For a Revolutionary Politics 1926

But this being said: If we sign this peace, we will be under the constraint of
force. In our heart of hearts, we take exception to this peace Vorwrts,
May 8th 1919

German politics as such can have no other goals than the reconquest of
national independence, the breaking of imposed shackles, the reconstitution
of an important global influence. From the German point of view, it is
naturally ours, there is nothing more important than these objectives. All our
domestic, social, economic, and cultural politics must receive this impulse, its
general line and the spirit that dominates it. The sentiment of this necessity is
close to being omnipresent! How many times, by letting the preoccupations
of domestic politics pervade, has foreign policy left our field of view. There
are great German journals who almost never talk of external politics, as if
that would make it part of the banalities of our national existence. In contrast,
each delay in the modification of the Public Treasurys signboard, remaining
in the monarchist style, preoccupied them in another measure. Without a
word to say, not even bothered, not having the quiet conscience, they divest
themselves from the game of global politics, by reason of our weakness,
imposing on us innumerable humiliations, injustices, and dangerous attacks
against the future of the Reich. Thus large sections of our people search for
the cause of their misfortune exclusively within the domestic situation. They
hope that it will suffice to replace some high functionary, to dissolve a secret
organization, to charge a different import duty, to reduce customs taxes, to
convoke or dissolve the Reichstag, to proceed with new elections, that
everything will change on the interior of the country. They ignore the content
of the Peace Treaty. They do not know that the Commissar in charge of
Reparations is the most powerful man in Germany, that our railways and
money are in his hands. They have no idea of showing the charges that weigh
on us and they do not understand that the Dawes Plan, ultimately, is a
question that touches on the salaries of Germans. The standard of living of
the German worker is reduced in the measure where we repay the obligations
of the Dawes plan. The cost of living for the worker, on one part, and the
Dawes Conventions beside the Versailles Treaty, on the other part, are
incompatible.Tear up these treaties, revoke the obligations they impose,
break the commitments would be the only German politics that would save
the worker from an irremediable subjugation. At this point, the needs of the
worker and the interests of the nation coincide: if it dares to fight for its vital
space and its liberty, it will lead, at the same time, the battle for the liberation
of all the nation. The national mission entrusted to us and the fashion in
which it will be fulfilled will depend on its future social and political
position.

Nobody, not even in a case of madness, can, at the present, envision open
struggle. This would require moderate tactics which we do not have. But it
we could also profit from the advantages of global conjunctures, which are
actually forbidden to us. It is convenient to be patient. Nevertheless, we
should not fall into an inactive patience, a patience of relaxation and
demoralization. We must prepare ourselves for the grand tasks: moral,
organizational, and other tasks. The question is to know whether we have the
enough breath, if we are to persist, hold out, if we will not lazily
accommodate ourselves to our fate, if we will not loosely accept the facts.
Are we very strong, persevering, opinionated in the defense of our cause, our
faith, our future against a hostile and too powerful world , even if that seems
senseless, impossible and unprofitable to take on this mission? Will we
oppose with an inflexible will, a spirit of unswerving resistance to the assault
of foreign powers, despotic, pretentious, violent, and intolerant, boasting of
acquired victories in high combat? If we infallibly conserve this will and this
spirit, we will only stay in our current powerlessness for a period that we
shall surmount, it will not befall us and we will leave with courage.

It is true that the force and duration of the resistance is determined by the fact
that one takes it in their conscience, instinctively or in all knowledge of the
cause, of the deep and vivid sources that feed the powers against which this
resistance must be directed. It is time to understand that one of the origins of
our distress is the western spirituality,this spirituality which, with its liberal
traits and progressive jolly melodies was even able to conquer the workers.
Faithfully, it reprized the image of the world of the English captains of
industry and the French financiers, as if it could really be the expression and
the goal of existence, of the proletarian milieu and their wishes. To be
Western means: to use the word liberty to make fraud, to declare oneself a
partisan of humanity to open the way for crime, to destroy peoples with an
appeal for peace. Great Britain, the free England, strangled the Indians and
Egyptians. France, generous and humane, poisoned the Moroccans and
Syrians. These great nations wade in the blood of enslaved peoples by virtue
of the mission of civilization which is theirs. The just peace that the
Western eminence Wilson had promised, that was the peace dictated to us at
Versailles.

We lend a hand to the objectives of the victorious states if we continue to

accord refuge and tolerance to their spirit. We lack the confidence in
ourselves, the sovereign assurance, in preparing ourselves to strike a blow, if
we install on our land, their principles. In these conditions, the explanations
lacks passions, historical grandeur, and symbolic profundity. The debate will
no longer take on anything essential, significant, or touch upon deep issues.
Russia understands it well, when its independence was menaced by
overwhelming Western supremacy: at that moment, it totally broke with all
that was not of Russian origin with the culture, with the economic, social,
and political rules of the West, with pathos and invincible force. In Germany,
however, the situation is very different. In our country, not only individuals
but also entire political parties are fascinated by the Western spirit. For a long
time since, certain capitalist milieus, in particularly the grand bourgeoisie,
have given themselves, body and soul, to the West; others think that it is
useful for economic reasons to gain their confidence. Not long ago,
Professor Bonn said: The national monopoly can longer assure itself of
habitual income and capital investments. It is then that they fraternally offer
their right hand beyond the frontiers, where there stood the enemy, they cry:
forget the past! To safeguard their monopoly, they have become
cosmopolitan. In the meeting rooms and in the projection of propaganda, one
already senses the scent of the fraternization of peoples. To preserve their
profits, they have aligned against their own country and curry favor with the
French, the English, and the Americans in the hunt for loot. They sell the
future of their nation to obtain a higher stock quote. The defenders of an
agreement with the West, whose goal is to make the situation created by
Versailles permanent, are, on the interior of our country, the agents and
advocates of enemy interests. One that intends to harm them is not doing
domestic politics, but foreign politics. It is necessary that we get to consider
and treat as corrupters of the nation all of those who, to succeed in business,
favor the weakening of the spirit of opposition against the West. This applies
equally to those Germans who actively support the execution of the treaty,
who would have their own reasons of which they do not speak, on the same
occasion, cashing in thousands of marks. They are far from us, they are
foreigners and enemies like all of whom, by invoking Versailles, make their
living. The revolt and the resistance without respite against them and against
all that is Western within and beyond our borders must become our
natural attitude. Certainly, that is revolutionary. But it should leave no
doubt: that is to say we are a revolutionary people, or we will be stifled in the
mire, and we will cease to be a free people forever.