The Blood of the Dispossessed
“Blood?! It’s the blood shed by those who have nothing, all so the haves can grow even fatter!”
“Do not be swayed by the illusion of class, everyone!”
“The illusion of class?! The nation itself is the illusion! What distinction could possibly be more meaningless than nation?”
“How dare you try to mix the great German nation with every inferior race!”
“There is no hierarchy among nations! There are only the exploiters and the exploited! Ladies and gentlemen, this man is using the nation as an excuse to justify capitalist exploitation!”
“Without capitalists, do you really think workers would prosper? Nonsense! Who’s to say new classes wouldn’t simply arise within your system? In the end, it’s nothing but a ploy to install yourself as dictator!”
“At least under your system, millions upon millions of innocent lives won’t vanish in the crossfire of war!”
“So we’re supposed to stand by and watch noble Germans be shackled by Jewish capitalists and Jewish Bolsheviks? Absolutely not!”
“Shackled?! The real shackles are your desire to dominate other nations!”
“That doesn’t matter! The German nation is noble! Germans will become the masters of the world!”
“And the sons of those master Germans will instead be buried on battlefields—countless numbers of them!”
“Still more merciful than slaughtering every capitalist in a world revolution!”
“Slaughter?! Removing the exploiting class is slaughter?!”
“Both of you, that’s enough!”
As voices rose and the two sides seemed ready to erupt into violence, the police finally stormed in. So much for their claim of heightened security. “If you want to debate or argue, do it in parliament or rent a hall! What do you think you’re doing brawling in the streets?”
“...”
“......”
Goebbels and I remained silent, refusing to speak first. Unlike the Red Revolutionary Front members who had already assumed defensive stances, several of the men surrounding Goebbels stood casually, as if none of this concerned them.
“Disperse, both sides. If you leave peacefully without any show of force, I won’t press charges.”
The police, clearly reluctant to crack down on thousands of citizens, demanded we disperse. I had no choice but to comply. Goebbels didn’t seem inclined to resist either. And so the street debate ended as a harmless incident—no one injured.
Naturally, a war of public opinion erupted immediately afterward. Germany’s already fractured political landscape—People’s Front, National Front, conservatives, National Socialists—split cleanly in two.
[Representative Heinz Exposes the Black Madness of the Nazis!]
Those who supported anti-war policies and democracy rallied behind me regardless of their stance on communism. Meanwhile, [Dr. Goebbels Strips Away the Red Witch’s Hypocrisy!] Conservatives who had always been skeptical of democracy seized the moment to formally ally with the National Socialists. Their coalition was officially named the Harzburger Front.
Even centrist outlets now had reason to protect and mention me beyond simply noting that the SPD opposed the Emergency Decree. [The clash between Representative Emilia Heinz and NSDAP member Paul Joseph Goebbels is not merely a collision between far-right and far-left. She asks: Will Germans bury their own dead for the glory of the nation? Are such actions worth sacrificing democracy itself? Representative Heinz declares: democracy or death. The Nazi Party is an absolute threat to German democracy. Any mob seeking to destroy democracy must be stopped at all costs!]
For the record, this excerpt came not from the Communist newspaper Red Flag or any left-wing press, but from the centrist Frankfurt Journal. Only months earlier the Nazi Party had been a marginal group operating in the shadows; now it stood fully exposed in the public eye. The Frankfurt Journal even abandoned the formal name or abbreviation NSDAP and began using the derogatory term “Nazi.” Though the paper had long been the most sympathetic centrist voice toward the Volksfront, labeling the Nazis as “a mob bent on destroying democracy” marked the complete abandonment of political neutrality.
Even anti-communist outlets that had once shied away from me at the mere mention of “communist” now rushed to feature my name in their headlines. [The line between mob and agitator has vanished. The cabinet that should have defended democracy against both extremes has destroyed it with its own hands, while the landowners and military conservatives who were meant to protect Germany have shamefully chosen to cooperate with the Nazi Party.]
[We can no longer distinguish between communism and democracy. We cannot call Representative Emilia Heinz—who openly identifies as a communist—wrong. Germany now faces only two paths: abandon democracy and return to nineteenth-century militarism and authoritarianism, or reclaim a democracy where everyone is truly sovereign.]
Disgusted by the cabinet’s paralysis and the conservatives’ open rejection of democracy, centrist media swung toward us en masse. On the other side, unity only hardened. [Emilia Heinz! That witch, servant of the Bolsheviks, has finally revealed her true colors. Tradition, nation, wealth, and honor are nothing to her but relics of a bygone era to be smashed. Wielding the pathetic ideology of communism like a hammer, she seeks to shatter in an instant the centuries of German reason left by Hermann and Charlemagne!]
For conservatives, power mattered more than tradition. [The meaning of “democracy” has become clear. Democracy means forcing the will of the mighty German nation into submission under the name of peace! Heinz wants to replace the Western Jewish capitalists Ebert once served with Eastern Jewish Bolsheviks. We great Germans must never again fall for Jewish tricks! Awaken, German nation!]
In Goebbels’ own paper Der Angriff, I was portrayed as nothing short of a witch. Fine—let them stir up their own supporters. We certainly weren’t going to sit idle.
“Well, that certainly acted as a catalyst.”
“It was bound to happen eventually. The Nazis, true to their ‘National Socialist’ label, will keep deceiving workers and the unemployed with sweet lies to steal our votes. We have to shatter their image now, before they can seize absolute power.”
After all, the far right drew most of its strength from fear of communism.
“And now the centrist perception of ‘two extremes—far right and far left’ has completely collapsed. It’s no longer far right versus far left. It’s whether we preserve democracy or destroy it.”
I looked at Thälmann and Wels. “So now would be a good time for the two of you to reconcile.”
The KPD and SPD were now fully aligned, yet the personal distance between them showed no sign of closing. They still regarded each other with wary glances. At least there was no longer open contempt…
“Parliamentary politics may be something we ultimately aim to abolish, but without gaining strength inside parliament we’ll never build the organizational power needed for a nationwide revolution. From now on we must move as one body. Understood, Thälmann?”
One word for Thälmann. “And Representative Wels—parliament is not everything. Look at what happened in Russia. Parliament transferred full authority to the Petrograd Soviet and dissolved itself. The result? Russia may be inefficient, but it has become the most democratic country in the world. Even if we win in parliament, we cannot stop there. We must look beyond.”
One word for Representative Wels as well.
“…Do you truly believe democracy is possible outside parliament?”
“Ask any Russian citizen. Ask whether they feel like the master of their own country.”
Of course, Russia had been a rather fortunate case.
“Parliament is not the entirety of democracy. On the contrary, it often provides far too many opportunities to act against the will of the people. The people themselves—not parliament—must be sovereign.”
“…And you’re certain this won’t simply turn into a party dictatorship?”
“That’s not a question for me. It’s a question for the people. The people hold absolute authority over the party that governs them. How much power to grant or revoke is entirely their decision.”
“I’ll trust you, Representative Heinz.”
“At this point, it’s about time you did. Let’s start trusting each other. I trust the Communists enough to hand them full control over the paramilitary, and I trust the SPD enough to believe in the miracles you’ll work on the international stage.”
At last, the SPD seemed fully on our side. Heavens, it had taken so long to convince them. How many months had it taken just to prove that “parliamentary politics is not true democracy”?
“Therefore, I have one request, Representative Wels. The Socialist International World Congress in Vienna this July—will you attend?”
The SPD was one of the largest member parties of the Labour and Socialist International. My other goal was to reconnect the Socialist International with the Communist International…
“Very well, Chairwoman Heinz.”
“Would our Labour Party be permitted to join the Labour and Socialist International as well?”