Socialism and Democracy in Europe

by Samuel Peter Orth

The assassination of Czar Alexander of Russia in March, 1881, gave Bismarck the opportunity to renew his efforts to quell Socialism and Anarchism by international concert. He asked Russia to take the initiative, and a conference was called at Brussels to which all the leading states were invited. Germany and Austria eagerly accepted, France made her participation dependent on England's action, and England refused to participate. Bismarck next tried to form an Eastern league, but Austria failed him and he had to content himself with an extradition treaty with Russia.

Bismarck now fell back on his Socialist law. He enforced it with vigor, extending the minor state of siege to Altona, Leipsic, Hamburg, and Harburg. His commission reported yearly. Its words were not reassuring. In 1882 it said: "The situation of the Social Democratic movement in Germany and other civilized countries is unfortunately not such as to encourage the hope that it is being suppressed or weakened." The Minister of the Interior said to the Reichstag: "It is beyond doubt that it has not been possible by means of the law of October, 1878, to wipe Social Democracy from the face of the earth, or even to strike it to the center."[13]

The duration of the law had been fixed at two years. At the end of each term it was renewed, each time with diminishing majorities. Meanwhile the rigor of the law was not diminished. The minor state of siege was extended to other centers, including Stettin and Offenbach. Meetings were suppressed everywhere, and dismissed often for the most trivial reasons. The police were given the widest powers and exercised them in the narrowest spirit.[14] "A hateful system of persecution, espionage, and aggravation was established, and its victims were the classes most susceptible to disaffection."[15]

On the unique index expurgatorius of the government were over a thousand titles, including the works of the high priests of the party, the poetry of Herwegh, the romances of Von Schweitzer, the photographs of the favorite Socialist saints, over eighty newspapers and sixty foreign journals. Bales of interdicted literature were smuggled in from Switzerland to feed the morose and disaffected mind of the German workingman.

I can find no record of how many arrests were made. Bebel reported to the party convention in 1890 that 1,400 publications of all kinds had been interdicted and that 1,500 persons had been imprisoned, serving an aggregate of over one thousand years.[16] Every trial was a scattering of the seeds, and every imprisoned or exiled comrade became a hero. The awkwardness of the government was matched against the adroitness of the propagandists. A good deal of terror was spread among the people, stories of sudden uprisings and bloody revolutions were told. Even the National Liberals lost their heads at times. But Bebel was always superbly cool. This woodturner developed into one of the ablest political generals of his time.

Persecuted and pressed into underground channels of activity the party persisted in growing. In 1880 it rid itself of the violent revolutionary faction led by Most and Hasselman.

In the elections of 1881 the Socialists gained three deputies, but their popular vote was reduced over 125,000. In the next election, 1884, they won twenty-four seats and polled 549,990 votes; two out of six seats in Berlin were won, and one-tenth of the voters in the land were rallied under the red flag. The police were alarmed and the law was enforced with renewed energy.

With this powerful backing Liebknecht asked the repeal of the "Explosives Act." A violent debate took place. Liebknecht said: "I will tell you this: we do not appeal to you for sympathy. The result is all the same to us, for we shall win one way or another. Do your worst, for it will be only to our advantage, and the more madly you carry on the sooner you will come to an end. The pitcher goes to the well until it breaks."[17]

Bebel roused all the fury of Bismarck when he warned him that if Russian methods were imported there would be murder. In July of this year (1886) at Freiburg occurred the memorable trial of nine Socialist leaders, including Bebel, Dietz, Von Vollmar, Auer, Frohme, and Viereck, charged with participating in an illegal organization. All were sentenced to imprisonment for terms varying from six to nine months.

Preceding the election of 1887 the Reichstag had been dissolved on the army bill. The patriotic issue, always effective, was made the universal appeal by the government. In spite of this the Social Democrats polled 763,128 votes, a gain of 213,128. Saxony had succeeded in holding down the vote to 150,000; but in Prussia the result was startling; in Berlin forty per cent. of the voters were Social Democrats. With all their voting strength the party elected only eleven members to the Reichstag. With proportional representation they would have elected forty. The Bismarck Conservatives returned forty-one members with fewer votes than the Socialists.