BOLSHEVISM IN BERLIN.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 63, 14 March 1919, Page 7

BOLSHEVISM IN BERLIN.

SIXiSTER OUTLOOK. (From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, January 10. If we are to believe the latest and very lurid cabled advices from Berlin, things there are going from bad to worse. In the words of a local newspaper, that city grows each day " a little more like a madhouse." To those who knew the capital under Kaiserism it is almost impossible to envisage Berlin as newspaper correspondents on the spot endeavour to picture it for us. Then it was the most soullessly well-ordered of Europe's great centres, the very essence (outwardly, at any rate) of the " dullness of decency." In those days a small posse of mounted police was sufficient to smash up and scatter to the four winds the biggest Socialist " demonstration," and a mere flippant remark or contemptuous gesture when royalty was in sight or under discussion, was quite enough to ensure a term of imprisonment for the incautious speaker or gesturer. It was essentially a city of petty and often brutal official tyranny. To-day the people who suffered most under the heel? of Hohenzollernism and militarism app'-r to be "getting their own back " with a vengeance, as many students of human nature predicted many years ago they would some day. The Berlin mob, now that it has turned upon its whilom masters. Ls exhibiting the ferocity of the proverbial

" mad sheep." and is proving that the real Bolshevik bacillus which' the quidnuncs on this side of the Channel assured us could never thrive in the German atmosphere, has found a first class ground at any rate in Berlin. What has happened in Berlin, indeed, has followed the precedent of Petrngrad with startling fidelity up to date, and though matters have not yet reached the appalling stage of things in the Russian capital, he would be a rash man who would stake heavily against the ex-Kaiser's capital providing scenes of mad-headed lawlessness and unbridled ferocity such as Petrograd has known during the Lenin-Trotsky era.

What has occurred during the past week in Berlin has very closely followed Petrograd's precedent. THE PETROGRAD PARALLEL. There has been, as the "Telegraph" !< points out, the separating-out of the |, moderate, the immoderate, and tlie ) Bolshevik elements; the withdrawal of I the extreme parties from all connection ; with the revolutionary Government, so '. soon as it showed a disposition to main- ! i tain order; the hatching of a plot to/ demolish the Republic of the Majority > Socialists, and set up the "dictatorship 5 of the proletariat." and the attempted coup d'etat, carried out by armed crowds. } The parallelism is not surprising when ■ we remember that Bolshevik emissaries ' from Russia have been openly associated ' with the Spartacus leaders in Berlin, and have placed their experience at the ser- ' vice of Liebknecht and his followers. The seizure and conversion to tbeir own , purposes of certain newspapers, with the forcible suppression of the rest was, for example, among the first measures taken by Lenin and Trotsky in Petrograd; so was tlie occupation of the : official telegraphic agency; and doubtless many other bints have been given by Joffre and Radek to their Prussian comrades. The difference, however, manifests itself when the more hard-headed quality, the sounder intelligence, and the more developed political instinct of the moderate revolutionaries in Ber- : lin, as seen in tiieir proceedings in this I crisis, i_ contrasted with the general feebleness of the Russian Government ! that the Bolsheviks overthrow in the I winter of 1917. Ebert and his colleagues j in Germany seem to have been fully determined to grasp the nettle of Spar- • tacus anarchy, and though taken, as we | are told, by surprise at the actual moment of the rising on Sunday last, they were not overwhelmed, and the latest messages from Berlin represent them as having got the upper hand. They have bodies of more or less disciplined troops, and the new Central Council of tbe Workman's and Soldiers' Soviets on their side. A POLITICAL LUNATIC ASYLUM. From present indications it indeed appears that there is just a reasonable chance of the Ebert Provisional Government being able to maintain itself until the time arrives for transferring ail authority to the National Assembly, the elections for which are close at hand. But it must be confessed there are good grounds for the keenest anxiety. Certainly sheer Bolshevism has made far greater strides than any person fully i acquainted with Germany's normal life ; would have deemed possible, and no one can to-daj set a limit to its powers for mischief under existing conditions. There is. however, no reason to believe that Germany as a whole is badly afflicted j with Bolshevism, and, indeed, if we can ■ trust the evidence in our possession, Germany e.t large views Berlin in the light of a political mad-house, the ""carryingson"' in which, though a confounded nuisance, do not really affect the vital interests of the nation as a whole. But j there is no telling what may happen in I a country where the entire political landscape has been rendered so utterly unrecognisable aa it has in Germany durin" : the past few weeks, and those who know j Germany (as it was) best appear the ' least inclined to assume to-day- the prophet's cloak. j At the time of writing one thing only j I seems pretty certain, and that is there I will have to be a halt in the process of I demobilisation of Ailied forces, for unless : the Ebert Government can speedily give I j proof that it has the power to stamp out ! I Bolshevism and restore something like • j decent order in the affected areas it will certainly be necessary for the Allies to 1 greatly enlarge the scope of their occupational plans, and to keep "in being" very formidable forces until such time as "a Government of assured stability comes into existence in Germany. Until that happy day there can be no question of making peace bargains with that nation. The contemplation of an extended occupation of Germany is not pleasing whichever way one looks at the matter, tor our own soldiers land no doubt those of France and Italy I are very badly "fed up" with life under arms, and, as recent events have suggested, any considerable prolongation of a state of war easily produce a condition of affairs in our own army not to be described in tlie least accurately by such a word as "indiscipline." and it is to be feared that any really serious trouble in I our army would be speedily followed by 'very ugly exhibitions of "indiscipline" by certain elements of the civilian population. We in England have hugged i tighfly to our bosoms the notion that | Bolshevism is a plant that cannot find a favourable rooting medium in the Old I Country, but the happenings of the past 'few- weeks in Berlin make one "think i furiously" on that point to-day.