Witness to the German Revolution by Victor Serge Page B

the outcome of the “peaceful” separatist demonstrations in Düsseldorf, today, September 30. French soldiers intervened to restore order, siding exclusively with the demonstrators for the “Rhineland Republic” who had attacked the blue police. The tragic incidents in Düsseldorf
have occurred at a time when the whole of Germany, disturbed by persistent rumors coming from the occupied territories, is expecting the proclamation of a Rhineland Republic as a signal for civil war and the carving up of Germany.
    For some time French intrigues have been going on there. Many Rhineland industrialists think it is in their interests to unite with powerful French capitalism and make a clean break with a Germany where revolution is impending. There is a feverish agitation going on in the occupied regions calling for the creation of a buffer state to “ensure peace between France and Germany.”
    Make no mistake about it. Desired by French and Rhineland capitalists, whose only homeland is their safe full of money, the proclamation of a Rhineland Republic would create a double and terrible danger at the very heart of Western Europe. There would be the risk of war and indeed the certainty of war some time in the future: for just as Great Britain could not accept, 110 years ago, Napoleonic hegemony over the Confederation of the Rhine, so Great Britain today will not permit France to have hegemony over the continent, for that would bring her ruin and death. There would be the danger, nay the certainty, indeed the immediate certainty, of a growth of reactionary forces in Germany. Herr Wulle, one of the leaders of extremist nationalism, just recently told a journalist of our acquaintance in the lobby of the Reichstag: “The day after the Rhineland declares independence, we shall take those responsible by the throat throughout Germany.” In any case, independence for the Rhineland would immediately give a powerful impulse to the nationalist movement. It would become the starting point for ceaseless agitation in favor of a war of revenge. Furthermore, it would have the consequence of separating the working-class masses of the rest of Germany from those in the Rhineland, thus weakening the workers’ Germany of tomorrow. It is for these very serious reasons, for the peace of Europe
and for the German revolution which is the only way of guaranteeing it, that the KPD opposes Rhineland separatism with all its strength.

Pseudo-dictatorship to the right
    With a few days distance, it is beginning to be easier to see what was really behind the recent events in Munich and Berlin that led to the establishment of two dictatorships which are different but very similar, those of Herr Gessler and Herr von Kahr. Von Kahr, endowed with dictatorial powers, recently declared to the fascist paper Völkischer Beobachter that he considered himself as a temporary replacement for King Rupprecht and that he would rule against the left. His first measures confirm these statements and are consistent with his past as a committed separatist. They are as follows:
    1. Cancellation, as far as Bavaria is concerned, of the law on the defense of the republic, which was issued by the Reich government just after the murder of Rathenau;
    2. Dissolution of the social democratic defence organizations;
    3. Dismissal of the liberal mayor of Nuremberg, Luppe, who some time ago asked for the support of the Reich police against the fascist gangs;
    4. Search of the premises of the social democratic Münchener Post, with an impressive display of strength (armored cars and cars equipped with machine guns).
    No action has as yet been taken against Hitler’s gangs, which are continuing to mobilize. There is even better. Herr Gessler, dictator for the Reich, has suspended the Völkischer Beobachter, which nonetheless continues to appear under the protective guardianship of Herr von Kahr.

    So what happened at Munich? What the Pan-German