Paris Peace Conf. 184.01202/55½
Mr. Franklin Day to the Commission to Negotiate Peace
Gentlemen: I have the honour to present below a report on certain phases of the political situation in Germany.
Spartacist efforts to this day have been concentrated on controlling industrial centers vital to the welfare of Germany. The attempt to obtain power in Berlin, and thus to control the center of government failed, but failed narrowly. I have been informed by so reliable a person as Theodor Wolff that on the first day of the Spartacus rising the government was absolutely at the mercy of the Spartacists. By calling in a general strike of the organized workmen who were Majority Socialists and by keeping them on the street listening to speeches from members of the government, time was gained to organize the effective resistance which finally broke the Spartacist power in Berlin. Since then no further troubles have ensued and none are expected until the food supply becomes more restricted. Occasional riots which have their origin in the search for arms and in the clearing out of thieves’ dens are not really Spartacist; criminal elements in these cases only take up the Spartacist slogan of “down with Ebert and Scheidemann” to lend a political complexion to their dark activities. It can, however, not be doubted that Spartacist propaganda is actively carried on; an aide of Noske’s informed me that even in [Page 30] the Volunteer Corps (such as the Brigade Reinhardt) Spartacist agitators could be found.
Failing in Berlin, the Spartacists have concentrated their efforts on the large industrial centers. Hamburg and Bremen would have given them control of the ports through which food might arrive; Düsseldorf holds the key to much of the Rhenanian railway system and possession of the Ruhr coal mines means large control of industrial production. The proletariat of these towns, moreover, furnishes fruitful material for Spartacus recruiting. With the exception of the Ruhr mines, the Spartacists have everywhere lost control of large cities and from late reports it appears that moderate Socialist elements are getting control. The situation, however, is made worse by the fact that a small armed minority can exercise a terror and can commit sabotage in a short time of such a nature as to make the taking up of work exceedingly difficult (cutting of wires, “drowning” of mines, etc.).
The Spartacists find a powerful ally in the Independent Socialists. This party pretends to be no more than a Socialist party which desires the immediate carrying out of the “Erfurt Programme”. In a conversation with me, Haase, the leader of the more moderate wing of the Independent Socialist Party, told me that at present they would be content with the “Socialisation” of the coal and iron industries and of the electrical power works. The trust-like organization of these industries recommend them in their eyes for immediate socialisation. If their present economic program is not very much more radical their political tactics are distinctly revolutionary, not only in their general political activities but on the floor of the National Assembly.
This party has consistently flirted with Bolshevism, one of its chief spokesmen, Dr. Cohn, deputy for Anhalt, was an emissary to Russia to obtain Bolshevik funds and such of its leaders as Ledebour, now in prison, actually aided the Spartacists. Wherever Spartacists create disturbance they can count on the support of the Independents; wherever such support is not given the Independents at least by their neutrality obstruct the government’s efforts to re-establish order. On the floor of the National Assembly the Independents vie with the Conservatives in disturbing the speeches of the Liberals and of the Majority Socialists.
Theodor Wolff informed me that the Independents were growing in numbers. They obtain political strength in part from the tendency of the Majority Socialists to become more and more conservative. Considerable dissatisfaction exists against the government because, three months after the revolution, no measures have been taken to relieve economic distress. It is probably impossible to relieve this distress [Page 31] and to lower the prices of essentials, but it is difficult to persuade much of the proletariat of this impossibility. To this must be added the reluctance of the Ebert-Scheidemann government to change even certain externals such as the terms “Reichs verfassung”, which the Independents proposed should be “Verfassung der Republik”, and to acknowledge boldly the republican and socialist character of the state. Such externals give the Independents weapons which they do not fail to use; their accusation that the present government has too closely allied itself with the bourgeois parties is not without foundation and is having its effect on the radicalization of the masses.
The National Assembly in its transactions, as well as in its prominent personnel, differs but little from the Reichstag. The tone of the speeches by all members of the Assembly from the extreme right to the Majority Socialists has changed but little; they are not aware of Germany’s defeat. Here both the Agrarian and the Democrat-Professor are still largely in evidence and although monarchical sentiment is confined to the extreme right, the Democracy of the Democratic Party is not so wholly different from the Liberalism which created the idea of “Mitteleuropa”. It is not easy, however, to evaluate the actual influence of these men, whose energy is spent in speeches generally untranslated into political action. The elections to the National Assembly “were elections dictated by the fear of Spartacus”. The influence of the Majority Socialists which represent a slightly better political idea than the ancient Liberals, is stronger than their representation shows; they lost much ground to the bourgeois parties at the election because of panic. Whatever the faults of the Majority Socialists may be it at least possesses the energy to govern practically which the German Democrats lack entirely. As long as it however does not have the absolute majority, the Ebert-Scheidemann group is forced to ally itself with the Democrats and to support a phrasey Nationalism out of keeping both with the internal and external situation. It is not impossible that this support of such a Nationalism is also due to a fear of Bolshevism and a hope that it may crystallize the forces of order.
I have [etc.]