Read Online Witness to the German Revolution by Victor Serge - Free Book Online
Authors: Victor Serge
Tags: History, Germany, 20th Century, Europe, Political Science, Political Ideologies, Modern, Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, Former Soviet Republics
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paper money for which the standard of value would be not gold but corn. Helfferich, the agent of the big landowners who want to restore the monarchy, the man involved in the Rathenau assassination, has clearly learned from the experience of Soviet Russia with its corn loans. The paper money he proposes to issue will be guaranteed by the private sector, in particular by agriculture, that is, by the big landowners. Henceforward all German finances will be in the hands of a landowning oligarchy. A fine plan that is! The only outcome of the present crisis would be to allow the landowners to rob the Reichsbank in a respectable fashion and to establish a sort of economic dictatorship.
Helfferich, a pompous scoundrel, is enough to make you laugh. Does he really imagine that, in the present stage of the class struggle, it is possible to capture power by a device appropriate to starvers and usurers?
The Great Coalition plots against the working class.
It is said that the government is preparing dictatorial measures. This is stated and reiterated every evening. But the financial and the overall situation have got so much worse in the last few days that there must be some truth in these rumors which are getting more and more detailed. A decree on the compulsory surrender of foreign currency is due to appear any day now. A strong man âcommissarâ will, it is said, have the responsibility for applying it. There is talk of
establishing a sort of financial dictatorship of which citizen Helfferich will be the man in charge. There is talk of withdrawing the regulations which are an obstacle to exports. There is talk, finally, of government decrees on the intensification of labor, which in practice means extending the working day⦠All these measures will be enacted without consulting the Reichstag. Thanks to the support of the SPD, Herr Stresemann thinks he can quite openly disregard democratic and parliamentary practices. For action is necessary, and nothing can be asked of the masses without taking something from the propertied classesâor at least pretending to take it. The requisition of foreign currency will obviously run up against so many obstacles that it will inevitably fail to a very large extent. But its consequence will be to legitimize the legal, or rather the dictatorial, intensification of the exploitation of labor.
Note that the Great Coalition of bourgeois parties and the SPD is preparing this attack on the basic rights of the working class at the very moment when unemployment is spreading in all industrial centers and in all industriesâ¦
The continuing inflation was putting increasing strains on German national unity. The Ruhr occupation continued, and the right wing government in Bavaria was increasingly in conflict with the policies of Stresemannâs âGreat Coalition.â Meanwhile in Thuringia the possibility emerged of a KPD-SPD coalition government.
The Ruhr profiteers
Correspondance internationale , September 15, 1923
âThe inhabitants of the Ruhr themselves want to be rid of this abscessâ¦â The abscess in questionâthe German expression can also
be translated as âseat of gangreneââis the Reichâs financial assistance to the Ruhr. And the newspaper which is using these vigorous terms is none other than the bourgeois and very patriotic Germania . Recently, the German press has been almost unanimous in claiming that the expenses caused by passive resistance in the Ruhr are the main cause of the financial collapse of the Reich. Under the pretext, as fallacious as it was patriotic, of financing passive resistance, all the resources of the nation have been drained off and the coffers of the state have been emptied. Since the start of the occupation, 500 million gold marks have thus passed from the Reichsbank into the safes and pockets of rich speculators, hundreds of millions have been swallowed up by the safes of the big Ruhr
Helfferich, a pompous scoundrel, is enough to make you laugh. Does he really imagine that, in the present stage of the class struggle, it is possible to capture power by a device appropriate to starvers and usurers?
The Great Coalition plots against the working class.
It is said that the government is preparing dictatorial measures. This is stated and reiterated every evening. But the financial and the overall situation have got so much worse in the last few days that there must be some truth in these rumors which are getting more and more detailed. A decree on the compulsory surrender of foreign currency is due to appear any day now. A strong man âcommissarâ will, it is said, have the responsibility for applying it. There is talk of
establishing a sort of financial dictatorship of which citizen Helfferich will be the man in charge. There is talk of withdrawing the regulations which are an obstacle to exports. There is talk, finally, of government decrees on the intensification of labor, which in practice means extending the working day⦠All these measures will be enacted without consulting the Reichstag. Thanks to the support of the SPD, Herr Stresemann thinks he can quite openly disregard democratic and parliamentary practices. For action is necessary, and nothing can be asked of the masses without taking something from the propertied classesâor at least pretending to take it. The requisition of foreign currency will obviously run up against so many obstacles that it will inevitably fail to a very large extent. But its consequence will be to legitimize the legal, or rather the dictatorial, intensification of the exploitation of labor.
Note that the Great Coalition of bourgeois parties and the SPD is preparing this attack on the basic rights of the working class at the very moment when unemployment is spreading in all industrial centers and in all industriesâ¦
The continuing inflation was putting increasing strains on German national unity. The Ruhr occupation continued, and the right wing government in Bavaria was increasingly in conflict with the policies of Stresemannâs âGreat Coalition.â Meanwhile in Thuringia the possibility emerged of a KPD-SPD coalition government.
The Ruhr profiteers
Correspondance internationale , September 15, 1923
âThe inhabitants of the Ruhr themselves want to be rid of this abscessâ¦â The abscess in questionâthe German expression can also
be translated as âseat of gangreneââis the Reichâs financial assistance to the Ruhr. And the newspaper which is using these vigorous terms is none other than the bourgeois and very patriotic Germania . Recently, the German press has been almost unanimous in claiming that the expenses caused by passive resistance in the Ruhr are the main cause of the financial collapse of the Reich. Under the pretext, as fallacious as it was patriotic, of financing passive resistance, all the resources of the nation have been drained off and the coffers of the state have been emptied. Since the start of the occupation, 500 million gold marks have thus passed from the Reichsbank into the safes and pockets of rich speculators, hundreds of millions have been swallowed up by the safes of the big Ruhr
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