“What Is to Be Done?” The Red Specter, Franchise Questions, and the Crisis of Conservative Hegemony in Saxony, 1896–1909

Abstract

Wecould be more liberal if we had no social democrats.” This was one axiom of German electoral politics with which the overwhelming mass of non-socialist (bürgerlich) German voters agreed unrservedly, wrote Lothar Schücking, a liberal critic of Prussian officialdom, in 1908. Nevertheless, continued Schücking, the aims and ideals of the social democratic movement were completely unfamiliar to most educated Germans. “One knows a few slogans,” wrote Schucking: “‘free love,’ ‘religion a private matter,’ ‘impoverishment of the masses,’… ‘republic.’” Everything else was subsumed under the specter of the “red international.” Disapprovingly, Schucking concluded that “the burgerlich parties have gradually come to recognize only ‘national questions.’”

Joining Forces against ‘Strike Terrorism’: The Public-Private Interplay in Policing Strikes in Imperial Germany, 1890–1914

“…The drive for national cohesion, despite its ambiguities and partial ineffectiveness, reflected the idea of 'rallying together' anti-socialist forces, which was crucial in the political culture of Imperial Germany. 106 The formation of legal armed groups to oppose the labour movement was part of the wider mobilization of the 'loyal classes', although it must be underlined once again that, compared with nationalist pressure groups or armed groups of strike-breakers, the Zechenwehren were legally armed and permitted to use force. The Social Democratic newspapers sarcastically nicknamed the Zechenwehren 'the German Pinkertons', although this comparison is misleading because in Germany it was mainly the state -actively supported by certain leading industrialists -that took the initiative to formally redistribute coercive tasks and delegate the use of force to non-state actors.…”

Coevolution of Capitalism and Political Representation: The Choice of Electoral Systems

“…Light industry, however, with highly skilled workforces and limited resources to withstand long strikes accepted unions to a greater degree and believed, for example, in public training systems for industrial workers. The result was a different relationship between industry and labor in Baden, Saxony, and Württemberg, 15 with state Social Democrats more flexible and pragmatic 16 (and periodically in conflict with the national party), and light industry more open to the political representation of the socialists and hence the unions (Pohl 1995, Retallack 1990, Ullmann 1976, Warren 1964). Light industry was represented by the different liberal parties: the Saxon industry organization, the Verband Sachsischer Industrieller (VSI), took over the National Liberal Party (NLP) in Saxony; its sister and more radical association, the Verband Württembergischer Industrieller (VWI), was closely linked to the Fortschritt Volkspartei or left liberals (the main liberal party in the state) in Württemberg (Blackbourn 1980, 120–65), and the same is true for the Verband Badischer Industrieller later the Verband Südwestdeutschland Industrieller , (VSDI), in Baden 17…”

“…By 1904, both the hitherto reactionary Saxon government and the NLP, which had been partially taken over by the VSI, sharply changed tacks. According to Retallack (1990, 287), the leading American historian of “Red Saxony”: With some oversimplification one can say that the [new National Liberal] political reasoning ran remarkably parallel to that of the Saxon government. Just as the technocrats who were busy drawing up franchise reform proposals in the Saxon interior ministry believed that the representation of economic interests belonged in any blueprint for Saxony's future electoral system, important members of the Saxon NLP now recognized that political power and economic power devolved jointly toward those who could mount effective lobbies at the locus of decision-making in the state.…”