The Future Belongs to the People

by Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht

Gentlemen, in 1866 it was said: The schoolmaster, the Prussian schoolmaster was victorious. To-day it is said: the Prussian system of voting is victorious in this war or will be victorious in this war. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.)

What progress! It will be said, as it was said: The Prussian three-class system of voting was victorious over democracy,—by which Russia is naturally left out of consideration as a good friend of the past and surely as a good friend of the future. The conclusion will be drawn which was drawn in such an open way by Frhr. v. Zedlitz. But I should like to advise you in your own interests not to forget that if this war, especially in the first months, awakened a strong enthusiasm in the German people, you must thank above all the fact that it was to be against Czarism—against the Russian reaction,—("Very true!" from Soc.-Dem.), against barbarism, unrighteousness; that it was thought to be a struggle for the freedom of Europe. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.)

And, gentlemen, do not forget the disastrous influence the backward conditions in Prussia and in Germany, which conditions were combated by us, had on the attitude of the Neutrals against Germany in this war! ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.)

Gentlemen, in spite of all the characteristic and true Prussian manifestations since the first months of the war, about which I just spoke, we had even up to now political dreamers. Gentlemen, those will now be enlightened about the situation, wherever they are, and that is of great value. The darkest pessimists were right in their prophecies. These debates have furnished water for our mills. The Conservative parties of this house stand with their old animosity against any democratization. From the Centrum nothing is to be hoped. The National Liberals provide a special chapter. Their ideal with respect to the electoral reform has been long similar to that of Frhr. v. Zedlitz, namely, not democratization, but future plutocratization of the electoral reform. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.)

So everything is as it was before! The National Liberals put out of their present thoughts the struggle for peoples' rights, because success is to them, as they say, more important. Gentlemen, that is explainable. These gentlemen know, in fact, for what this war is fought. For their electorate this war is such a tremendously important political and economic business that the people's rights, bad or good, have to be retarded. Gentlemen, the mine fields of Briey and Longwy, the mine fields of West Poland, the colonies which promise important profits and some other nice things are really no bad investments for German capital. The people can wait. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.) And Mr. Pachnicke, the boldest representative of democracy in the bourgeois parties of this house, is already satisfied in advance—sure enough, only for the present, as he says—with the secret and direct vote! But even the moderate optimism of Mr. Pachnicke and Mr. Cassel that a majority is available in this house with reference to that patch-work reform, was very roughly stripped of its mask in the Budget Commission by a conservative interruption. Even here everything shall be as it was before! And even for this patch-work reform Mr. Pachnicke wants to wait until after the war. Gentlemen, we are not so modest. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.) We see all other classes in the war, and especially through the war, pursue unrestrained and without any compunction their class interests. We know that this war serves or will serve, if it will go according to the desire of the ruling class—the great capitalistic interests—the interest of the ruling classes in a particular way. Shall only the masses of the people wait until after the war? The technical restoration of the law is a trifle. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.)

Gentlemen, do we have any cause to postpone our demand for democratization in a time of martial law, the press censorship, the suspension of the miserable right of assembly, in a time of the darkest reaction, including the spy system in Prussia under the name of Burgfrieden (civic truce) in a form of military dictatorship, celebrates its triumph, in a time when the people are more than ever without any rights, in a time when by the war not only the danger to all of the capitalistic economic order is made more striking than ever, but when political pressure lies harder than ever on the people. In such a time, there is no occasion for us to postpone our demands for democratization. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.) Never did the class character of the present society of the Prussian state reveal itself so rude and unmasked as right now. Nor do we have any occasion to postpone our demands for democratization at a time when the dangerous reaction of the inner autocracy upon the external policy shows itself so awful and dangerous, at a time which is really clamoring for the democratization of exterior politics. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.)

Gentlemen, Mr. Assemblyman Dr. Pachnicke said the war has given new support to the demand for electoral reform. Frhr. v. Zedlitz shouted a shrill denial of these words. ("Hear! Hear!" from the Soc.-Dem.) A word which lighted up the situation as a lightning flash, a word for which I and my friends thank him, a word of redemption which can be a call of alarm for the further interior Prussian-German development. In fact, the war has given new support, not to a patch-work reform in the sense of which Mr. Pachnicke speaks, but to a reform of the Prussian state in body and soul. I mean in equal franchise and administration from below up to the highest ranks. And that not only on account of the warlike attitude of the German people, as Mr. Pachnicke thought. From entirely different grounds. There never before appeared so clearly on the surface the glaring contrast between the heavy duties of the majority of the people and the privileged character of the state and the Administration, as in these days; the contrast between the equal duties as cannon fodder and the political inequalities in the state. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.)

And further, gentlemen, in half-absolutism, in secret diplomacy, in personal régime and all that, we see one of the most important immediate causes for the breaking out of this war, which of course is conditioned and made possible by international capitalism. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.)

Gentlemen, if the imperialistic endeavors of high capitalism brought about severe dangers to peace, there is needed more than ever control of the exterior politics by the masses of the people ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.), a control which is denied by the constitution and administration prevailing in Prussia and Germany to-day. I know that the democratization of the exterior policy in other states also, where the democratization of the interior policy has progressed, is much to be desired and our friends in England, our friends in France, to whom we stand as near as ever before, as far as they are conducting Socialistic propaganda ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.), have raised the demand before and also now for greater democratization of international politics. Gentlemen, only democratization can erect a wall against imperialistic and adventurous politics. Gentlemen, the millions of victims who are butchered in this war, are butchered especially because the mass of the people were deprived of any rights in the countries concerned! ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.) All of us, no matter how many differences of opinion may exist now in our small circle, are all agreed that the mass of the people did not want the war in any of the countries concerned. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.) And if that is true, it follows that a democratic control of exterior politics carried out in all states would have prevented the war. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.) From that follows the right and duty, especially now when Europe is buried in blood and murder, and sets on fire its culture and the flower of its humanity, to raise the demand for democratization of external politics, which can come only from democratic internal politics which can be nourished in the soil of a state democratic from head to foot. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.)

Gentlemen, I welcome the destruction of illusions which existed in large circles of the people about the willingness of the ruling classes and the government to grant an equal franchise law. A clear outlook is especially necessary; the mist is now blown away, and this clearness is not preached only—and you should not forget it—to those who are guarding and supporting the Fatherland in their civilian clothes and have experienced the need of these days, but also to those who are standing in the battlefield and who are expecting to hear different news from home, and who, when they read the papers about the debates of the Budget Commission of Saturday and debates of to-day—I am absolutely convinced on this point—will clinch their fists furiously in their pockets and hurl curses at those who awakened in them hopes and illusions, who deceived them about the truth,—namely that this war is not carried on for the mass of the German people; about the truth, that the mass of the people will be left after the war without rights, as they were before the war, unless they look out for their rights themselves.