CHAPTER XVIII.
Red or White Internationalism Which?
All revolutions have their second phase, and this phase ordinarily presents features similar in kind and varying only in degree. After the actual overthrow of the old government a short period of excited optimism gives place to a realization of the fact that the administration of a state is not so simple as it has appeared to the opposition parties, and that the existing order of things—the result of centuries of natural development—cannot be altered over night. Under the sobering influence of this realization ultra-radicalism loses ground, the revolutionary government accepts the aid of some of the men who have been connected with the deposed government, and the administration of affairs proceeds along an orderly middle course.
But other revolutions, as has been stated, have had a different inception, and none have depended for their successful execution and subsequent development on a people so sorely tried, so weakened physically and morally, and—last but not least—so extensively infected with the virus of internationalism. In so far as revolutions were not the work of a group of selfish aspirants for power, they were brought about by patriotic men whose first and last thought was the welfare of their own country, and who concerned themselves not at all about the universal brotherhood of man or the oppressed peoples of other lands or races. The German revolutionists, however, scoffed at patriotism as an outworn dogma. The majority of their adherents came from the poorest and most ignorant stratum of the people, the class most responsive to the agitation of leaders who promised that division of property contemplated by Communist Socialism.
The Independent Socialists had "made the revolution." They claimed the right to determine its development. The bourgeoisie, itself incapable of restoring the old order and, for the most part, not desiring to do so, supported the parent Socialist Party as the lesser of two evils. The Independents found themselves without the power to determine what course "their revolution" should take. All revolutionary history showed that this course would not be that desired by the Independent leaders and promised by them to their radical followers. The occurrences of the first month following the revolution again demonstrated what might be called the natural law of revolutionary development. The Majority Socialists in the government refused to let themselves be hurried into disastrous socializing experiments. They refused to ban intelligence and ability merely because the possessors happened not to be Genossen. They even believed (horribile dictu!) that private property-rights should not be abolished out of hand. They were so recreant to the principles of true internationalism that they resented foreign aggressions against Germans and German soil, and they actually proposed to resist such aggressions by force.
With heretics like these there could be no communion. They could not even be permitted to hold communion among themselves if it could be prevented, and the result was, as we have seen, the efforts of the Independents and Spartacans to wreck the tabernacle.
To recount the developments of the period from the crushing of the March uprising to the signing of the Peace of Versailles would be but to repeat, with different settings, the story of the first four months of Republican Germany. This period, too, was filled with Independent Socialist and Spartacan intrigues and armed opposition to the government, culminating in the brief but bloody reign of the Communists in Munich in April. Strikes continued to paralyze industry. No food supplies of any importance were received. The National Assembly at Weimar continued to demonstrate the philosophic tendencies, academic learning and political immaturity of the German people. Distinct left wings came into being in both the Majority Socialist and Democratic parties. Particularism, the historic curse of the country, again raised its head.
Red internationalism in Germany received a marked impetus from the events in Hungary at the end of March, when Count Michael Karolyi handed the reins of government over to the Bolshevist leader Bela Kun. An effort has been made to represent this as a bit of theatricals staged by Karolyi with the support and encouragement of Berlin. Such an explanation is symptomatic of the blindness of those who will not see the significance of this development. To assert that the German Government, itself engaged in a life-and-death struggle with Bolshevism at home and threatened with an irruption of the Bolshevist forces of Russia, would deliberately create a new source of infection in a contiguous land requires either much mental hardihood or a deep ignorance of existing conditions. The author is able to state from first-hand knowledge that the German Government was completely surprised by the news from Budapest, and that it had no part, direct or indirect, in bringing about Karolyi's resignation or the accession to power of the Hungarian Bolsheviki.
The developments in Hungary were made inevitable by the unwisdom with which this "liberated unit of the Austro-Hungarian Empire" was treated. When the November armistice was concluded, there was a "gentlemen's agreement" or understanding that the demarcation line established by the armistice should be policed by French, English or American troops. It was not observed. Jugo-Slavs, Serbians and Roumanians were permitted not only to guard this line, but to advance well beyond it. The enemy occupation of the country extended to nearly all portions of Hungary upon which the central part, including Budapest, depended for coal, metals, wood, meats and even salt. The Czechs took possession of Pressburg, rechristened it Wilson City, and advanced along the Danube to within twenty miles of Budapest. Distress became acute.