What Now? (1890)

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This article, like the previous one , was prompted by the elections to the Reichstag, the first round of which was held on February 20 , 1890 (see Note 1) .

February 20, 1890 is the beginning of the end of the Bismarck era. The alliance between Junkers and money-bags for the exploitation of the mass of the German people—for the Cartel was this and nothing else—is bearing it s fruit. The tax on spirits, the sugar premium, the corn and meat duties, which conjured millions from the people’s pockets into the pockets of the Junkers; the industrial protective tariffs, introduced just at the moment when German industry, by it s own efforts and in free trade, had won for itself a position in the world market, introduced specifically and exclusively so that the manufacturer could sell at home at monopoly prices, and abroad at giveaway prices; the whole system of indirect taxation, which oppresses the poorer masses of the people and scarcely touches the rich; the tax burden, growing to the intolerable, to cover the cost of endlessly growing armaments; the increasingly imminent danger of world war, growing along with the armaments and threatening to “finish off” four to five million Germans, because the seizure of Alsace-Lorraine has driven France into the arms of Russia, and thus made Russia the arbiter of Europe; the unparalleled corruption of the press, through which the government systematically swamped the people with alarmist lies each time the Reichstag was renewed; the police corruption aimed at bribing or forcing the wife to betray her husband, and the child it s father; the system of agents provocateurs, as good as unknown in Germany until that time; police despotism far exceeding the period before 1848; the shameless flouting of all justice by the German courts, with the noble Reich Court leading the way; the outlawing of the entire working class by the Anti-Socialist Law—all this has had its day, and a long day at that, thanks to the cowardice of the German philistine—but now it is coming to an end. The Cartel majority has been smashed, smashed irrevocably, so that only one thing can patch it up even for a single moment—a coup de force.

What now? Botch together a new majority for the old system? Oh, there would be enthusiasm for this, and not only in the Government. Amongst the Freisinnige there are enough jitterers who would themselves play at the Cartel rather than let the wicked Social Democrats in the dreams of suitability for government, buried together with Frederic kiII, are rapping once again on the coffin-lid. But the Government has no use for liberalism, and it is not yet ripe for an alliance with the Junkers from east of the Elbe, and they, after all, are the most important class in the Empire!

And the Centre? In the Centre, too, there are Junkers en masse, Westphalian, Bavarian and so on, who burn with desire to sink into the arms of their brothers east of the Elbe, who voted with relish for the taxes favouring the Junkers; and in the Centre too there are enough bourgeois reactionaries who want to go even further back than the Government can—who, if they could, would impose upon us once more the entire Middle Ages complete with guilds. A specifically Catholic party, after all, like any specifically Christian party, can be nothing else but reactionary. So why not a new Cartel with the Centre?

Simply because it is not Catholicism which actually holds the Centre together, but hatred of the Prussians. It is composed exclusively of elements hostile to the Prussians, which are strongest, of course, in the Catholic areas; Rhineland peasants, petty bourgeois and workers, South Germans, Hanoverian and Westphalian Catholics. Around the Centre are grouped the other bourgeois and peasant anti-Prussian elements: the Guelphs and other particularists, the Poles, the Alsatians. The very day the Centre becomes the party of government, it will fall apart into a portion composed of Junkers, guildsmen and reactionaries and a portion consisting of peasants and democrats; and the gentlemen in the first portion know that they will not be able to show themselves to their electors again. Despite this, the attempt will be made, despite this the majority of the Centre will be ready for an accommodation. And we can have no objection to this. This specifically anti-Prussian Catholic party was itself a product of the Bismarck era, the rule of what is specifically Prussian. If the latter should fall, it is only just that the former too should fall.

We may therefore expect a momentary alliance of the Centre and the Government. But the Centre does not consist of National Liberals—on the contrary, it is the first party to emerge triumphant from the struggle against Bismarck, to send him to Canossa. It will thus certainly not be a Cartel, and Bismarck can only use a new Cartel.

So what will happen? Dissolution. New elections. Appeal to the fear of a Social Democratic tidal wave? It is too late for this as well. If Bismarck wanted this, then he would not fall out with his new Emperor even for a moment, still less make a great fuss about this quarrel.

As long as the old William was still alive, the invincibility of the Bismarck, Moltke, William triumvirate was unshakeably firm in the eyes of the German philistine. But now William is gone, Moltke has been made to go, and Bismarck vacillates as to whether he should be forced to go, or go by himself. And the young William who has replaced the old one has proved in the course of his quite short government, and particularly through his renowned decrees, that respectable bourgeois philistines cannot possibly rely upon him, and also that he will not allow himself to be ordered about. The man in whom the philistines believed no longer has the power, and the philistines cannot believe in the man who has the power. The old confidence in the eternity of the inner order of the Empire founded in 1871 is gone, and no power on earth can restore it. The philistine, the last pillar of the old policy, has become shaky. How can dissolution help here?

A coup d’état? But this releases not only the people, but also the princes of the Empire from their loyalty to the Imperial Constitution thus broken; this means the disintegration of the Empire.

A war? Child’s play to launch one. But what would become of it once launched defies the imagination. Should Croesus cross the Halys or William cross the Rhine, he will destroy a great empire—but which? His own, or that of the enemy? It is well known that peace persists only thanks to the unending revolution in weapons technology, which precludes anyone getting ready for war, and thanks to everybody’s fear of the absolutely incalculable prospects of the only war now still possible, a world war.

Only one thing can help: an uprising, provoked by governmental brutality and suppressed with double and triple brutality, a general state of siege, and re-election in conditions of terror. Even that would only produce a few years‘ stay of execution. But it is the only way—and we know that Bismarck is one of those who will stop at nothing. And did not William too say: At the slightest

resistance I shall have them all shot down? And therefore this way certainly will be applied.

The German Social-Democratic workers have just won a triumph, a triumph well earned through their tough steadfastness, their iron discipline, their cheerful humour in battle, their tirelessness; but it certainly came unexpectedly, even to themselves, and has astonished the world. The increase in the Social Democratic vote in every new election has proceeded with the irresistible force of a natural process; brutality, police despotism, judicial despicability—all these bounced off without effect; the steadily growing attack force moved forwards, forwards with increasing rapidity and now stands there, the second strongest party in the Empire. And should the German workers now spoil their own game by allowing themselves to be misled into a hopeless putsch for the sole reason of helping Bismarck out of his mortal anguish? At the moment when their own courage, their courage above all praise, is supported by the interaction of all outside circumstances, when the whole social and political situation, when even all their enemies have to work for the Social Democrats, as though they were paid by them—at this moment should discipline and self-control fail, and should we throw ourselves upon the outstretched sword? Never! The Anti-Socialist Law has trained our workers too well for this, for this we have far too many old soldiers in our ranks, amongst them too many who have learned to stand at order arms in a hail of bullets till the moment is ripe for the attack.