SECTION I. The Principle

THE PRINCIPLE

The democratic principle was adopted by the majority of the National Assembly without any difficulty. But in the public opinion there became manifest certain tendencies which are either directly contrary to this principle or whose consistency with this principle is debatable; and some of them have received and are still gaining active and influential adherence.

It is important therefore to define in reference to the principle of national sovereignty the theories to which it finds itself subjected in practice.

1.--THE POWER OF THE STATE IS DERIVED FROM THE PEOPLE.

Democracy is defined as government by the people; a democratic government is a government in which sovereignty resides in the people, or, to speak more precisely, one in which the will of the majority determines sovereignty.

That this principle was completely ignored in practice in Germany before the Revolution we already know. According to the Constitution of 1871 sovereignty belonged to the ensemble of confederated princes, Germany being governed by an association of monarchs under the all-powerful direction of one of them, the King of Prussia.

Such a system obviously could not survive the disappearance of the monarchs themselves; and after the Revolution the democratic principle, to which Bismarck had given the semblance of expression in creating a Reichstag elected by universal suffrage, became fully applied. One consideration contributed above all to the establishment of government by the greatest number: The German Princes had governed and had conducted themselves as monarchs by divine right; under their régime no social class could develop to which a certain political power could be given over, which the people would become accustomed to regard as authoritative. There was in Germany no political nobility, no bourgeoisie invested with political power. So that when sovereignty fell from the weakened hands of the monarchs it could be taken over only by the people.

The people are therefore sovereign. German jurists go on to say that the people cease to be the object of sovereignty and become the subject of sovereignty.

But we are here in a federal state, and the problem becomes more complicated because of the particular form of the state. For there are here, in theory at least, two sovereignties: that of the Reich, and that of the State. Which is the primary sovereignty?

In committees the representatives of the states naturally supported the latter of these alternatives. For them the former states at the moment of signing the confederate pact gave up to the federal state a certain number of their powers; but they have kept others. The Revolution has changed nothing in this situation; it has thrown out the dynasties, but it has not at all changed the integrity and the rights of the individual states. It is in these states therefore that sovereignty originally resides. The sovereignty of the Reich is only derived; although the Reich is no longer an alliance of Princes, it is certainly an alliance of the Republics that compose it.

This theory has not prevailed. It is true that one could not go so far as to admit that the sovereignty of the states is derived from that of the Reich and is given to them by the latter; but it is equally true that it cannot be admitted that the sovereignty of the states is expressly limited by the rights that the Reich attributes to itself. It has been admitted, therefore, that the people is sovereign in the Reich, but that it is equally and by the same title sovereign in the states in the spheres of action which are left to the states.

Such is the principle proclaimed by Article 1, paragraph 2, of the Constitution. That does not mean to say, however, that attempts and proposals were not made to make a breach in it or to draw from it debatable deductions. A study of these attempts and proposals will enable us to understand more precisely the sense and import of this principle.

2.--THE COUNCILS SYSTEM, OR THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT.

The first projects formulated and presented against this principle, and to the realization of which the Independents and the Communists bent every effort, may be characterized in a word: they aimed to give over all political and economic power to Workers Councils, to organize the dictatorship of the proletariat.

These proposals, such as developed particularly by Däumig, theoretician of the Independents, may be summed up as follows:

A parliamentary system--the proof is at hand--is powerless to bring about the triumph of social democracy. The revolution throughout the world, if it is to win quickly--and it must win quickly, for the proletariat can no longer wait--cannot achieve its aims except by other methods. As in Russia in 1905 and in 1917, so in Germany the necessary change can be only the product of Workers Councils. It is only within the Councils that the union of the proletariat is possible. Only the Councils assure the co-operation of manual and of intellectual workers, which Russia had not been able as yet to realize but which should be and can be accomplished. The system of Councils in its final aspect realizes the most perfect form of democracy, for it gives political and economic equality to all its citizens. While waiting its ultimate triumph, however, it may be necessary to proclaim the dictatorship of the proletariat; but this dictatorship will not be any heavier than that which is borne by the proletariat itself. It will last if necessary till the complete fusion of social classes does away with the class struggle, till the advent of integral socialism.

Therefore, all power to the Councils! No division of influence, no juxtaposition of political assemblies and economic councils! The Councils are an indispensable instrument to substitute permanently a socialist for a capitalist régime. That is to say, they should fulfil two series of functions: political and economic. Politically the Councils system unites in the same organism both parliament and administration, thus rendering possible that constant control of administration which the parliamentary régime is incapable of exercising, and maintaining a permanent supervision of the elected by the electors. Economically the Councils watch over the execution of socialization measures; later they become the regulators of production and consumption.

To this duality of functions there corresponds a double organization. The political system rests on Workers Councils properly so called (Arbeiterräte); the economic system rests on Factory Workers Councils (Betriebsräte).

In each commune, workers, employés, and peasants, organized as much as possible in vocational groups, elect worker councillors, one for every 1,000 electors. These councillors have as their task, while awaiting the final organization of the system of Councils, the control of municipal administration. Their delegates constitute Local Councils (Kreisarbeiterräte); the delegates of the latter, in turn, make up District Councils (Bezirksräte). In addition, so long as the German Republic is still not united, there will sit in the capital of each state a Central Council (Landeszentralrat). These different organizations are respectively charged with the control of administration of each degree of the hierarchy. At the summit of the edifice, finally, sits the Congress of Councils, which controls all political power, and whose meetings must take place at least every three months. This congress elects a Central Council (Zentralrat) which appoints and controls the Commissars of the People. It is in a word a copy of the Russian system.

Parallel to this political organization, there is created in each factory, shop, etc., a Factory Workers Council (Betriebsrat), elected by the workers and employés in the proportion of one delegate to 100 electors. Small factories and rural enterprises are grouped so as to form electoral units; the same with the professions. The Factory Workers Councils are charged with the defence of the interests of the personnel, and with the control of the enterprises in which they are employed. They co-operate in the application of measures for socialization. But their action, limited to the factory or the shop, cannot pretend to embrace all the problems of production. Germany is divided, therefore, into a certain number of economic districts (Wirtschaftsbezirke). In each of these districts the Factory Workers Councils of each branch of industry and of commerce designate a Council of Groups of this district (Bezirksgrupenrat). All the Councils of Groups in the same district designate delegates whose assembly constitutes the Economic Council of that district (Bezirkswirtschaftsrat). In the same way the district Councils of Groups of each branch of industry elect for the whole Reich a Council of Groups of the Reich (Reichswirtschaftsrat), to which is entrusted the general supervision of economic life, and which, in accord with the Central Council, determines during the transitional period the necessary measures for the maintenance of production and the application of the laws for socialization. The Economic Councils of the districts and the National Council may add to themselves, if they deem fit, experts, economists, etc.

The whole system, so simple theoretically, rests on the elections of workers as councillors in the Workers Councils and in the Factory Workers Councils. The composition of the electoral body therefore takes on a particular importance. The fundamental principle, in which Däumig and his friends would tolerate no diminution, was that no employer as such could take part in the system. Only employés are eligible as electors. An exception is made in favour of peasants “who do not permanently employ farm hands.” A second axiom stipulates that those elected must remain under the constant control of the electors. The electoral body is therefore free to recall them whenever it seems desirable to it. In any event a worker councillor must not remain such for more than twelve months. He must stay a worker and not become a functionary.

Such is the organization that the Independents and the Communists proposed. In itself lies the proof that it is contrary to the democratic principle; for only part of the nation, manual and intellectual workers, employés, the proletariat would have the right to direct public affairs. And this consideration, without counting all the other criticisms that may be made against the system, such as at least the present incompetence of workers to govern, the necessary establishment of a reign of terror, etc., has grouped against it not only the bourgeois parties but also all the Social Democrats, who depend for the triumph of the socialist idea on democratic and parliamentary means. “I do not wish to dwell long on the study of the question of ‘the dictatorship of Workers Councils versus democracy,’” said one of the Social Democratic drafters of the Constitution. “It is sufficient for me to show that this dictatorship is in contradiction to democracy, that we must choose between dictatorship by a minority on the one hand, and democracy or government by the majority on the other. The Committee on the Constitution has declared in favour of democracy, control by the great majority of the people. The idea, therefore, of a dictatorship by the Councils is rejected.” (Sinzheimer in the session of July 21, 1919, of the Assembly; see Heilfron, op. cit., vol. vi, p. 4265.) From the side of the Democrats came the criticism, “Those who demand all power for the Councils, who want to place between the hands of the Councils all administration and all legislation are so indefinite as to the means of realizing their demands, that it astonishes one … that a programme, so little developed, can be put forward without the least explanation of how it is to be realized.… We reject the granting of political right to the Councils. We reject above all the dictatorship of a class that is at the base of these Councils, emphatically and unconditionally.… We reject also the Councils as organs of control. The idea of organizing the Councils as a new assembly of control, side by side with each assembly already in existence, seems to us incompatible with democracy.” (Erkelenz, session of the National Assembly, July 21, 1919. See Heilfron, op. cit., vol. vi, p. 4236-4328.)

The Councils System was, therefore, rejected by the National Assembly. It must be observed, however, that it did not remain the mere formula of isolated theoreticians. The organizations of the Councils, in line with the plan we have just pointed out, was put forward as the programme of all the Independents and the Communists, and, as we will see, these two parties succeeded in casting 5,337,712 votes in the elections of June 6, 1920, sending 83 deputies to the Reichstag.

3.--THE CHAMBER OF LABOUR OR THE VOCATIONAL PARLIAMENT.

There is another project which was rejected in the name of the democratic principle but whose partisans declared to be compatible with this principle--one which in any event under different modalities has determined champions in almost all the parties. That is the plan for the creation of a Chamber of Labour (Kammer der Arbeit) or Vocational Parliament.

The idea of granting to vocational interests a special representation is not new, but since the Revolution it has been studied in Germany by a group of publicists and students of politics, who have delved perhaps more profoundly than ever before into the project and have given it a new form by introducing new concepts into it.

The supporters of the Chamber of Labour declare that at the present time, in contemporary states, the vital duty of a government is to organize the economic life of the nation. This obligation has particular force in a country whose whole economy had been overturned and ruined by a disastrous war and revolution, and which, unless it decides to enter upon a new road, runs the risk of crashing under the burden of its foreign and domestic debts.

In order to reconstruct Germany economically one cannot depend on a political parliament. A study of the history of the parliamentary system brings the conviction that if a parliament has proved to be an adequate organ of political legislation, it is nevertheless admittedly incapable of solving the economic and social problems it encounters. The parliamentary system, that is to say, the system that consists of the formation of a government with the parties of the majority, is much more a product of classical liberalism than the creator of new social and economic forms. All the ideas current to-day and which constitute the guiding principles of our political life, viz., democracy, national sovereignty, the forming of the popular will, division of powers, belong to an epoch in which the economic activity of the state was combatted with passion. When it has created its political system liberalism remains content with forms that answer only to purely political exigences.

But to-day ideas on the rôle of the state are changing. The state in the last few decades has little by little ceased to limit its activity to the rôle of “watcher of the night,” which liberalism assigned to it; and more and more the organs of the state have been forced to exercise an influence on public economy. Modern parliamentarism is insufficient to permit the state to fill its new duties. For the political chambers are divided in parties that group themselves according to changeable ideological conceptions, based on the idea of “what should be,” the idea that dominates the parties. But in taking a position in accordance with such articles of faith and political axioms, one does not acquire the necessary technical knowledge to gauge and judge economic questions. In this matter there is only one method of learning, that is to study the facts of economic life. What follows from this is self-evident. We must, if not actually suppress the political parliament, at least put beside it special organs charged with fulfilling the economic duties of the state. (See August Müller, Socialisierung oder Socialismus? Berlin, 1919.)

And these organs can be nothing but Councils, Workers Councils, Councils of Producers.

Let us not cry immediately, Bolshevism! It is true that the system of Workers Councils was born in Russia. First appearing under the Revolution of 1905, we see them reappear in 1917, but it was not the Bolsheviks who brought them into being. The Soviets were born because in pre-revolutionary Russia the law did not tolerate unions of workers. As a consequence the only form that an organization could take to combat the tyranny of the Czars was to nominate in every factory, shop, etc., men who could be trusted. In 1917, Russian Workers Councils formed the strongest support of the democracy; they were the firmest adherents of the government formed by Kerensky. But when the Bolsheviks seized power they crushed the democratic Soviets in the sense that they would not any longer permit them to elect their members to office, and they, the Bolsheviks, nominated men to represent these unions. In this fashion they erected their dictatorship, a dictatorship of a small group, with the slogan of, “All power to the Workers Councils!” But the advent of Workers Councils has nothing in common with Bolshevism.

To political representation one must join economic representation, constituted essentially by the Councils. Workers Councils, somewhat like those which Däumig would organize, are retained; to them should be assigned the representation of workers’ rights, which have hitherto been defended by the unions.

But by their side should be created Councils of Production (Produktionsräte) charged, as their name indicates, with supervision of production. There will be organized in each locality and for each branch of economic activity a Council of Production. The enterprises of the locality will each be represented by an equal number of delegates of the employers and delegates of employés, for the principle of parity between employers and employés is absolute. Above the Councils of Productions of the communes there will be superimposed for each branch Councils of Groups, Councils of the Province, etc., culminating in Central Council of Production (Zentralproduktionsrat). There is thus for the whole territory of the Reich a Central Council of Metallurgical Production, a Central Council of Breweries, a Central Council of Chemical Production, etc.

There is in addition at each stage of the above structure a corresponding economic council or Chamber of Labour, formed by a meeting of the delegates of the Councils of Production of that stage.

The union of the delegates of the Councils of Production of each stage constitutes a Chamber of Labour, that is to say, by the side of the political assembly of the commune, of the district, of the province, as well as by the side of the National Assembly, there is room for a communal Chamber of Labour, a Chamber of Labour of the district, a Chamber of Labour of the Province, and a National Chamber of Labour, where all the economic interests of the commune, the district, the province, and of the Reich, are represented. By means of a Chamber of Commerce, the producers, as producers, participate in political life. It is an economic parliament by the side of a political parliament. Whether in the commune, the province, or the Reich, no assembly elected according to merely habitual democratic principles (Volkskammer) can of itself deliver verdicts or decisions of principle. An ordinance of a communal assembly would have to be submitted to the approval of the corresponding Chamber of Labour just as a law passed by the National Assembly would have to be ratified by the National Chamber of Labour, no matter what its subject matter. The Chamber of Labour thus plays the rôle of a second chamber and its veto cannot be broken unless for three years in succession the popular chambers vote the same provisions in the same terms in regard to the matter in conflict. The Chamber of Labour and the popular chamber have equally the right to invoke a referendum. Finally, it belongs in principle to the Chamber of Labour to be the first to examine all projects of an economic character; and it can, when it sees fit, take the initiative in proposing a law.

There are between this programme and that of the Independents profound differences. This programme gives the employers a place; the proletariat is not all-powerful; and if it gives to the organs representing the workers part of the public power, it does not thereby completely abandon the employers. Neither dictation by the proletariat, therefore, nor dictation by the Councils; but a political parliament and another chamber in which employers are allowed to keep the right to existence, collaborating by the same title and to an equal measure with the workers in the direction of public affairs.

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From the purely democratic point of view the most serious objections can be made to this system and these were amply expressed.

In the first place, said the democrats, these Chambers of Commerce cannot be made up of men who have the sufficient knowledge and experience with economic questions except by selecting them from among the employers, employés and the workers in the different branches of any given industry. But these men are personally most strongly interested in the problems they are supposed to solve. The danger is great, therefore, that they would decide not according to considerations of general interest but to considerations of the special interests of their particular industry or their own commerce. The decisions of a Council composed of representatives of different enterprises will be dictated by the delegates of the most strongly represented enterprises; and if the interests of all the vocations that have voice in the Councils can agree on something at the expense of the interests not there represented, one can be certain that this solution will be chosen. The proof of this is already here; councils of producers grow always at the expense of the consumers.

The champions of the Chamber of Labour, continue the democrats, are guilty of a fundamental error. They believe that in economic questions there are only such problems as can be studied by the technicians, and that these can give such problems the only and obvious solutions. Actually, however, even in purely economic questions, we ask always not what is, but what should be, what we want of them and what we can effect. A technical knowledge of circumstances, of causes, and consequences is naturally necessary for a serious decision. But, even after the most scientific examination, one arrives almost always, and above all in important questions, at diverse conclusions, only because different aims have been followed. These conclusions are always dictated by political conceptions. Technicians can decide the best system for cleaning the streets; though even here it may be a political question to know if such a system, which is the best but also the most costly, can or should be employed. But when it comes to questions of Sunday rest, if woman labour should be countenanced, if and how the land should be distributed, how the relations between capital and labour should be organized in the great modern enterprises, and perhaps above all, who should pay the taxes--all these questions and an infinity of others raise up problems not of knowledge but of will. They are the questions in which the concern is not with economy but with the situation of man, his rights, his liberty, and his dignity within the economy. It is a question of the power of deciding for the collectivity on a subject of collective interests. It is not for the technician to decide, but for the man political.

A last and decisive objection, conclude the democrats, against the system of a vocational parliament is that it replaces or annihilates the democratic Chamber elected by the equal suffrage of all, that is to say, by democracy itself, and substitutes for it a professional chamber elected by a plural vote of privileged persons. Let the proposal be remembered which the Prussian conservatives submitted two months before the Revolution of 1918 to effect, as they claimed, the equality of the right to suffrage. Each elector was to have one vote within his professional vocational group; but the representation contemplated by this proposition was that the group of farmers were to have one seat for every 12,295 electors, whereas their labourers would not get more than one seat for every 110,530, a landed proprietor having electoral power ten times as strong as that of an agricultural labourer, six times as strong as that of a factory worker and one-and-a-half times as strong as that of a civil servant. It is true that the division of mandates in a Chamber of Labour would not result in as anti-democratic consequences as these; but the project of this chamber is based on the essential principle of parity between employers and workers; the two are supposed to be rigorously equal in numbers. That would be self-evident and understandable fully if the two groups had to settle questions in which their reciprocal interests were opposed, or if it were a question purely technical, where the number of delegates does not enter into consideration. But it is absolutely impossible to admit that an assembly thus constituted should take decisions or vote resolutions; for, a numerically equal representation both of employers and employés would correspond obviously to a proportion of electors much greater for one class than for the other. In any industry, for example, an employer represents considerably fewer electors than a worker, and to give his voice in the direction of public affairs an influence equal to that of a worker, would be, from the point of view of democracy, an absurdity. One thing or the other. Either the seats in the Vocational Parliament are apportioned among the professions according to the number of electors in each, the representatives being elected in each vocation by the equal suffrage of all without distinction between employer and employé--in which case there would result a duplication of the political parliament of which the least one can say is that there is no apparent utility in it. Or, the number of seats attributed to each profession must be measured by the economic or social importance of that profession, basing representation in each profession on the principle of parity--in which case there would result a parliament of the privileged, condemned by the democratic ideal. An assembly thus composed could very well draw up reports and give advice on questions in which it possesses special competence. But it cannot be a parliament having rights equal to those of a political parliament.

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Such are the objections put forward by democrats against the institution of a Chamber of Labour, and their force cannot be denied. But the champions of an economic parliament reply with vigour.

These objections, say they, all take the point of view of formal democracy, that is to say, the point of view that considers only the external forms of democracy, which contents itself with a purely theoretical equality of right and equality between citizens corresponding not at all to the facts of reality, which reduce this equality to nothing. To this form of democracy, to-day condemned by reality, there must be opposed real democracy, in which one takes into account the special rôle which certain elements in the life of a nation play. Formal democracy has been fully realized by giving all men and women the right to vote. That is not enough. In a modern democracy public economy must be given its proper place, which is in the forefront. Producers, as such, must play the preponderant rôle in the state, for the other members of the community live only as parasites on their labour, and the state does not exist except by the labor of the producers. No decision can be taken in a state if it is not accepted by the producers; the latter must be the touchstone of all decisions.

It is not because of their technical competence that producers are proposed as the constituents of a special chamber. It is because they judge things from the point of view of production, which in a modern democracy should count more than any other. It is not a question of abolishing the political parliament, but of placing in juxtaposition to it an economic parliament through which the voice of the producers can be heard and by which the ideology of the politicians can be corrected by the realism of men of affairs.

No division of competence between the two parliaments in such a way that only social and economic questions shall be submitted to the Chamber of Labour can be admitted. This distinction between political affairs and economic affairs is a pure impossibility, for economy, politics and general culture form a unity which must be respected. It is on production, on “creation” that the existence of the people and all its material and intellectual life rests. The two parliaments therefore should have equal power to study these questions. They must also have equal rights. To give the economic chamber only the right to draw up reports and give advice, and even to oppose its veto only, would be entirely insufficient and would not correspond to the primary rôle which the producers play in the life of a nation.

It is superfluous, continue the partisans of a Vocational Parliament, to present arguments of which history constantly furnishes corroboration. In the countries which practise the system of two chambers, one of the two chambers takes on always a greater importance than the other and plays the preponderant rôle. It is the one which translates best the will of the nation and best satisfies its needs. The other chamber may be able to resist for some time but in the end it is always forced to surrender. Up to now this preponderant rôle has been held by the lower houses, which being the product of universal suffrage, are always nearer the people, have more of their confidence and reflect more exactly their aspirations. Let us create now by the side of the former lower chamber, a Chamber of Labour and let us leave to it the care of determining its own future. It will either become a parliament of the privileged, making decisions that will not correspond to the true needs of the nation; in which case it will be promptly annihilated by the more popular chamber. Or, on the other hand, it will show itself to be the more practical and the more useful chamber to the people. In the inevitable conflicts that will arise between the two chambers, the economic chamber will have behind it the support of the people. In case of referendum it will be in favour of the Chamber of Labour that the national sovereignty will decide; in which case the traditional rôle of a lower house will pass into the hands of a Chamber of Labour. The proponents of the Vocational Parliament are convinced that it will be this last alternative that will be realized.

The German Constituent Assembly has followed their suggestion only to a very slight measure; sufficiently perhaps to attempt the experiment recommended by the advocates of the Vocational Parliament. The Assembly has created an Economic Council, which will be judged by its work, although it is deprived, according to the Constitution, of any real political authority. It is sufficient for the moment to say that in principle it is the classic point of view of formal democracy that guides it.

4.--THE POLITICAL ACTIVITY OF THE UNIONS.

Meanwhile, however, several things occurred that seemed to support the arguments of the partisans of a Chamber of Labour, when they claim that the natural evolution of events must lead shortly to the advent of this chamber.

We know that on March 13, 1920, counter-revolutionary troops led by the Infantry General von Lüttwitz seized Berlin, that the regular government abandoned the capital and that the Director-General of Agriculture, Kapp, was proclaimed at the same time Chancellor of the Empire and Premier of Prussia. It was a coup de main of officers and former reactionary functionaries, all of whose acts aimed at the re-establishment of the old régime. On the 14th the unions of workers and clerks sent an ultimatum to the new masters of Berlin demanding that they immediately withdraw. As this ultimatum was not obeyed, a general strike was proclaimed on March 15.

The counter-revolutionary government lasted four days; then, conquered by the general strike, it disappeared.

But before giving the workers and employés the order to return to work the chiefs of the unions wanted to obtain guarantees against the return of a new coup d’état. They called therefore on March 18 the representatives of the parties of the majority to a conference, where they presented to them the following new ultimatum. These representatives were to accept in the name of their groups--which would therefore be bound--the claims which would be submitted to them; otherwise the general strike would be continued in an aggravated form. The unions would not hesitate, if necessary, to prevent the return to Berlin of the Government and the National Assembly. They would even accept the responsibility of a civil war. The representatives of the Democrats and of the Centre refused to pledge their parties. They promised only to do what they could to get them to accept the claims of the unions.

As for the claims themselves, they were presented by the union leaders, and, after a long discussion and some modifications, they were accepted by the representatives of the political parties. These claims formed the celebrated agreement known in Germany as the “Eight Points.” They gave particularly to the unions the right to exercise a veritable veto over the nomination of Ministers and the formation of the Ministry.

This agreement concluded, the regular government came back to Berlin. But then came its turn to negotiate with the trade unions and to attempt to satisfy their new claims. These new engagements secured, the union leaders ordered the end of the general strike and the resumption of work.

Meanwhile in accordance with the “Eight Points” the cabinet of Bauer was formed. The crisis seemed ended on March 24 by the simple replacement of some ministers; but the unions raised difficulties over the new composition of the cabinet. They no longer wanted as Minister of Finance, Kuno, director-general of the Hamburg-American Line; and demanded the resignations of two former ministers, Schlicke and Schiffer, whom they accused of having treated with Kapp and Lüttwitz. After long negotiations, the unions withdrew their opposition to the retention of Schlicke in the Ministry, but kept up their objection against Kuno and Schiffer. These two, therefore, gave up their attempt to enter or to remain in the ministry; but the Democrats took the part of Schiffer and the whole cabinet was compelled to resign. It was replaced with the consent of the unions by the ministry organized by Hermann Müller.

Meanwhile work far from being resumed, a new kind of civil war developed in the Ruhr. On the one hand armed workers, who had first organized to fight against Kapp and Lüttwitz, remained united and under arms for fear that even after the conclusion of the coup d’état of Kapp and Lüttwitz, there would remain under another mantle a disguised military dictatorship. On the other hand, troops of the Reichswehr, some of whom were accused by the workers of having the support of the counter-revolutionary government and whose powers seemed to be unlimited, alarmed the labouring population. On March 21, there was held at Bielefeld a conference in which met members of the constitutional government, delegates of the parties of the majority, and representatives of the Independents and of Labour organizations. An “armistice” was at first concluded, then an accord was achieved--known in Germany as the “Bielefeld Agreement”--in which to the “Eight Points” of Berlin was added a “Ninth.” This would, at least it was so hoped, bring about the dissolution of the revolutionary organizations and the re-establishment of the regular administrative authorities.

In spite of this agreement, however, fighting continued and on April 6 the unions, to whom the two socialist parties rallied, addressed another ultimatum to the government. But it was precisely the moment at which Franco-Belgian troops occupied German cities on the right bank of the Rhine and attention was thereafter diverted entirely to foreign politics.

Such are the facts. The parties of the coalition have attempted to justify them and to prove that the imperative injunctions addressed by the unions to a government which had to yield almost at every point did not constitute a violation of the constitutional principle of national sovereignty. They pointed out that the first of the “Eight Points” recognizes expressly the rights of national representation; that the decisive influence accorded to the unions in matters of social and economic legislation had to be exercised through the intermediacy of representatives speaking for the unions in the ministries charged with the preparation of law; and that the last word belonged, therefore, always to the popular representation; that, although it is true that the unions protested against the nomination or the retention of Kuno and Schiffer in the ministry, yet in reality the cabinet of Hermann Müller had been constituted according to the customary forms after an accord with the parties of the majority.

Other members of the governmental parties, on the contrary, pleaded extenuating circumstances. The Minister of Post and Telegraph, Giesbert, after having participated in the “Bielefeld Agreement,” declared that he did not want to examine whether this accord was contrary to or in conformity with the Constitution; for, “extraordinary epochs and extraordinary circumstances compel extraordinary measures. The conviction of those who participated in the conference (of Bielefeld) is that this agreement was the only possibility of avoiding chaos and devastation in the territory of the Ruhr.”

But the opposition parties unanimously insisted that the Government’s attitude was really contrary to the principle of national sovereignty. In a democracy only the parliament elected by the whole people should decide; only it could appoint the Government and it was responsible for its decisions and nominations only to the people of the nation themselves. As for vocational associations, their function is to defend only the corporate interests of their members and they had no right to encroach on the political domain. In the events of March-April, 1920, the unions, leaving their vocational domain, revealed themselves the real masters of Parliament and of the Cabinet, which had to submit to their injunctions. The Independents congratulated themselves and proclaimed that thereafter the Government was placed under a certain surveillance of the organized proletariat. The parties of the Right indignantly refused to acknowledge a “side government” (Nebenregierung) over the regular government. “Henceforth,” said one of the opposition journals, “workingmen’s organizations can say that their orders are always carried out. It is true that the Democrats seem troubled by the state of affairs. But what difference does that make? There are only three parties that govern Germany--workingmen, employés, and civil servants.”

These statements are undoubtedly exaggerations in two respects. One fact meanwhile must be noted of importance here. While the government was discussing with the unions the formation of the ministry the newspapers printed vehement protests from vocational associations and from other labour unions and groups of clerks and civil servants, which demanded that they, too, be allowed to participate in the negotiations. For they did not understand why the labour unions should alone have the privilege of participating, for example, in the choice of Ministers--and it is impossible from the democratic point of view to deny the force of their position.

Without deducing from these facts any premature conclusions one may ask if the supporters of an Economic Parliament are not right in saying that formal democracy no longer is able to meet the actual needs of the people.

The events of the months, March-April, 1920, demonstrated, they say, the complete incapacity of political powers to surmount any difficulty as soon as it becomes in the least serious. One of them wrote, “The political party is about to become a superfluous organization; it is being ousted or perhaps absorbed by the vocational association.” A new epoch demands new political forms. It is true that it is inadmissible for a certain class of unions to arrogate to itself the right to impose its wishes on a government of the whole people. We must not think, on the other hand, that in the future the unions would renounce the use of means which have hitherto proved to be powerful. There is only one remedy open: to associate the other productive parties of the nation with the political work of the unions; to transform this present irregular and irresponsible political work, such as it is now, into a constitutional collaboration with the government of the state. It is there that the events of the month of March have demonstrated the necessity of changing the present system. These events appear thereby one of the steps which lead from a formal democracy to a real democracy, from a purely political parliamentarism of the past to a politico-economic parliamentarism of the future.