The first demonstration of strength by the Spartacans came on November 26th, when they forcibly seized the Piechatzek Crane Works and the Imperator Motor Company, both big Berlin plants. Spartacan employees assisted Liebknecht's red soldiery to throw the management out. The funds and books of both plants were seized, soldiers remained in charge and plans were made to run the plants for the sole benefit of the workers. The cabinet ordered the plants restored to their owners, and the order was obeyed after it became apparent that the Vollzugsrat, although in sympathy with the usurpers, did not dare oppose the cabinet on such an issue.
The openly revolutionary attitude of the Liebknecht cohorts and their insolent defiance of the government, resulted in armed guards being stationed in front of all public buildings in Berlin. But here was again exhibited that peculiar unpractical kink in the Socialist mentality: the guards were directed not to shoot!
The reason for the existence of this kink will be apparent to one who has read carefully the preceding chapters regarding Socialism's origin and the passages therein reporting the attitude of the two wings of the party in the Reichstag following Admiral von Capelle's charges in the autumn of 1917. The first article in the Socialist creed is solidarity. "Proletarians of all lands: Unite!" cried Marx and Engels in their Communist Manifesto seven decades ago. The average Socialist brings to his party an almost religious faith; for hundreds of thousands Socialism is their only religion. All members of the party are their "comrades," the sheep of one fold, and their common enemies are the bourgeois elements of society, the wolves. Black sheep there may be in the fold, but they are, after all, sheep, and like must not slaughter like, Genossen must not shoot Genossen.
The supporters of the government were to learn later by bitter experience that some sheep are worse than wolves, but they had not yet learned it. Spartacans coolly disarmed the four guards placed at the old palace in Unter den Linden and stole their guns. They disarmed the guards at the Chancellor's Palace, the seat of the government, picked the pockets and stole the lunch of the man in charge of the machine-gun there, and took the machine-gun away in their automobile. They staged a demonstration against Otto Wels, a Majority Socialist who had been appointed city commandant, and had no difficulty in invading his private quarters because the guards posted in front had orders not to shoot and were simply brushed aside. When the demonstration was ended, the Spartacans proceeded on their way rejoicing, taking with them the arms of the government soldiers.
The Spartacans were by this time well equipped with rifles, revolvers and ammunition, and had a large number of machine-guns. They secured one auto-truck full of these from the government arsenal at Spandau on a forged order. They even had a few light field guns and two or three minethrowers. In the absence of any opposition except the futile denunciations of the bourgeois press and the Vorwärts, their numbers were increasing daily and they were rapidly fortifying themselves in various points of vantage. Neukölln, one of the cities making up Greater Berlin, was already completely in their power. The Workmen's and Soldiers' Council of this city consisted of seventy-eight men, all of whom were Spartacans. This council forcibly dissolved the old city council, drove the mayor from the city hall and constituted itself the sole legislative and administrative organ in the city. A decree was issued imposing special taxes upon all non-Socialist residents, and merchants were despoiled by requisitions enforced by armed hooligans.
The "Council of Deserters, Stragglers and Furloughed Soldiers" announced a number of meetings for the afternoon of December 6th to enforce a demand for participation in the government. The largest of these meetings was held in the Germania Hall in the Chausseestrasse, just above Invalidenstrasse and near the barracks of the Franzer, as the Kaiser Franz Regiment was popularly known. The main speaker was a man introduced as "Comrade Schultz," but whose Hebraic features indicated that this was a revolutionary pseudonym. He had hardly finished outlining the demands of "us deserters" when word came that the Vollzugsrat had been arrested. It developed later that some misguided patriots of the old school had actually made an attempt to arrest the members of this council, which had developed into such a hindrance to honest government, but the attempt failed.
The report, however, threw the meeting into great excitement. A motion to adjourn and march to the Chancellor's Palace to protest against the supposed arrest was carried and the crowd started marching down Chausseestrasse, singing the laborers' Marseillaise. At the same time the crowd present at a similar meeting in a hall a few blocks away started marching up Chausseestrasse to join the Germania Hall demonstrants. Both processions found their way blocked by a company of Franzer, drawn up in front of their barracks, standing at "ready" and with bayonets fixed. The officer in command ordered the paraders to stop:
"Come on!" cried the leaders of the demonstration. "They won't shoot their comrades!"
But the Franzer had not yet been "enlightened." A rattling volley rang out and the deserters, stragglers and furloughed paraders fled. Fifteen of them lay dead in the street and one young woman aboard a passing street car was also killed.
The incident aroused deep indignation not only among the Spartacans, but among the Independent Socialists as well. The bulk of the Independents were naturally excited over the killing of "comrades," and the leaders saw in it a welcome opportunity further to shake the authority of the Majority Socialist members of the government. Even the Vorwärts, hesitating between love and duty, apologetically demanded an investigation. The government eventually shook off all responsibility and it was placed on the shoulders of an over-zealous officer acting without instructions. This may have been—indeed, probably was—the case. The cabinet's record up to this time makes it highly improbable that any of its members had yet begun to understand that there are limits beyond which no government can with impunity permit its authority to be flouted.