A few weeks ago the Grenzbote reported a conversation which took place between Bismarck and Dr. Otto Kaemmel in October 1892. In this conversation the "Hero of the Century" himself threw off the mask of constitutionalism with the cynicism peculiar to him. Amongst other things, Bismarck said,
"He who in Rome put himself outside the pale of the law was banished (aqua et igni interdictus); in the Middle Ages he was said to be outlawed. Social Democracy should be similarly treated and deprived of its political rights. I would have gone to this length. The Social Democratic question is a military question. At present Social Democracy is not taken seriously enough; it strives–and successfully–to win over the non-commissioned officers. In Hamburg a large portion of the troops already consists of Social Democrats, for the inhabitants have the right to join the local battalions only. Suppose these troops should one day refuse to fire on their fathers and brothers at the Emperor's order? Should we have to mobilize the Hanover and Mecklenburg regiments against Hamburg? We should, in that case, have something like the Paris Commune. The Emperor took fright. He told me that he did not wish to be called the "Kartaetschenprinz" (Shrapnel prince) some day, like his grandfather, and did not wish to "wade up to his ankles in blood" at the very beginning of his reign. I answered him at the time, "Your Majesty will have to wade much deeper if you draw back now”.
“The Social-Democratic question is a military question”. This puts the whole problem in a nutshell. This expresses more and goes much deeper than von Massow's cry of distress, "Our only hope lies in the bayonets and cannons of our soldiers.1 "The Social-Democratic question is a military question." This is now the keynote of all tunes sung by the firebrands. If there was anyone whose eyes had not yet been opened by the earlier indiscretions of Bismarck and Puttkamer, by the speech to the Alexandrians2, the Hamburger Nachrichten and the thoroughbred Junker von Oldenburg-Januschau, this would now be accomplished by the HohenloheDelbrück revelations confirmed about the end of the year by the county court judge Kulemann, and by the above heartless words of Bismarck.
“The Social-Democratic question – to the extent that it is a political question – is in the last resort a military question”. This should be a constant warning to the Social Democracy and a tactical principle of first importance.
The enemy at home (Social Democracy) is "more dangerous than the enemy abroad, because it poisons the soul of our people and wrenches the weapon from our hands before we have raised it". Thus the Kreuz-zeitung of January 21, 1907, announced that class interests come before national interests in an electoral fight which was carried on "under the waving flag of Nationalism”. And over this electoral fight hung the ever-increasing menace to the electoral rights and the right of Trade Union organization, the menace of "Bonaparte's Sword" which, in his letter of New Year's eve Prince Buelow flourished round the heads of the German Social Democrats in order to intimidate them. This electoral fight was carried on under the banner of the class struggle at its fiercest.3 Only one who is blind and deaf could deny that these and many other signs pointed to a storm, even to a hurricane.
Thus the problem of fighting "militarism at home" has become of the greatest importance.
The Carnival elections of 1907 were also fought on the nationalist question, on the colonial question, on Chauvinism and Imperialism. And they showed, in spite of all this, how miserably small was the power of resistance of the German people against the pseudo patriotic traps laid by these despicable business patriots. They taught us what bombastic demagogy can be employed by the Government, the ruling classes, and the whole howling pack of "patriots" when the "things they hold most holy" are concerned. These elections furnished the proletariat with the necessary enlightenment; they caused it to bethink itself and taught it the social and political relation of forces. They educated it and freed it from the unfortunate “habit of victory”. These elections rendered the proletarian movement more profound by exerting a desirable pressure on it, and enabled one to understand the psychology of the masses in regard to national acts. Certainly the causes of our so-called setback (which, in reality, was no setback, and by which the victors were more taken aback than the vanquished) were manifold. But there is no doubt that just those sections of the proletariat which have been contaminated and influenced by militarism formed an especially solid obstacle which prevents the spreading of Social Democracy. They were, for instance, state workers and lower-grade officials who are at the mercy of governmental terrorism.
This, too, forces the question of anti-militarism and the question of the young people's movement and of their education to the fore; and the German Labour movement will henceforth certainly pay more attention to these points.
The following brochure is the enlargement of a paper read by the author on November 28, 1906, at the Mannheim Conference of the German Young Socialist organizations. It does not pretend to offer anything essentially new; it only presumes to be a compilation of material already known. Nor does it pretend to exhaust the subject. The author has endeavoured, as far as possible, to collect the disconnected material scattered in papers and magazines all over the world. And thanks especially to our Belgian comrade De Man it has been possible to give a short account of the antimilitarist and Young Socialist movement in the most important countries.
If mistakes have crept in here and there they should be excused on account of the difficulty of mastering the material and, frequently, by reason of the unreliability of the sources of information.
In the realm of militarism many things change quickly at the present time. What, for instance, is said further on in regard to French and English military reforms will very soon be rendered out-of-date by events.
This is still more true of anti-militarism and the proletarian Young Socialist movement, these latest manifestations of the proletarian struggle for freedom. They develop quickly everywhere, and one is glad to see them make headway in spite of setbacks now and then. Since this brochure was set up in type I have learned that the Finnish Young Socialist societies held their first congress in Tammersfors, on December 9 and 10, 1906, where a union of youthful workers was founded. Apart from educating the class-consciousness of youthful workers, the special object of this union is to fight militarism in all its aspects.
People will be inclined to complain that the theoretical principles of our work a too briefly stated and their historical depth not sufficiently probed. In reply to this I must point out that the political aim of this brochure is to propagate anti-militarist thought.
Some people again will be dissatisfied with the piling up of countless details, often seemingly unimportant, especially in regard to the history of the Young Socialist movement and anti-militarism. This dissatisfaction may be justified. The author started from the assumption that only through details is one enabled to see clearly the upward and downward movement in the development of the organization, the moulding and changing of the tactical principles and the manner in which their application has been arrived at. One has to take into account that it is just detail that presents the chief difficulty in anti-militarist agitation and organization.
DR. KARL LIEBKNECHT.
Berlin, February 11, 1907.
Notes
1 Vide Das Deutsche Wochenblatt Arendts, middle November 1896. Sozial-demokratische Parteikorrespondez, II. year, No, 4.
2 Speech delivered by the Kaiser to the recruits of the Alexander regiment calling upon them to shoot at their fathers and mothers. –Trans.
3 On the evening of February 5, 1907, when the second ballots were taken, troops of the Berlin garrison were provided with live cartridges and held ready to march. It is known that on June 25, 1903, when the second ballots were last taken, in Spandau pioneers appeared In the Schoenwalder Strasse to “bring to their senses" the workers excited by the result of the elections.