Revolution was overthrown, but the very causes that led
to its temporary downfall are valuable in a discussion of the po-
sition taken by the German Social-Democracy in this war. That

THE CRISIS 73

the Russian uprising in 1905-1906 was unsuccessful inspite of its
(.unequalled expenditure of revolutionary force, its clearness of
purpose and tenacity, can be ascribed to two distinct causes. The
One lies in the inner character of the Revolution itself, in its enor-
mous historical program, in the mass of economic and political
problems that it was forced to face. Some of them, for instance,
the agrarian problem, cannot possibly be solved within capitalist
society. There was the difficulty, furthermore, of creating a
class-state for the supremacy of the modern bourgeoisie against
the counter-revolutionary opposition of the bourgeoisie as a
whole. To the onlooker it would seem that the Russian Revolu-
tion was doomed to failure because it was a proletarian revolution
with bourgeois duties and problems, or if you wish, a bourgeois
revolution waged by socialist proletarian methods, a crash of two
generations amid lightning and thunder, the fruit of the delayed
industrial development of class conditions in Russia and their
overripeness in western Europe. From this point of view its
downfall in 1906 signifies not its bankruptcy, but the natural clos-
ing of the first chapter, upon which the second must follow with
the inevitability of a natural law. The second cause was of ex-
ternal nature: it lay in western Europe: European reaction once
more hastened to help its endangered protege. Not with lead and
bullets, although "German guns" were in German fists even in
1905 and only waited for a signal from Petersburg to attack the
neighboring Poles. Europe rendered an assistance that was
equally valuable: financial subsidy and political alliances were
arranged to help Czarism in Russia. French money paid for the
armed forces that broke down the Russian Revolution ; from Ger-
many came moral and political support that helped the Russian
government to clamber out from the depths of shame into which
Japanese torpedoes and Russian proletarian fists had thrust it.
In 1910, in Potsdam, official Germany received Russian Czarism
with open arms. The reception of the bloodstained monarch at

U THE CRISIS

the gates of the German capital was not only the German blessing
for the throttling of Persia, but above all for the hangman's work
of the Russian counter-revolution. It was the official banquet of
German and Europeon Kultur over what they believed to be the
grave of the Russian Revolution.

And strange! At that time, when this challenging feast upon
the grave of the Russian Revolution was held in its own home,
the German Social-Democracy remained silent, and had com-
pletely forgotten "the heritage of our masters" from 1848. At
that time, when the hangman was received in Potsdam, not a
sound, not a protest, not an article vetoed this expression of soli-
darity with the Russian counter-revolution. Only since this war
has begun, since the police permits it, the smallest party organ
intoxicates itself with bloodthirsty attacks upon the hangman of
Russian liberty. Yet nothing could have disclosed more clearly
than did this triumphal tour of the Czar in 1910, that the op-
pressed Russian proletariat was the victim not only of domestic
reaction but of western European reaction as well. Their fight,
like that of the March revolutionists in 1848, was against reac-
tion, not only in their own country, but against its guardians in
all other European countries.

After the inhuman crusades of the counter-revolution had
somewhat subsided, the revolutionary ferment in the Russian pro-
letariat once more became active. The flood began to rise and to
boil. Economic strikes in Russia, according to the official re-
ports, involved 46,623 workers and 256,386 days in 1910; 96,730
workers and 768,556 days in 191 1; and 89,771 workers and
1,214,881 days in the first five months of 1912. Political mass-
strikes, protests and demonstrations comprised 1,005,000 workers
in 1912, 1,272,000 in 1913. In 1914 the flood rose higher and
higher. On January 22nd, the anniversary of the beginning of
the Revolution there was a demonstration mass-strike of 200,000

THE CRISIS 75

workers. As in the days before the revolution in 1905, the flame
broke out in June, in the Caucasus. In Baku, 40,000 workers
were on a general strike. The flames leaped over to Petersburg.
On the 17th of June 80,000 workers in Petersburg laid down their
tools, on the 20th of July, 200,000 were out, July 23rd, the gene-
rat strike movement was spreading out all over Russia, barricades
were being built, the revolution was on its way. A few more
months and it would have come, its flags fluttering in the wind.
A few more years, and perhaps the whole world-political constel-
lation would have been changed, imperialism, perhaps, would
have received a firm check in its mad impulse.

But German reaction checked the revolutionary movement.
From Berlin and Vienna came declarations of war, and the Rus-
sian revolution was buried beneath its wreckage. "German guns"
are shattering, not Czarism, but its most dangerous enemy. The
hopefully fluttering flag of the revolution sank down amid a wild
whirlpool of war. But it sank honorably, and it will rise again
out of the horrible massacre, in spite of "Grerman g^s," in spite
of victory or defeat for Russia on the battlefields.

The national revolts in Russia which the Germans tried to
foster, too, were unsuccessful. The Russian provinces were
evidently less inclined to fall for the bait of Hindenburg's cohorts
than the German Social-Democracy. The Jews, practical people
that they are, were able to count out on their fingers that "Ger-
man fists" which have been unable to overthrow their own Prus-
sian reaction can hardly be expected to smash Russian absolu-
tism. The Poles, exposed to the tripleheaded war, were not in the
position to answer their "liberators" in audible language. But
they will have remembered that Polish children were taught to
pray the Lord's prayer in the German language with bloody welts
on their backs, will not have forgotten the liberality of Prussian
anti-Polish laws. All of them, Poles, Jews and Russians had no

76 THE CRISIS

difficulty in understanding that the "German gun," when it des-
cends upon their heads, brings not hberty, but death.

To couple the legend of Russian liberation with its Marxian
heritage is worse than a poor joke on the part of the German So-
cial-Democracy. It is a crime. To Marx, the Russian revolution
was a turning point in the history of the world. Every political
and historical perspective was made dependent upon the one
consideration, "provided the Russian revolution has not already
broken out." Marx believed in the Russian revolution and ex-
pected it even at a time when Russia was only a state of vassals.
When the war broke out the Russian revolution had occurred. Its
first attempt had not been victorious ; but it could not be ignored ;
it is on the order of the day. And yet our German Social-Demo-
crats came with "German guns," declaring the Russian revolution
null and void; struck it from the pages of History. In 1848
Marx spoke from the German barricades; in Russia there was
hopeless reaction. In 1914 Russia was in the throes of a revolu-
tion; while its German "liberators" were cowed by the fists of
Prussian junkerdom.

But the liberating mission of the German armies was only an
episode. German imperialism soon raised its uncomfortable
mask and turned openly against France and England. Here, too,
it was supported valiantly by a large number of the party papers.
They ceased railing against the bloody Czar, and held up "per-
fidious Albion" and its merchant soul to the public disdain. They
set out to free Europe, no longer from Russian absolutism, but
from English naval supremacy. The hopeless confusion in
which the party had become entangled, found a drastic illustra-
tion in the desperate attempt made by the more thoughtful por-
tion of our party-press to meet this new change of front. In
vain they tried to force the war back into its original channels,
to nail it down to the "heritage of our masters" — that is, to the

THE CRISIS 77

myth that they, the Social-Democracy — ^had themselves created
"With heavy heart I have been forced to mobilize the army
against a neighbor at whose side I have fought on so many
battlefields. With honest sorrow I saw a friendship, truly served
by Germany, break." That was simple, open, honest. But when
the rhetoric of the first weeks of war backed down before the
lapidary language of imperialism, the German Social-Democracy
lost its only plausible excuse.

73 THE CRISIS

CHAPTER VI.

Of equal importance in the attitude of the Social-Democracy
was the official adoption of a program of civil peace, i. e, the
cessation of the class struggle for the duration of the war. The
declaration that was read by the Social-Democratic group in the
Reichstag on the fourth of August had been agreed upon in ad-
vance with representatives of the government and the capitalist
parties. It was little more than a patriotic grand-stand play,
prepared behind the scenes and delivered for the benefit of the
people at home and in other nations.

To the leading elements in the labor movement, the vote in
favor of the war credits by the Reichstag group was a cue for
the immediate settlement of all labor controversies. Nay more,
they announced this to the manufacturers as a patriotic duty in-
curred by labor when it agreed to observe a civil peace. These
same labor leaders undertook to supply city labor to farmers in
order to assure a prompt harvest. The leaders of the Social-
Democratic women's movement united with capitalist women for
"National service" and placed the most important elements that
remained after the mobilization at the disposal of national Samar-
itan work. Socialist women worked in soup kitchens and on ad-
visory commissions instead of carrying on agitation work for the
party. Under the socialist exception laws the party had utilized
parliamentary elections to spread its agitation and to keep a firm
hold upon the population in spite of the state of siege that had
been declared against the party and the persecution of the social-
ist press. In this crisis the social-democratic movement has
voluntarily relinquished all propaganda and education in the in-
terest of the proletarian class struggle, during Reichstag and
Landtag elections. Parliamentary elections have everywhere
been reduced to the simple bourgeois formula; the catching of

THE CRISIS 79

votes for the candidates of the party on the basis of an amicable
and peaceful settlement with its capitalist opponents. When the
social-democratic representatives in the Landtag and in the muni-
cipal commissions — with the laudable exceptions of the Prussian
and the Alsatian Landtag — with high sounding references to the
existing state of civil peace, voted their approval of the war
credits that had been demanded, it only emphasized how complete-
ly the party had broken with things as they were before the war.
The social-democratic press, with a few exceptions, proclaimed
the principle of national unity as the highest duty of the Ger-
man people. It warned the people not to withdraw their funds
from the savings banks lest by so doing they unbalance the eco-
nomic life of the nation, and hinder the savings banks in liberally
buying war-loan bonds. It pleaded with proletarian women that
they should spare their husbands at the front the tales of suffer-
ing which they and their children were being forced to undergo,
to bear in silence the neglect of the government, to cheer the fight-
ing warriors with happy stories of family life and favorable re-
ports of prompt assistance through government agencies. They
rejoiced that the educational work that had been conducted for
so many years in and through the labor movement had become a
"conspicuous asset in conducting the war. Something of this spirit
the following example will show :

"A friend in need is a friend indeed. This old adage has once
more proven its soundness. The social-democratic proletariat
that has been prosecuted and clubbed for its opinions went, like
one man, to protect our homes. German labor unions that had so
often suffered both in Germany and in Prussia report unanimous-
ly that the best of their members have joined the colors. Even
capitalist papers like the General-Anzeiger note the fact and ex-
press the conviction that "these people" will do their duty as well
as any man, that blows will rain most heavily where they stand."

"As for us, we are convinced that our labor unionists can do

80 THE CRISIS

more than deal out blows. Modern mass armies have by no means
simplified the work of their generals. It is practically impossible
to move forward large troop divisions in close marching order
under the deadly fire of modem artillery. Ranks must be care-
fully widened, must be more accurately controlled. Modern war-
fare requires discipline and clearness of vision not only in the di-
visions but in every individual soldier. The war will show how
vastly human material has been improved by the educational work
of the labor unions, how well their activity will serve the nation
in these times of awful stress. The Russian and the French sol-
dier may be capable of marvelous deeds of bravery. But in cool
collected consideration none will surpass the German labor union-
ists. Then too, many of our organized workers know the ways
and by-ways of the border land as well as they know their own
pockets, and not a few of them are accomplished linguists. The
Prussian advance in 1866 has been termed a schoolmasters' vic-
tory. This will be a victory of labor union leaders." (Frankfur-
ter Volksstimme, August 18, 1914).

In the same strain the Neue Zeit, the theoretical organ of the
party, declared (No. 23, Sept. 25, 1914) :

"Until the question of victory or defeat has been decided, all
doubts must disappear, even as to the causes of the war. Today
there can be no difference of party, class and nationality within
the army or the population."

And in No. 8, Nov. 27, 1914, the same Neue Zeit declared
in a chapter on "The Limitations of the International" :

"The world war divides the socialists of the world into differ-
ent camps and especially into different national camps. The In-
ternational cannot prevent this. In other words, the International
ceases to be an effective instrument in times of war. It is, on
the whole, a peace instrument. Its great historic problem is the
struggle for peace and the class struggle in times of peace."

Briefly, therefore, beginning with the fourth of August until

THE CRISIS 81

the day when peace shall be declared, the social-democracy has
declared the class struggle extinct. The first thunder of Krupp
cannoiis in Belgium welded Germany into a wonderland of class
solidarity and social harmony.

How is this miracle to be understood? The class struggle is
known to be not a social-democratic invention that can be arbi-
trarily set aside for a period of time whenever it may seem con-
venient to do so. The proletarian class struggle is older than the
social-democracy, is an elementary product of class society. It
flamed up all over Europe when capitalism first came into power.
The modern proletariat was not led by the social-democracy into
the class struggle. On the contrary, the international social-dem-
ocratic movement was called into being by the class struggle -to
bring a conscious aim and unity into the various local and scat-
tered fragments of the class struggle. What then changed in this
respect when the war broke out ? Have private property, capital-
ist exploitation and class rule ceased to exist? Or have the
propertied classes in a spell of patriotic fervor declared: in view
of the needs of the war we hereby turn over the means of produc-
tion, the earth, the factories and the mills thereon, into the pos-
session of the people? Have they relinquished the right to make
profits out of these possessions? Have they set aside all political
privileges, will they sacrifice them upon the altar of the father-
land, now that it is in danger? It is, to say the least, a rather
naive hypothesis, and sounds almost like a story from a kinder-
garten primer. And yet the declaration of our official leaders
that the class struggle has been suspended, permits no other in-
terpretation. Of course nothing of the sort has occurred. Prop-
erty rights, exploitation and class rule, even political oppression
in all its Prussian thoroughness have remained intact. The can-
non in Belgium and in Eastern Prussia have not had the slightest
influence upon the fundamental social and political structure of
Germany.

a^ THE CRISIS

The cessation of the class struggle was, therefore, a deplorably
one-sided affair. While capitalist oppression and exploitation,
the worst enemies of the working class remain, socialist and labor
union leaders have generously delivered the working class, with-
out a struggle, into the hands of the enemy for the duration of
the war. While the ruling classes are fully armed with the prop-
erty and supremacy rights, the working class, at the advice of the
Social-Democracy has laid down its arms.

Once before, in 1848 in France, the proletariat experienced
this miracle of class harmony, this fraternity of all classes of a
modem capitalist state of society. In his "Class Struggles in
France," Karl Marx writes : In the eyes of the proletariat, who
confused the moneyed aristocracy with the bourgeoisie, in the
imagination of republican idealists, who denied the very exist-
ence of classes, or attributed them to a monarchical form of gov-
ernment, in the deceitful phrases of those bourgeois who had
hitherto been excluded from power, the rule of the bourgeoisie
was ended when the republic was proclaimed. At that time all
royalists became republican, all millionaires in Paris became
laborers. In the word "Fraternity," the brotherhood of man, this
imaginary destruction of classes found official expression. This
comfortable abstraction from class differences, this sentimental
balancing of class interests, this Utopian disregard of the class
struggle, this "Fraternity" was the real slogan of the February
revolution. . . The Parisian proletariat rejoiced in an orgy of
brotherhood. . . The Parisian proletariat, looking upon the re-
public as its own creation, naturally acclaimed every act of the
provisional bourgeois government. Willingly it permitted Caus-
sidiere to use its members as policemen to protect the property
of Paris. With unquestioning faith it allowed Louis Blanc to
regulate wage differences betwen workers and masters. In their
eyes it was a matter of honor to preserve the fair name of the
republic before the peoples of Europe."

THE CRISIS 83

Thus in February, 1848, a naive Parisian proletariat set aside
the class struggle. But let us not forget that even they committed
this mistake only after the July monarchy had been crushed by
their revolutionary action, after a republic had been established.
The fourth of August, 1914, is an inverted February revolution :
It is the setting aside of class differences, not under a republic,
but under a military monarchy, not after a victory of the people
over reaction, but after a victory of reaction over the people, not
with the proclamation of "Libert^, Egalite, Fraternite," but with
the proclamation of a state of siege, after the press had been
choked and the constitution annihilated.

Impressively the government of Germany proclaimed a civil
peace. Solemnly the parties promised to abide by it. But as ex-
perienced politicians these gentlemen know full well that it is
fatal to trust too much to promises. They secured civil peace for
themselves by the very real measure of a military dictatorship.
This too the social-democratic group accepted without protest or
opposition. In the declarations of August fourth and December
second there is not a syllable of indignation over the affront con-
tained in the proclamation of military rule. When it voted for
civil peace and war credits, the social-democracy silently gave its
consent to military rule as well, and laid itself, bound and gagged,
at the feet of the ruling classes. The declaration of military rule
was purely an anti-socialist measure. From no other side were
resistance, protest, action, and difficulties to be expected. As a
reward for its capitulation the social-democracy merely received
what it would have received under any circumstances, even after
an unsuccessful resistance, namely military rule. The impres-
sive declaration of the Reichstag group emphasizes the old so-
cialist principle of the right of nations to self-determination, as
an explanation of their vote in favor of war credits. Self-deter-
mination for the German proletariat was the straight- jacket of
a state of siege. Never in the histor)' of the world has a party
made itself more ridiculous.

84 THE CRISIS

But more ! In refuting the existence of the class struggle, the
social-democracy has denied the very basis of its own existence.
What is the very breath of its body, if not the class struggle?
What role could it expect to play in the war, once having sacri-
ficed the class struggle, the fundamental principle of its exist-
ence? The social-democracy has destroyed its mission, for the
period of the war, as an active political party, as a representative
of working class politics. It has thrown aside the most important
weapon it possessed, the power of criticism of the war from the
peculiar point of view of the working class. Its only mission now
is to play the role of the gendarme over the working class under
a state of military rule.

German freedom, that same German freedom for which, ac-
cording to the declaration of the Reichstag group, Krupp can-
nons are now fighting, has been endangered by this attitude of
the social-democracy far beyond the period of the present war.
The leaders of the Social-Democracy are convinced that demo-
cratic liberties for the working class will come as a reward for
its allegiance to the fatherland. But never in the history of the
world has an oppressed class received political rights as a reward
for service rendered to the ruling classes. History is full of
examples of shameful deceit on the part of the ruling classes,
even when solemn promises were made before the war broke out.
The Social-Democracy has not assured the extension of liberty
in Germany. It has sacrificed those liberties that the working
class possessed before the war broke out. The indifference with
which the German people have allowed themselves to be deprived
of the freedom of the press, of the right of assembly and of pub-
lic life, the fact that they not only calmly bore, but even ap-
plauded the state of siege, is unexampled in the history of modern
society. In England the freedom of the press has nowhere been
violated, in France there is incomparably more freedom of public
opinion than in Germany. In no country has public opinion so

THE CRISIS 85

completely vanished, nowhere has it been so completely super-
seded by official opinion, by the order of the government, as in
Germany. Even in Russia there is only the destructive work of
a public censor who effectively wipes out opposition of opinion.
But not even there have they descended to the custom of provid-
ing articles ready for the press to the opposition papers. In no
other country has the government forced the opposition press to
express in its columns the politics that have been dictated and
ordered by the government in "Confidential Conferences." Such
measures were unknown even in Germany during the war of
1870. At that time the press enjoyed unlimited freedom, and ac-
companied the events of the war, to Bismarck's active resent-
ment, with criticism that was often exceedingly sharp. The
newspapers were full of active discussion on war aims, on ques-
tions of annexation, and constitutionality. When Johann Jacobi
was arrested, a storm of indignation swept over Germany, so
that even Bismarck felt obliged to disavow all responsibility for
this "mistake" of the powers of reaction. Such was the situation
in Germany at a time when Bebel and Liebknecht, in the name
of the German working class, had declined all community of
interests with the ruling jingoes. It took a Social-Democracy with
four and one-half million votes to conceive of the touching
"Burgfrieden," to assent to war credits, to bring upon us the
worst military dictatorship that was ever suffered to exist. That
such a thing is possible in Germany to-day, that not only the bour-
geois press, but the highly developed and influential socialist press
as well permits these things without even the pretence of oppo-
sition bears a fatal significance for the future of Germany liberty.
It proves that society in Germany to-day has within itself no
foundation for political freedom, since it allows itself to be thus
lightly deprived of its most sacred rights. Let us not forget that
the political rights that existed in Germany before the war were
not won, as were those of France and England, in great and re-

86 THE CRISIS

peated revolutionary struggles, are not firmly anchored in the
lives of the people by the power of revolutionary tradition. They
are the gift of a Bismarckian policy granted after a period of
victorious counter - revolution that lasted over twenty years.
German liberties did not ripen on the field of revolution, they are
the product of diplomatic gambling by Prussian military mon-
archy, they are the cement with which this military monarchy
has united the present German empire. Danger threatens the
free development of German freedom not, as the German Reichs-
tag group believe, from Russia, but in Germany itself. It lies
in the peculiar counter-revolutionary origin of the German
constitution, and looms dark in the reactionary powers that have
controlled the German state since the empire was founded, con-
ducting a silent but relentless war against these pitiful "German
liberties." The Junkers of east of the Elbe, the business jingoes,
the arch-reactionaries of the Center, the degraded "German
liberals," the personal rulership, the sway of the sword, the
Zabem policy, that triumphed all over Germany before the war
broke out, these are the real enemies of culture and liberty, and
the war, the state of siege and the attitude of the social demo-
cracy, are strengthening the powers of darkness all over the land.
The Liberal, to be sure, can explain away this graveyard quiet
in Germany with a characteristically liberal explanation; to him
it is only a temporary sacrifice, for the duration of the war. But
to a people that is politically ripe, a sacrifice of its rights and its
public life, even temporarily, is as impossible as for a human
being to give up, for a time, his right to breathe. A people that
gives silent consent to military government in times of war
thereby admits that political independence at any time is super-
fluous. The passive submission of the Social Democracy to the
present state of siege and its vote for war credits without attach-
ing the slightest condition thereto, its acceptance of a civil peace,
has demoralized the masses, the only existing pillar of German

THE CRISIS 81

constitutional government, has strengthened the reaction of its
rulers, the enemies of constitutional government.

By sacrificing the class struggle our party has moreover, once
and for all, given up the possibility of making its influence ef-
fectively felt in determining the extent of the war and the terms
of peace. To its own official declaration, its acts have
been a stinging blow. While protesting against all annexations,
which are, after all, the logical consequences of an imperialistic
war that is successful from the military point of view, it has
handed over every weapon that the working class possessed that
might have empowered the masses to mobilize public opinion in
their own direction, to exert an effective pressure upon the terms
of war and of peace. By assuring militarism of peace and quiet
at home the Social Democracy has given its military rulers per-
mission to follow their own course without even considering the
interests of the masses, has unleashed in the hearts of the ruling
classes the most unbridled imperialistic tendencies. In other
words, when the Social Democracy adopted its platform of civil
peace, and the political disarmament of the working class, it con-
demned its own demand of no annexations to impotency.

Thus the Social Democracy has added another crime to the
heavy burden it already has to bear, namely the lengthening of the
war. The commonly accepted dogma that we can oppose the
war only so long as it is threatened, has become a dangerous trap.
As an inevitable consequence, once the war has come, social
democratic political action is at an end. There can be, then,
but one question, victory or defeat, i. e., the class struggle must
stop for the period of the war. But actually the greatest prob-
lem for the political movement of the Social Democracy begins
only after the war has broken out. At the international con-
gresses held in Stuttgart in 1907 and in Basel in 191 2, the German
party and labor union leaders unanimously voted in favor of a
resolution which says:

88 THE CRISIS

"Should war nevertheless break out, it shall be the duty of the
Social-Democracy to work for a speedy peace, and to strive with
every means in its power to utilize the industrial and political
crisis to accomplish the awakening of the people, thus hastening
the overthrow of capitalist class rule".

What has the Social-Democracy done in this war? Exactly
the contrary. By voting in favor of war credits and entering
upon a civil peace, it has striven, by all the means in its power,
to prevent the industrial and political crisis, to prevent an awak-
ening of the masses by the war. It strives "with all the means
in its power" to save the capitalist state from its own anarchy,
to reduce the nimiber of its victims. It is claimed — we have often
heard this argument used by Reichstag deputies — that not one
man less would have fallen upon the battle fields if the Social
Democratic group had voted against the war credits. Our party
press has steadfastly maintained that we must support and join
in the defence of our country in order to reduce the number of
bloody victims that this war shall cost. But the policy that we
have followed out has had exactly the opposite effect. In the
first place, thanks to the civil peace, and the patriotic attitude of
the Social Democracy, the imperialistic war unleashed its furies
without fear. Hitherto, fear of restiveness at home, fear of the
fury of the hungry populace, have been a load upon the minds
of the ruling classes that effectively checked them in their bel-
licose desires. In the well known words of Buelow: "they are
trying to put off the war chiefly because they fear the Social
Democracy". Rohrbach says in his "Krieg und die Deutsche
Politik", page 7, "unless elemental catastrophies intervene, the
only power that can force (jermany to make peace is the hunger
of the breadless". Obviously he meant a hunger that attracts at-
tention, that forces itself unpleasantly upon the ruling classes in
order to force them to pay heed to its demands. Let us see.

THE CRISIS 89

finally, what a prominent military theoretician, General Bern-
hardi, says, in his great work "Vom Heutigen Kriege." "Thus
modem mass armies make war difficult for a variety of reasons.
Moreover they constitute, in and of themselves, a danger that
must never be underestimated.

"The mechanism of such an army is so huge and so compli-
cated that it can remain efficient and flexible only so long as its
cogs and wheels work, in the main, dependably, and obvious
moral confusion is carefully prevented. These are things that
cannot be completely avoided, as little as we can conduct a war
exclusively with victorious battles. They can be overcome if
they appear only within certain restricted limits. But when
great, compact masses once shake off their leaders, when a spirit
of panic becomes widespread, when a lack of sustenance becomes
extensively felt, when the spirit of revolt spreads out among
the masses of the army, then the army becomes not only in-
effectual against the enemy, it becomes a menace to itself and to
its leaders. When the army bursts the bands of discipline, when
it voluntarily interrupts the course of military operation, it
creates problems that its leaders are unable to solve.

"War, with its modern mass armies is, under all circumstances,
a dangerous game, a game that demands the greatest possible
personal and financial sacrifice the state can offer. Under such
circumstances it is clear that provision must be made every-
where that the war, once it has broken out, be brought to an end
as quickly as possible, to release the extreme tension that must
accompany this supreme effort on the part of whole nations."

Thus capitalist politicians and military authorities alike be-
lieve war, with its modem mass armies, to be a dangerous game.
And therein lay for the Social Democracy the most effectual op-

90 THE CRISIS

portunity, to prevent the rulers of the present day from precipit-
ating war and to force them to end it as rapidly as possible. But
the position of the Social Democracy in this war cleared away
all doubts, has torn down the dams that held back the storm-
flood of militarism. In fact it has created a power for which
neither Bemhardi nor any other capitalist statesman dared hope
in his wildest dreams. From the camp of the social-democrats
came the cry : "Durchhalten", i. e., a continuation of this human
slaughter. And so the thousands of victims that have fallen
for months on the battlefields lie upon our conscience.

THE CRISIS 91

CHAPTER VII.

"But since we have been unable to prevent the war, since it
has come in spite of us, and our country is facing invasion, shall
we leave our country defenseless! Shall we deliver it into the
hands of the enemy? Does not Socialism demand the right of
nations to determine their own destinies ? Does it not mean that
every people is justified, nay more, is in duty bound, to protect its
liberties, its independence? 'When the house is on fire, shall we
not first try to put out the blaze before stopping to ascertain the
incendiary?' "

These arguments have been repeated, again and again in de-
fense of the attitude of the Social-Democracy, in Germany and in
France.

Even in the neutral countries this argument has been used.
Translated into Dutch we read for instance: "When the ship
leaks must we not seek, first of all, to stop the hole?"

To be sure. Fie upon a people that capitulates before invasion
and fie upon a party that capitulates before the enemy within.

But there is one thing that the fireman in the burning house has
forgotten : that in the mouth of a Socialist the phrase "Defending
one's fatherland" cannot mean playing the role of cannon fodder
under the command of an imperialistic bourgeoisie.

Is an invasion really the horror of all horrors, before which all
class conflict within the country must subside as though spell-
bound by some supernatural witchcraft ? According to the police
theory of bourgeois patriotism and military rule, every evidence
of the class struggle is a crime against the interests of the country
because they maintain that it constitutes a weakening of the
stamina of the nation. The Social-Democracy has allowed itself
to be perverted into this same distorted point of view. Has not

92 THE CRISIS

the history of modern capitaHst society shown that in the eyes of
capitalist society, foreign invasion is by no means the unmitigated
terror as which it is generally painted ; that on the contrary it is a
measure to which the bourgeoisie has frequently and gladly
resorted as an effective weapon against the enemy within? Did
not the Bourbons and the aristocrats of France invite foreign
invasion against the Jacobites? Did not the Austrian counter-
revolution in 1849 call out the French invaders against Rome, the
Russian against Budapest? Did not the "Party of Law and
Order" in France in 1850 openly threaten an invasion of the Cos-
sacks in order to bring the national assembly to terms ? And was
not the Bonaparte army released, and the support of the Prussian
army against the Paris Commune assured, by the famous contract
between Jules Favre, Thiers and Co., and Bismarck? This his-
torical evidence led Karl Marx, 45 years ago, to expose the
"national wars" of modern capitalist society as miserable frauds.
In his famous address to the General Council of the International
on the downfall of the Paris Commune, he said :

"That, after the greatest war of modern times the belligerent
armies, the victor and the vanquished, should unite for the mutual
butchery of the proletariat — this incredible event proves, not as
Bismarck would have us believe, the final overthrow of the new
social power — but the complete disintegration of the old bour-
geois society. The highest heroic accomplishment of which the
old order is capable, is the national war. And this has now
proved to be a fraud perpetrated by government for no other
purpose than to put off the class struggle, a fraud that is bared
as soon as the class struggle flares up in a civil war. Class rule
can no longer hide behind a national unifonn. The national gov-
ernments are united against the proletariat."

In capitalist history, invasion and class struggle are not oppo-
sites, as the official legend would have us believe, but one is the
means and the expression of the other. Just as invasion is the

THE CRISIS 93

true and tried weapon in the hands of capital against the class
struggle, so on the other hand the fearless pursuit of the class
struggle has always proven the most effective preventative of
foreign invasions. On the brink of modem times are the
examples of the Italian cities, Florence, and Milano, with their
century of bitter struggle against the Hohenstaufen. The stormy
history of these cities, torn by inner conflicts, proves that the
force and the fury of inner class struggles not only does not
weaken the defensive powers of the community, but that on the
contrary, from their fires shoot the only flames that are strong
enough to withstand every attack from a foreign foe.

But the classic example of our own times is the great French
Revolution. In T 793 Paris, the heart of France, was surrounded
by enemies. And yet Paris and France at that time did not suc-
cumb to the invasion of a stormy flood of European coalition ; on
the contrary, it welded its force in the face of the growing danger,
to a more gigantic opposition. If France, at that critical time,
was able to meet each new coalition of the enemy with a new
miraculous loosening of the inmost forces of society in the great
miraculous and undiminished fighting spirit, it was only because
of the impetuous loosening of the inmost forces of society in the
great struggle of the classes of France. Today, in the perspective
of a century, it is clearly discernible that only this intensification of
the class struggle, that only the Dictatorship of the French people
and their fearless radicalism, could produce means and forces out
of the soil of France, sufficient to defend and to sustain a new-
born society against a world of enemies, against the intrigues of
a dynasty, against the traitorous machinations of the aristocrats,
against the attempts of the clergy, against the treachery of their
generals, against the opposition of sixty departments and provin-
cial capitals, and against the united armies and navies of
monarchial Europe. The centuries have proven that not the state
of siege, but relentless class struggle is the power that awakens
the spirit of self-sacrifice, the moral strength of the masses, that

94 THE CRISIS

the class struggle is the best protection and the best defense
against a foreign enemy.

This same tragic quidproquo victimized the Social-Democracy
when it based its attitude in this war upon the doctrine of the
right of national self-determination.

It is true that Socialism gives to every people the right of inde-
pendence and the freedom of independent control of its own
destinies. But it is a veritable perversion of Socialism to regard
present day capitalist society as the expression of this self-deter-
mination of nations. Where is there a nation in which the people
have had the right to determine the form and conditions of their
national, political and social existence? In Germany the deter-
mination of the people found concrete expression in the demands
formulated by the G«rman revolutionary democrats of 1848; the
first fighters of the German proletariat, Marx, Engels, Lassalle,
Bebel and Liebknecht, proclaimed and fought for a united Ger-
man Republic. For this ideal the revolutionary forces in Berlin
and in Vienna, in those tragic days of March, shed their heart's
blood upon the barricades. To carry out this program, Marx
and Engels demanded that Prussia take up arms against Czar-
ism. The foremost demand made in the national program was
for the liquidation of "the heap of organized decay, the Hapsburg
monarchy," as well as of two dozen other dwarf monarchies
within Germany itself. The overthrow of the German revolu-
tion, the treachery of the German bourgeoisie to its own
democratic ideals, led to the Bismarck regime and to its creature,
present-day Greater Prussia, twenty-five fatherlands under one
helm, the German empire. Modern Germany is built upon the
grave of the March Revolution, upon the wreckage of the right
of self-determination of the German people. The present war,
supporting Turkey and the Hapsburg monarchy, and strengthen-
ing German military autocracy is a second burial of the March
revolutionists, and of the national program of the German people.

THE CRISIS 95

It is a fiendish jest of history that the Social-Democrats, the heirs
of the German patriots of 1848, should go forth in this war with
the banner of "self-determination of nations" held aloft in their
hands. But, perhaps the third French Republic, with its colonial
possessions in four continents and its colonial horrors in two,
is the expression of the self-determination of the French nation ?
Or the British nation, with its India, with its South African rule
of a million whites over a population of five million colored
people? Or perhaps Turkey, or the Empire of the Czar?

Capitalist polfticians, in whose eyes the rulers of the people
and the ruling classes are the nation, can honestly speak of the
"right of national self-determination" in connection with such
colonial empires. To the Socialist, no nation is free whose
national existence is based upon the enslavement of another
people, for to him colonial peoples, too, are human beings, and,
as such, parts of the national state. International Socialism
recognizes the right of free independent nations, with equal
rights. But Socialism alone can create such nations, can bring
self-determination of their peoples. This slogan of Socialism is
like all its others, not an apology for existing conditions, but a
guide-post, a spur for the revolutionary, regenerative, active
policy of the proletariat. So long as capitalist states exist, i. e.,
so long as imperialistic world policies determine and regulate the
inner and the outer life of a nation, there can be no "national
self-determination" either in war or in peace.

In the present imperialistic milieu there can be no wars of
national self-defense. Every socialist policy that depends upon
this determining historic milieu, that is willing to fix its policies
in the world whirlpool from the point of view of a single nation
is built upon a foundation of sand.

We have already attempted to show the background for the
present conflict between Germany and her opponents. It was
necessary to show up more clearly the actual forces and relations

96 THE CRISIS

that constitute the motive power behind the present war, because
this legend of the defense of the existence, the freedom and
civiHzation of Germany plays an important part in the attitude of
our group in the Reichstag and our Socialist press.
Against this legend historical truth must be emphasized to show
that this is a war. that has been prepared by German militarism
and its world-political ideas for years, that it was brought about
in the Summer of 1914, by Austrian and German diplomacy, with
a full realization of its import.

In a discussion of the general causes of the war, and of its
significance, the question of the "guilty party" is completely
beside the issue. Germany certainly has not the right to speak of
a war of defense, but France and England have little more
justification. They too, are protecting, not their national, but their
world-political existence, their old imperialistic possessions, from
the attacks of the German upstart. Doubtless the raids of Ger-
man and Austrian imperialism in the Orient started the confla-
gration, but French imperialism, by devouring Morocco, and
English imperialism, in its attempts to rape Mesopotamia, and all
the other measures that were calculated to secure its rule of force
in India, Russia's Baltic policies, aiming toward Constantinople,
all of these factors have carried together and piled up, brand for
brand, the firewood that feeds the conflagration. If capitalist
armaments have played an important role as the mainspring that
times the outbreak of the catastrophe, it was a competition of
armaments in all nations. And if Germany laid the cornerstone
for European competitive armaments by Bismarck's policy of
1870, this policy was furthered by that of the second Empire and
by the military-colonial policies of the third empire, by its ex-
pansions in East Asia and in Africa.

The French Socialists have some slight foundation for their
illusion of "national defense," because neither the French gov-
ernment nor the French people entertained the slightest warlike
desires in July 1914. "Today everyone in France is honestly.

THE CRISIS 9?

uprightly and without reservation for peace," insisted Jaures in
the last speech of his life, on the eve of the war, when he ad-
dressed a meeting in the People's House in Brussels. This was
absolutely true, and gives the psychological explanation for the
indignation of the French Socialists when this criminal war was
forced upon their country. But this fact was not sufficient to
determine the Socialist attitude on the world war as an historic
occurrence.

The events that bore the present war did not begin in July 1914
but reach back for decades. Thread by thread they have been
woven together on the loom of an inexorable natural develop-
ment, until the firm net of imperialist world politics has encircled
five continents. It is a huge historical complex of eyents, whose
roots reach deep down into the Plutonic deeps of economic crea-
tion, whose outermost branches spread out and point away into
a dimly dawning new world, events before whose all-embracing
immensity, the conception of guilt and retribution, of defense and
offense, sink into pale nothingness.

Imperialism is not the creation of any one or of any group of
states. It is the product of a particular stage of ripeness in the
world development of capital, an innately international condition,
an indivisible whole, that is recognizable only in all its relations,
and from which no nation can hold aloof at will. From this point
of view only is it possible to understand correctly the question of
"national defense" in the present war.

The national state, national unity and independence were the
ideological shield under which the capitalist nations of central
Europe constituted themselves in the past century. Capitalism
is incompatible with economic and political divisions, with the
accompanying splitting up into small states. It needs for its
development large, united territories, and a state of mental and
intellectual development in the nation that will lift the demands
and needs of society to a plane corresponding to the prevailing

98 THE CRISIS

stage of capitalistic production, and to the mechanism of modern
capitalist class rule. Before capitalism could develop, it sought
to create for itself a territory sharply defined by national limita-
tions. This program was carried out only in France at the time
of the great revolution, for in the national and political heritage
left to Europe by the feudal middle ages, this could be accom-
plished only by revolutionary measures. In the rest of Europe this
nationalization, like the revolutionary movement as a whole,
remained the patchwork of half-kept promises. The German
empire, modern Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey, the Russian
Empire and the British world-empire, are all living proofs of this
fact. The national program could play a historic role only so
long as it represented the ideological expression of a growing
bourgeoisie, lusting for power, until it had fastened its class rule,
in some way or other, upon the great nations of central Europe
and had created within them the necessary tools and conditions
of its growth. Since then, imperialism has buried the old bour-
geois democratic program completely by substituting expansion-
istic activity irrespective of national relationships for the original
program of the bourgeoisie in all nations. The national phrase,
to be sure, has been preserved, but its real content, its function
has been perverted into its very opposite. Today the nation is
but a cloak that covers imperialistic desires, a battle cry for im-
perialistic rivalries, the last ideological measure with which the
masses can be persuaded to play the role of cannon fodder in
imperialistic wars.

This general tendency of present day capitalist policies deter-
mines the policies of the individual states as their supreme
blindly operating law, just as the laws of economic competition
determine the conditions under which the individual manufac-
turer shall produce.

Let us assume for a moment, for the sake of argument, for the
purpose of investigating this phantom of "national wars" that
controls Social-Democratic politics at the present time, that in

THE CRISIS 99

one of the belligerent states, the war at its outbreak was purely
one of national defense. Military success would immediately
demand the occupation of foreign territory. But the existence
of influential capitalist groups, interested in imperialistic annex-
ations, will awaken expansionistic appetites as the war goes on.
The imperialistic tendency that, at the beginning of hostilities,
may have been existent only in embryo, will shoot up and expand
in the hothouse atmosphere of war until they will in a short time,
determine its character, its aims and its results. Furthermore, the
system of alliance between military states that has ruled the
political relations of these nations for decades in the past, makes
it inevitable that each of the belligerent parties in the course of
war, should try to bring its allies to its assistance, again purely
from motives of self-defense. Thus one country after another is
drawn into the war, inevitably new imperialistic circles are
touched and others are created. Thus England drew in Japan,
and, spreading the war into Asia, has brought China into the
circle of political problems and has influenced the existing rivalry
between Japan and the United States, between England and
Japan, thus heaping up new material for future conflicts. Thus
Germany has dragged Turkey mto the war, bringing the question
of Constantinople, of the Balkans and of Western Asia directly
into the foreground of affairs. Even he who did not realize at
the outset that the world war, in its causes, was purely impe-
rialistic, cannot fail to see after a dispassionate view of its effects
that war, under the present conditions, automatically and inevi-
tably develops into a process of world division. This was apparent
from the very first. The wavering balance of power between the
two belligerent parties forces each, if only for military reasons,
in order to strengthen its own position, or in order to frustrate
possible attacks, to hold the neutral nations in check by intensive
deals in peoples and nations, such as the German-Austrian offers
to Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria and Greece on the one hand, and the
English-Russian bids on the other. The "National war of de-

100 THE CRISIS

fense" has the surprising effect of creating, even in the neutral
nations, a general transformation of ownership and relative
power, always in direct line with expansionistic tendencies.
Finally the fact that all modern capitalist states have colonial
possessions that will, even though the war may have begun as a
war of national defense, be drawn into the conflict from purely
military considerations, the fact that each country will strive to
occupy the colonial possessions of its opponent, or at least to
create disturbances therein, automatically turns every war into
an imperialistic world conflagration.

Thus the conception of even that modest, devout fatherland-
loving war of defense that has become the ideal of our parlia-
mentarians and editors is pure fiction, and shows, on their part, a
complete lack of understanding of the whole war and its world
relations. The character of the war is determined, not by solemn
declaration, not even by the honest intentions of leading poli-
ticians, but by the momentary configuration of society and its
military organizations. At the first glance the term "national war
of defense" might seem applicable in the case of a country like
Switzerland. But Switzerland is no national state, and, therefore,
no object of comparison with other modern states. Its very
"neutral" existence, its luxury of a militia, are after all only the
negative fruits of a latent state of war in the surrounding great
military states. It will hold this neutrality only so long as it is
willing to oppose this condition. How quickly such a neutral
state is crushed by the military heel of imperialism in a world
war the fate of Belgium shows. This brings us to the peculiar
position of the "small nation." A classic example of such
"national wars" is Servia. If ever a state, according to formal
considerations, had the right of national defense on its side, that
state is Servia. Deprived through Austrian annexations of its
national unity, threatened by Austria in its very existence as' a
nation, forced by Austria into war, it is fighting, according to all
human conceptions, for existence, for freedom and for the civili-

THE CRISIS 101

zation of its people. But if the Social-Democratic group is right
in its position, then the Servian Social-Democrats who protested
against the war in the parliament at Belgrade and refused to vote
war credits are actually traitors to the most vital interests of their
own nation. In reality the Servian Socialists Lapschewitsh and
Kanzlerowitsh have not only enrolled their names in letters of
gold in the annals of the international socialist movement, but
have shown a clear historical conception of the real causes of the
war. In voting against war credits they therefore have done
their country the best possible service. Servia is formally en-
gaged in a national war of defense. But its monarchy and its
ruling classes are filled with expansionist desires as are the ruling
classes in all modern states. They are indifferent to ethnic
lines, and thus their warfare assumes an aggressive character.
Thus Servia is today reaching out toward the Adriatic coast
where it is fighting out a real imperialistic conflict with Italy on
the backs of the Albanians, a conflict whose final outcome will be
decided not by either of the powers directly interested, but by the
great powers that will speak the last word on terms of peace.
But above all this we must not forget: behind Servian national-
ism stands Russian imperialism. Servia itself is only a pawn in
the great game of world politics. A judgment of the war in
Servia from a point of view that fails to take these great relations
and the general world-political background into account, is
necessarily without foundation. The same is true of the recent
Balkan War. Regarded as an isolated occurrence, the young
Balkan States were historically justified in defending the old
democratic program of the national state. In their historical
connection, however, which makes the Balkan the burning point
and the center of imperialistic world policies, these Balkan wars,
also, were objectively only a fragment of the general conflict, a
link in the chain of events that led, with fatal necessity, to the
present world war. After the Balkan war the international
Social-Democracy tendered to the Balkan Socialists, for their

103 THE CRISIS

determined refusal to offer moral or political support to the war,
a most enthusiastic ovation at the peace congress at Basel. In
this act alone the International condemned in advance the position
taken by the German and French Socialists in the present war.

All small states, as for instance Holland, are today in a posi-
tion like that of the Balkan states, "When the ship leaks, the
hole must be stopped"; and what, forsooth, could little Holland
fight for but for its national existence and for the independence
of its people? If we consider here merely the determination of
the Dutch people, even of its ruling classes, the question is doubt-
lessly one purely of national defense. But again proletarian
politics cannot judge according to the subjective purposes of a
single country. Here again it must take its position as a part of
the International, according to the whole conplexity of the world's
political situation. Holland, too, whether it wishes to be or not,
is only a small wheel in the great machine of modem world
politics and diplomacy. This would become clear at once, if
Holland were actually torn into the maelstrom of the world war.
Its opponents would direct their attacks against its colonies. Auto-
matically Dutch warfare would turn to the defense of its present
possessions. The defense of the national independence of the
Dutch people on the North Sea would expand concretely to
the defense of its rule and right of exploitation over the Malays
in the East Indian Archipelago. But not enough : Dutch militar-
ism, if forced to rely upon itself, would be crushed like a nutshell
in the whirlpool of the world war. Whether it wished to or not
it would become a member of one of the great national alliances.
On one side or the other it must be the bearer and the tool of
purely imperialistic tendencies.

Thus it is always the historic milieu of modem imperialism that
determines the character of the war in the individual countries,
and this milieu makes a war of national self-defense impossible.

Kautsky also expressed this, only a few years ago, in his
pamphlet "Patriotism and Social-Democracy," Leipzig, 1907:

THE CRISIS 103

"Though the patriotism of the bourgeoisie and of the prole-
tariat are two entirely different, actually opposite phenomena,
there are situations in which both kinds of patriotism may join
forces for united action, even in times of war. The bourgeoisie
and the proletariat of a nation are equally interested in their
national independence and self-determination, in the removal of
all kinds of oppression and exploitation at the hands of a foreign
nation. In the national conflicts that have sprung from such
attempts, the patriotism of the proletariat has always united with
that of the bourgeoisie. But the proletariat has become a power
that may become dangerous to the ruling classes at every great
national upheaval ; revolution looms dark at the end of every war,
as the Paris Commune of 1871 and Russian terrorism after the
Russian-Japanese war have proven. In view of this the bour-
geoisie of those nations which are not sufficiently united have
actually sacrificed their national aims where these can be main-
tained only at the expense of their government, for they hate and
fear the revolution even more than they love national independ-
ence and greatness. For this reason, the bourgeoisie sacrifices
the independence of Poland and permits ancient constellations
like Austria and Turkey to remain in existence, though they have
been doomed to destruction for more than a generation. Na-
tional struggles as the bringers of revolution have ceased in
civilized Europe. National problems that today can be solved
only by war or revolution, will be solved in the future only by the
victory of the proletariat. But then, thanks to international soli-
darity, they will at once assume a form entirely different from that
which prevails today in a social state of exploitation and oppres-
sion. In capitalistic states this problem needs no longer to trouble
the proletariat in its practical struggles. It must divert its whole
strength to other problems." (Page 12-14.)

"Meanwhile the likelihood that proletarian and bourgeois
patriotism will unite to protect the liberty of the people is be-
comings more and more rare." Kautsky then goes on to say thqt

104 THE CRISIS

the French bourgeoisie has united with Czarism, that Russia
has ceased to be a danger for western Europe because it has
been weakened by the Revolution. "Under these circumstances
a war in defense of national liberty in which bourgeois and
proletarian may unite, is nowhere to be expected." (Page 16.)

"We have already seen that conflicts which, in the 19th century,
might still have led some liberty loving peoples to oppose their
neighbors, by warfare, have ceased to exist. We have seen that
modem militarism nowhere aims to defend important popular
rights, but everywhere strives to support profits. Its activities
are dedicated not to assure the independence and invulnerability
of its own nationality, that is nowhere threatened, but to the
assurance and the extension of over-sea conquests that again only
serve the aggrandizement of capitalist profits. At the present
time the conflicts between states can bring no war that proletarian
interests would not, as a matter of duty, energetically oppose."
(Page 23.)

In view of all these considerations, what shall be the practical
attitude of the Social-Democracy in the present war? Shall it
declare: since this is an imperialistic war, since we do not enjoy
in our country, any Socialist self-determination, its existence or
non-existence is of no consequence to us, and we will surrender
it to the enemy? Passive fatalism can never be the role of a
revolutionary party, like the Social-Democracy. It must neither
place itself at the disposal of the existing class state, under the
command of the ruling classes, nor can it stand silently by to wait
until the storm is past. It must adopt a policy of active class
politics, a policy that will whip the ruling classes forward in every
great social crisis, and that will drive the crisis itself far beyond
its original extent. That is the role that the Social-Democracy
must play as the leader of the fighting proletariat. Instead of
covering this imperialistic war with a lying mantle of national
self-defense, the Social-Democracy should have demanded the

THE CRISIS 105

right of national self-determination seriously, should have used
it as a lever against the imperialistic war.

The most elementary demand of national defense is that the
nation take its defense into its own hands. The first step in this
direction is the militia; not only the immediate armament of the
entire adult male populace, but above all, popular decision in all
questions of peace and war. It must demand, furthermore, the
immediate removal of every form of political oppression, since
the greatest political freedom is the best basis for national de-
fense. To proclaim these fundamental measures of national
defense, to demand their realization, that was the first duty of
the Social-Democracy.

For forty years we have tried to prove to the ruling classes as
well as to the masses of the people that only the militia is really
able to defend the fatherland and to make it invincible. And yet,
when the first test came, we turned over the defense of our
country, as a matter of course, into the hands of a standing army,
to be the cannon fodder under the club of the ruling classes. Our
parliamentarians apparently did not even notice that the fervent
wishes with which they sped these defenders of the fatherland to
the front were, to all intents and purposes, an open admission
that the imperial Prussian standing army is the real defender of
the fatherland. They evidently did not realize that by this ad-
mission they sacrificed the fulcrum of our political program, that
they gave up the militia and dissolved the practical significance
of forty years' of agitation against the standing army into thin
air. By the act of the Social-Democratic group our military
program became a Utopian doctrine, a doctrinaire obsession, that
none could possibly take seriously.

The masters of the international proletariat saw the idea of
fatherland defense in a different light. When the proletariat of
Paris, surrounded by Prussians in 1871, took the reins of the
government into its own hands, Marx wrote enthusiastically :

106 THE CRISIS

"Paris, the center and seat of the old government powers, and
simultaneously the social center of gravity of the French working
class, Paris has risen in arms against the attempt of Monsieur
Thiers and his Junkers to reinstate and perpetuate the govern-
ment of the old powers of imperial rule. Paris was in a position
to resist only, because, through the state of siege, it was rid of its
army, because in its place there had been put a national guard
composed chiefly of working men. It was necessary that this
innovation be made a permanent institution. The first act of the
Commune was, therefore, the suppression of the standing army
and the substitution of an armed people. ... If now, the Commune
was the true representative of all healthy elements of French
society and, therefore, a true national government, it was likewise,
as a proletarian government, as the daring fighter for the libera-
tion of labor, international in the truest sense of that word.
Under the eyes of the Prussian army, which has annexed two
French Provinces to Germany, the Commune has annexed the
workers of a whole world to France." (Address of the General
Council of the International.)

But what did our masters say concerning the role to be played
by the Social-Democracy in the present war? In 1892 Friedrich
Engels expressed the following opinion concerning the fun-
damental lines along which the attitude of proletarian parties in
a great war should follow :

"A war in the course of which Russians and Frenchmen should
invade Germany would mean for the latter a life and death
struggle. Under such circumstances it could assure its national
existence only by using the most revolutionary methods. The
present government, should it not be forced to do so, will cer-
tainly not bring on the revolution, but we have a strong party that
may force its hand, or that, should it be necessary, can replace it,
the Social-Democratic party.

"We have not forgotten the glorious example of France in 1793.

THE CRISIS 107

The one hundredth anniversary of 1793 is approaching. Should
Russia's desire for conquest, or the chauvinistic impatience of the
French Bourgeoisie, check the victorious but peaceable march of
the German Socialists, the latter are prepared — be assured of
that — to prove to the world that the German proletarians of today
are not unworthy of the French Sansculottes, that 1893 will be
worthy of 1793. And should the soldiers of Monsieur Constans
set foot upon German territory we will meet them with the words
of the Marseillaise :

"Shall hateful tyrants, mischief breeding,
With hireling host, a ruffian band.
Affright and desolate the land?"

"In short, peace assures the victory of the Social-Democratic
party in about ten years. The war will bring either victory in
two or three years or its absolute ruin for at least fifteen or
twenty years."

When Engels wrote these words, he had in mind a situation
entirely different from the one existing today. In his mind's eye,
ancient Czarism still loomed threateningly in the background.
We have already seen the great Russian Revolution. He thought,
furthermore, of a real national war of defense, of a Germany
attacked on two sides, on the East and on the West by two enemy
forces. Finally, he overestimated the ripeness of conditions in
Germany and the likelihood of a social revolution, as all true
fighters are wont to overrate the real tempo of development. But
for all that, his sentences prove with remarkable clearness, that
Engels meant by national, defense in the sense of the Social-
Democracy, not the support of a Prussian Junker military govern-
ment and its Generalstab, but a revolutionary action after the
example of the French Jacobites.

Yes, Socialists should defend their country in great historical
crises, and here lies the great fault of the German Social-Demo-

108 THE CRISIS

cratic Reichstag group. When it announced on the 4th of August,
'"in this hour of danger, we will not desert our fatherland," it
denied its own words in the same breath. For truly it has
deserted its fatherland in its hour of greatest danger. The
highest duty of the Social-Democracy toward its fatherland de-
manded that it expose the real background of this imperialistic
war, that it rend the net of imperialistic and diplomatic lies that
covers the eyes of the people. It was their duty to speak loudly
and clearly, to proclaim to the people of Germany that in this war
victory and defeat would be equally fatal, to oppose the gagging
of the fatherland by a state of siege, to demand that the people
alone decide on war and peace, to demand a permanent se,ssion
of Parliament for the period of the war, to assume a watchful
control over the government by parliament, and over parliament
by the people, to demand the immediate removal of all political
inequalities, since only a free people can adequately govern its
country, and finally, to oppose to the imperialist war, based as it
was upon the most reactionary forces in Europe, the program of
Marx, of Engels, and Lassalle.

That was the flag that should have waved over the country.
That would have been truly national, truly free, in harmony with
the best traditions of Germany and the International class policy
of the proletariat.

The great historical hour of the world war obviously demanded
a unanimous political accomplishment, a broadminded, compre-
hensive attitude that only the Social-Democracy is destined to
give. Instead, there followed, on the part of the parliamentary
representatives of the working class, a miserable collapse. The
Social-Democracy did not adopt the wrong policy — it had no
policy whatsoever. It has wiped itself out completely as a class
party with a world-conception of its own, has delivered the
country, without a word of protest, to the fate of imperialistic
war without, to the dictatorship of the sword within. Nay more,
it has taken the responsibility for the war upon its own shoulders.

THE CRISIS 109

The declaration of the "Reichstag group" says : "We have voted
only the means for our country's defense. We decline all respon-
sibility for the war." But as a matter of fact, the truth lies in
exactly the opposite direction. The means for "national defense,"
i. e., for imperialistic mass butchery by the armed forces of the
military monarchy, were not voted by the Social-Democracy. For
the availability of the war credits did not in the least depend upon
the Social-Democracy. They, as a minority, stood against a com-
pact three-quarters majority of the capitalist Reichstag. The
Social-Democracy group accomplished only one thing by voting
in favor of the war credits. It placed upon the war the stamp of
democratic fatherland defense, and supported and sustained the
fictions that were propagated by the government concerning
the actual conditions and problems of the war.

Thus the serious dilemma between the national interests and
international solidarity of the proletariat, the tragic conflict that
made our parliamentarians fall "with heavy heart" to the side of
imperialistic warfare, was a mere figment of the imagination, a
bourgeois nationalist fiction. Between the national interests and
the class interests of the proletariat, in war and in peace, there is
actually complete harmony. Both demand the most energetic
prosecution of the class struggle, and the most determined in-
sistence on the Social-Democratic program.

But what action shbuld the party have taken to give to our
opposition to the war and to our war demands weight and em-
phasis? Should it have proclaimed a general strike? Should it
have called upon the soldiers to refuse military service? Thus
the question is generally asked. To answer with a simple yes
or no, were just as ridiculous as to decide : "When war breaks out
we will start a revolution." Revolutions are not "made" and
great movements of the people are not produced according to
technical recipes that repose in the pockets of the party leaders.
Small circles of conspirators may organize a riot for a certain
day and a certain hour, can give their small group of supporters

110 THE CRISIS

the signal to begin. Mass movements in great historical crises
cannot be initiated by such primitive measures. The best pre-
pared mass strike may break down miserably at the very moment
when the party leaders give the signal, may collapse completely
before the first attack. The success of great popular movements
depends, aye, the very time and circumstance of their inception
is decided, by a number of economic, political and psychological
factors. The existing degree of tension between the classes, the
degree of intelligence of the masses and the degree or ripeness
of their spirit of resistance — all these factors, which are incal-
culable, are premises that cannot be artificially created by any
party. That is the difference between great historical upheavals,
and the small show-demonstrations that a well disciplined party
can carry out in times of peace, orderly, well-trained perform-
ances, responding obediently to the baton in the hands of the
party leaders. The great historical hour itself creates the forms
that will carry the revolutionary movement to a successful out-
come, creates and improvises new weapons, enriches the arsenal
of the people with weapons unknown and unheard of by the
parties and their leaders.

What the Social-Democracy as the advance guard of the class-
conscious proletariat should have been able to give was not
ridiculous precepts and technical recipes, but a political slogan,
clearness concerning the political problems and interests of the
proletariat in times of war.

For what has been said of mass strikes in the Russian Revo-
lution is equally applicable to every mass movement : "While the
revolutionary period itself commands the creation and the com-
putation and payment of the cost of a mass strike, the leaders of
the Social-Democracy have an entirely different mission to fill.
Instead of concerning itself with the technical mechanism of the
mass movement, it is the duty of the Social-Democracy to under-
take the political leadership even in the midst of a historical
crisis. To give the slogan, to determine the direction of the

THE CRISIS 111

struggle, to so direct the tactics of the poHtical conflict that in its
every phase and movement the whole sum of available
and already mobilized active force of the proletariat is realized
and finds expression in the attitude of the party, that the tactics
of the Social-Democracy in determination and vigor shall never
be weaker than is justified by the actual power at its back, but
shall rather hasten in advance of its actual power, that is the
important problem of the party leadership in a great historical
crisis. Then this leadership will become, in a sense, the technical
leadership. A determined, consistent, progressive course of
action on the part of the Social-Democracy will create in the
masses assurance, self-confidence and a fearless fighting spirit.
A weakly vacillating course, based upon a low estimate of the
powers of the proletariat, lames and confuses the masses. In the
first case mass action will break out "of its own accord" and "at
the right time" ; in the second even a direct call to action on the
part of the leaders often remains ineflFectual." (Rosa Luxem-
burg, "Mass Strike, Party and Labor Unions," Hamburg, 1907.)

Far more important that the outward, technical form of the
action is its political content. Thus the parliamentary stage, for
instance, the only far reaching and internationally conspicuous
platform, could have become a mighty motive power for the
awakening of the people, had it been used by the Social-Demo-
cratic representatives to proclaim loudly and distinctly, the
interests, the problems and the demands of the working class.

"Would the masses have supported the Social-Democracy in its.
attitude against the war?" That is a question that no one can
answer. But neither is it an important one. Did our parliamen-
tarians demand an absolute assurance of victory from the
generals of the Prussian army before voting in favor of war
credits ? What is true of military armies is equally true of revo-
lutionary armies. They go into the fight, wherever necessity
demands it, without previous assurance of success. At the worst,

112 THE CRISIS

the party would have been doomed, in the first few months of
the war, to political ineffectuality.

Perhaps the bitterest persecutions would have been inflicted
upon our party for its manly stand, as they were, in 1870, the
reward of Liebknecht and Bebel. "But what does that matter,"
said Ignatz Auer, simply, in his speech on the Sedanfeier in 1895.
"A party that is to conquer the world must bear its principles
aloft without counting the dangers that this may bring. To act
differently is to be lost!"

"It is never easy to swim against the current," said the older
Liebknecht, "And when the stream rushes on with the rapidity
and the power of a Niagara it does not become easier! Our
older comrades still remember- the hatred of that year of greatest
national shame, under the Socialist exception laws of 1878. At
that time millions looked upon every Social-Democrat as having
played the part of a murderer and a vile criminal in 1870; the
Socialist had been in the eyes of the masses a traitor and an
enemy. Such outbreaks of the "popular soul" are astounding,
stunning, crushing in their elemental fury. One feels powerless,
as before a higher power. It is a real force majeure. There is no
tangible opponent. It 'is like an epidemic, in the people, in the
air, everywhere.

"The outbreak of 1878 cannot, however, be compared with the
outbreak in 1870. This hurricane of human passions,
breaking, bending, destroying all that stands in its way — and with
it the terrible machinery of militarism, in fullest, most horrible
activity; and we stand between the crushing iron wheels, whose
touch means instant death, between iron arms, that threaten every
moment to catch us. By the side of this elemental force of libe-
rated spirits stood the most complete mechanism of the art of
murder the world had hitherto seen ; and all in the wildest activ-
ity, every boiler heated to the bursting point. At such a time,
what is the will and the strength of the individual? Especially,

THE CRISIS 113

when one feels that one represents a tiny minority, that one pos-
sesses no firm support in the people itself.

"At that time our party was still in a period of development.
We were placed before the most serious test, at a time when we
did not yet possess the organization necessary to meet it. When
the anti-socialist movement came in the year of shame of our
enemies, in the year of honor for the Social-Democracy, then we
had already a strong, widespread organization. Each and every
one of us was strengthened by the feeling that he possessed a
mighty support in the organized movement that stood behind him,
and no sane person could conceive of the downfall of the party.

"So it was no small thing at that time to swim against the cur-
rent. But what is to be done, must be done. And so we gritted our
teeth in the face of the inevitable. There was no time for fear . "*. .
Certainly Bebel and I . . . never for a moment thought of the
warning. We did not retreat. We had to hold our posts, come
what might !"

They stuck to their posts, and for forty years the Social-Demo-
cracy lived upon the moral strength with which it had opposed
a world of enemies.

The same thing would have happened now. At first we would
perhaps have accomplished nothing but to save the honor of the
proletariat and thousands upon thousands of proletarians who
are dying in the trenches in mental darkness, would not have
died in spiritual confusion, but with the one certainty that that
which has been everything in their lives, the international, liber-
ating Social-Democracy, is more than the figment of a dream.

The voice of our party would have acted as a wet blanket upon
the chauvinistic intoxication of the masses. It would have pre-
served the intelligent proletariat from delirium, would have made
it more difficult for Imperialism to poison and to stupefy the
minds of the people. The crusade against the Social-Democracy
would have awakened the masses in an incredible short time.

114 THE CRISIS -

And as the war went on, as the horror of endless massacre and
bloodshed in all countries grew and grew, as its imperialistic hoof
became more and more evident, as the exploitation by bloodthirsty
speculators became more and more shameless, every live, honest,
progressive and humane element in the masses would have rallied
to the standard of the Social-Democracy. The German Social-
Democracy would have stood in the midst of this mad whirlpool
of collapse and decay, like a rock in a stormy sea, would have
been the lighthouse of the whole International, guiding and lead-
ing the labor movements of every country of the earth. The
unparalleled moral prestige that lay in the hands of the German
Socialists would have reacted upon the Socialists of all nations
in a very short time. Peace sentiments would have spread like
wildfire and the popular demand for peace in all countries would
have hastened the end of the slaughter, would have decreased
the number of its victims.

The German proletariat would have remained the lighthouse-
keeper of Socialism and of human emancipation.

Truly this was a task not unworthy of the disciples of Marx,
Engels, and Lassalle.

THE CRISIS 115

CHAPTER VIIL

In spite of military dictatorship and press censorship, in spite
of the downfall of the Social-Democracy, in spite of fratricidal
war, the class struggle arises from civil peace with elemental
force : from the blood and smoke of the battlefields the solidarity
of international labor arises. Not in weak attempts to artificially
galvanize the old International, not in pledges rendered now here,
now there, to stand together after the war is over. No, here,
in the war, out of the war arises, with a new might and intensity,
the recognition that the proletarians of all lands have one and the
same interest. The world war, itself, utterly disproves the false-
hoods it has created.

Victory or defeat? It is the slogan of all-powerful militarism
in every belligerent nation, and, like an echo, the social-democratic
leaders have adopted it. Victory or defeat has become the
highest motive of the workers of Germany, of France, of Eng-
land and of others, just as for the ruling classes of these nations.
When the cannons thunder, all proletarian interests subside before
the desire for victory of their own, i. e., for defeat of the other
countries. And yet, what can victory bring to the proletariat ?

According to the official version of the leaders of the Social-
Democracy, that was so readily adopted without criticism, victory
of the German forces would mean, for Germany, unhampered,
boimdless industrial growth; defeat, however, industrial ruin.
On the whole, this conception coincides with that generally ac-
cepted during the war of 1870. But the period of capitalist
growth that followed the war of 1870 was not caused by the war,
but resulted rather from the political union of the various German
states, even though this union took the form of the crippled figure
that Bismarck established as the German empire. Here the in-

116 THE CRISIS

dustrial impetus came from this union, in spite of the war and
the manifold reactionary hindrances that followed in its wake.
What the victorious war itself accomplished was to firmly estab-
lish the military monarchy and Prussian junkerdom in Germany;
the defeat of France led to the liquidation of its Empire and the
establishment of a Republic. But today the situation is different
in all of the nations in question. Today war does not function
as a dynamic force to provide for rising young capitalism the
indispensable political conditions for its "national" development.
Modern war appears in this role only in Serbia, and there only
as an isolated fragment. Reduced to its objective historic sig-
nificance, the present world war as a whole is a competitive
struggle of a fully developed capitalism for world supremacy, for
the exploitation of the last remnant of non-capitalistic world
zones. This fact gives to the war and its political after effects an
entirely new character. The high stage of world-industrial
development in capitalistic production finds expression in the
extraordinary technical development and destructiveness of the
instruments of war, as in their practically uniform degree of
perfection in all belligerent countries. The international organi-
zation of war industries is reflected in the military instability, that
persistently brings back the scales, through all partial decisions
and variations, to their true balance, and pushes a general decision
further and further into the future. The indecision of military
results, moreover, has the effect that a constant stream of new
reserves, from the belligerent nations as well as from nations
hitherto neutral, are sent to the front. Everywhere war finds
material enough for imperialist desires and conflicts ; itself creates
new material to feed the conflagration that spreads out like a
prairie fire. But the greater the masses, and the greater the
number of nations that are dragged into this world-war, the
longer will it rage. All of these things together prove, even
before any military decision of victory or defeat can be estab-
lished, that the result of the war will be : the economic ruin of all

THE CRISIS ll'?

participating nations, and, in a steadily growing measure, of the
formally neutral nations, a phenomenon entirely distinct from the
earlier wars of modern times. Every month of war affirms and
augments this effect, and thus takes away, in advance, the ex-
pected fruits of military victory for a decade to come. This, in
the last analysis, neither victory nor defeat can alter; on the
contrary it makes a purely military decision altogether doubtful,
and increases the likelihood that the war will finally end through
a general and extreme exhaustion. But even a victorious Ger-
many, under such circumstances, even if its imperialistic war
agitators should succeed in carrying on the mass murder to the
absolute destruction of their opponents, even if their most daring
dreams should be fulfilled — would win but a Pyrrhic victory. A
number of annexed territories, impoverished and depopulated,
and a grinning ruin under its own roof, would be its trophies.
Nothing can hide this, once the painted stage properties of finan-
cial war-bond transactions, and the Potemkin villages of an
"unalterable prosperity" kept up by war orders, are pushed aside.
The most superficial observer cannot but see that even the most
victorious nation cannot count on war indemnities that will stand
in any relation to the wounds that the war has inflicted. Perhaps
they may see in the still greater economic ruin of the defeated
opponents, England and France, the very countries with which
Germany was most closely united by industrial relations, upon
whose recuperation its own prosperity so much depends, a sub-
stitute and an augmentation for their victory. Such are the
circumstances under which the German people, even after a
victorious war, would be required to pay, in cold cash, the war
bonds that were "voted" on credit by the patriotic parliament;
i. e., to take upon their shoulders an immeasurable burden of
taxation, and a strengthened military dictatorship as the only per-
manent tangible fruit of victory.

Should we now seek to imagine the worst possible effects of

118 THE CRISIS

a defeat, we shall find that they resemble, line for line, with the
exception of imperialistic annexations, the same picture that pre-
sented itself as the irrefutable consequence of victory : the effects
of war today are so far reaching, so deeply rooted, that its
military outcome can alter but little in its final consequences.

But let us assume, for the moment, that the victorious nation
should find itself in the position to avoid the great catastrophe
for its own people, should be able to tkrow the whole burden of
the war upon the shoulders of its defeated opponent, should be
able to choke off the industrial development of the latter by all
sorts of hindrances. Can the German labor movement hope for
successful development, so long as the activity of the French,
English, Belgian and Italian laborers is hampered by industrial
retrogression? Before 1870 the labor movements of the various
nations grew independently of each other. The action of the
nations grew, independently of each other. The action of the
labor movement of a single city often controlled the destinies of
the whole labor movement. On the streets of Paris the battles
of the working class were fought out and decided. The modem
labor movement, its laborious daily struggle in the industries of
the world, its mass organization, are based upon the co-operation
of the workers in all capitalistically producing countries. If the
truism that the cause of labor can thrive only upon a virile, pul-
sating industrial life applies, then it is true not only for Germany,
but for France, England, Belgium, Russia, and Italy as well. And
if the labor movement in all of the capitalist states of Europe
becomes stagnant, if industrial conditions there result in low
wages, weakened labor unions, and a diminished power of re-
sistance on the part of labor, labor unionism in Germany cannot
possibly flourish. From this point of view the loss sustained by
the working class in its industrial struggle is in the last analysis
identical, whether German capital be strengthened at the expense
of the French or English capital at the expense of the German.

THE CRISIS 119

But let us investigate the political effects of the war. Here
differentiation should be less difficult than upon the economic
side, for the sympathies and the partisanship of the proletariat
have always tended toward the side that defended progress
against reaction. Which side, in the present war, represents
progress, which side reaction? It is clear that this question can-
not be decided according to the outward insignias that mark the
political character of the belligerent nations as "democracy" and
absolutism. They must be judged solely according to the tenden-
cies of their respective world pdlicies.

Before we can determine what a German victory can win for
the German proletariat we must consider its effect upon the gen-
eral status of political conditions all over Europe. A decisive
victory for Germany would mean, in the first place, the annexa-
tion of Belgium, as well as of a possible number of territories in
the East and West and a part of the French colonies ; the sustain-
ing of the Hapsburg Monarchy and its aggrandizement by a
number of new territories ; finally the €stablishment of a fictitious
"integrity" of Turkey, under a German protectorate — i. e., the
conversion of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, in one form or
another, into German provinces. In the end this would result in
the actual military and economic hegemony of Germany in
Europe. Not because they are in accord with the desires of im-
perialist agitators are these consequences of an absolute German
military victory to be expected, but because they are the inevit-
able outgrowth of the world-political position that Germany has
adopted, of conflicting interests with England, France, and Russia,
in which Germany has been involved, and which have grown,
during the course of the war, far beyond their original dimen-
sions. It is sufficient to recall these facts to realize that they
could under no circumstances .establish a permanent world-
political equilibrium. Though this war may mean ruin for all
of its participants, and worse for its defeated, the preparations

120 THE CRISIS

for a new world war, under England's leadership, would begin
on the day after peace is declared, to shake off the yoke of
Prussian-German militarism that would rest upon Europe and
Asia. A German victory would be the prelude to an early second
world-war, and therefore, for this reason, but the signal for new
feverish armaments, for the unleashing of the blackest reaction
in every country, but particularly in Germany. On the other
hand a victory of England or France would mean, in all likeli-
hood, for Germany, the loss of a part of her colonies, as well as of
Alsace-Lorraine, and certainly the bankruptcy of the world-polit-
ical position of German militarism. But this would mean the
disintegration of Austria-Hungary and the total liquidation of
Turkey. Reactionary as both of these states are, and much as
their disintegration would be in line with the demands of pro-
gressive development, in the present world-political milieu, the
disintegration of the Hapsburg Monarchy and the liquidation of
Turkey would mean the bartering of their peoples to the highest
bidder — Russia, England, France, or Italy. This enormous re-
division of the world and shifting of the balance of power in the
Balkan states and along the Mediterranean would be followed
inevitably by another in Asia : the liquidation of Persia and a
redivision of China. This would bring the English-Russian as
well as the English-Japanese conflict into the foreground of
international politics, and may mean, in direct connection with
the liquidation of the present war, a new world war, perhaps for
Constantinople ; would certainly bring it about, inescapably, in the
immediate future. So a victory on this side, too, would lead to
new, feverish armaments in all nations — defeated Germany,
of course, at the head — and would introduce an era of undivided
rule for militarism and reaction all over Europe, with a new war
as its final goal.

So the proletariat, should it attempt to cast its influence into
the balance on one side or the other, for progress or democracy,
viewing the world policies in their widest application, would place

THE CRISIS 121

itself between Scylla and Charybdis. Under the circumstances
the question of victory or defeat becomes, for theEuropean work-
ing class, in its political, exactly as in its economic aspects, a
choice between two beatings. It is, therefore, nothing short of a
dangerous madness for the French Socialists to believe that they
can deal a death blow to militarism and imperialism, and cleai
the road for peaceful democracy, by overthrowing Germany.
Imperialism, and its servant militarism, will reappear after every
victory and after every defeat in this war. There can be but one
exception: if the international proletariat, through its interven-
tion, should overthrow all previous calculations.

The important lesson to be derived by the proletariat from this
war is the one unchanging fact, that it can and must not become
the uncritical echo of the "victory and defeat" slogan, neither in
Germany nor in France, neither in England nor in Austria. For
it is a slogan that has reality only from the point of view of im-
perialism, and is identical, in the eyes of every large power, with
the question: gain or loss of world-political power, of annexa-
tions, of colonies, of military supremacy.

For the European proletariat as a class, victory or defeat of
either of the two war groups would be equally disastrous. For
war as such, whatever its military outcome may be, is the great-
est conceivable defeat of the cause of the European proletariat.
The overthrow of war, and the speedy forcing of peace, by the
international revolutionary action of the proletariat, alone can
bring to it the only possible victory. And this victory, alone, can
truly rescue Belgium, can bring democracy to Europe.

For the class-conscious proletariat to identify its cause with
either military camp is an untenable position. Does that mean
that the proletarian policies of the present day demand a return
to thfe "status quo," that we have no plan of action beyond the
fond hope that everything may remain as it was before the war?

122 THE CRISIS

The existing conditions have never been our ideal, they have
never been the expression of the self-determination of the people.
And more, the former conditions cannot be reinstated, even if
the old national boundaries should remain unchanged. For even
before its formal ending this war has brought about enormous
changes, in mutual recognition of one another's strength, in alli-
ances, and in conflict. It has sharply revised the relations of
countries to one another, of classes within society, has destroyed
so many old illusions and portents, has created so many new
forces and new problems, that a return to the old Europe that
existed before August 4, 1914, is as impossible as the return to
pre-revolutionary conditions, even after an unsuccessful revo-
lution. The proletariat knows no going back, can only strive
forward and onward, for a goal that lies beyond even the most
newly created conditions. In this sense, alone, is it possible
for the proletariat to oppose, with its policy, both camps in the
imperialistic world war.

But this policy cannot concern- itself with recipes for capitalist
diplomacy worked out individually by the Social-Democratic
parties, or even together in international conferences, to deter-
mine how capitalism shall declare peace in order to assure future
eaceful and democratic development. All demands for complete
or gradual disarmament, for the abolition of secret diplomacy,
for the dissolution of the great powers into smaller national en-
tities, and all other similar propositions, are absolutely Utopian
so long as capitalist class rule remains in power. For capitalism,
in its present imperialistic course, to dispense with present-day
militarism, with secret diplomacy, with the centralization of many
national states, is so impossible that these postulates might, much
more consistently, be united into the simple demand "abolition
of capitalist class society." The proletarian movement cannot
reconquer the place it deserves by means of Utopian advice and
projects for weakening, taming, or quelling imperialism within
capitalism by means of partial reforms. The real problem that

THE CRISIS 123

the world war has placed before the Socialist parties, upon whose
solution the future of the working class movement depends, is
the readiness of the proletarian masses to act in the fight against
imperialism. The international proletariat suffers, not from a
dearth of postulates, programs, and slogans, but from a lack of
deeds, of effective resistance, of the power to attack imperialism
at the decisive moment, just in times of war. It has been unable
to put its old slogan, war against war, into actual practice. Here
is the Gordian knot of the proletarian movement and of its
future.

Imperialism, with all its brutal policy of force, with the inces-
sant chain of social catastrophe that it itself provokes, is, to be
sure, a historic necessity for the ruling classes of the present
world. Yet nothing could be more detrimental than that the prol-
etariat should derive, from the present war, the slightest hopr:
or illusion of the possibility of an idyllic and peaceful develop-
ment of capitalism. There is but one conclusion that the prole-
tariat can draw from the historic necessity of imperialism. To
capitulate before imperialism will mean to live forever in its
shadow, off the crumbs that fall from the table of its victories

Historic development moves in contradictions, and for every
necessity puts its opposite into the world as well. The capital-
ist state of society is doubtless a historic necessity, but so al.^o
is the revolt of the working class against it. Capital is a historic
necessity, but in the same measure is its grave digger, the Socialist
proletariat. The world rule of imperialism is a historic necessity,
but likewise its overthrow by the proletarian international. Side
by side the two historic necessities exist, in constant conflict with
each other. And ours is the necessity of Socialism. Our necessity
receives its justification with the moment when the capitalist class
ceases to be the bearer of historic progress, when it becomes a
hindrance, a danger, to the future development of society. That

124 THE CRISIS

capitalism has reached this stage the present world war has re-
vealed.

CapitaHst desire for imperiaHstic expansion, as the expression
of its highest maturity in the last period of its life, has the eco-
nomic tendency to change the whole world into capitalistically
producing nations, to sweep away all superannuated, precapi-
talistic methods of production and of society, to subjugate all the
riches of the earth and all means of production to capital, to
turn the laboring masses of the peoples of all zones into ^vage
slaves. In Africa and in Asia, from the most northern regions
to the southernmost point of South America and in the South
Seas, the remnants of old communistic social groups, of feuial
society, of patriarchal systems, and of ancient handicraft produc-
tion are destroyed and stamped out by capitalism. Whole peo-
ples are destroyed, ancient civilizations are leveled to the ground,
and in their place profiteering in its most modern forms is being
established. ,This brutal triumphal procession of capitalism
through the world, accompanied by all the means of force, of
robbery, and of infamy, has one bright phase: It has created
the premises for its own final overthrow, it has established the
capitalist world rule upon which, alone, the Socialist world revo-
lution can follow. This is the only cultural and progressive
aspect of the great so-called works of culture that were brought
to the primitive countries. To capitalist economists and politi-
cians railroads, matches, sewerage systems and warehouses are
progress and culture. Of themselves such works, grafted upon
primitive conditions, are neither culture nor progress, for they
are too dearly paid for with the sudden economic and cultural
ruin of the peoples who must drink down the bitter cup of mis-
ery and horror of two social orders, of traditional agricultural
landlordism, of supermodern, superrefined capitalist exploitation,
at one and the same time. Only as the material conditions for
the destruction of capitalism and the abolition of class society

THE CRISIS 125

can the effects of the capitalist triumphal march through the
world bear the stamp of progress in an historical sense. In this
sense imperialism, too, is working in our interest.

The present world war is a turning point in the course of im-
perialism. For the first time the destructive beasts that have
been loosed by capitalist Europe over all other parts of the world
have sprung with one awful leap, into the midst of the Euro-
pean nations. A cry of horror went up through the world when
Belgium, that priceless little jewel of European culture, when
the venerable monuments of art in northern France, fell into
fragments before the onslaughts of a blind and destructive force.
The "civilized world" that had stood calmly by when this same
imperialism doomed tens of thousands of heroes to destruction,
when the desert of Kalahari shuddered with the insane cry of
the thirsty and the rattling breath of the dying, when in Putu-
mayo, within ten years, forty thousand human beings were tor-
tured to death by a band of European industrial robber-barons,
and the remnants of a whole people were beaten into cripples,
when in China an ancient civilization was delivered into the hands
of destruction and anarchy, with fire and slaughter, by the
European soldiery, when Persia gasped in the noose of the
foreign rule of force that closed inexorably about her throat, when
in Tripoli the Arabs were mowed down, with fire and sword,
under the yoke of capital, while their civilization and their homes
were razed to the ground — this civilized world has just begun to
know that the fangs of the imperialist beast are deadly, that its
breath is frightfulness, that its tearing claws have sunk deep into
the breasts of its own mother, European culture. And this be-
lated recognition is coming into the world of Europe in the dis-
torted form of bourgeois hypocrisy, that leads each nation to
recognize infamy only when it appears in the uniform of the
other. They speak of German barbarism, as if every people that
goes out for organized murder did not change into a horde of
barbarians! They speak of Cossack horrors, as if war itself

126 THE CRISIS

were not the the greatest of all horrors, as if the praise of human
slaughter in a Socialist periodical were not mental Cossackdom
in its very essence.

But the horrors of imperialist bestiality in Europe have had
another effect, that has brought to the "civilized world" no
horror-stricken eyes, no agoniz.ed heart. It is the mass destruc-
tion of the European proletariat. Never has a war killed off
whole nations; never, within the past century, has it swept over
all of the great and established lands of civilized Europe. Millions
of human lives were destroyed in the Vosges, in the Ardennes, in
Belgium, in Poland, in the Carpathians and on the Save ; millions
have been hopelessly crippled. But nine-tenths of these millions
come from the ranks of the working class of the cities and the
farms. It is our strength, our hope that was mowed down there,
day after day, before the scythe of death. They were the best, the
most intelligent, the most thoroughly schooled forces of inter-
national socialism, the bearers of the holiest traditions, of the
highest heroism, the modern labor movement, the vanguard of
the whole world proletariat, the workers of England, France,
Belgium, Germany and Russia who are being gagged and
butchered in masses. Only from Europe, only from the oldest
capitalist nations, when the hour is ripe, can the signal come for
the social revolution that will free the nations. Only the Eng-
lish, the French, the Belgian, the German, the Russian, the Italian
workers, together, can lead the army of the exploited and op-
pressed. And when the time comes they alone can call capitalism
to account for centuries of crime committed against, primitive
peoples; they alone can avenge its work of destruction over a
whole world. But for the advance and victory of Socialism we
need a strong, educated, ready proletariat, masses whose strength
lies in knowledge as well as in numbers. And these very masses
are being decimated all over the world. The flower of our youth-
ful strength, hundreds of thousands whose socialist education in
England, in France, in Belgium, in Germany and in Russia was

THE CRISIS 127

the product of decades of education and propaganda, other
hundreds of thousands who were ready to receive the lessons of
Socialism, have fallen, and are rotting upon the battlefields. The
fruit of the sacrifices and toil of generations is destroyed in a
few short weeks, the choicest troops of the international prole-
tariat are torn out by the life roots.

The blood-letting of the June battle laid low the French labor
movement for a decade and a half. The . blood-letting of the
Commune massacre again threw it back for more than a decade.
What is happening now is a massacre such as the world has never
seen before, that is reducing the laboring population in all of the
leading nations to the aged, the women and the maimed; a
blood-letting that threatens to bleed white the European labor
movement.

Another such war, and the hope of Socialism will be buried
under the ruins of imperialistic barbarism. That is more than
the ruthless destruction of Liege and of the Rheims Cathedral.
That is a blow, not against capitalist civilization of the past, but
against Socialist civilization of the future, a deadly blow against
the force that carries the future of mankind in its womb, that
alone can rescue the precious treasures of the past over into a
better state of society. Here capitalism reveals its death's head,
here it betrays that it has sacrificed its historic right of existence,
that its rule is no longer compatible with the progress of
humanity.

But here is proof also that the war is not only a grandiose
murder, but the suicide of the European working class. The
soldiers of socialism, the workers of England, of France, of
Germany, of Italy, of Belgium are murdering each other at the
bidding of capitalism, are thrusting cold, murderous irons into
each others' breasts, are tottering over their graves, grappling in
each others' death-bringing arms.

128 THE CRISIS

"Deutschland, Deutschland iiber alles/' "long live democracy,"
"long live the czar and slavery," "ten thousand tent cloths,
guaranteed according to specifications," "hundred thousand
pounds of bacon," "coffee substitute, immediate delivery" . . .
dividends are rising — proletarians falling; and with each one
there sinks a fighter of the future, a soldier of the revolution,
a savior of humanity from the yoke of capitalism, into the grave.

This madness will not stop, and this bloody nightmare of hell
will not cease until the workers of Germany, of France, of Russia
and of England will wake up out of their drunken sleep; will
clasp each other's hands in brotherhood and will drown the bestial,
chorus of war agitators and the hoarse cry of capitalist hyenas
with the mighty cry of labor, "Proletarians of all countries,
unite !"

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