(Translated from the German of Ret Marut by Mina C. and H. Arthur Klein)
It is not only the freest state in the world but it also has the freest
voting system in the world. A voting system that enables the man who
owns one or twenty large newspapers, or who takes the trouble to have
several million cleverly gotten-up leaflets printed and distributed, to
gain as much influence on the election as he desires. A voting system
which permits the church confessional and the pulpit, the marital bed
and the death bed, to be used for purposes of political propaganda, is
indeed the freest voting system on earth.
It has been demonstrated that those who vote for the Social Democratic
Party are composed approximately one-third of women and two-thirds of
men. The voters for the official Christ-desecrators,(1) on the other
hand, are two-thirds women and one-third men. And such a voting system
passes for the will of the people.
The freest state in the world indeed: profiteers, usurers, and
racketeers, killer-robbers and murderers of revolutionaries, all are
living a life of luxury and debauchery. Workers and revolutionaries, on
the other hand, are being slaughtered and martyred in jails and
penitentiaries.
That all this would happen if ever the Social Democrats came to power, I
told Social Democratic workers as long ago as the year 1905.(2) That the
Social Democrats, once in power, would be a hundred times more brutal
than the fathers of the Anti-Socialist Laws,(3) I told Social Democratic
workers in 1907. 1 told them this not out of political understanding
(which I did not have then and do not have today, that being the reason
I have been able to retain my feeling for human beings); rather I told
it to them out of the feeling that Social Democracy was breeding a
popery worse than that of the Catholic Church.
And so today it has, in fact, come to pass: Social Democracy, which
asserts that it is based on the materialist conception of history, is
totally blind with regard to the inevitable and logical course of
historical developments. Social Democracy believed that it alone was the
revolutionary party; it believed that it alone represented the interests
of the workers; it believed that it was the be-all and end-all of all
political development. And yet, apparent to all who were willing to see
there came into being even many years before World War I the successor
to Social Democracy: the Communist Party.(4)
So, now, as a result, the Social Democratic Party has become the
conservative party in this country, because with astonishment and fright
it realizes that it is constantly being driven from positions on the
left, ever further toward positions on the right. And we must surely
keep our eyes wide open, because the Communist Party has at its left its
extremely strong successor; and it may be that the Communist Party, once
in power, will perhaps persecute the supporters of its successor party
just as today the Communists are persecuted by the Social Democrats.
I stand to continue using a political concept - so far to the left that
my breath does not even stir that successor to the Communist Party.(5)
The only person who could smile at this is one who forgets that humanity
unceasingly evolves onward, and that human history, like nature shows no
static moments.
But to what a state of degeneracy this Social Democratic Party has sunk,
which hunts down like wild animals in the forest revolutionaries and
workers who ask nothing but the fulfilment of what was promised to them
a thousand times by the rulers of today promised in the days before they
began to rule. Indeed, it is worse, for the animals of the forest are
granted periods of closed seasons, and skilled hunting is required at
other times.
How depraved this Party has become which offers bounties of 10,000 and
30,000 marks for the capture of fleeing revolutionaries, the purpose
being not to protect the population from them, but rather to wreak
vengeance on them and murder them. What more can you expect from this
Party whose members perpetrate murders on revolutionaries legal murders,
which they call death sentences. And this in a country where, since
1848, and despite the Anti-Socialist Laws, no death sentence has been
carried out against revolutionaries.
How must honest workers regard this Party whose leaders in Bavaria alone
throw five thousand revolutionaries into prison, and hand down
penitentiary sentences as long as fifteen years and eight years this
Party whose founders and leaders themselves once received asylum in
Switzerland and England, but whose present leaders, in the most brutal
and vicious manner, demand the extradition of fugitive revolutionaries
who have sought and found protection in foreign countries. The purpose
of these demands is vengeance base vengeance.
The Party which despite the monstrous misery of the German people, can
produce untold tens of millions of marks in order to wreak cruel
vengeance on revolutionaries, has thereby proclaimed its decay and
disintegration.
In addition to the many old lies of the Party bosses,(6) thousands of
new lies are added: "We are not the government; the government is a
coalition."
Good. But if the Party bigwigs, in consequence of this brutal vengeance
(which with their silent approval is being wreaked against
revolutionaries) were to quit the coalition which, in any case, is a
mockery of socialist ideas then the unprecedented crimes against the
revolutionaries would no longer be possible. And Social Democrats, whose
program calls for abolition of the death penalty, are voting for death
penalties to be carried out. But they lie again, saying that they did
not vote for this. Had they voted against it, the murders of
revolutionaries could not be carried out. And now again, as during the
war, they abstained from voting, and in this way did not openly violate
their Party's platform. Up to now, actions of this kind were attributed
only to the Jesuits.
Such a Party is being guided in a way that abandons revolutionaries to
the lust for vengeance and the bloodthirstiness of a degenerate and
bestial bourgeoisie. Thus, the Party has done more damage to the concept
of the nation than ever could have been done by a revolutionary. And
only as a result of this was it possible that in Munich seven
revolutionaries (not to mention more respectable men and women) received
neither pardon nor amnesty, but rather were legally murdered a few hours
after their trials whereas in the same city, four days later, a hold-up
man who had slain a tavern-keeper and his wife while committing a theft,
was pardoned; and people who had tortured their own children in the most
brutal and gruesome way were sentenced to only a few days in jail.
And you think that the German Revolution is not coming?
Spartacists(7) are not the ones who are making the Revolution in
Germany, but rather those here who utter the lie that they must protect
the German people from the Revolution - it is they who are making the
Revolution.
But woe to you, officers, soldiers, Party bosses, judges, state's
attorneys, informers, and newspaper-scribblers,(8) who have murdered and
martyred revolutionaries! You have handed down your own sentences. Your
deaths are decided, and I believe that even I am no longer able to
rescue you. If I can, however - if I have even a trace of opportunity to
save you I shall do it, because to me human blood is precious above all
else.
How many people were there who hoped that the bourgeoisie would be
better, nobler, more just and more conciliatory than the Spartacists? I,
too, cherished this hope - I, even more than others, because I believe
there is goodness in a person as long as he still retains a breath of
life. But how disappointed we were! The unleashed bourgeoisie, whom we
believed had attained a loftier level of culture, was, in fact, more
bestial, more avid for vengeance, and more bloodthirsty than Spartacus
ever had been even for an instant.
How much you would have won, citizens, had you but shown only a trace of
magnanimity and conciliation! You would have, perhaps, gained a lifelong
reprieve. But as it is, you have yourselves determined your own decline
and fall, perhaps your total annihilation. And that is a pity; because
among you are many who are capable of salvaging great and undying
values.
But among the newspaper-scribblers, there is no one who could preserve
or create intellectual values or cultural treasures among the people of
the future.
Since order has been restored on the corpses of about six hundred honest
revolutionaries (9) (I greet you all again in death! All of you, without
a single exception, not even excepting the so-called "murderers of
hostages." All of you died for the sacred cause of human progress; and
all of us make mistakes) - insecurity in the city of Munich has reached
its peak. And this has happened in spite of the fact that international
Social Democracy expelled more than twenty thousand aliens (among whom
they included also Prussians, Saxons, and Wurttembergers), and placed
"unreliable elements" under protective arrest or simply tossed them
into
jail. Nevertheless, since the restoration of order in Munich, more
robbery- murders and sex-murders have been committed than in the five
years preceding the temporary end of the Bavarian Council (10) Republic.
Among these killings, six remain unsolved out of those committed during
the few months of the bayonet-based "order." This is quite natural,
for
robbery-murderers and rapists are having happy days in Munich, ever
since the entire force of law-enforcement officials, policemen, police
informers, and minions of the law of the Hoffmann-Noske-Epp (11)
dictatorship is busy searching for escaped revolutionaries; and a whole
horde of them are roaming around in Switzerland, in Austria, and in
Prussia, so that to the many tens of millions of marks of past police
expenses, several additional tens of millions must be added.
In the bright light of noonday in the busiest streets of Munich, stores
are robbed bare, because the police and their informers have eyes only
for Spartacus people. This time, the murderers and the plunderers can't
be Spartacus people, because the latter are lying dead, buried in
cemeteries or in some sandpit they were hurriedly thrown into. Those
that remain alive are serving time in jails and prisons. Nor can they be
aliens from outside Bavaria, because these without exception have been
expelled.
Nor, this time, can it be Jews who once again "are upsetting order,"
because the Jews - as their leaders have proclaimed to the Aryans in
shameful public statements - have "stoutly cooperated in the liberation
of the dear city of Munich from the red terror of Russian Bolshevists,
and have contributed their property and their blood in order to help the
legitimate Hoffmann government regain its ascendancy."
While Bavaria is now the freest state in the freest country in the
world, Prussia merely lays claim to being the freest state in the world
with the freest voting system in the world. For this reason it was
possible that, in Prussia, un the city of Lyck in East Prussia (which is
subject to the authority .of the Social Democrat August Winnig),(12) a
friend of the Ziegelbrenner (13) periodical was sentenced to two years
fortress-imprisonment (14) because, with the permission of the
Ziegelbrenner's editor, he had duplicated and distributed as a reprint
several hundred copies of the first article in volume 16/ 17. An article
which carries the title "The New World War" an article whose sole
content is justice and humanity.
I learned of this shameful action only a few days ago; for the time
being I feel it is my duty to work for the downfall of the government
that perpetrated so shameful an act. But I greet that revolutionary
comrade: his imprisonment will not last a day longer than that of the
"dishonourable" Dr. Wadler, (15) who by rights ought to serve eight
years in the penitentiary; and than that of the "honourable" Erich
Mhsam, (16) who could spend fifteen years in fortress confinement if it
came to that, and if Scheidemann (17) were not a liar, and if Noske were
not a German.(18)
Among all of those who became known to me through M (19) (and the
"dishonourable" Dr. Levine,(20) T. Axelrod,(21) and Dr. Wadler are
among
them), there is also only one who could really be called dishonourable
if I were to apply the standards of bourgeois morality. But about this
matter I shall speak later on, so fully that all the peoples of the
earth will hear.
I am a little hampered in my work. Several hundred letters are on hand
awaiting answers to the question, "How goes it with Ret Marut?" From
friends of the Ziegelbrenner I have received so many splendid letters
asking about my colleague M, and about aid and support for M some of our
supporters, unsolicited, sent sums of money for M that I lack any words
with which to express thanks. I would hurt those people, if I were to
tell what I felt on reading most of their letters.
I am hampered in all my activities: The Ziegelbrenner publishing house
has been as good as destroyed by the officers of the dictatorship-
democracy of Noske-Hoffmann-Epp-M”hl. Its remnants are scattered in five
different rooms, far removed from each other. Orders cannot be filled.
My most trusted collaborator,(22) without whose tireless activity I am
almost helpless is being hunted on a warrant for high treason issued by
the Bavarian government, and is in flight from the bloodthirsty royal
Wittelsbach Social Democrats,(23) somewhere in a decent foreign country
(24) which does not claim for itself the title of the freest state in
the world.
As a result of all this, the Ziegelbrenner is written by an editorial
staff on the run and published by a press in flight. More than four
hundred impatient subscribers have in the meantime cancelled their
subscriptions. I am not depressed because of this; the ranks of the
Ziegelbrenner supporters in consequence will only become that much more
pure as the superfluous ones withdraw and go back to where they came
from - to the prostitute press.
It was May 1, 1919,(25) labour's first worldwide May Day since the
November 1918 farce,(26) which the Social Democrats claim was a
revolution, and about which they lie and bamboozle all the peoples of
the earth. On that afternoon of May 1, a meeting of revolutionary and
freedom-loving writers from all over Germany was to be held.
My co-worker M was also invited to this writers' meeting, partly because
of his position as the editorial head of Der Ziegelbrenner, but
principally because of his role as a member of the Propaganda Commission
of the Council Republic of Bavaria.
According to the contents of the warrants for his arrest, the high
treason that M committed and which led to the issuance of those
warrants, consisted in the fact that M belonged to the Preparatory
Commission for the formation of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and to the
Propaganda Commission. For this reason he was made the object of arrest
warrants issued by the Bavarian government which sought to throw him
into jail for about fifteen years, or if dishonourable intentions could
be proved against him (which the shameful judges of Bavaria can manage
by a mere twist of the wrist, as the trials have publicly shown even to
the most obstinate reactionaries) to murder him legally.
I declare here and new: Until this hour their has never been anywhere on
earth a court in which all judgments were handed down with such deep
human understanding of every human act, as in this Revolutionary
Tribunal of the Council Republic, which is described as a horror-court
by the Bavarian government and its press pimps. The fact that this
so-called "horror-court" was guided by so lofty a concept of the role
of
a court is due, not least, to the accomplishments of M, who and this I
am imparting to the state's attorneys of Bavaria, because until now they
have not known it was unanimously elected by the Preparatory Commission
of the court as its presiding officer and speaker.
The Provisional Revolutionary Central Council Of the Council Republic of
Bavaria had unanimously assigned M to this Commission. In the Convention
of Factory Councils, which exercised the highest governmental authority
of the Council Republic of Bavaria, M was unanimously elected to the
Propaganda Commission in fact, he was nominated by a printer who works
for a bourgeois newspaper.
M still declares today, and he always will, that this election by
revolutionary factory councils represented for him the highest honour,
and for his labours the highest recognition, which has come to him
between the time of the masquerade of November 1918 and the present.
In all his tasks for he held no offices which were entrusted to him by
the revolutionary workers, he stood for those same ideas that can be
found expressed in the Ziegelbrenner. The fact that, because of these
tasks - which he, as a revolutionary, felt bound to take on, and which
it would have been indecent and counterrevolutionary to refuse - M is
now pursued for high treason like a wild animal, and is robbed of food
and shelter, gives a clearer picture of the freest state in the world
than do all the articles in the newspapers.
As M was sitting in the Maria Theresia Coffee House on the Augusten
Strasse, where he hoped to meet several participants in a writers'
meeting, the autos carrying the white-guardists (27) began to dash
through the streets, bent on "liberating" Munich from the red terror.
The white-guardists did not begin by making statements; they fired
mercilessly with machine guns directly into crowds of people who were
walking the streets dressed in their Sunday best.
At once, seven innocent citizens lay wallowing in their blood on
Augusten Strasse. Two of them died then and there. A seriously wounded
well-dressed man lay on the street a few steps from the coffee house.
While the machine-gun fire of the white-guardists continued to rage, M,
together with a few helpful people, carried the unconscious wounded man
into the coffee house.
A woman doctor who was in the coffee house managed to locate the wound
only after a lengthy examination. It turned out to be an uncommonly
severe injury to the main artery of the left thigh. After an emergency
bandage had been applied, an ambulance arrived which picked up the
wounded and dead from the street and also took the injured man from the
coffee house.
Then the coffee house was closed and M left the building. He had walked
scarcely a few hundred steps the streets were still under fire from the
white-guardist when an auto dashed madly up. It was loaded with about
sixty infantry weapons and rifles on which about ten clerks and students
were sitting all wearing white armbands and handkerchiefs wrapped around
their sleeves,
When they saw and recognized M they stopped their car. Five of them
rushed from the car at M. They had rifles slung around their shoulders
and a revolver in each hand plus four to six hand grenades at their
belts. They pointed their revolvers at M and bellowed at him "Hands up!"
M asked what these gentlemen wanted of him. They said to him that he was
a member of the Central Committee the most dangerous agitator in the
Council Republic, the scourge of the citizenry and the destroyer of the
press. Hence they said, they had to take him along and if he did not
admit that he bore the primary guilt for the bloodbath now being carried
out then they'd have to make quick work of him.
M was then searched for weapons by each and every one of these
bloodthirsty ruffians. The editorial head of Der Ziegelbrenner was
searched for weapons! Naturally you can also search for truffles on bare
paving stones, if you have nothing else to do.
On M was found an ordinary housekey which however, to the astonishment
of these half-baked clowns was not usable as a weapon!
When M now asked where these noble liberators and defenders-of-law-and-
order carried the legal warrant for his arrest, the rest of the fellows
who still sat in the auto pointed their pistols at him.
M then asked these brave liberators to allow him to go to his house once
more, in order to take care of his most urgent affairs before his arrest
and possible death. Thereupon he was searched once again for weapons and
machine guns, and then thrown violently into the auto on top of the
rifles.
In the meantime, a number of pedestrians had gathered around to watch
the incident. The white-guardists became aware of them and began to
denounce M loudly, saying @at he was the one principally responsible for
the human blood that had been shed and was still to be shed; but that he
was now about to get what was coming to him.
These incitements had no effect at all on the crowd. Only one of those
present said quite loudly, "That is M." And the bystanders asked,
in
turn, "So? That is M?"
As a result of this public declaration of neutrality, it was not
possible for the white-guardists to stand M against a wall then and
there and shoot him down. Hence, the noble "freedom-fighters" and
saviours of the bourgeoisie dashed away in their auto, shouting,
carrying with them M, surrounded by ten pistols and rifles pointed
straight at him.
Wherever they spied people on the streets, these brave boys yelled, "Now
we've really nabbed one of them the most dangerous one of all!"
Even though these bold liberators were liberators, and, as such, surely
had a feeble notion of human pride and freedom, they nevertheless felt
they had to get official approval before they could proceed. For, as
they passed one of the more imposing houses, they spied a man standing
in an upper window. In spite of the menace of M and the danger that he
might perhaps escape from them, they stopped their car, stood up as
erect as they could, drew themselves to attention, removed their hats,
and resoundingly bellowed, "Long live der Herr General: Hurrah, hurrah,
hurrah!!!"
Their joy and gratification at being once again underlings for a moment,
and able to roar out praise to an oppressor of humanity, seemed to make
them forget completely their usual subservience, for after their hurrahs
at stiff attention were over, they called up to him: "Herr General, now
we've got one of them here - the most dangerous one of all!"
The Herr General whose presence and placid appearance in his house
served as sufficient indication of the extent of Bolshevist terror waved
a benevolent greeting from on high. Deeply gratified, as if each one had
been promoted to the rank of Prussian top sergeant, the honest battlers
for Munich's liberation dashed off, bearing with them their valuable
prey.
They stopped in front of the War Ministry (28) building. Under heavy
guard, M was dragged from the car, searched again for weapons, and then
was led through a hundred- yard-long corridor lined by heavily armed war
profiteers, bourgeois sonny-boys, elegant pimps, and such hangers-on of
the hodgepodge collection that calls itself the middle class and
respectable officialdom. All of them wanted to play at revolution, now
that it was safe to do so - now that the infamous army troops had set up
their field camp in front of the Residenz (29) and had begun to occupy
public buildings.
M was placed in confinement in one of the rear rooms of the War Ministry
building. A kind of attorney's clerk, or something similar, had the job
of guarding this room. He was asked by the heroes who delivered M there,
"Do you have weapons too?"
"Here, see for yourself!" - and with that the guard pulled a Browning
out of each of his pants pockets, showed them to the prisoner, showed
him further that each was loaded, and held them close under his nose
while releasing their safety catches.
"I'd just like to see him try to escape," said this guard, while
M's
captors looked at M as if he were a well- fattened calf whose slaughter
they awaited with almost unbearable impatience.
Now began the judicial examination or questioning of M. For a while, the
gentlemen bickered back and forth as to which one of them was best
qualified to conduct such a hearing. And when the examination then
began, first one, then another, would break in with shouts of "Aw, you
don't know how to question! Let me do it a while!"
So it went for a good long time, until finally all of them at once were
questioning M.
The examination consisted of accusing M of about twenty serious crimes
of high treason: incitement of soldiers against their officers,
insulting the leaders of the Social Democratic Party, use of force and
violence against the legitimate Hoffmann government of Bavaria, and
various other infamous acts, for which - according to the wishes of the
Social Democrat Hoffmann - the death penalty was to be carried out
forthwith.
M explained that he had nothing to say here, and that, in particular, he
could not recognize as judges or magistrates these gentlemen who with
violence had simply dragged him, a peaceful pedestrian, off the street.
As nothing could be forced out of M, one of the gentlemen suddenly
screamed, "Make a voluntary confession! We're now going to fetch the
witnesses, and then so much the worse for you! - then we'll really
finish you off, once and for all! "
And soon witnesses arrived who testified to everything desired of them.
These witnesses, who were always at hand, especially when they were
permitted to witness a worker being stood against a fence and shot, also
played important roles in the trials conducted by the infamous Bavarian
courts,(30) whose operations will provide better and more valuable
evidence in days to come of the bestiality, the brutality, the
hypocrisy, and the degeneracy of the German bourgeoisie than do the War
and the Lie of November 1918. (31)
Witnesses for his defense were named by M, who sought to have them
called; but his requests were disregarded here, just as similar requests
were later disregarded by those infamous Bavarian courts.
After his captors had get nowhere, they went in search of further
adventures. M was left under the strict surveillance of the
Browning-pistol-wielder. After half an hour, the same company of heroes
trooped in again. In spite of their repeated threats, M continued to
have nothing to say to them, and they declared they would now force him
to confess.
M, now flanked by two heavily armed guards, and Followed by two more,
was led back again through the corridor of armed men outside the War
Ministry building, and taken to the Residenz.
The situation in the streets had now changed completely. From the
windows waved blue-white flags; (32) on public buildings, where formerly
had fluttered socialist banners - long since betrayed and besmirched by
Social Democracy - black- white-red (33) flags of Imperial Germany were
now displayed.
Although Herr Hoffmann's jailers (whose feeding trough was now beginning
to grow full) called out to the lanes of bystanders around the War
Ministry and also around the Residenz that they were bringing in an
arrested Spartacist, M was neither struck nor reviled by any of the
vigilantes. But in other parts of the city at this time, things were
proceeding in a more bestial manner. (34)
Once in the Residenz, M was turned over to soldiers of the infamous
army,(35) while his captors and the witnesses against him sought
permission to remain with M, to prevent him from escaping, and so that
they would be right on hand when M was placed before the court-martial.
After half an hour, the order was given that M was to be taken to Police
Headquarters where one court-martial was at work. But downstairs, as M
was about to be taken away, he and his escort were not allowed out of
the door of the Residenz because, in the meantime, a counterorder had
come: to place him directly before the court-martial at work in the
Residenz itself.
M was led back again into the anteroom of a large ball in which the
court-martial was in session. The court-martial in this freest state of
the world consisted of one dashing lieutenant. He disposed of every case
in about three minutes, On the basis of denunciations by informers he
decided whether the arrestee was to be summarily shot at once, or set
free. In cases of doubt, the arrestee was shot because that was safer.
No time was allowed to let defense witnesses be brought, or even to
summon people who could confirm that the arrestee was no Spartacist, let
alone a leader of Spartacists.
The hall in which M now found himself became increasingly full of
captured workers, red-guards, sailors, girls, and boys. Among the other
denounced people there, M saw a sixteen-year-old boy who was charged
with having attacked soldiers of the infamous army and with having
spread Spartacist propaganda.
At every moment, workers and sailors with deadly white faces were led
out of the Large hall in which the cigarette- smoking lieutenant decided
on Life or death for the prisoners. Their horror-struck and tragic eyes
revealed to the others who waited that they had received death
sentences.
Probably when this is written it will no longer be possible to determine
whether the lieutenant who decided the fate of the Spartacists and the
denounced members of the Council Republic was assigned to the office by
the Hoffmann government, or whether he had simply installed himself in
it on his own.
So passed an hour of excruciating waiting. M asked his guards whether he
might still write a note to his friends to inform them where he was.
This was refused him. At that point, the man who was to be tried by the
lieutenant just before M, was summoned and led in, This man was seized
so violently by the mercenaries that he resisted loudly and vigorously.
In the confusion that resulted, M succeeded in escaping, Not unconnected
with M's escape were two soldiers, in whom for an instant a spark of
humanity arose as they saw what was being done here to the most precious
of human possessions- human life. Let them be thanked at this point for
preserving a man's life.
In the army of infamy, according to my estimates, there are about ten
thousand misled soldiers and officers of the Reichswehr. Soldiers and
officers of the Reichswehr are recognizable by the fact that they are
human beings and not subject to Noske's orders. But the Reichswehr, too,
is unnecessary and superfluous for the German people; and Germany will
have the right to say that Goethe is a German only when in all Germany
no firearms, no hand grenades, and no gas bombs can be found, excepting
in a museum.
It was, in fact, a Reichswehr officer who, in a public bar in Munich,
said to a gentleman who until then was not acquainted with Der
Ziegelbrenner, "To me Munich is the best- loved city among all cities
that I know, because the Ziegelbrenner is published in it."
(During the war, the Ziegelbrenner had among its subscribers about three
hundred army officers, many of whom were in active correspondence with
its editor.)
Since that hour in which M managed to escape, he has been in flight. We
have many times considered whether it would not be better for M to place
himself voluntarily in the power of the courts, for in the long run it
is no particular pleasure to spend many nights in forests, barns and
haylofts, and empty houses, in order not to be interned, and finally be
turned over after all to the authorities.
However, it would simply mean increasing this public German infamy if an
honest revolutionary were to place himself voluntarily in the hands of
these courts, which now as if to fill the measure of outrage to
overflowing call themselves "people's courts." For it has been revealed
ever more clearly and crassly - especially since the reactionary forces
think they again have power in their hands for a long time (the workers
having become smarter in not believing a suitable time for them is as
yet at hand) that the courts of Germany are no genuine courts, but
rather are institutions of cruellest vengeance and bloodthirstiness;
that the judges are no judges, but rather are venal executioners and
puppets of capitalism and the bourgeoisie; that the judges are not just
and judicious men, but members of monarchist parties and members of the
Catholic Centre Party (36) and of the "democratic" cliques; that the
judicial procedures are only spectacles for the prostitute press, so
that even some ordinary journalists have become disgusted; and that
these judicial procedures are only supposed to provide clever state's
attorneys with opportunities to set off brilliant fireworks, and be
praised for it by the prostitute press because, according to that press,
in their accusations the state's attorneys allow no place for feelings
of humanity, but rather bring down just punishment upon common
criminals.
The Revolution is following its unalterable course; it is proceeding
onward inevitably and irresistibly; and such a reactionary power, so
bestial an army of infamy, such unjust and inhuman judges must first
appear, in order to prepare the soil for the future German Revolution.
The state of blindness that today afflicts the bourgeoisie and the
bloodthirstiness and vengeance-seeking with which it attempts to
stabilize its shaky position, is a necessary prerequisite for that which
is to come.
The bourgeoisie has not abolished capital punishment; rather it has
extended it even further to include political offenders. I wish honestly
from my heart and out of pure humanity that the rejection of the
proposal to abolish capital punishment does not boomerang and have more
far-reaching results for the bourgeoisie than hitherto for the
proletariat. The German bourgeoisie has forfeited every moral right to
be cast aside without the use of violence and murder. If the proletariat
nevertheless does manage without bloodshed to administer the coup de
grace to the degenerate bourgeoisie - and the proletariat has the
strength to do this, because it possesses greater morality and humanity
in its soul - then the victory of the coming Revolution will be made
that much more certain and permanent.
It will soon be reported (here in Der Ziegelbrenner) what happened to
the Ziegelbrenner publishing office and to its friends, after the events
perpetrated in the name of the freest state in the world and in the name
of its "democratic" dictators. This delay in reporting is necessary
because the records are not yet complete, and every day brings down upon
us additional "freedom" and additional "order."
The Council Republic is not the culmination of everything, and even less
does it stand for the most perfect form in which humans can live
together. However, the Council Republic is a prerequisite for the
reconstruction of culture, because it makes possible the liquidation of
the state. It must be the task of the revolutionary of today to work for
the Council system and with it also for the Council Republic.
Consequently you will understand that M, immediately after his escape,
and as long as he still had the slightest freedom of action, took with
him into the Bavarian countryside the principles of the Council Republic
and the idea of the Council system.
In about sixty cities, villages, and localities of Bavaria, he talked
with citizens, peasants, and workers. He elected to use a different
method from that which has become usual today - a method that is more
successful: he used a form of persuasion which is the only one that
produces worthwhile results, a form that is very old and that was also
used by Christ- namely, talking person to person, talking to the
smallest gatherings or groups of people. His listeners rarely numbered
more than twelve persons at a time.
But from these intimate conversations, which were in every way informal
and unstructured, and which gave every listener opportunities through
counter-questioning to become completely clear about what M had said, no
citizen, no worker, no peasant went away who had not recognized the big
lie called "democracy" for what it is - namely, a big lie.
It was by no means M's intention that every listener should leave a
convinced, enthusiastic Council republican. Such speedy enthusiasms and
speedily acquired convictions are seldom the salt to be used as
seasoning in cases like these.
Often M travelled for three days in succession to the same place in
order to fulfil his task there. Never has he been denounced to the
authorities, either by a citizen or by a peasant, although his listeners
can hardly have been in doubt as to his identity.
By means solely of large political meetings, probably no one has been so
completely won over to so novel a thing as the Council system that he
could say he learned exactly what the Council system is, what it aims
at, and how it operates. That is the reason such terrible confusion
exists among workers because, as a result of insufficient knowledge,
every worker has a different conception of the meaning of the Council
system, the Council Republic, and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The real need is not to persuade the great masses, to whip them up to
flaming enthusiasm, to move them to adopt a resolution. Rather the great
need is to convince individual human beings. The people of the future,
and the people who are preparing for that which is to come, should not
be argued into this without thinking things out; they should not believe
unconditionally; rather they should be filled with the consciousness
that this Revolution is right and feasible, whereas that other bourgeois
order is wrong and not feasible. The people who today carry within them
the will to future development, should not work for the coming society
by relying on the mind of a clever Fhrer, but rather with their own
minds, with their own hearts, and with their own souls.
But this they can do only when they know what it is all about, and when
they also know and understand exactly what they themselves want.
When workers and peasants - and not greedy bourgeois - first truly come
to understand the council system and its values and its way of working,
then any other form of human living-together and working-together during
the period of transition to a higher form of society will seem
nonsensical to them.
Among his listeners M met a citizen active in the academic world, who
said he was a decided opponent of the Council system, and who, with a
weapon in his hand, had taken part enthusiastically in overthrowing the
Council Republic. After the conclusion of a conversation with M, this
gentleman said that M had not persuaded him, but that he wanted to
reflect further on what he had heard. Two months later, M again met the
man. The first thing he said to M was, "You are right, and for several
weeks now I have been a fully convinced supporter of the Council
Republic."
M mentions this case because it is, to date, the only instance in which
M had the opportunity to speak again with an opponent, not immediately
after a conversation, but several weeks later.
NOTES
by Mina C. and H. Arthur Klein
1. "the official Christ-desecrators," in Marut's arsenal of epithets,
refers to the leaders of the Catholic Party of Bavaria, once known as
the Centre (German: Zentrum) , later calling itself the Bavarian
People's Party (BVP).
2. "year 1905" may seem an improbably early date for the man who
became
Ret Marut and then B. Traven to have been active and politically
informed in Germany. Yet it is possible. Shreds of evidence, which
cannot be detailed here, suggest that by 1905 he was in his early
twenties, and actively involved in working class politics.
3. The Anti-Socialist laws were pushed through the Reichstag by Bismarck
in 1878, after the Socialist Party (SPD) had won 500,000 votes and
elected twelve delegates to that body. The laws, draconically framed and
rigorously applied, broke up the Socialists' organizations, trade
unions, newspapers, and publishing centres. Nevertheless the movement
resisted and ultimately staged a comeback, gaining 35 Reichstag
delegates by 1890, and 89 by 1903. In the Germany of 1919, of course,
the Anti-Socialist laws were only a memory, but of a nightmare kind, to
the readers Marut hoped he would reach with this piece.
4. "Communist Party" here cannot mean the Communist Party of Germany
(KPD), which did not come into being under that name until the start of
1919, when it arose out of the militant Spartacist Bund. Marut here
means rather the Majority Socialists of Russia, known since 1903 as the
Bolsheviki or Bolshevists. They, however, adopted the Communist Party
name during 1918, only a year prior to the one in which Marut wrote this
piece for the Ziegelbrenner.
5. "successor to the Communist Party" seems typically cryptic and
obscure. Very likely Marut meant that all things change, particularly in
political struggles. He had flaunted his independence of all parties in
a fiery proclamation issued nearly a year earlier, declaring: "I do not
belong to the Social Democratic Party, nor am I an Independent
Socialist. I do not belong to the Spartacus group, nor am I a Bolshevik.
I belong to no party, to no political association of any description...
I cannot belong to any party, because I see in any party membership a
limitation of my personal freedom; because the pledge to a party program
takes from me .. that which I regard as the highest and noblest goal on
earth: to be allowed to be a human being."
6. "Party bosses" here and "Party bigwigs" below transLate
Marut's term
Partei-Pfaffen, literally "Party priests" meaning the officials of
the
German Social Democratic Party who - in his view - misled and swindled
their followers as priests mislead and swindle the faithful.
7. "Spartacists" entered German political history when, after January,
1916, a small but gifted group of militant Socialists began publishing a
series called Spartacus Letters, designed to free the enslaved minds of
German workers as the original Spartacus had sought to free Roman slaves
in 72 B.C. The Spartacist leaders and agitators after the spring of 1917
were reinforced by the Independent Socialists, but the former retained
their organizational autonomy, and by the end of 1918 metamorphosed into
the new German Communist Party. During 1919, "Spartacist" became a
scareword to the German bourgeoisie and even to the orthodox Majority
Socialists (SPD), who largely controlled the new government. It was the
domestic equivalent of Bolshevik during the same era in western Europe
and the U.S.A.
8. "newspaper-scribblers" is a justified translation of Marut's phrase,
Zeitungs-schreiber, for here and in many other key writings he vented
burning contempt on "the press" and those who served it.
9. "six hundred" is not far beyond the official figures of deaths
resulting from the violent crushing of the Bavarian Council Republic at
the beginning of May, 1919. Known deaths totalled 599 in and around
Munich, of which less than ten percent were those of the invading troops
and vigilante groups. Of the remainder deaths among the defeated
defenders great numbers did not fall while fighting but were killed
after capture: either beaten to death or shot without trial, or after
the most summary drumhead court-martial, later acknowledged to have been
illegal.
"Hostages," in the following sentence, refers to an event that turned
many against the defenders of the Council Republic in Bavaria. Its
so-called Red Army, during April, arrested and imprisoned a number of
leading royalists and reactionaries, including some of the "Thule
Society," implicated in the incitement that resulted in the
assassination Of Kurt Eisner. As the invading anti-Red troops ringed
Munich, Commandant Rudolf Egelhofer, military head of the defending Red
guards, ordered these prisoners killed. Some twenty were slain before
Ernst Toller, the then political head, managed to stop the slaughter.
These killings were widely reported as an atrocity. R. M. Watt, an
authority on the period, has concluded that "The Munich revolutionaries
had talked about terror a great deal more than they had practised it.
Not so the Freikorps." And he notes also that "The white terror which
followed was vastly more savage than anything the Communists had
undertaken."
10. "Council Republic" the German phrase is R„te-Republik.
Many -of the
histories translate this as "Soviet Republic" or even simply "Soviet"
of
Bavaria. This is not downright wrong but is misleading. Rat (singular)
and R„te (plural) are ancient words, deeply rooted in Germany's past,
and antedating (in this sense) the example of the Russian Soviets from
1917 onward, or even from 1905. Rat has the double sense of an assembly
or council, and of counsel or advice.
11. See Introduction, p. 15 5.
12. August Winnig was a Social Democratic officeholder of no special
importance. To Marut, he was just one more example of the despised Party
bosses or "party-priests."
13. See Introduction, p. 155.
14. "fortress-imprisonment" is the German Festungshaft, or detention
in
a fortress - a distinctly less dishonourable and uncomfortable kind of
incarceration than Zuchthaus, which corresponds roughly to penitentiary,
or even than Gef„ngnis, which is like ordinary jail. Sentences passed
on
persons convicted for acts they had done during the days of the Bavarian
Council Republic (November, 1918 through April, 1919), included 905
condemnations to such fortress-imprisonment; 65 to Zuchthaus; and 1,737
to Gef„ngnis. The Festungshaft sentences averaged about one and a half
years; the Zuchthaus sentences, however, more than five times that long.
15. Dr. Wadler, an Independent Socialist and a former German Army
officer, had been Minister of Housing in the Eisner cabinet in Bavaria
after November 7, 1918. He is one of the few government officials known
to have met Ret Marut face to face during the period between then and
the terrible finale, in the first days of May, 1919. The ironic term
"dishonourable" as used here seems to show that, so far as Marut knew
when he wrote these lines, Wadler had not been granted the benefit of a
fortress-confinement type of sentence, reserved for those whose acts the
court considered to have been "honourable" in origin. However, the
complete meaning of this paragraph remains cryptic and probably was
intended to be so.
16. Erich Mhsam (1878-1934), an anarchist agitator and writer of
fascinating talent - and enormous courage. He took part in the original
November overthrow of the royal regime in Munich, had a prominent role
in the Council Republic and, after it was crushed, was sentenced to
fortress confinement for five years. Early in this time during 1922 - a
noteworthy postcard arrived, addressed to Mhsam. It was a greeting from
his former fellow-fighter Ret Marut, at that time still somewhere in
Germany, and evading arrest in most extraordinary ways. Not long after
his release, Mhsam published in a 1926 issue of his magazine Fanal, a
poignant appeal, begging the vanished Ret Marut, wherever he might be,
to get in touch:
"Ret Marut, comrade, friend, fellow-fighter, man speak up, report, stir
yourself, give a sign that you still live, that you are still the
Ziegelbrenner..."
Above all, Mhsam wanted to be assured that Marut had not abandoned his
old convictions and loyalties. We cannot say whether the mysterious B.
Traven of Mexico ever communicated in any way with Mhsam. Probably he
did not. Yet Mhsam came to suspect from stylistic analyses of the B.
Traven novels and stories published in Germany beginning in 1926, that
this "unknown" writer, was probably identical with the Ziegelbrenner
of
those revolutionary days in Bavaria. Mhsam did not survive to learn
that he had been right. He was jailed again, and subsequently murdered
in horrible fashion by the Nazis, the year after Hitler became
Chancellor of Germany.
17. Philipp Scheidemann (1865-1939), prominent member of the Majority
Socialists (SPD) and the first Chancellor of the new Weimar Republic,
between February and June, 1919. See Introduction, p. 155.
18. "If Scheidemann were not a liar, and if Noske were not a German"
are
puzzling phrases and probably beyond clarification at this late date.
See Introduction, p. 155.
19. M - without a period! This is no typographical slip; it was
deliberately printed this way by the Ziegelbrenner. If that letter
represents Marut, or Maurhut as he sometimes chose to call himself, who,
then, is the "I" of this same sentence? The "I" of the following
sentence is indubitably Marut himself. Its apocalyptic and grandiose
finale is assuredly in his style. Two possible answers, or guesses, can
be considered. (1) The "I" here is still Marut, pretending to be someone
else, because he was then wanted on a police warrant for high treason.
Or, less likely, (2) it is Irene Mermet (1893-1956), Marut's longtime
collaborator and companion. The manifold confusions and contradictions
in In the Freest State in the World need not be regarded as entirely
deliberate. Marut's distraught and even desperate state of mind can be
sensed throughout.
20. Eugene Levin‚ (1883 - 1919), a co-founder of the German Communist
Party, and a doctor of philosophy, not medicine. He was one of two
similarly named but unrelated leaders of the Communist groups in Munich
during April, the final month of the Council Republic. The other, also a
doctor, was Max Levien, slightly younger than Levin‚. Both had mingled
Russian and German backgrounds, linguistically, educationally, and
residentially. Both had been drafted into the Imperial German Army but
had become Spartacists and then Communists. Levin‚, after working with
the brilliant Rosa Luxemburg, had come to Bavaria, reaching Munich early
in March, 1919. He reorganized the local Communist Party and its
executive committee; became editor of the Munich edition of the
Communist newspaper, Rote Fahne ; and devoted himself more to theory
than to the rough-and-tumble of armed uprisings. He, as well as Levien,
resigned from the Munich "Commune" at the end of April, as it became
clear that overwhelming forces of Freikorps and regular troops were
closing in on the city. Arrested not long after the actual penetration
of Munich, Levin‚ was tried by a hasty court-martial, condemned to
death, and shot down, his final defiant cry being "Long live the world
revolution!" Levien escaped by fleeing into Austria.
21. Tobia Axelrod was another leader or at any rate a "consultant"
of
the Communists during the agitated April days of the Munich "Commune."
He had been with Lenin in what was then St. Petersburg, during 1917, and
had reached Germany with the staff of the first Soviet ambassador to the
Imperial government in Berlin. When that ambassador was expelled from
Germany, Axelrod moved to Munich where the Eisner regime was by that
time installed. Late in April, as things became desperate, Axelrod was
sent by airplane to seek help. His destination was either Hungary or
Russia, but mechanical trouble forced down his plane still within
Bavaria. After the Council Republic was smashed, Axelrod was discovered
and arrested. However, his diplomatic connection saved him: from Russia
came warning that if he were harmed, similar action would be taken
against German diplomats there.
22. "trusted collaborator" certainly this seems to refer to Marut
himself, then "being hunted on a warrant for high treason." That
suggests the "I" of these lines either was, or was meant to be
understood as, Irene Mermet, who had collaborated with Marut on the
Ziegelbrenner. (See also ftn. 19.) Conceivably the aim here was to
confuse the authorities who might get hold of this issue, for M could
mean Mermet as well as Marut... These typical Marut/Traven riddles,
layered almost endlessly like an onion, do not seem to be finally
soluble, nor did Marut/Traven intend that they should be.
23. "royal Wittelsbach Social Democrats" is aimed at the leading
Majority Socialists in Bavaria, such as Johannes Hoffmann, the premier
who had been designated by the Landtag after Eisner's assassination. The
phrase brands them as basically royalist and reactionary in their
actions despite their socialistic and democratic pretensions. (See
Introduction, p. 155.)
24, "a decent foreign country" was probably included in order to
mislead
the police and their informers, who were actively searching for Ret
Marut in Germany. It is virtually certain that when these words were
written, printed, and posted to subscribers, Marut was still within the
German boundaries, living a hunted and harassed life.
25. "It was May 1, 1919," - here begins the narrative proper, a
-narrative obviously written by Marut himself but referring repeatedly
to "my co-worker M," as if someone else were the writer.
26. "the November 1918 farce" refers to the events and declarations
that
began in Berlin on November 9 and 10, 1918 notably, the proclamation of
the German Republic, the launching of the provisional government headed
by Ebert and other Majority Socialist leaders, etc. The meeting of
writers mentioned in the following paragraph was, of course, to be held
in Munich, not Berlin. Marut's particular role as "member of the
Propaganda Commission" can be specified more precisely here. On April 7,
barely more than three weeks before the seizure of Marut on May 1, he
had been appointed Press Director (Leiter) by the revolutionary Central
Council in Munich. However, in line with his repudiation of official
position and formal authority, he declined, and that post went to
another. Nevertheless Marut did take on the task of serving as
government censor of one of the bourgeois dailies: the Munich-Augsburg
Abend-Zeitung. The next day (April 8) the new "press representatives"
(or censors) revealed a plan for the eventual socialization of the
newspapers of Bavaria. Marut was the author of that plan.
27. "white-guardists" (Weiss-Gardisten) is what Marut called them.
As
during the same period in Russia, white here carries the sense of
violently counter-revolutionary and reactionary.
28. Bavaria's "War Ministry building" stood at number 24 Ludwig Strasse,
about half a mile north of the royal palace, or Residenz, mentioned
later. During the heavy bombings of World War II, the War Ministry
building was burned out.
29. The Residenz, at the site where Bavaria's dukes, electors, and kings
had their official residences, was the showplace of old Munich. The
structure to which Marut was taken was reduced to ruins by the bombings
of World War II, and reconstruction began after 1945.
30. "infamous... courts" (Schandgerichte) . Marut also used Schand
as a
prefix (signifying disgraceful, shameful, or outrageous) to describe the
armed forces, regular or irregular, sent to crush the Bavarian Council
Republic, as in Schandwehr, or "army of infamy."
31. "Lie of November 1918" refers again to the fraud - as Marut saw
it -
launched in Berlin on November 9. See ftn. 26.
32. The colours of Bavaria itself were blue and white, so too was the
royal flag of the ancient house of Wittelsbach. The replacement of the
red socialist banners by these flags meant reversion to royalist and
reactionary principles.
33. Return to Imperial and pro-Hohenzollern sentiment was indicated by
the black-white-red flags. The flag of the Weimar Republic in contrast
was black-gold-red.
34. Regarding "bestial manner" see earlier notes, especially ftn.
10.
Also see Introduction, p. 155.
35. For Marut's use of Schandwehr, here translated as "infamous army,"
see ftn. 30.
36. Catholic Centre Party see Introduction, p. 155.
37. Marut called them Demokratischen Sippen in German. This was not a
denigration of principles of democracy, however. He referred here
rather to the conservative, even reactionary, bourgeois groups or
cliques whose chosen party names included the word "Democratic," or
who
claimed to espouse democratic ideals while bitterly opposing socialism,
pacifism, etc.
He may well have had in mind here the German Democratic Party (DDP), and
also possibly the National People's Party (NVP) and the German People's
Party (DVP), as well as other and smaller conservative or right wing
groups.