Page:William Z. Foster - The Revolutionary Crisis of 1918-1921 (1921).djvu/11

 hands of the workers and into the hands of the reactionary classes.

The ruinous policy of the Majority Socialists had borne its natural fruit. Right after November 9th the workers had been in complete control of the armed forces and the political government of Germany. They were masters of the situation. But the Majority Socialists soon destroyed this mastery. First they relinquished the control over the army by putting the Imperialist officers again in command of it. Then they threw away the political control by summoning a Constituent Assembly. The German revolution was dead: killed by the Majority Socialists.

The German workers are bitterly disappointed at the failure of their great movement. They smile sadly when anyone speaks of the German revolution. For all they got out of it were a few minor industrial and political reforms. These did not affect the fundamental institutions of private property in the social means of production and distribution. The profound transformation of society from an individualist to a collectivist basis, so ardently preached for a generation by revolutionaries, did not materialize. Capitalism weathered the great storm intact.

And now the disillusioned workers are demanding to know how this can be; how it was that they were in complete control of society and yet did not accomplish the revolution. Nor are answers to their queries lacking. The current explanation, the one most widely accepted by all