Democracy is defined as government by the people; a democratic government is a government in which sovereignty resides in the people, or, to speak more precisely, one in which the will of the majority determines sovereignty.
That this principle was completely ignored in practice in Germany before the Revolution we already know. According to the Constitution of 1871 sovereignty belonged to the ensemble of confederated princes, Germany being governed by an association of monarchs under the all-powerful direction of one of them, the King of Prussia.
Such a system obviously could not survive the disappearance of the monarchs themselves; and after the Revolution the democratic principle, to which Bismarck had given the semblance of expression in creating a Reichstag elected by universal suffrage, became fully applied. One consideration contributed above all to the establishment of government by the greatest number: The German Princes had governed and had conducted themselves as monarchs by divine right; under their régime no social class could develop to which a certain political power could be given over, which the people would become accustomed to regard as authoritative. There was in Germany no political nobility, no bourgeoisie invested with political power. So that when sovereignty fell from the weakened hands of the monarchs it could be taken over only by the people.
The people are therefore sovereign. German jurists go on to say that the people cease to be the object of sovereignty and become the subject of sovereignty.
But we are here in a federal state, and the problem becomes more complicated because of the particular form of the state. For there are here, in theory at least, two sovereignties: that of the Reich, and that of the State. Which is the primary sovereignty?
In committees the representatives of the states naturally supported the latter of these alternatives. For them the former states at the moment of signing the confederate pact gave up to the federal state a certain number of their powers; but they have kept others. The Revolution has changed nothing in this situation; it has thrown out the dynasties, but it has not at all changed the integrity and the rights of the individual states. It is in these states therefore that sovereignty originally resides. The sovereignty of the Reich is only derived; although the Reich is no longer an alliance of Princes, it is certainly an alliance of the Republics that compose it.
This theory has not prevailed. It is true that one could not go so far as to admit that the sovereignty of the states is derived from that of the Reich and is given to them by the latter; but it is equally true that it cannot be admitted that the sovereignty of the states is expressly limited by the rights that the Reich attributes to itself. It has been admitted, therefore, that the people is sovereign in the Reich, but that it is equally and by the same title sovereign in the states in the spheres of action which are left to the states.
Such is the principle proclaimed by [Article 1], paragraph 2, of the Constitution. That does not mean to say, however, that attempts and proposals were not made to make a breach in it or to draw from it debatable deductions. A study of these attempts and proposals will enable us to understand more precisely the sense and import of this principle.
2.—THE COUNCILS SYSTEM, OR THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT.
The first projects formulated and presented against this principle, and to the realization of which the Independents and the Communists bent every effort, may be characterized in a word: they aimed to give over all political and economic power to Workers Councils, to organize the dictatorship of the proletariat.