The New Germany

by George Young

Meantime the dogs of war—of civil war between the constitutional and council movements, between Conservatives and Communists—are still running at a fearful pace and quite out of hand. The workmen will not work unless some real socialisation is introduced, and this is only possible if more steam be brought into the political machine than the parliamentary system can raise. Socialisation and reconstruction have been going back, not forward. The Socialisation Commission and the responsible Minister have both resigned, because Weimar would not give effect to their mildly socialistic recommendations. Yet nothing can save Germany from bankruptcy and Bolshevism but a re-energising and reorganising of the people for peace at least as effective as that they underwent in the war. Nothing can do this but a new ideal and new institutions. And the ideal of direct political power for the workmen and the institution of an industrial councils system is, so, far as I can see, alone capable of drawing out such force as is still left and of driving the country through the slough of war weariness and waste.

The Councils movement in Germany, at first, followed much the same course at much the same pace as it did in Russia. In Germany, as in Russia, the Councils, after reaching at a bound the sole power during the days of revolution, relapsed under a re-assertion of Parliamentary and Party government; then recovered, and, in the case of Russia, realised the second revolution. The German movement was last spring (1919) in the early stage of recovery. Its development is of special interest to us, in that eventually the German movement will probably take a middle place between the Russian and our own.

Before the revolution the Labour movement in Germany was very much in the same condition as with us. The attempt to combine on a patriotic platform all productive forces, and to concentrate Capital and Labour on winning the war, had only superficially smoothed over the distrust between Employers, Associations and Labour organisations, or the dissension between heads of unions and the bodies of workers. When the revolution broke out on November 9th it was carried through first by committees of sailors, then of soldiers, and finally of workmen, that sprang up simultaneously and assumed supreme authority. The advent of this new authority, however, brought about an alliance between the previous authorities thus put on one side, the Employers' Associations and the Trades Unions.

The employers, who had hitherto been resisting claims for an eight-hour day and a share in control, found themselves threatened with expropriation. Under the leadership of a Captain of Industry, Hugo Stinnes, they at once opened negotiations with the Unions led by Legien; and by November 15th reached agreement on the eight-hour day and the establishment of Labour Associations (Arbeitsgemeinschaften) equivalent to our Whitley Councils, and Labour Chambers (Arbeitskammern), for dealing with wages and welfare, in which employers and employed would have equal representation.

As Dr. Reichert, spokesman for the metal industries, has pointed out to his supporters, these concessions looked more than they were. For the eight-hour day would have to be abandoned unless, as was unlikely, it became general in Europe; and as to the associations, it should always be possible to get in and bring over a "Christian" representative of one of the Labour organisations under the influence of the Catholic Centrum. It is this agreement, none the less, between the Trust and Trade Union bosses that is the basis of the present Coalition Government's Labour policy, and that is embodied in the new Constitution.

But, since the revolution, the real Labour movement of Germany has passed to the "Councils" (Räte), as we must call them for want of a better word. For "moot" is too archaic and "committee" suggests either a party of bores and busybodies or a posse of Bulgarian brigands; while Soviet, which is only the Russian for Council, would mean branding the movement as "Bolshevist."

Of these Councils then, the three main divisions in Germany are Workmen's Councils (Arbeiterräte), or Industrial Councils (Betriebsräte), Soldiers' Councils, and Communal Councils. Of these, the first only seem to have a constitutional future in Germany.

The Communal Councils have not yet been fully admitted to the Council system, and seem to have but little vitality.

The Soldiers' Councils, which played the more prominent part in the revolution, and still form part of the organisation, have not succeeded in making headway against the efforts of the Government to demobilise them. Thus a regulation of January 19th reduced them to welfare committees and restricted their right of deposing officers to a mere recommendation. Attempts of the more revolutionary corps to resist authority in December, January and March were put down by the Frei-Corps with excessive and progressive severity; and the large bodies of revolutionary troops that survived the demobilisation, as "Republican Guards," "Public Safety Guards," "People's Naval Division," &c., &c., have been gradually dispersed by the Government's Frei-Corps.[6] So that the Soldiers' Councils as the political organ of the revolutionary fighting forces are losing their importance. Now that the British Admiralty have recognised "welfare committees" in the Navy, it is safe to assert that the Council movement in Germany so far as concerns the armed forces is no longer in advance of ours.

Returning, therefore, to the Industrial Councils, we find that in the early days of the revolution the movement spontaneously developed an organisation consisting of a national Central Council, elected by a national Congress of Councils, in its turn elected by local Executive Councils. These were all political institutions, which for a few days enjoyed entire political power. This power passed back to the old political Parties and Parliamentary system, owing to the Council accepting as "Commissaries of the People" Parliamentary politicians, whose sole idea and secret intention it was to reconstitute a Cabinet and reconstruct a Chamber on reformed but not revolutionary lines. The capital error was in trying to realise the revolution by only establishing revolutionary bodies—the Councils—in supervision of, instead of in substitution for, politicians and officials of the old régime. This was the cause of the relapse into reaction.