The whole system, so simple theoretically, rests on the elections of workers as councillors in the Workers Councils and in the Factory Workers Councils. The composition of the electoral body therefore takes on a particular importance. The fundamental principle, in which Däumig and his friends would tolerate no diminution, was that no employer as such could take part in the system. _Only employés are eligible as electors._ An exception is made in favour of peasants “who do not permanently employ farm hands.” A second axiom stipulates that those elected must remain under the constant control of the electors. The electoral body is therefore free to recall them whenever it seems desirable to it. In any event a worker councillor must not remain such for more than twelve months. He must stay a worker and not become a functionary.
Such is the organization that the Independents and the Communists proposed. In itself lies the proof that it is contrary to the democratic principle; for only part of the nation, manual and intellectual workers, employés, the proletariat would have the right to direct public affairs. And this consideration, without counting all the other criticisms that may be made against the system, such as at least the present incompetence of workers to govern, the necessary establishment of a reign of terror, etc., has grouped against it not only the bourgeois parties but also all the Social Democrats, who depend for the triumph of the socialist idea on democratic and parliamentary means. “I do not wish to dwell long on the study of the question of ‘the dictatorship of Workers Councils versus democracy,’” said one of the Social Democratic drafters of the Constitution. “It is sufficient for me to show that this dictatorship is in contradiction to democracy, that we must choose between dictatorship by a minority on the one hand, and democracy or government by the majority on the other. The Committee on the Constitution has declared in favour of democracy, control by the great majority of the people. The idea, therefore, of a dictatorship by the Councils is rejected.” (Sinzheimer in the session of July 21, 1919, of the Assembly; see Heilfron, _op. cit._, vol. vi, p. 4265.) From the side of the Democrats came the criticism, “Those who demand all power for the Councils, who want to place between the hands of the Councils all administration and all legislation are so indefinite as to the means of realizing their demands, that it astonishes one … that a programme, so little developed, can be put forward without the least explanation of how it is to be realized.… We reject the granting of political right to the Councils. We reject above all the dictatorship of a class that is at the base of these Councils, emphatically and unconditionally.… We reject also the Councils as organs of control. The idea of organizing the Councils as a new assembly of control, side by side with each assembly already in existence, seems to us incompatible with democracy.” (Erkelenz, session of the National Assembly, July 21, 1919. See Heilfron, _op. cit._, vol. vi, p. 4236-4328.)