by Hew Strachan
The decision of the German socialists to support the war was both more confused and more hectic than the development of the SPD in the previous decade suggested would be likely. However, the success of the party made it revisionist rather than revolutionary, and to that extent its decision in 1914 was of a piece with its earlier development. Between 1878 and 1890 socialist activity in Germany was banned, except within the Reichstag. The ending of the anti-socialist law was marked in 1891 by the adoption at Erfurt of a party programme whose objectives, while ultimately Marxist, were in the short term compatible with liberalism and were to be achieved by parliamentary means and not by revolution. This confusion between ideals and reality was confirmed in 1903: formally speaking, the party rejected the notion that working-class conditions were improving under capitalism and that therefore the socialist objective should be to work with the existing state so as to transform it from within. The rejection of this argument threw up two problems: first, it denied the truth, which was that the material position of workers in Germany was improving; and secondly, it was not accompanied by a credible alternative policy, since revolution was seen as the consequence of an inevitable collapse of capitalism, not something to be actively sought. The bulk of the socialists’ votes came from urban workers. The trades union influence within the party was strong: at least forty-five of the 110 socialist deputies in the Reichstag in 1914 had arrived there by way of the trades unions.44 Therefore, although the party’s leaders showed their desire in 1891 and in 1903 to reflect Marxist nostrums, the practical need to attend to the economic position of its constituents, and the obvious growth and success of the party while it did so, made it more collaborationist than its overt stance allowed. Indeed, the appearance in the years after the 1905 Russian revolution of an activist left wing, whose most vociferous campaigner was Rosa Luxemburg, was evidence of the revisionist trend of the majority of the party. As the party grew in size and success, so its bureaucracy grew too: the executive authorities of the party tried to follow a position which was neutral in terms of policy but which, in practice, acknowledged the party’s reliance on the trades unions, at least as a counterweight to the left. The party’s declaratory status, isolating itself from the activities of the state and awaiting its opportunity to succeed when Kaiserism collapsed, was impossible to sustain after its success in the 1912 elections. The Reichstag socialist delegation had perforce to take a part in the Reichstag’s (admittedly limited) role in Germany’s government. Although the socialists did not form a link with the Progressives or the Centre in 1912, the possibility of such a bloc within the Reichstag was beginning to enter the realm of practical politics.
Symptomatic of the SPD’s reformism was its attitude to the army. In 1904 Bebel declared that the party was a determined defender of the principle of universal military service, which it saw as an honourable obligation for all men of military age.45 But implicit within this apparent acceptance of the principal embodiment of the state’s power was a challenge to the army’s function as an instrument of monarchical authority, and to its possible role in suppressing the workers. Bebel wanted a fuller form of conscription in order to create a true nation in arms, defensive in its capabilities and, more importantly, democratic in its organization. The party was anti-militarist but not anti-military; its goals were domestic and its interest in international relations peripheral. Pacifism was not integral to its identity.
But by 1907 the SPD’s neglect of overseas affairs was unsustainable. Bülow’s espousal of Weltpolitik exploited international issues for domestic ends. Ger-man expansion promised full employment and better standards of living, so luring workers from socialism to his centre-right coalition. The SPD, therefore, chose to fight the 1907 elections on German policy in South West Africa. The Herero rebellion had been crushed with brutality, but its horrors failed to move German workers. The SPD lost thirty-six seats. If there was a case for continuity from Bülow’s Weltpolitik to the origins of the war and from there to the development of German war aims, then there is also a case for saying that the workers, having embraced Weltpolitik in 1907 out of economic self-interest, had to support the war in 1914 for the same reason.46
The case against such a continuity is that, at one level, the result of the 1907 election galvanized the SPD into finding a foreign policy that was both more coherent and more distinctively socialist. To that extent the Stuttgart resolution, also of 1907, was well timed. In 1911, during the second Moroccan crisis, the party organized demonstrations in favour of peace: 100,000 people attended a rally in Berlin on 20 August, and 250,000 on 3 September. But at another level the so-called ‘Hottentot’ election was also a reminder of the unwisdom of challenging nationalism. Even at Stuttgart Bebel stressed that the International should be concentrating on the conditions of the working class, not on the issues of war and peace. Foreign policy was the prerogative of the Kaiser: to trespass into such territory might invite a setback comparable with the earlier anti-socialist laws, and so undermine the obvious achievements of German socialism. The SPD fought to keep foreign policy out of the 1912 election, and thereafter the pacifism of German socialism waned. The Balkan wars suggested both that détente and limitation were possible, and that capitalism itself recognized the dangers inherent in anything else. In 1913 the SPD’s handling of the Zabern affair revolved once again around the domestic implications of militarism, not the external security of the Reich.
Indications that German socialists would not resort to strike action to disrupt mobilization multiplied. For the SPD mass strikes were a way to respond to repression from above, not to avert hostilities between states. Even in the midst of the pacifist euphoria of 1911 Karl Kautsky described the policy of the Vaillant-Hardie proposal as ‘heroic folly’, more likely to shatter the party than to prevent war. In December 1913 the general commission of trades unions rejected the Vaillant-Hardie recommendation, and in May 1914 Haase, entrusted with the formulation of the German response, urged its authors to withdraw it.47
The split which the SPD feared the issue of war might generate was not simply one between the socialist party and the German state but also (and perhaps inevitably, given the first danger) one within the party itself. Pacifism in 1911–12 revealed a first set of fissures; it attracted middle-class supporters who were not necessarily socialists, while at the same time antagonizing those on the left of the party who saw war as the final crisis of capitalism. The decline of pacifism in 1913 produced another set. In June a majority of the party (fifty-two members) voted for the increases in the German army: it justified its policy on the grounds that the army’s growth was to be funded by a progressive tax on property, and on the promise therein of a fundamental restructuring of Germany’s taxation system. But thirty-seven party members opposed, and seven abstained.
For the protagonists of the International, buoyed up by the prevalent optimism of 1913, the significance of the vote on the army law lay not in its result, an indication that most German socialists rated the defence of the nation more highly than the advancement of peace, but rather in the division, which suggested that radicalism was re-emergent within the German party following the death of Bebel in August. This uncertainty about the future direction of the German socialist party was reflected within its leadership. Friedrich Ebert, Bebel’s successor as party leader, had been the party’s secretary and put the priority on party unity; Haase, the new leader within the Reichstag, found himself torn between party loyalty and his own personal opposition to the growth of the regular army.
These problems were compounded by the French socialists. In emphasizing the problems of war and peace rather than the condition of the working class, they shifted the International’s focus from the area of their own weakness to that of the Germans, and so were able to challenge the Germans for primacy in world socialism. A joint meeting of French and German parliamentary delegations at Berne in May 1913 illustrated the Germans’ confusion. It resolved to call for limits in arms spending and the enforcement of interna
tional arbitration. At the time Jaurès and his fellow internationalists might have been encouraged by such indications. But in hindsight the message seemed different: the French provided 121 delegates, of whom only thirty-eight were socialists, while the Germans could muster a mere thirty-four, all but six of whom were socialists.
In the event, the dilemma between radical pacifism and revisionist nationalism was sufficiently genuine for both currents to find expression in the response of German socialism to the July crisis itself. The radical phase lasted from 25 July to 30 July. Ebert was on his honeymoon, and did not return to Berlin till 28 July. Of the party’s parliamentary leaders, Hermann Molkenbuhr and Philipp Schiedemann were also on holiday, one at Cuxhaven and the other in the Dolomites. Haase’s authority was thus unchallenged. He was unequivocal: on 25 July he issued a proclamation on behalf of the party, condemning Austria-Hungary’s actions, opposing German support for its ally, and declaring the working class’s resistance to war. The party’s newspaper, Vorwärts, took a similar line.
Over the next four days mass demonstrations against war occurred all over Germany. Although none individually was on the scale of the largest held in 1911, that in Berlin on 28 July attracted 100,000 people and prompted the police, who at first had underestimated attendance at the rallies, to ban further meetings in the interests of traffic control. By 31 July 288 anti-war demonstrations had taken place in 163 cities and communes, involving up to three-quarters of a million people.48
These protests were designed to uphold the peace: in that sense they were not directed against the German government, nor necessarily against any ultimate decision to go to war which it might take. Haase was convinced that Austria-Hungary was at fault and that Germany was working to restrain its ally. The government itself did not feel threatened. As early as 25 July the Prussian minister of war, Falkenhayn, told the deputy commanding generals in each corps area that there was no need to take action against the SPD. On the following day Haase saw Clemens von Delbrück, the Prussian minister of the interior, who reassured him that the SPD’s demonstrations would be tolerated. Thus did Bethmann Hollweg’s policy of the ‘diagonal’ reap the reward prefigured by the 1913 army law debate. In its anxiety to avoid a clash with the government over foreign policy, the SPD put the best possible interpretation on the chancellor’s actions. On 30 July Vorwärts praised even the Kaiser ‘as a sincere friend of the people’s peace’.49 By then the immediate objectives of both the SPD and Wilhelm were the same, to localize a Balkan war. To all intents and purposes Haase and Bethmann Hollweg were working together, the actions of the former confirming the irenic public image pursued by the latter.
The replacement of pacifism with nationalism was more the product of external events than of machinations on the part of the SPD’s revisionists. Socialists could remain united in their opposition to an Austrian war of aggression and to a local crisis that did not appear as an immediate danger to Germany itself. But as the crisis developed Russia’s mobilization presented a direct threat, not only to Germany but also to socialism both within Germany and throughout the world. By 30 July the socialist leaders accepted that a war was inevitable, and that defence against Russia was its justification.
The possibility that the SPD would embrace war against Tsarism was ingrained long before 1914.50 The socialist press was able to tap a vein of xenophobic rhetoric that was not only spiteful but also spontaneous. ‘We do not want our wives and children to be sacrificed to the bestialities of the Cossacks’, wrote Friedrich Stampfer at the end of July.51 He was not the dupe of Bethmann Hollweg but a spokesman for German workers. In the following weeks the SPD leadership would continue to link defencism with Russophobia. Reports of atrocities from East Prussia not only justified the SPD’s rationalization of the war, but also cemented the links between it and the rest of Germany. Distant from the industrial heartlands of German socialism, the peasants of the rural marchlands were portrayed as pastoralists defending order and progress against the nomads of the Asiatic steppe. This was an interpretation with which the right could be as content as the left.52
If the party’s leaders had been slow to grasp the gravity of the crisis in early July, they were under no illusions as to what confronted them by the end of the month. But their very sense of urgency helped exacerbate the weaknesses in party leadership already consequent on Bebel’s death. On 28 July Haase, Kautsky, and Luxemburg left for the meeting of the International’s executive in Brussels: at a stroke the most forceful exponents of radicalism were removed from centre-stage. On the following day Bethmann Hollweg asked to see Haase. In his stead, the party was represented by Albert Südekum. Südekum was not a member of the party’s committee nor of the parliamentary party’s committee, but he nonetheless assured the chancellor that the SPD had no plans for strike action. On the same day Ludwig Frank, a Reichstag deputy who believed that the moment for protest was past, said that socialist soldiers must do their duty for Germany: it is possible that he went further, and began to organize a group on the right wing of the party ready to vote in favour of war credits.53 On 30 July the rump leadership present in Berlin convened. It anticipated the resumption of the persecution endured by socialism under Bismarck, and sent Ebert to Switzerland with the party funds; he did not get back until 3 August.
Haase returned to Berlin on 31 July, and at a meeting of the party commitee held on the same day called for the rejection of war credits. The choice which the committee debated was essentially that between Haase’s line and abstention: only Eduard David was ready to put the case for the approval of war credits. Thus far, therefore, German socialism seemed likely to follow the policy proposed in Brussels by Jaurès. Hermann Müller was dispatched to France to convey this message.
Formally speaking, both now and later, the SPD took little account of the trades unions. But on 1 August the free trades unions and the government struck a bargain whereby the former agreed not to strike in the event of war in exchange for a government undertaking not to ban them. Next day the trades unions endorsed the deal. Following Legien’s emphasis on the economic functions of the trades unions, they put their priority on protecting the interests of their members against the ravages of the unemployment which it was expected war would bring—a task they could not fulfil if they were prevented from functioning. Technically the trades unions had steered clear of politics; in practice they had restricted the range of options open to the SPD.
Even more important, however, than the decision of the trades unions was the fact that Germany was now at war. Pacifism and nationalism were no longer compatible. When the parliamentary party met on 3 August to concert its position before the Reichstag session of the following day, the choice which it confronted was no longer that debated on 31 July; it was whether or not the SPD would accord the German people the means with which to defend themselves. In the circumstances the previously preferred position of the majority—abstention—was no longer a serious option. Four out of six on the parliamentary committee were in favour of approving war credits, and seem to have been better organized than the two who were opposed, Haase and Lebedour. Seventy-eight members of the parliamentary party wanted to vote in favour of war credits, and only fourteen against. The majority argued that opposition invited defeat, and with defeat would come the extinction of the party, either at the hands of the enemy or at those of disillusioned German workers. On 4 August the socialist party, reflecting its inner discipline and led by Haase, voted as a bloc in favour of war credits. Its vote was unconditional. The party’s position was unaffected either by the growing awareness of Germany’s possible guilt in causing the war or by the realization that Germany’s intended strategy was not defensive.
The SPD would later argue that its ultimate decision was pre-empted by the will of the people. The decision of the trades unions provided backing for that view. So too did some of the evidence of party feeling at the local level. But working-class sentiment more generally was much more equivocal, and to that extent the SPD’s claim
was disingenuous.54 The leadership was not as passive a victim of events as it liked to pretend. When Wilhelm II declared on 4 August, ‘I no longer recognize parties; I recognize only Germans’, he was expressing a sentiment with which most socialists agreed. Their relief at no longer having to maintain the effort to isolate themselves, at having to set at odds their own nationality and their political convictions, was genuine. But they did not feel that, in accepting the Burgfrieden, the expression of German unity, they were abandoning the class struggle. Those socialists who embraced the war did so because they saw it as a means by which to achieve their political objectives. The reward for collaboration, they believed, would be constitutional and social reform. At its meeting of 3 August the parliamentary party specified as one quid pro quo the democratization of the Prussian suffrage. But it also saw on the horizon economic change, as war industry compelled the state to intervene in the management of the processes of production.
Thus, those who in 1914 wanted, by denying war credits, to obey the letter of the party’s 1903 decision to reject revisionism found themselves isolated, at loggerheads not only with Germany as a whole but also with the party specifically. On the other hand, those who overturned the 1903 decision, and in doing so reflected the trends implicit in German socialism over the previous decade, found that their position was little better. In practice Burgfrieden did not inaugurate reform but confirmed the status quo. The price which the socialists paid for ending their battle with the German state was the transference of that division into the party itself.
