10 THE COMMUNIST call) prepared measures to prevent proletariat; and it did march It was dispersed as chaff before the to wind by the bayonets of the Luttwitz the General Strike becoming revolutaction when the General Strike began troops; the Reichstag, where the ionary. In the Ruhr District, for to threaten law and order and the Assembly met, now as imposingly example, revolutionary and under a struggle developed against the Government.
empty and impotent as democracy state of martial law, the Strike was itself, was guarded by three soldiers, consciously limited, and it did not As against these open and masked while children played upon its steps become a General Strike until March forces of counter revolution, the 17, when the struggle was no longer proletariat on General Strike was. an appropiate memorial to Karl Kautsky.
against the military coup but against alone. It was clearly, emphatically The National Assemly dispersed, the Socialist bourgeois Government. the working class against all. The issued its defiance to the military In accepting the alternative of a paralysis of industry, of most public coup, spoke of democracy and right, General Strike the Government, more activity, was complete; it was as if of law and the constitution, decided over, simply legalized and accomp a giant mass of ice pressed down to convene in Stuttgart. and lished fact, since the masses acted in upon the city. The Kapp Luttwitz exercised scarcely any influence upon dependently of the Government, Government was isolated; its troops the march of events. The National On Saturday March 13 the General occupied the streets, but the proletarAssembly, which approvingly observed Strike was proclaimed in Berlin by iat closed the factories, halted the butchery of the workers on Jan the trade unions, the Social Dem railway and street car traffic, and uary 13, now, on March 13, was ocratic Party and the Independent kept the city unlighted at night. The incapable of mustering either the Socialist Party. All three proclama Kapp Luttwitz dictatorship issued moral or physical energy to resist tions agreed in fundamentals innumerable proclamations about counter revolution.
strike against the coup, in defense of right and the constitution, bread and The representatives of petty bourg democracy; the Independents juggled liberty, but the iron answer of the eois democracy fulminated threats with revolutionary phrases in char proletariat mocked it all; the Kappagainst the military coup, but the acteristic style, but proposed no Luttwitz dictatorship styled itself the democracy itself was a pathetic. Even definite revolutionary measures; while Government of labor. but there where hostile, democracy had no the trades unions spoke of the legal was no labor; the Kapp Luttwitz means of its own for action against Government being menaced by the dictatorship issued threats against the counter revolution. Moreover, for coup, of the danger of reaction being the profiteers, but this did not this democracy to act decisively ag restored in state and shops, of the worry the profiteers, while the Geneainst the counter revolutionary troops Republic being in danger. There was ral Strike did; the Kapp Luttwitz meant precipitating a struggle within no clear call to revolutionary action, dictatorship issued a decree providing the military forces of the nation, to not even from the Communist Party death for strikers and strike direcdisrupt the power which maintained which, on Saturday, declared against ors. but the General Strike implathe ascendancy of democracy. The the General Strike on the assumption cably persisted. All Government petty bourgeois democracy, accord that the military coup, and the authority, legel and illegal. was ingly, adopted a policy of watchful Government were identical.
now a myth in comparison with the waiting and neutrality, which The response of the proletariat to reality and the might of the General under the circumstances assisted the the General Strike was immediate Strike.
counter revolution democracy did and complete; in Berlin, the struggle The struggle of the proletariat in not defend itself against the Right, immediately and completely assumed Berlin was, objectively, a revolutionwith whom it could merge; while the character of a proletarian struggle ary struggle. But, unfortunately, only preparing to maintain itself against against the military bourgeois reactin an objective sense. The proletariat the Left, with whom there could be ion.
was unarmed, while its representneither compromise nor merger. It The situation in Berlin was most atives manifested neither revolutionmight be unpleasant for the military characteristic of the general situation ary initiative nor political capacity.
reaction to conquer, but a satisfactory in Germany. The collapse of the The fundamental task was to issue agveement could be arranged.
Government was complete; there was This, then, was the consequence of the call and develop measures for not a trace of this authority or its the arming of the the Socialism of the Social proletariat; no Demsuch call was ocratic Party resistance. Herr Kapp occupied the issued or measures that, in affirming Chancellery; while General von Lutt adopted during the first four days democracy as the means to Socialwitz installed himself in the Min of the General Strike. the decisive ism, it developed means for the ascendancy of Junker. Capitalism, istry of war from whence Comrade period, during which the basis had Noske had issued orders of death thereby directly promoting the coming to be laid for all subsequent action.
against the Communist proletariat. But elsewhere the revolutionary of military counter revolution, This Government district, now And after 15 months of murdering struggle flared up. Where the workfortress of barbed wire entanglements, ers the proletariat and Socialism, the were armed they initiated a machine guns and artillery, opens on Government and the Social struggle for Dempower, and usurped ocratic Party were compelled to call the Tier garten where, fifteen months power; in other places they disarmed upon the proletariat to act against ago, Karl Liebknecht urged the the troops as a preliminary to the its own creation, the military counterproletariat to Revolution; while three struggle for power. In city after city revolution.
streets beyond is the turgid canal Soviet Republics were proclaimed; into which the assassins of the Soc while in the Ruhr a giant revolution2 Developments of the Crisis. ialist Government cast the mutilated In choosing the alternative of a ary struggle loomed threateningly.
body of Rosa Luxemburg. The NatGeneral Strike the Government and Among these workers the military ional Army either retired to its barthe Social Democratic coup was Party a call to action, the opwere racks or fraternized with the counterfully aware of the fact that portunity to conquer power. It was the revolutionary troops. The Noske the elemental action of the masses Strike might develop beyond the Guards, insolently active in all the limits imposed upon it as a strike in breaking loose, in spite of the streets of Berlin the day before, now defense of democracy and the Govdangers, in spite of the Party moscurried to cover, and did not appear derates ernment. But the Government was and compromisers. These again until the struggle against the vital equally aware that it might depend revolutionary masses started.
developments indicated that The upon the military in the event of the both the reaction and the Revolution Einwohnerwehr (literally, Guards of strike assuming revolutionary prohad completely under estimated the the Inhabitants, civilian White Guportions, and, moreover, the GovGerman proletariat; the Reaction. ards) issued a declaration of neutralernment, simultaneously with its capacity to resist military the ity (neutrality under the circumstancall for General Strike dictatorship; the Revolution. its ces meaning assistance to the counterissued in the name of Ebert, Bauer, will to engage in the struggle for revolution) while emphasizing its Noske, Muller and power.
David (Noske readiness to march against plunafterwards denied subscribing to the derers, that is to say, against the The menace of Bolshevism, which the Kapp Luttwitz dictatorship in its a a a