The Council movement, on the other hand, slowly changing from below upwards, should never drop much behind the drift of opinion, and consequently should be in little danger of being driven ahead of it. The German Parliament, as the results of an election decided by this L.C.M. motive of the mob mind--a motive of assuring power to whichever party seemed to offer the best prospect of peace abroad and at home--is to-day reactionary. Whereas the political condition of Germany to-day is such that it absolutely must have a Government responsive to the requirements of reconstruction, or relapse into civil war. The Weimar Parliament is so dead that only civil war can galvanise it to action. If reinforced by a Council system, the Weimar Party Government and the Preuss Federal Constitution would perhaps have steam enough to work.
The Councils are as essential to Germany to-day as the Commons were to us a century ago. Indeed, our insistence on the supremacy of the Weimar Assembly as a guarantee for the maintenance of peace, can be paralleled by our insistence a century ago on the maintenance of Upper Houses in the constitutions of the States revolutionised from France. The function of the territorially elected Parliament will, in Germany, and probably everywhere, become more and more that of an Upper House; while the industrially elected Congress will be the creative and constructive institution. The whole difficulty lies in finding a working compromise, or rather co-operation. Just as Feudalism imposed its political system which survives in the House of Lords, just as Liberalism imposed its system as represented in the House of Commons, which now obviously requires supplementing, so Socialism must have its political system in the Councils. This is not revolution but evolution. The revolution comes from thwarting and threatening it.
[F] They have since been replaced by two anti-revolutionary bodies, a sort of gendarmerie and a local middle class militia (Einwohnerwehr). The Frei-corps have become the Reichswehr.
[G] The re-organisation and reconstruction of our political and economic existence calls for the co-operation of the whole effective population. The revolution has given us the means of such reconstruction in the Council system. In order to give the Council system its full development and a better foundation, fresh elections to the Workmen's Councils are indispensable.