3 The Bourgeois Response to the Socialist Reforms of 1921-22

With the creation of the SPD-USPD coalition in December 1920, Saxon Social Democracy had an opportunity to pursue its goal of extending and solidifying the achievements of the November Revolution. Socialist policy had the following major emphases: the secularization of the school system, the "democratization" of the state bureaucracy, reform of the system of municipal administration, and increased enforcement of the laws to protect the republic. As in neighboring Thuringia, the politics of reform in maintained the momentum of the early revolutionary period, a momentum wh ich had been braked in Prussia and in the Reich by the compromises necessitated by coalition building. I The Socialist policies could be seen as an attempt to correct what H. A. Winkler and others have regarded as the great failure of German Sodal Democracy in the early years of Weimar, that is, its failure to pursue a thorough democratization of the political sys• tem. The Socialists, and particularly the Minister of the Interior, , viewed the attempt to increase the role of Social Democrats in the civil service and to dislodge the upper-Ievel conservative bureauerats from their privileged positions as a me ans of providing the republic with a firm foundation in the administrative structure of the state. Furthermore, the Socialists saw the policy of the institutionalization of the symbols of the republic-manifested in the declaration of "republican" holidays such as November 9 and in the anti-religious program of the government-as a necessary step toward anchoring the culture of the republic in the public sphere (Oeffentlichkeit). Socialist reforms could only, however, be carried out against the adamant opposition of the bourgeois parties. In 1921 and 1922, the Saxon govern• ment was constantly confronted with an overwhelmingly hostile bourgeois press apparatus, a unified bourgeois party opposition, and an increasingly irate bourgeois electorate. Political debate, on both sides, degenerated to

53 54 BOURGEOIS RESPONSE TO THE SOCIALIST REFORMS

the level of civil war propaganda: the opponent was an enemy to be van• quished. Frustrated by their inability to influence government policy, the bourgeois parties would ultimately attempt to mobilize the bourgeois elec• torate by means of a petition (Volksbegehren) to force through a referendum (Volksentscheid) to dissolve the government and force new elections-the first of its kind in the . As it turned out, the Saxon Bürgertum would ultimately look to extra-parliamentary means to remove the Social• ists from power.

THE SOCIALIST AGENDA On November 21, 1920, the state committee of the USPD was far more forthcoming than it had been in its previous declarations. Referring to the increased strength of the bourgeois parties in the Landtag election, the In• dependents stated their willingness to form a coalition: "Against the threat of counterrevolution, only the formation of a SociaHst government in Saxony will provide a counterweight."2 While recognizing that the central deci• sions regarding 's future would be made in Berlin, and that there were therefore limits on the degree of change to be effected from astate government, the Saxon USPD nevertheless pronounced its des ire to enter into a government with the SPD. lts minimal program included the social• ization of state industries, radicallimitation of church influence in the schools, reform of the community administration, and an amnesty for political pris• oners. The SPD was overwhelmingly in favor of such a coalition; those who supported an alliance with the Democrats were few and isolated.3 Pres• sure from within the ranks of the SPD for an increase in the pace of reform following the Kapp putsch had, after all, been a major reason for the break• down oE the short-lived Democratic-Socialist coalition in Saxony. In the new government, headed by the moderate Socialist , the USPD received three of the most significant ministerial positions: Ministry of the Interior (Richard Lipinski), Ministry of Labor (Ernst Jaeckel), the Ministry of Culture (Hermann Fleissner). Two representatives of the left wing of the SPD also came to hold important positions in the new government: in April, Fellisch was appointed Minister of the Economy (Wirtschafts-minister) and was named Minister of Justice. In the spectrum of Weimar politics, the new government was firmlyon the Left. Since the SPD and USPD together only held 40 seats in the Landtag, the new coalition also depended upon the toleration of the KPD.4 The bourgeois parties and press were unified in opposing the SPD-USPD government. The Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten wrote that the new coalition existed only "by the grace of Moscow."s The policy declaration of the new coalition represented, the newspaper complained, "a declaration of war against the Bürgertum."6 According to the DVP deputy and factory owner Konrad