Saturday, July 26, 1919 THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE An Interview With His Majesty is a middle aged man. Even after four By Moderwell German working class?
years of war bread he is fat, and his flesh ministers. Every saddle maker carried a mon Ruin. The enslavement of the German moulds itself lumpily into his arm chair. He arch sceptre in his kit.
working class. Why didn Wilson give us has not recently shaved, and the dirt on him It is now the business of His Majesty to the Fourteen Points, as he promised? Why is not wholly the honorable grime of toil. defend the empire he has conquered. About doesn the American people protest? Why He invariably receives a visitor with a sus once a week he retires to a safe corner and doesn the proletariat of the world help us?
picious grunt: shakes his fist at the Junkers, who do not even What did your party do for the proletariat You want. notice him, being busy with their own designs.
at the time of Brest Litovsk?
Having learned what his visitor wants, he Otherwise, his whole occupation is explaining tovsk? We couldn do anything. Foreigners What did we do at the time of Brest Ligrumbles a bit and then slides by degrees into to the German workman that somebody else, the matter in hand, or out of it, according as not the Party is to blame for all queer things don understand that. We weren the majorthe request pleases him. He regards the affair that happen, and that the Germany they live ity of the Reichstag. We were only the strongwith ponderous seriousness. No smile ever in is a different Germany from that of the est party in it. What could we do?
enters his features.
Hohenzollerns, and somehow a better one. The You must explain this in America he continued. We were in a coalition government, He is His Ma the Majority Socialist necessity for too much explaining has made Bureaucrat of Germany.
him petulant. There is no longer any fight with the Centrum and the other moderate in him.
He is a trade union organizer, a There is only grumbling anger parties. Of course we didn approve of the party He received me with no more than his acBrest Litovsk peace. But if we had voted secretary, or an editor; since the Revolution he is likely to be an officer of one of the more customed graciousness. After once being peragainst it we would have gone into the opconservative Workmen Councils. He is in suaded to talk he could not be persuaded to position and had to leave the government.
every city and nearly every village in the land. stop. The interview which transcribe, being Then what would have happened. He paused, a composite one, does not perhaps retain quite The Junkers would have come into control.
Twenty or thirty years ago he was a young workman. He was looking about for his share his exact words, but it follows accurately the of adventure in life and he saw the Socialist sequence of his thought as he expressed it to refrained from asking whether the Junkers were not in control of everything anyway.
Party, which had then just won its first great me. Why has the Socialist government It would have occasioned another half hour not victory in forcing the repeal of Bismarck Socialist suppression laws. In the Party prodone any socializing. of torturous explanations. mentioned, how What is there to socialize? The peace conever, that the Independents had opposed the paganda he found spiritual compensation for ditions have ruined us.
all his humiliating experiences in the caserne, Our factories are Brest Litovsk peace.
Our public utilities are Yes, and what good did it do? They had in the workshop, in the neighborhood police working at a loss.
only a handful of votes.
station, under the Junker regime. He put the already a burden to the state. Our best coal ardor of his youth into party work. He bemines are taken away. We must depend on But if the factories the strikes?
the Entente for our raw materials. The Ger Yes, what good did it do? The agitators came a great man in his factory, in his branch meeting. He felt the thrill of marching in man economy has collapsed. How can you were sent to the front trenches. We were step with the battalions of his own comrades. socialize an economy that isn working? And practical and stayed in office.
The Socialist movement became important, Independents come along and stir up the worknow, as though things weren bad enough, the couldn help reflecting that if the present Majority Socialist party made, any effort and he became important with it.
covered in himself a talent for receiving orders men to demand high wages and a shorter to live up to its promises, say in regard to work day.
socialization, it would go out of office tomorand giving commands. He found that he could Does the Party intend to insist on socialrow. So relented in my questions.
make men obey him. He rejoiced in the What does the Party expect to do for the strength of the movement which in the impulse ization in the future. Future? What future has the Entente left working class. of first manhood he had chosen as his own.
us. We are morituri do you understand me. There isn anything we can do. If we He rejoiced in the martial organization of the party, in its scores of fine buildings, its plump plans for the future? The Independents talk. about to die. What is the good of making had a majority we could do something. But we haven got a majority. Impractical people on money chests, its printing shops and its newsabout socialization, but if they had our job the outside are always complaining that we papers. He promised himself that he would they would see that nothing can be done. Sodon do anything. But it isn so easy when help make the army of the working class ever cialization, Marx explained, can only take you get into office. What do they know about larger, ever more firmly united. And so he place when the national economy has attained it, anyway?
became organizer, or secretary, or editor.
the apex of its development. If the IndeThen with a sudden fury: just wish the The day came when this army had become pendents Independents would win some election and so important that the Kaiser could not get on What about the reserve rights of the varifind out how hard it is. couldn wish them without it. Socialists must be called into all ous German states, for instance the Bavarian any worse luck.
important conferences. Socialists must be post and railroads and army, which Prussia They have fine theories, oh, yes. But a given offices, even the vice presidency of the has taken over? Doesn the Party object to practical politician has to deal with all sorts Reichstag. Social legislation, under pressure Prussia getting control of all this, especially of difficulties that the theorist never thinks of.
of the workingmen battalions, became ever the army?
For instance, what chance is there of putting wider and more inclusive. The organizer. Reserve rights? What good are Bavaria through socialization when the middle class secretary, or editor, became ever fatter and reserve rights to her? The post and telegraph have all the administrative posts? They never important are losing money. The Bavarians ought to be think of that. The middle class must have the Then the day came when the Socialists were glad to let Prussia have them. As for the administrative posts. They have the technical called to the most important conference of all. army, what does Bavaria want with an army? training for it. The working class isn eduA great war was to be declared, and the money The Entente has left her nothing worth decated. They won be able to fill those posimust be voted. The Socialists in the Reich fending.
tions for another generation at least.
stag said Yes. They passed their Yes What about the Workmen Councils. We, who have been doing the practical down to the Party secretaries, who passed it Does the Party object to the army dissolving work of the Party for thirty years, understand down to the Party organizers, who passed it them and dictating the method of elections. these things. But these theorists like Neurath down to the Party editors, who passed it down The workmen councils aren democratic. come in, without any practical experience, and to the Party members. German Socialism as They are controlled by the Independents. They think they can become minister and begin soone man replied Yes.
ought to be dissolved. Now the new elections cializing right away. practical man, qualiThere arose soon a group of Socialists who which the army is dictating will be democ fied to fill that office, would see the difficulties tried to break the battalions, calling upon the ratic.
and not try to do anything. It takes thirty workers to throw out the organizer, secretary What is the new method of election? years of political experience in these things or editor, who thereupon became first indig don know. But it will be democratic. to become a practical man.
nant, then shifty and crabbed. At last came It is the method by which the Centralrat (Gen With this regarded the subject as clarified the Revolution, and the Party put on shoulder tral Council of the Soviets) is elected. The and insisted that the interview was at an end.
straps and issued commands to the whole Centralrat gives a majority for our party. Promising that would explain the difficulties empire. Editors became secretaries, and secre Just what will be the effect of the peace of a Majority Socialist in Germany, left the taries became chairmen, and chairmen became conditions on the economic condition of the office to get a breath of fresh spring air.