a rival organization. The secession of the "Minority Socialists" left the Opportunists and Revisionists in complete control of the party, which was now "pro-war" and undoubtedly "patriotic".
As early as August 21, 1914, Philipp Scheidemann expressed the view which was to dominate the Majority Socialists, of whom he was to become the leader.
When France, republican France, [he wrote] has allied herself with Russian autocracy for the purpose of murder and destruction, it is difficult to conceive that England, parliamentary England, democratic England, is fighting side by side with them for "liberty and civilization". That is truly a gigantic, shameless piece of hypocrisy. … The motive of England is envy of our economic development. … Russia, France, Belgium, England, Serbia, Montenegro, and Japan in the struggle for liberty and civilization against Germanism, which has given to the world Goethe, Kant, and Karl Marx! This would be a joke if the situation were not so desperately serious.[1]
It is truly illuminating to turn over the pages of the Socialistische Monatshefte and to behold article after article of the most patriotic import from the pens of Max Schippel,[2] Eduard David, Wolfgang Heine,[3] Edmund Fischer, Paul Hirsch, and Ludwig Quessel:[4] England is damned, and the Socialists who die on the battle-field are raised to the altars.
On the probable domestic policies of the re-baptized Social Democratic Party, some light is perhaps shed by a remarkable speech delivered by Wolfgang Heine at Stuttgart on February 22, 191 5. After arguing against peace and in support of the government not only in the prosecution of the war but also in the securing of " permanent territorial guarantees", the deputy extolled imperialism as an essential part of normal national development and indicated that the workingman's chief aim of the future must be to strive by means of a simple labor party gradually to realize political and social reforms.[5]
In bringing to a close this review of developments in German Social Democracy between 1848 and 1915, I am oppressed by the
- ↑ Letter written August 21, 1914, and published in the New York Volkszeitung, September 10, 1914.
- ↑ See particularly his Englands Wirtschaftliche Kriegführung, November 11, 1914, pp. 1170–1176.
- ↑ See particularly his Deutsche Sozialdemokratie im Deutschen Volk, July 8, 1915, pp. 628–636.
- ↑ See particularly his Britische Annexionspläne, September 9, 1915. pp. 867–872.
- ↑ The speech of Heine is to be found in great part in Vorwärts, February 25, 1915. It synchronized with the conclusion of the nine-day battle of the Mazurian lakes.
