Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-01-06
HIS RED UTOPIA DIDN'T WORK!
Fact 1t Bho Up O0er the German Landscape and Ernst 7or
Ranyt adventures That E~ RfN Poet and Pawight-7oAa
Exile He Tries to W0rNF From Its

f.t
found the leafiet; he went to jail. HIS
revolutionary education was beginning.
So far he had been a natural radical.
Now he turned to the books for theory
and further light. In his cell he de-,
voured Marx, Engels, LaSsalle, Baku-
min, the Sydney Webbs-heady wine
for an intellectual, war-warped young
ster whose mother had once told him
some people were so poor because it is
Gods will" The Socialist writer's told
him that all human ills, from war to
poverty, spring from the capitalist sys-@
tenn. He had gone to Jail the raw ma
terial of revolutionary; he emerged the
finished article.
Unable to understand how a son of
hers could become workers leader, his
mother came to his aid.~e She went to-
the family doctor and got a court order
to have Ernst committed to the psyche
logical clinic in Munich for an exam
ination. He spent four days in the gen.
eral lunatic asylum and two days among
the melancholics. 1t was long enough,
for him to become convinced that there
are two sorts of lunatics-the harmless
ones incarcerated in asylums and the
dangerous ones who prove by argument
that for some nations war is necessary
and noble.
Meanwhile the soil in which the Toller
mind was to sprout so richly was being
titled and fertilized with blood and
misery. AS in Russia, the masses had
lost interest in everything except the
simple issue of war or peace. A fleet
revolt started the revolution, and soon
Germany had passed into the hands Of
the people.
DOWN in Bavaria Eisner organized a
march of 200, 900 workers and peas
ants on Munich. The Wittelsbach King
fled Eisner took over the kingdom and
proclaimed it fra state. Toller hurried
down from Berlin. The Central Com
mittee of Workmen, Peasant and Soldier
Councils elected the young student rev.
dictionary Eisner's deputy He was rising
very rapidly in the revolutionary firma-
ment.
Did he understand the revolution?
Scarcely. He found himself out of step.
The German majority was marching
along the middle of the road and he was
way to the Left, with Karl Liebnecht and
Rosa Luxembourg. If he had stayed in
Berlin he would probably have shared
the fate of Karl and Rosa killed when
the Spartacus revolt was crushed. But
he was in Munich, and he could only
force his way into Social Democrat
meeting and cry that the great revo-
lutionary leaders had been murdered.
Perhaps he expected the assembly to cry
vengeance! Comrades, to Berlin!" But
the crowd only shouted back Serves
them right" A more poised man would
have been warned by that voice of the
people. But Toller was young and crusted
with illusions.
The Deputies assembled in the Ba-
varian Parliament. Eisner, small, gray
bearded, specialized, self sufficient, put
on his hat and set forth. But he did
not reach the Parliament Building. En-
route young Nationalist bumped him
off. Toller at this time was safe in
Switzerland.
But the leaders of the unions and So
cialist parties soon rallied. They gath
cred in the Wittelsbach Palace and
formed Soviet republic. Toller, then
Is, was made president of the Central
Committee.
little later on the White forces
marched down and made an attempt to