Page:Grigory Zinoviev - Twelve Days in Germany (1921).pdf/29

 will form a living bridge between the Right Independents and the "Left" Scheidemannists!

Take —a well-intentioned advocate of the good old times with an infiinitely narrow political outlook and a most flexible spine. Yesterday he was for the Lefts, to-day he is for the Right Independents. Yesterday he was prepared to prove one thing, to-day he will prove the exact opposite with equal force of conviction and even with pathos. To-day he holds with the Rights, to-morrow he will lean towards the Left, and the day after, if the wind blows in the other direction, he may again be in the ranks of the Rights. Then there is Moses, the famous author of the "Gebarstreik." A few years ago he discovered the easiest and the best means of destroying capitalism: women must organise a strike and refuse to bear children—the capitalists will then be left without workmen and without soldiers. … Now Moses is a leader of the Right Independents. He site in the front row, indignantly eyeing the turbulent Left, which has so "impertinently" transgressed the peace and decorum of a quiet home. Moses has been elected member of the Central Committee of the new Right Party. What were his merits is a secret known only to Dissmann and Crisipien and to God.

Take another individual—standing isolated, and cutting clumsy and ridiculous figure. There is only one point in his favour—his name: Theodor  Liebknecht, is the brother of our Karl Liebknecht. Up till now Theodor Liebknect had no hand in politics. The Independents—both Right and Left—discuss him in whispers; Theodor Liebknect is a total ignoramus as far as politics go. This, alas, is the unvarnished truth. The Rights, however, are no rhetoricians; they are "business men". Everything can be made use of in a big household, even the well-sounding name of Theodor Leibknecht. The Right Independents did the following trick: at the head of the Berlin list of candidates to the Halle Congress they placed Thedor Liebknecht next to Ledebour as candidate of the Right. I repeat, Theodor Liebknecht never took any serious part in politics. But now that he has declared himself for the Right Independents, they have picked him up (even a bit of string may be of use) and placed him at the head of the