The revolutionary government faced at the very outset a more difficult task than had ever confronted a similar government at any time in the world's history. The people, starving, their physical, mental and moral powers of resistance gone, were ready to follow the demagogue who made the most glowing promises. The ablest men of the Empire were sulking in their tents, or had been driven into an enforced seclusion, and the men in charge of the government were without any practical experience in governing or any knowledge of constructive statecraft. Every one knew that the war was practically ended, but thousands of men were nevertheless being slaughtered daily to no end.
In all the Empire's greater cities the revolutionaries, putting into disastrous effect their muddled theories of the "brotherhood of man," had opened the jails and prisons and flooded the country with criminals. What this meant is dimly indicated by the occurrences in Berlin ten days later, when Spartacans raided Police Headquarters and liberated the prisoners confined there. Among the forty-nine persons thus set free were twenty-eight thieves and burglars and five blackmailers and deserters; most of the others were old offenders with long criminal records. This was but the grist from one jail in a sporadic raid and the first ten days of November had resulted in wholesale prison-releases of the same kind. The situation thus created would have been threatening enough in any event, but the new masters of the German cities, many of whom had good personal reasons for hating all guardians of law and order, disarmed the police and further crippled their efficiency by placing them under the control of "class-conscious" soldiers who, at a time when every able-bodied fighting man was needed on the west front, filled the streets of the greater cities and especially of Berlin.
The result was what might have been expected. Many of the new guardians of law and order were themselves members of the criminal classes, and those who were not had neither any acquaintance with criminals and their ways nor with methods of preventing or detecting crime. The police, deprived of their weapons and—more fatal still—of their authority, were helpless. And this occurred in the face of a steadily increasing epidemic of criminality, and especially juvenile criminality, which had been observed in all belligerent countries as one of the concomitants of war and attained greater proportions in Germany than anywhere else.
Nor was this the only encouragement of crime officially offered. In ante-bellum days, when German cities were orderly and efficient police and gendarmerie carefully watched the comings and goings of every inhabitant or visitor in the land, every person coming into Germany or changing his residence was compelled to register at the police-station in his district. But now, when the retention and enforcement of this requirement would have been of inestimable value to the government, it was generally abolished. The writer, reaching Berlin a week after the revolution, went directly to the nearest police-station to report his arrival.
"You are no longer required to report to the police," said the Beamter in charge.
And thus the bars were thrown down for criminals and—what was worse—for the propagandists and agents of the Russian Soviet Republic. Die neue Freiheit (the new freedom) was interpreted in a manner justifying Goethe's famous dictum of a hundred years earlier that "equality and freedom can be enjoyed only in the delirium of insanity" (Gleichheit und Freiheit können nur im Taumel des Wahnsinns genossen werden).
The Vollzugsrat, from whose composition better things had been expected, immediately laid plans for the formation of a Red Guard on the Russian pattern. On November 13th it called a meeting of representatives of garrisons in Greater Berlin and of the First Corps of Königsberg to discuss the functions of the Soldiers' Council. It laid before the meeting its plan to equip a force of two thousand "socialistically schooled and politically organized workingmen with military training" to guard against the danger of a counterrevolution. It redounds to the credit of the soldiers that they immediately saw the cloven hoof of the proposal. "Why do we need two thousand Red Guards in Berlin?" was the cry that arose. Opposition to the plan was practically unanimous, and the meeting adopted the following resolution:
"Greater Berlin's garrison, represented by its duly elected Soldiers' Council, will view with distrust the weaponing of workingmen as long as the government which they are intended to protect does not expressly declare itself in favor of summoning a national assembly as the only basis for the adoption of a constitution."
The meeting took a decided stand against Bolshevism and, in general, against sweeping radicalism. All speakers condemned terrorism from whatever side it might be attempted, and declared that plundering and murder should be summarily punished. The destructive plans of the Spartacus group found universal condemnation, and nearly all speakers emphasized that the Soldiers' Council had no political rôle to play. Its task was merely to preserve order, protect the people and assist in bringing about an orderly administration of the government's affairs. The council adopted a resolution calling for the speediest possible holding of elections for a constituent assembly.
On the following day the Vollzugsrat announced that, in view of the garrisons' opposition, orders for the formation of the Red Guard had been rescinded. The Soldiers' Council deposed Captain von Beerfelde, one of their fourteen representatives on the executive council, "because he was endeavoring to lead the revolution into the course of the radicals." It was von Beerfelde who, supporting the fourteen workmen's representatives on the Vollzugsrat, had been largely instrumental in the original decision to place the capital at the mercy of an armed rabble.