The political situation in Bavaria after the revolution had rested entirely on the personal power of the idealist Jew, Kurt Eisner. His influence over both revolutionaries and reformers produced in Munich a coalition of Socialists in which the predominant element was progressive; whereas in Berlin, for want of any such personality the coalition split up into reactionaries and revolutionaries. The assassination of Eisner and the disablement of Auer on 21st February were succeeded by some weeks of the Hoffmann Government during which the issue as between parliamentary and council government was defining itself. The distribution of force at this time appears from a division in the Assembly of Councils where the proclamation of a Räte-Republik (a Council State) was outvoted by 230 to 70; Levien himself, the Bolshevist, declaring against it as premature. But during March the strong movement to the left and towards a Council constitution, noticeable in the Berlin Räte-Congress, made apparently even greater progress in the Bavarian industrial towns. Majority-Socialists, the Social-Democrats, found their followers going over en masse to the Independents, while the latter lost equally heavily to the Communists. In Prussia the Majoritarians had made up for this loss of popular support by creating a military force strong enough to resist any attempt to overthrow them by other than constitutional means. But in Bavaria the Majority party found itself being left in the air. It seems thereupon to have adopted a policy of outbidding its opponents. At Augsburg, late in March, Niekisch, a leading Majoritarian, declared for a Räte-Republik exclusive of Parliament, and succeeded in getting it voted. The vote was later rescinded under influence of the Independents and Communists, but restored under Majoritarian pressure. The same curious reversal of rôles followed in Munich, where a Majoritarian, Thomas, pressed for a Räte-Republik. A commission of Left Majoritarians and Right Independents was appointed on April 4th and adopted a programme including the dictatorship of the working class, the organisation of a council system on an industrial and professional basis, the socialisation of industries, banks, and land, the revolutionising of administrative, judicial, and educational systems, the separation of Church and State, compulsory work for all classes, the formation of a Red Army, and alliance with Hungary and Russia.
This programme was to be executed by a Central Council and Commissioners, equally composed of Independents, Communists, and Social-Democrats. At first the Communists refused to join and attacked the new Government bitterly as a humbug; but later, after proclamation of the Räte-Republik and a Council constitution, agreed to co-operate in the Central Council in an advisory capacity. The Räte-Republik was proclaimed on April 7th. The Hoffmann Government left; but soon after reappeared, first at Nuremberg and then at Bamberg, where it established itself as a sort of Bavarian Weimar. The Berlin Government at once refused recognition to the new régime, while it gave every countenance and support to the Bamberg Government.
A few days later, Sunday the 13th, a "putsch" under the leadership of a ci-devant, von Seifertitz, and a Majoritarian, Löwenfeld, supported by the Republican Schutztruppe, overthrew this Government and arrested the Independent members of the Central Council, as also Mühsam, a non-partisan idealist. The Communists then took immediate action and a hundred or so armed workmen under Toller, a young Independent officer, ejected as many soldiers from the railway station at the cost of two killed and a few wounded and some broken windows—a scuffle represented in Berlin as a desperate battle in which the station and surrounding houses had been completely destroyed. The Communists then formed a "Bolshevist" Government under Commissioners, among whom were included the Russians Levien and Leviné, and an Executive Council, on which were two Independents and a moderate, Maenner—an able man in charge of finance.
Of course in this curious chasser-croiser it is open to anyone to regard the Majoritarians as mere governmental agents provocateurs, working for a premature proclamation of the Räte-Republik, with such motives as it may suit the critic to attribute to them. This was the view taken by the Times; but personally I am inclined to see merely the manœuvring of demagogues ambitious of power, in a people with little political experience. To retain power, the Majoritarian Socialists of Prussia were prepared to re-introduce militarism; while those of Bavaria were prepared to introduce "Bolshevism" for the same object.
Both the course and the collapse of Munich Communism give an answer to the question whether Russian Bolshevism can take root in Germany. If Bolshevism meant Sovietism and merely is a constitutional conflict between parliamentary and council government, it could. There is no such traditional belief in the parliamentary system in Germany as to make it an essential foundation of constitutional government. Neither the old Berlin Reichstag nor the Weimar Assembly acquired popular confidence. But if by Bolshevism we mean an economic class conflict concerning the dictatorship of the proletariat, the answer seems to be that it cannot be established in Germany, under normal conditions.
The short life of the Munich Commune seemed to show this. The Government consisted of Commissioners—a sort of inner Cabinet, an Executive Council—a sort of Ministry, and an Assembly of Councils—the Legislature. The first was Bolshevist, in general standpoint, the second Independent Socialist and Moderate Communist, the third predominantly Moderate Socialist. The Commissioners, especially the Russians, did not enjoy the confidence of the Assembly, still less of the garrison. I believe that they would soon have been replaced by a Socialist régime, but for the military action of Prussia and Würtemberg.
Nor were the measures taken by this régime what could be called Bolshevist. The absurd newspaper yarns, reproducing all the old calumnies against Russian Council Government, including the communisation of women, gave quite a false impression. I have a complete list of the Communist measures, and they contain nothing very sensational and mostly existed anyway only on paper. I will give two examples which I heard discussed before the Assembly. The cafés chantants, a great feature of Munich, had all been closed on moral grounds, not without justification, as those who know Munich will admit. The delegates of the employés appealed against this as throwing three thousand people out of work. The debate showed that this measure was largely a protest of the workmen against the irregular lives of the Communist leaders themselves, and the cafés were allowed to re-open under the control of a committee of the Assembly. Further, the middle-class papers had been suspended by the Commissioners. So representatives of the Communist and Independent papers rose to say they would suspend publication until this prohibition was removed. This threat was carried out and at the time I left the prohibition was about to be repealed.
As to the practical results of the Bolshevist régime it was difficult to judge from the two or three weeks it was running; all the more that half this time was passed in the general strike proclaimed by the Communists which they could not prevent after their accession to power. But after work was resumed it was clear that conditions were normal. Order was not disturbed and the revolutionary tribunal as to which wild stories were told was a mild affair. It was even recognised by the local bar—and when an agent of the Anti-Bolshevist League was caught with false Communist papers and large funds he was only fined the amount in his possession. Telegraph officials, accomplices of a spy in running a secret telegraphic service to Nuremberg, were acquitted as only irresponsible agents. Russian Bolshevism would have given them a short shrift. The only practical difference between Communist Munich and Independent Brunswick was that the Munich revolutionaries not having the hearty support of the garrison had to form volunteer corps of Red Guards. These, like the Government volunteers, were highly paid and fed, the means being provided partly by money confiscated as illegal remittances abroad, partly by printing new notes. The extent of the attempted exportation of money may be guessed from the thousand mark note, the only convenient means of exportation, having been worth fourteen hundred marks. The removal of the note printing presses to Bamberg embarrassed the Communists for a time, but they had succeeded while I was there in printing twenty mark notes, which were, of course, declared worthless by the German Government.
At the time I left Munich the garrison had declared in favour of negotiating with the expeditions menacing Munich from Augsburg and Ingolstadt, and the workmen, though against negotiating with the troops, would clearly have welcomed a peaceful solution even at the cost of expelling the Russians. This I was able to report to the Premier Hoffmann at Bamberg, whom I found under the impression that negotiations were hopeless. Three days later, they were opened at his invitation at Nuremberg, but led to nothing, as the workmen would not agree to disarm. The troops accordingly marched in, driving the "red army" before them; and Munich, less happy in its leaders than Brunswick, became the scene of the usual sniping and skirmishing by insurgents with machine-gunning and bombarding by the troops. The influence of the Russians was probably responsible for one particularly ugly incident, the cold-blooded murder of a number of "hostages" in reprisal for the wholesale shooting of prisoners by the troops. Leviné, the leading member of the Russian clique, was captured and shot and several less dangerous and even quite harmless revolutionary or Radical leaders also perished, some "by accident." Levien was arrested some months later but escaped to Vienna. The new Bavarian Ministry, or rather the old Bamberg Government restored, then took on the same character as the Ministry in Berlin; that is a Government by military force behind a Moderate Socialist façade.
The failure of the revolution in Munich was its last effort in this first volume of the German revolution. The movement thereafter adopted Leipzig as its centre, an Independent stronghold; but when later the Government picked a quarrel with Leipzig, occupied it with troops and abolished its Independent régime, there was no resistance.