Public opinion was too much occupied with the Revolution in its effect on private life and property, on food and peace, to consider it in its character as another chapter in the history of German unity. The result of the election, however, temporarily settled the issue against centralisation by splitting the Socialist party, and making the moderate Socialist Government dependent on the support of clerical and sectional interests. The constructive impetus of the Revolution was lost and Constitution-making became once more, as on previous occasions, a complicated negotiation with the lesser States.
But the Revolution had at least succeeded in giving the Constitution a good start towards centralisation by having a draft prepared, by a Committee under Dr. Preuss, then Secretary of State for the Interior in the provisional Government. This first draft—a shapeless makeshift affair—nevertheless established certain principles of national unity which eventually survived all attacks on them. And a tactical success was scored at once by publishing this draft simultaneously with the decision of the Constituent Assembly, on the 21st of January. But that was as far as the matter could be carried without calling the States into consultation, and a conference of their representatives met in Berlin on January 24th. At this Conference, or rather in the special train on the way to it, the particularist opposition declared itself. And this, not only where it might have been expected, in the clerical, liberal and conservative parties, but among socialists themselves. This opposition of southern socialists followed the line of an old factious schism in the Social Democratic party that had declared itself at the Nürnberg Conference, and was headed by Kurt Eisner, the leading revolutionary and real ruler of Bavaria. Kurt Eisner was not only opposed to Prussia on political but on personal grounds, having shaken the dust of Berlin off his feet some years before. Under his leadership the centralised Republic of Preuss was gradually remodelled into a decentralised Federation of Republics. And it looked, at one time, as though the failure of the Paulskirche Assembly was to be repeated, and a movement towards German unity and social liberty was to relapse and recoil into reaction. Fortunately there has been to-day no Bismarck to profit by the opportunity given by the Southern particularists.[11]
It is curious to note how the resignation of the Constituent States changes in the successive drafts of the Constitution. First they appear as "Member States" (glied Staaten), then as "Free States," finally as "Countries" (Lander). Again, we find the Federal Body or Senate, representing these States, as States, appearing first as a State Committee (Staaten Auschuss), then as a State House (Staaten Haus) sharing sovereignty with a Volks Haus or Commons and combining with it to form the Reichstag, and finally as a Council of the Realm (Reichsrat) with merely a suspensory veto over the Reichstag. These changes of nomenclature suggest a reaction into decentralisation followed by a recoil back into centralisation. The successive drafts of this Constitution are indeed documents of intense interest to a student of German political development and of revolution in general. They mark stages in a historic movement that is scarcely elsewhere recorded; if only because its course was so rapid that it accomplished in weeks what would normally have taken years, and because post-war conditions cut it off from competent observation. But, by comparing the various drafts of the Constitution, we see how a proletarian revolution starting in Prussia in favour of a centralised consolidated Republic gradually yielded to a reaction favouring Southern particularism, which converted the Constitution into a decentralised federation of Republics. Then, with the capture of the Saxon and Bavarian States, by the revolutionary Council movement and their collapse under Prussian military occupation, came the final phase in which centralisation recovered most of its lost ground. The question is whether this ground has been recovered for reaction or for revolution.
This raises the question, all important for our purpose, as to the position of Prussian reaction under the new Constitution. Prussia as a political Power stands to us for Prussianism, and Prussianism represents the political point of view that we have been fighting in this war.
In the past Prussia dominated Germany through the Dynasty and the ruling class. Prussia was a force making for reaction, owing to its antiquated suffrage and constitution and to the activities of its upper and middle classes. Prussia still dominates the German Republic much as England would dominate in a British Federation. But it is not the same Prussia. If Prussia is still the citadel of reaction it is also the centre of revolution. The fight between the two is not yet fought out, but if, as seems probable, neither wins, the result will be that the Prussian influence in new Germany will be a somewhat colourless compromise, what we should call Liberalism.
If this is so, and the course of recent events tends to confirm a conjecture made soon after my arrival in Germany, then a centralisation that tends to maintain Prussian hegemony in Germany is not in principle objectionable. It remains to be seen whether the Constitution as now recentralised offers opportunities to a recrudescence of Prussianism in the bad sense.
The position of Prussia, having four-sevenths of the population, an even larger proportion of the ruling class and of the military caste, also the capital and the civil service, was the main difficulty of the Constitution-makers. The revolutionary solution was at first the partition of Prussia, and it seemed feasible enough. Prussian unity had centred more than that of any other German State in the Crown; and as the Prussian Revolution had three main distinct regions, not very different from the old racial divisions, a division of the State into three seemed as easy as expedient. Dr. Preuss and constitutional jurists of all parties stood in favour of such partition. At the same time, if Prussia were to be partitioned, obviously a rearrangement of the other States might be attempted, so as to give the new German Constitution that uniformity and precision so precious to the German mind. Accordingly, all manner of fancy schemes were put forward by which the Reich was divided geographically, racially, religiously, economically, and even industrially. But all the time the Revolution, that alone could have carried through any such reconstruction, was being thwarted and throttled, so that none of these schemes became practical politics. The revolutionary impetus that the Constitution-makers could use for the realisation of their reconstructive ideals proved far too weak. There were, however, plenty of interested efforts to abolish the anomalies and absurdities of the old dynastic frontiers. Thus Hamburg merchants wished to annex Bremen; Brunswick revolutionaries wished to annex Anhalt; Coburg councils declared their independence of Gotha councils; Waldeck burghers clamoured for release from the tyranny of Pyrmont. But when it came to effecting any such change, in no case was there sufficient support. It would indeed have been easier to redivide Germany on altogether new lines than to partition up and patch together the old States. Dr. Preuss was, at a very early stage, obliged to restrict himself to laying down principles for procedure which should make subsequent rearrangements as easy as possible; and he was eventually obliged to content himself with putting, as he himself said, the least possible obstacle in the way of change.
The whole policy of partitioning Prussia very soon broke down before a Prussian, national unity that was the growth of centuries. This national sentiment expressed itself in violent opposition not only from the Prussian ruling class, to whom Prussian unity was a necessary condition for a monarchical and militarist reaction, but also to the Prussian proletariat, who considered it a necessary condition for the success of the Revolution. Nor, oddly enough, was it favoured even by the Southern and Catholic interest who in the past had been most jealous of Prussia. For they argued that if Prussia were reduced to provincial departments, their own State rights would not remain unrestricted. And State right had become all the more precious to the clerical parties since revolution had threatened them both from above and below, from a Socialist Central Government above and from Communist Council Governments below. Partition had therefore to be abandoned and the difficulty of Prussian preponderance was solved by an arbitrary reduction of Prussian representation, as in the Constitution of 1871. In the old Bundesrat Prussia was represented by 17 votes out of 61 (counting Alsace-Lorraine). Art. 61 of the present Constitution restricts Prussia to two-fifths of the total votes, having raised the proportion from one-third in the previous drafts. That is, Prussia used to have rather more than a quarter, and now has rather more than a third of the votes in the Federal body.
This might look like a reaction into Prussianism; but only until the functions of this Federal Body are examined. Sovereignty, under the old Constitution, resided in the dynasties, and the old Bundesrat was a council of diplomatic delegates, comparable to the Supreme Council at Paris. These delegates, as representatives of the Crown, intervened, not only in legislative but even in administrative matters, such as appointments. Moreover, in this Council, the Prussian representatives had a privileged position, as they received their instructions from the Prussian Government in which the Imperial Chancellor was Premier. In the first drafts of the Constitution we find the sovereignty divided between representatives of the State and representatives of the people. Thus the Staatenhaus and Volkshaus combine to make the sovereign Reichstag. But in the present Constitution, all sovereignty expressly resides in the popular Chamber, the Reichstag. The Reichsrat becomes no more than a sort of Imperial Conference with defined and carefully delimited constitutional powers; and, in the Reichsrat, Prussia has no privileged position whatever.
The great strength of Prussianism was in the Prussian Constitution and in the Crown. But Art. 17 now prescribes that every State must have a Constitution as a Free State of a democratic character. And as to the Crown, Prussia has not the same relations to the President as it had to the Emperor. The Kaiser was primarily King of Prussia by right divine, the President is primarily executive of Germany by popular election.[12] Moreover, under the old régime, the Kaiser's Chancellor was also Prussian Premier. The Republic's Chancellor has nothing to say to Prussia; he and the Ministers form a Federal Cabinet responsible to the Reichstag.