FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113  
114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   >>   >|  
mocrats into an extreme position and then to hold them up as a terrible example of what democracy means. "This," they can tell the German people, "is the alternative to Prussian rule." A dangerous policy, it may be argued, for the Social Democrats may some day secure a majority in the Reichstag. The Prussian answer to this is that, without a redistribution of seats, this is barely conceivable; and that, were it to take place, the Reichstag would promptly be dissolved for new elections on a narrower franchise. Bismarck himself contemplated this course, and his successors would not shrink from it. Another reason why it has been possible for the Government to ignore the Social Democrats has been the absence of a practical alternative programme on the part of the Social Democrats themselves. "If I had to make out a school report for the Social Democratic Movement," said Prince Buelow in the Reichstag on one occasion, "I should say, 'Criticism, agitation, discipline, and self-sacrifice, I. _a_; positive achievements, lucidity of programme, V. _b._'" The taunt is not undeserved. The Socialist Movement in Germany has suffered, like so many German movements, through a rigid adherence to logical theories. Under the leadership of old revolutionary thinkers like Bebel it has failed to adapt itself to the facts of modern German life. The vague phrases of its republican programme, survivals from a past epoch of European thought, have attracted to it a large mass of inarticulate discontent which it has never been able to weld into a party of practical reformers. In the municipal sphere and in the field of Trade Unionism, under the education of responsibility, German Socialism can show great achievements; but in national policy it has been as helpless as the rest of the German nation. What effect, it will be asked, is the war of 1914 likely to have on the German working-class movement? In 1848 middle-class Germany made its stand for democracy. May we hope for a similar and more successful movement, in the direction of Western ideals and methods of government, from working-class Germany as a result of 1914? It is a tempting prophecy; but the outlook is not propitious. Germany, Prussian and South German, noble, bourgeois, and working class, has rallied round the Emperor in this crisis of national history, as the brutal and cynical directors of German policy calculated that she would. For the Social Democratic Movement the war comes
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113  
114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

German

 

Social

 

Germany

 
Reichstag
 

Prussian

 
policy
 

Democrats

 
working
 

Movement

 

programme


national

 

movement

 

Democratic

 

practical

 
achievements
 
alternative
 
democracy
 

Unionism

 

education

 

municipal


responsibility
 

sphere

 

nation

 
helpless
 

reformers

 

Socialism

 

republican

 

survivals

 
terrible
 
phrases

modern
 

European

 
thought
 

effect

 
discontent
 

inarticulate

 

attracted

 

position

 

bourgeois

 

rallied


propitious

 

outlook

 

tempting

 

prophecy

 

Emperor

 

calculated

 

directors

 
cynical
 

crisis

 

history