National Revolution — Counter Revolution

“We want Germany” preached a counter-revolutionary pastor in a Berlin Philharmonic Hall bursting with bourgeoisie. “We want Germany,” shouted the national gatherers and all counter-revolutionaries with a shaking of the diaphragm. I tell you: whoever wants Germany also wants Germany above all else. Whoever wants Germany also wants the Wehrmacht. Whoever wants Germany wants hatred of France. Whoever wants Germany wants fratricidal war. Whoever wants Germany does not want England, does not want America, does not want the Eskimo and the Negro and the yellow Chinese. Anyone who wants Germany is a counter-revolutionary.

What does the revolution want? The revolution wants the overthrow of everything that was capable of burdening the world with the crimes that were possible from 1914 to 1918. Complete overthrow for atonement and security for all the future. Revolution wants — it is upheaval — the establishment of a human community whose sole aspiration and goal is to elevate man and his work, to share the earth with all working people for the free sowing of labor and love.

Anyone who wants Germany is a counter-revolutionary. He also wants Germany above all else. But we want Germany above all else. We want France, Holland and Japan just as ardently. We don't want any country at all, you patriots, you land speculators, we want socialism.

Whoever wants Germany still wants the root of the tree that is to be uprooted. As long as the people in Paris still want France and the people in Berlin want Germany, the poison that sets men against each other like animals, so that they tear each other apart, has not yet been killed. Beware of the national revolution! It only wants peace because the “enemy” has forced it to do so. It is nothing but a shrewd policy (of former times), which sacrifices a mad emperor, but gathers his army for new murder. It crawls to its knees because it has to, but it wants to save what it can of the old glory.

We want to save nothing. We want to cast down the last king, cast down his last soldier, the last nationalist, the last capitalist-thinking man. To the resurrection of the new man, the social working man.

The organized counter-revolutionaries (and many of them are cunningly wearing red cockades on their caps) are stepping up. Save what can be saved. Salvation Army, National Assembly. The will of the whole nation should be expressed, they say, and call it democracy. The will of the nation is counter-revolutionary. Only the will of the revolution and socialism should govern. If you had voted, you nationalists, you would never have voted for peace, but for national defense. Because for you, the nation was and still is important. Your national consciousness could not be offended. Your national honor was at stake. It is sweet and honorable to die for it — you have by no means re-learned. No, not so with us. The revolution has dictated peace to the nation. The revolutionary government alone can give the nation the new law. Look, the chairmen of yesterday's National Assembly, the Reichstag, the Houses of Representatives and the Houses of Lords are already coming forward — with timid audacity — and clamoring: we declare the dissolution of our glory by the Revolution unlawful. You are right. But we also laid down our arms unlawfully. We have also driven away the emperor unlawfully. We refused to obey you, we deserted you, we loved the enemy. Was that and isn't that all unlawful? Yes, my dears, we are your illegality, for we are the new law. The National Assembly is counter-revolutionary. It wants to save what can be saved from the old law.

The new law lives in us. Yesterday's friendship and enmity were a lie; today we must find our true fellow man and recognize our true enemy. Your enemy is not the French, the English or the Italian brother, but the villain of self-interest in Germany, France, England and everywhere, who will not let you love the brother beyond your national borders and turns you against him. Love is not united by the ring of a national border, and hatred is not the self-interest of one national ring against the self-interest of another. Rather: the enemy of the good man is everywhere and his protection until this day was the national border. But the love of all good men wills to one another and its law will now compel the enemies and lead the world to salvation.

For God's sake do not want to save what can be saved from the old units. On the contrary: these units must be destroyed by all means, because nothing holds them together more than the border post madness, which must now stop. Destroyed for the salvation of the new unity of the working people of the earth. One color, one language, one border, what is it against the unanimity of the oppressed peoples against the irresponsible people of the national chauvinists, what is it against the unanimity of their will to work for humanity beyond all colors, languages and borders.

Let us break through the old borders and seek the enemy. Let us break through the old boundaries and seek the true brother. Do not be united! Until this most important demand of the Revolution is guaranteed: Bethmann-Hollweg to Clemenceau, Ludendorff to Foch, Krupp to Creuzot. But we, brothers, to all those who have been enslaved with us by them to this day. Brothers on the Seine and on the Thames, do you not have the same enemies as we do? Have they not the same name, who have oppressed us and you all our lives, and forced us, who loved each other, to take up arms against each other and strike us dead? Are they not called with us as with you? Imperialists ? Nationalists ? Capitalists? Money buys the press, money buys votes, money buys soldiers, money buys dependencies and bondage of all kinds. The exploitation of economic superiority for political power, haven't you, like us, cried out against it all your lives? And your leaders, have they not been thrown into prison for their stand against imperialism, nationalism and capitalism in all fatherlands? Therefore, away with these fatherlands and the powers that are hostile to us, which have held them together in border-post clamps and now, when they want to disintegrate, are still holding their ruins together with the same harmful means of power for further future misdeeds.

Proletarians of all countries! Revolt against a national revolution. Proletarians of all countries: let not Germany revolt, let not Russia revolt. Do not let hatred revolt. Unite: man revolts! Let love revolt!