Entering the Parliament #4
Brüning suddenly called my name. “Today, I would like to hear first from Representative Emilia Heinz of the Labour Party. What do you think, Mr. Chairman?”
Even Ernst Thälmann, who was always waiting for the slightest chance to pounce on the Chancellor’s every word, the National People’s Party bastards who glared at me as if they wanted to devour me alive, and even the chairman himself—all of them turned to the Chancellor in bewilderment.
“...Very well. Representative Heinz of the Labour Party, will you speak?”
The chairman looked in my direction.
Uh… uh…… I couldn’t back down here.
“Y-yes. That’s fine.”
As I rose awkwardly and gripped the microphone, Brüning spoke.
“Representative Heinz, the opinion you expressed about my policy yesterday was quite persuasive. It was passionate as well. So I will ask you one simple question. I hope you will refute it in your own way.”
He spoke in a low, cold voice that seemed to press down on the room.
What the hell is this? Is he trying to humiliate me?
With the thought that I would simply refute him for now, I listened as Brüning began.
“Look at this paper here.”
It was too far away to read clearly, but I could tell the chart was covered in a staggering number of figures.
“This is Germany’s debt repayment schedule. Last October, stock prices on Wall Street in the United States crashed. Over the following eleven months, international capital from America, Britain, France, and elsewhere collapsed in succession. The resulting debt imposed on Germany totals approximately thirty billion marks—more than half the reparations the Allied powers demanded under the Treaty of Versailles.”
Thirty billion marks…
“Moreover, Germany has not yet fully repaid even those original reparations. In other words, our credit rating in the international financial markets is currently at rock bottom. If we cannot repay the nation’s debts and stabilize the currency’s value, domestic investment—which relies on national credit—will shrink, and foreign capital will ebb away like the tide. Can factories operate in a country without investment or capital? If businesses halt investment, the workers Representative Heinz cares so deeply for will lose not merely a crust of bread, but their jobs themselves.”
Only now was Brüning’s true intention becoming clear.
“Emotion matters, I grant you. Human compassion matters. But international society is colder than you imagine. It is a harsh truth, yet investors value a nation’s credit far above the passion or lives of its workers. National credit is directly tied to their own. That is why my cabinet and I insist on austerity and the restoration of national credit, placing it above all else—even if workers must sacrifice in the immediate term. The happiness of workers is, of course, important. But such happiness can only follow once a foundation of material abundance exists to sustain it.”
Brüning’s argument… was not entirely without merit.
It was the classic trickle-down policy grounded in Adam Smith’s eighteenth-century The Wealth of Nations: the belief that the nation’s wealth would eventually become the people’s wealth.
“Representative Heinz has opposed my policy because it harms the lives of workers and the people—an assessment I myself acknowledge. Therefore, I would like to hear how Representative Heinz proposes to resolve this national crisis without damaging the livelihoods of those same workers.”
When his speech ended, the previously murmuring assembly hall fell silent, as though doused with cold water.
If there is no money, factories stop. If factories stop, workers starve. It was an intuitive, almost childishly simple logic—and precisely because of that, it carried real persuasive power.
Yet classical economic logic contained one fatal flaw: the blind faith that increased supply would naturally restore consumption. Unless I shattered that assumption, I could not refute him.
“Um… I listened carefully to the Chancellor’s words. Before I continue, I would like to ask for your understanding regarding the tone of what I am about to say.”
In case I end up speaking rather harshly…
“Before I answer, let me say only this: Is this an economics lecture hall, or is it a parliament where human lives are at stake?”
I stared straight into Brüning’s eyes, refusing to yield an inch.
“To you, Chancellor, the economy is a vast machine. You believe that pouring in the oil called capital will turn the factory gears, which in turn moves the labor components. Is that correct?”
“That would be a fair summary.”
“It seems that when you look at the forest, you fail to see the trees. Inside the economy that appears to you as a machine, there are people. You showed me the repayment schedule earlier, did you not? An important fact was missing from it. Yes, restoring national credit to attract capital so factories can run—very well. But who exactly is supposed to buy the goods those factories produce?”
Strength flowed into my voice.
“The pockets of ordinary Germans remain empty. Yet the factories keep running. Do you truly believe the factory owners will pay the very workers operating those machines enough to consume? Of course not. Having worked beneath them myself, I know factory owners are not such creatures. It is the same situation, is it not? If you produce goods but there are no buyers, what fool would come to Germany to build a factory? In the end, your policy amounts to nothing more than groveling before the capitalists: ‘Please, kind sirs, invest with us. We will offer you our workers even cheaper.’ If this is not begging, what is?”
A low ripple of murmurs spread through the chamber.
“You said investors value national credit more than workers’ lives. Correct. Capital has no fatherland. When profit disappears, it flees across borders without hesitation. Yet why must the lives of workers—who have nowhere else to go and shed blood and sweat to protect this land—be threatened, all so we can cater to these rats poised to run away? Suppose the economy recovers under the Chancellor’s policy. When the same crisis returns, how will you respond? Will you simply allow this same tragedy to repeat? The true problem is this irrational system that grants capitalists the power to close factory gates at whim and cast the people into the streets!”
At the word “rats,” members of the National People’s Party and the minor conservative parties rose from their seats, visibly offended.
But what of it? I was still speaking.
“...Representative Heinz’s words contain some truth. Yet you still appear trapped within the emotional vortex you presented last time.”
When I set down the microphone, Brüning answered with unruffled composure. Of course—he would have anticipated all of this.
“Then what is Representative Heinz’s plan for resolving this Weltwirtschaftskrise—the World Economic Crisis? Criticism without alternatives is mere agitation. I was under the impression that Marxism offers alternatives to modern economics.”
A calm counterstrike.
“If your solution, Representative Heinz, is the Russian Bolshevik model of confiscating private property and placing every factory under state control… then it is difficult to regard that as a genuine alternative.”
Brüning set down his microphone.
“Since the Bolsheviks have been mentioned, allow me to begin there.”
Sneers were already rising from the National Front benches.
“To the Chancellor, ‘Bolshevik’ is not a political reality but a mere label. It appears to signify a system in which the state controls everything through fear and unilaterally dictates the lives of all citizens. Is that accurate?”
“I merely spoke the truth.”
“Then I fear you must study the subject again. Bolsheviks are not monsters from children’s fairy tales. Do you know where the power of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic originates? The answer is in the country’s very name: ‘Soviet’—meaning ‘council.’ A soviet is a decision-making body open to all: workers, peasants, men, women, young and old alike. The people of each soviet record what they produce locally and what they require, then send those lists to the Communist Party headquarters in Moscow. The headquarters assesses the needs and production capacities of every soviet and distributes resources accordingly.”
I continued, meeting his gaze steadily.
“The American journalist John Reed spent his final years in Russia. He described the situation thus: ‘The Russian people do not watch the party’s eyes. Rather, the party watches the eyes of the people, and when it fails to meet their needs, the party loses its reason to exist.’ The Bolsheviks—the Communist Party—are not rulers who lord over the people. They exist to serve them. How can a position that the people’s will can replace at any moment be considered a seat of domination?”
The Russia explanation had simply been a response to their provocation.
“Now, I will present the solution. What this economic crisis demands is not reliance on private capital that cannot even manage its own affairs. Capital is the lifeblood of the nation itself. Therefore, is it not right that capital should belong to the nation—to the people?”
On the right-wing benches, heads tilted in disbelief, as though my words were absurd.
Yes, you rats. Stop pretending to be refined.
“In other words, the so-called ‘means of production’—factories, technology, enterprises—must be transferred to the ownership of the workers who are the true agents of production. Only then will factories cease to produce for profit and instead create what the people actually need. The recurring mismatch between supply and demand that causes these crises will no longer be a concern.”
This was identical to the fundamental principle of socialism: from each according to ability, to each according to need.
“What you propose sounds like the state seizing the assets of existing capitalists.”
“Not the state—the workers. But you are not entirely wrong.”
After all, the workers’ councils were the state.
“Then ultimately, Representative Heinz’s method relies on authority alone. Private property is an inviolable individual right. To protect German democracy, your proposal cannot be accepted.”
Oh? So this is the next challenge—‘Refute this, if you can.’
“Tell me, what is truly undemocratic? Is it not the current structure in which a small unelected minority—capitalists and aristocrats who gained their positions through inheritance or mere ability—monopolize the factories and land that are the lifelines of the people, then drive tens of thousands into the streets for the sake of their own profits? That is economic dictatorship. Democracy means a system in which power belongs to the people. How, then, do you explain this reality?”
It was almost comical how loudly they preached democracy while fearing the real thing.
“Socialism is not plunder. It is KollektivEigentum—collective ownership—returning capital to its rightful owners, the people. In this system, overproduction will cease. Goods will be produced and distributed according to the people’s needs. Surplus time and resources will be devoted to social advancement. The people themselves directly shaping the economy—the driving force of life—is that not true democracy? Not the Pseudodemokratie your side offers, where unequal voting rights exist yet the people have no voice in their own lives?”