Socialism and Republicanism in Imperial Germany

chapter 8 Socialism and Republicanism in Imperial Germany

In November 1918, German Social Democrats were suddenly confronted with the need to establish a new republican state order in Germany following the collapse of the Empire. In light of the difficulties Social Democrats experi- enced in founding a stable and viable republic in 1918–19, the question of their prior understanding of republicanism – including the importance attached to the issue within the party – merits closer attention. Theoretically, the Social Democratic Party in Imperial Germany was opposed in principle to the monarchical state. This opposition was manifested in a number of ways, such as refusing to take part in demonstrations of loyalty to the crown, in the Reichstag, for example, a policy that precluded Social Democrats from taking up a Vice- President’s (i.e. Deputy Speaker’s) position in the parliament when the party’s numbers would have justified it.The demand that the German empire be trans- formed into a democratic republic, however, was generally muted in the party’s public agitation. Robert Michels, during the time in which he identified with the left of the party, criticised it for placing too little emphasis on agitation for a republic: this he saw as ‘a mistake, that may be half attributed to a certain degree of complacency in the party, but […] equally to our monarchical institu- tions [themselves] with their rubbery law paragraphs on lèse-majesté’.1 Perhaps it was a demonstration of the effectiveness of the latter that Michels published his own most trenchant critiques of the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II in the rel- ative safety of Italy, in Italian.2 It is clear that the Social Democratic Party was, to some extent, constrained by the prevailing laws from making open attacks on the monarchy. Other reasons for this restraint could hypothetically include the possibility of residual monarchical sentiments among German workers, and the state of development of socialist state theory during the period of the Second International. In early 1910, mass demonstrations in a number of German states demanded a reform of electoral systems. The campaign was particularly vigorous in Prussia, where the Social Democratic Party demanded the abolition of the highly discriminatory three-class franchise for the Prussian Landtag (state parliament). Rosa Luxemburg, writing in the Breslau Social Democratic paper Die

1 Robert Michels, ‘Monarchie oder Republik?’, Frankfurter Volksstimme, 213, 1904, reprinted in Michels 2008, pp. 103–6, here p. 103. 2 Michels 1908.

Volkswacht in March 1910, argued that it was necessary to go beyond the campaign for ‘universal, equal, direct suffrage for all adults, without distinction of sex’. In order to step up the agitation, it was necessary to raise the demand for a republic, which she claimed constituted ‘the first point in our programme’. ‘Up to now the republican slogan has played a slight role in our agitation’, Luxem- burg stated, which was justified in so far as the working class needed to realise that ‘the best bourgeois republic is no less a class state and bulwark of capit- alist exploitation than a contemporary monarchy’.3 In the prevailing political circumstances, however, Luxemburg suggested:

Through the emphasis on the republican character of Social Democracy, we gain above all one more opportunity to illustrate our opposition in principle as a class party of the proletariat to the united camp of bourgeois democrats in a tangible, popular manner. The appalling decline of bourgeois liberalism in Germany is after all expressed particularly drastic- ally, inter alia, in the Byzantinism in the face of the monarchy, in which the liberal bourgeoisie outdoes even the conservative Junkers.4

Luxemburg subsequently attempted to publish her demand for openly republican agitation, along with her views on the debate over the political mass strike, in the central theoretical journal of the party Die Neue Zeit, only to have the passages dealing with the republic knocked back by its editor, Karl Kaut- sky. Kautsky objected that the party programme did not actually mention the word republic, and that Luxemburg should not take it upon herself to open up such a major subject for agitation on her own initiative. Furthermore, Kautsky wrote, ‘[t]his new agitation is … such that it is not suitable for public discus- sion’.5 Kautsky was technically correct in asserting, contra Luxemburg, that the party programme did not explicitly mention the party’s republican objective. The first point of the party’s 1891 Erfurt Programme contained a set of demands which would have amounted to a significantly more democratic political sys- tem: universal adult suffrage (above the age of 20), including female suffrage,

3 Luxemburg, ‘Zeit der Aussaat’, originally in Volkswacht (Breslau), 71, 25 March 1910, in Luxem- burg 1981, Vol. 2, pp. 301, 302. 4 Luxemburg 1981, Vol. 2, p. 302. 5 Cited in Luxemburg, ‘Die Theorie und die Praxis’, in Luxemburg 1981, Vol. 2, p. 380. Surpris- ingly, Gary P.Steenson’s (1991, pp. 169–74)treatment of the Kautsky-Luxemburg split discusses the differences between the two over the ‘mass strike’ question, but omits any mention of the issue of agitation for a republic. On Luxemburg’s agitation, see Laschitza 1969 and Laschitza 1996, pp. 331–76.