Austerity or Death #7
The train jolted. “Ugh...” I opened my eyes inside the rattling carriage, the fog of drowsiness still clinging to me. The announcement crackled through the speakers.
“We have arrived in Frankfurt. Passengers preparing to disembark, please ensure you have not left any belongings behind...” A blood-red sunrise poured through the windows. That’s right. After yesterday’s second vote, I had gone back to Essen. I’d stayed up late drinking with my friends on Sunday night, drinking and then… Oh, right. Realizing I wouldn’t make it to work the next morning at this rate, I had frantically cleaned up and collapsed. The alcohol from last night’s binge was still burning in my veins. Two nights in a row—one with comrades, one with friends… I really needed to ease up on the drinking.
“Are you not getting off?”
“Ah, yes. I am. Thank you.”
A station attendant had to rouse me from my stupor as I stared blankly out the window. My head throbbed. Still half-drunk, I grabbed my bag and stepped off the train. I only needed to buy a few newspapers before heading to headquarters. But today, of all days…
“Form a line, everyone! Line up! Ten pfennigs per copy! Please form an orderly line!”
It was crowded. Had something happened?
“Why is the line so long today?”
“Haven’t you heard? The Chancellor went to Vienna yesterday and met with the Kaiser.”
Two men who looked like members of the middle class were talking. Maybe this one knew something.
“Excuse me, do you know what’s going on?”
“You didn’t hear what the Chancellor said yesterday? Here—”
“Let me see that.”
I snatched the Frankfurter Zeitung from his hands. The headline screamed across the front page.
......What?
“Bullshit.”
“This is a coup!”
The moment I entered headquarters, Ernst Thälmann roared.
“So you’ve heard, Thälmann.”
“The man who calls himself Chancellor, the one who claims to defend democracy, pulls a stunt like this?!” Thälmann raged, pacing furiously. I felt exactly the same.
“This… isn’t this simply a declaration of war?”
“Exactly. The cabinet’s declaration of war on parliament. The government’s declaration of war on the people. Hiding behind the Kaiser’s coattails and making a mockery of the entire nation!”
“The biggest problem is that the Chancellor—the very man who lectures us about democracy—has now discarded democratic means entirely.” Even Pick, usually quiet, spoke up.
“Of course he suppressed the workers and suppressed us, but at least he called himself a democrat. At least he kept the conservative National People’s Party and the fascists in check. For that man to act this way means the German government has lost all capacity for self-correction.”
His words were restrained, but his clenched fist revealed his fury.
“Haah…” Even Edwin Hoernle, Thälmann’s old friend and a veteran of the party, let out an uncharacteristic sigh. He stubbed out his cigarette butt in the ashtray. “That drink we had that day must have been poisoned.”
“He calls himself a democrat. All this time he’s suppressed us at will, claiming we were harming democracy, and now what? Suspending parliamentary functions during a state of emergency?” Thälmann spoke with hollow betrayal in his voice.
“In the end, to them democracy and parliament are only important when they don’t interfere with their goals. Only important when they don’t harm the interests of the capitalists. Parliament? Votes? What difference did those fifty-seven votes make? What use are those scraps of paper now? One stroke of the Chancellor’s and the Kaiser’s pen renders them all invalid. It’s over. This sham democracy, the lifespan of the Empire—everything.”
“Exactly. This is completely outrageous. The hypocrisy is unbearable!” I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“When it suits them, it’s all law and procedure. The moment it turns against them, they smash the procedure with their own hands and then demand we respect the law. Democracy is important, but the people are not. What kind of nonsense is this?”
God, it made my blood boil.
“He acts like the voice of reason, yet his actions are no different from a back-alley thug.”
“In the end, Comrade Lenin was always right. Democracy represented through voting can never truly be democratic.”
“We won! By fifty-seven votes, wasn’t it? And they just throw that away? This isn’t just an insult to us. It’s trampling on the millions of German citizens who voted for us!”
“Enough with the theory. We must find a more active solution.”
In any case, our opinions converged on one point.
“Now is the time for the workers to take direct action.”
“Buchmann is right.” Thälmann rose, composing himself. “Parliamentary politics—the playground of the bourgeoisie—has died here. They broke the rules first. Shouldn’t we answer them in our own way?”
He crumpled the newspaper in his fist.
“Everyone, prepare yourselves. The time has come to speak not with our mouths but with our fists. We must plan a general strike. We must make it clear that the workers will no longer simply endure the violence of the state. How long will we continue to weep over the graves of Comrades Luxemburg and Liebknecht? If they try to kill us with their Emergency Decree (Article 48), we will cut off their windpipes with revolution!”
“Hear, hear!”
The party members cheered.
“Just wait. The moment that order is carried out, the government that represents the capitalists will be finished.”
“...Everyone, please calm down for a moment.”
“Hypocrite! Villain! Destroyer of democracy!”
“Using military force to overturn a bill that parliament—elected by the will of the people—has rejected?! That Chancellor has some gall!”
Naturally, parliament could not function properly in such an atmosphere. For the first time in a long while—perhaps the first time ever—the Social Democrats, the Communists, and I attacked the Chancellor with one voice.
“First of all, let me clarify: the conversation I had with His Majesty the Kaiser was merely a contingency plan. It was not a statement that we are actively considering its use. It was a private remark between myself and the Emperor, and I had no desire for it to be made public.”
Brüning first tried to calm the furious left side of the chamber.
“Naturally, the government will continue to prioritize democratic procedures through parliamentary votes, debate, dialogue, and consensus. The discussion with His Majesty was purely hypothetical, for the case in which governing through parliament becomes completely impossible.”
“So what you’re saying is that if the austerity measures are rejected again, you have every intention of invoking the Emergency Decree?” Otto Wels of the SPD demanded.
After the first vote he had seemed willing to cooperate, but now that the Chancellor showed clear signs of using undemocratic methods, his position appeared to have shifted.
“I said we would keep every possible option on the table. Please obtain the floor before speaking.”
And so the Chancellor was forced to begin the session with explanations.
“The cabinet will once again submit the budget bill. The content is the same as before, though we have returned to the version presented during the first vote. Let us try to reach a new consensus in a somewhat more reasonable manner.”
He still wouldn’t give up? The man was relentless.
“I have one question.” For the first time in a while, Thälmann raised his hand to request the floor.
“The floor recognizes Ernst Thälmann, delegate of the Communist Party. You may speak.”
“I believe that even the words the Chancellor exchanged with the Emperor yesterday are enough to prove that German democracy has lost all legitimacy,” Thälmann declared the moment the chairman finished.
“The Chancellor has attempted to defy the decision of the Imperial Parliament, whose members were legitimately elected by the people. In doing so, he sought to borrow the power of the Emperor and the military—the very symbols of the old regime. This is not merely the paralysis of democracy. It is a direct challenge to the ‘international peace’ that the Chancellor himself claims to hold so dear after the Great War and the Treaty of Versailles.”
Ah, there was a reason Thälmann was a veteran. He spoke fluently, without hesitation.
“How many times must we socialists tell you that austerity is not the way to save Germany, but to kill it? How can carving the flesh from the people to prolong the life of the state possibly be called democratic? The moment you abandon democratic methods, you will mark the end of the parliamentary democracy you claim to cherish so deeply.”
“...This is a provision explicitly written into the democratically enacted Constitution of the German Empire. It is an article to be invoked only in emergencies when the cabinet has lost the ability to function.”
“Lost the ability to function for whom? For the parliament elected by the people’s votes? Then in a so-called ‘democratic nation’ like Germany, when the decisions of parliament and the cabinet collide, surely parliament must take precedence. How can the cabinet possibly come first?”
Thälmann deliberately emphasized the word “democratic” with mocking weight.
“If the Emergency Decree is invoked, our Communist Party will immediately declare a general strike. It will be the workers’ resistance against a state policy that seeks to starve them to death. If you wish to see the communist ideal of revolution realized before your very eyes, then go ahead. I sincerely hope, Chancellor, that you make a wise choice.”
Thälmann’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
“Whether you know it or not, a great darkness is stirring in Germany. Those who call themselves ‘National Socialists’ are flooding the streets with hypnotic and incendiary newspapers, agitating the people. They speak of strictly separating the races within Germany, exterminating the remaining peoples, and waging war against the entire world. From what I see, they are prepared to use military force without hesitation to achieve those aims.”
Brüning’s eyes flickered slightly at Thälmann’s words.
“Truly, your ‘democracy’ cannot be called democracy at all. But if you truly hope this nation called Germany will endure… I urge you once more to make a wise choice.”
Thälmann set down the microphone.
“...I have heard you well.”
Then Wels raised his hand.
“The floor recognizes Otto Wels, delegate of the Social Democratic Party. You may speak.”
“While a general strike may be an excessively violent measure, there is not a single word in what he said that is untrue. We too will use every means within the bounds of the law to resist this outrage.”
“Is a general strike violent? The state that drives workers into the streets is the one committing violence!”
At Wels’s characteristically lukewarm statement, jeers erupted from our side of the chamber.
“Hoo…”
Where on earth was this country heading? At this point, a general strike was all but inevitable.