The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-03-31
GermanY''s Elections

process OF dissolution ana that process has beer
greatly accelerated in the last few days
The measure marking rapid advance in the com
plete ruin of great masses of the population, the
middleclass holders of government bonds and other
securities, is providing for the liquidation OF
these obligations at from to % per cent of their
prewar value.
The political effect of this on the middle class
is understood when we recall that the great indus
trialists the SHINES and Thyssen crowd, paid of
their debts to the government at a small fraction
of their previous value thru settlements made with
deprecated paper currency.
The middle-class investors are therefore required
to make good out of their pockets the losses sus
tanned by the government in extending favors to
Oppressors and exploiters of the German masses
The result of this one action of the German
regime is almost indescribable. 1t has created a
sort of hysterical hopelessness among some of the
middle class and driven others to the side of the
revolution.
Dispatches published in the capitalist press show
political affairs in Germany as chaotic We can
be certain that the American press the mouthpiece
Of the fnance-capitalists who desire stability in
Germany, does not exaggerate
Some 100000 of the German petty bourgeoisie
have pledged themselves to take no part in the
coming elections. They have lost faith in German
capitalist democracy There are other millions to
whom the government decree means absolute ruin,
but who exhibit the characteristic inability of the
middleclass elements, caught between the work
ing class and the big capitalists to adopt and sup
port militant program of their own.
The description of the reaction of the morgan
lied and vacillating middIe-class elements is IL
Eliminating
Many others awakening with republican am
billions and are rushing to election headquarters at
the last minute to propose friends or themselves as
future presidents Of Germany. The population
realized only this week that every man in Germany
can become presidential candidate IL he has enough
friends When this dawned on the former kasers
subjects the election headquarters were stormed
. A 8reslau tailor who has clientele that thinks he
is wizard, a Berlin postman whose colleagues pat
him on the back, Hanover clerk who has Invented
perpetual motion machine, and hundreds of others
have found their way to election headquarters con-
WINGED that their day has
All these freak candidates will have to be con-
sldered seriously Sunday night by the election
statstciaHs,y since the German law provides that If
twenty voting slips show the name record
Of the count must be kept. Berlin actors and movie
stars have entered and making bets as to who
will obtain the most ballots.
The middle class has always been the great cham
pion of parliamentarism. 1t has found in the cleo
ton machinery of the capitalist state and in the
bureaus of government method Of securing recog-
milton and places for its members. VociferOus but
painless, the middle class are born parliamen-
tarians, What happens when the fetish of parlia-
ment and democratic procedure loses its power to
charm?, se.,c-e. .... ..........
One of two things occur.
Either the capitalist class with its mercenaries
and the more resolute of the middleclass hangers
on resorts to armed force and establishes an open
dictatorship in the interests of minority, or the
working class, led by its most resolute section.
the Communist Party, conquers the forces of cap
italism and establishes dictatorship based on the
interests of the workers and peasants-the MAORI
ty of the population.
That this conclusion is correct is shown by the
following in the news from Germany:
The serious side of the campaign is beginning to-
night Squads of Communists and representatives
Of mitarstic organizations patrong the Streets
tearing down posters Of their enemies. All are
provided with weapons, from revolvers to dasgers
and clubs and a Injured in the first Skin
mishes tonight.
The German elections have already produced
the beginning of an armed struggle for power be-
tween the working class and the determined de-
tenders of German capitalism. -
The election itself will settle nothing. 1t will
indicate only in general way the relation and
strength of the forces in German society. These
forcesthe capitalist class and certain upper sec
tons of the middle class, the Communists, the most
advanced sections of the working class and peas
antry together with the most impoverished portion
of the middle class-will decide in open conflict
whether Germany is to be ruled by the capitalist
dictatorship or the dictatorship of the working
class and peasantry.
We do not know if the conflict will be preci-
plated by the election campaign and the deliberate
l.. IL.