So desperate is the economic condition of the country that even the Employers' Associations of Berlin have declared in favour of a large measure of Council government. But this is an exception. The German ruling class, and their middle-class supporters, recognise that their class supremacy is challenged. They retort by attacking Council government as class government and, consequently, as undemocratic. The issue is represented as being between a Parliamentary democracy, as in England, and a Soviet despotism, as in Russia. It seems worth while, therefore, to the German ruling class to fight the revolution with its own weapon of violence, rather than face the risks of Council government; and this same view would doubtless be taken in England if the question of principle were raised. In the recent railway strike our Government, by appealing for national support against a leading section of Labour, did, in fact, go far to create a class war.
But, as a matter of fact, the demand for a dictatorship by the proletariat is not an essential element in the Council movement. Such a demand is not the cause, but the consequence, of class conflict. Essentially and fundamentally the Council movement, so far from being less democratic than our Parliamentary system, is a revolt back to the purest and most primitive democracy from the artificialities and anomalies of modern Parliamentary representation. It is no more undemocratic than the Renaissance was inartistic, the Reformation unchristian, or the French Revolution anarchical. As the German Revolution best shows, the growth of Councils is the result of a revolutionary impulse in a modern community. Such an impulse uses any form of association between men and women for the urgent political purpose of appointing a spokesman and leader. The most widely spread and deeply rooted association nowadays is industrial--in the workshop. Consequently, we find the Councils taking predominantly an industrial character and origin, as in our native embryo the Shop Stewards' Committee. But any association will serve; and so, in the German Revolution, besides the Workmen's Councils there were Soldiers' Councils, Communal Councils, and even Unemployed Councils. If this new system were to develop, so to say, in a vacuum, without opposition, it would theoretically provide a democratic representation for every human relationship. As it is, such representation is reduced, as in Germany, by political pressure, to association that is rooted in the most vital relationship; and we find the Unemployed Councils, Communal Councils, and even Soldiers' Councils being choked off, and only the Workmen's Councils surviving. This is why the practical process in Germany is, as said before, leading to the same conclusions as those come to by the _a priori_ reasoning of our own Guild Socialists when they divide the citizen into consumer and producer, and, in his latter capacity, give him representation through a Council system. I found, in fact, that my most useful function in Germany at one time was putting German Labour leaders in possession of the conclusions of our Guild Socialists.