Prussian Socialism & Other Essays Read online

  It was hard, inexorable, cruel, but it all depends on whether I was right or wrong. Because it was right, the cry of pessimism arose: I put the facts for which others lacked courage, and perhaps even honesty.

  I had seen the situation in 1911, with the Moroccan crisis2 and the Italian attack on Tripoli, when the world war really started, with both parties making a clear statement, I had the plan to put together my thoughts on Germany under the title Conservative and Liberal. I was appalled by the folly of our policy, which calmly accepted the complete containment of Germany, the blindness of all circles who did not believe in a war that had already broken out, the criminal and suicidal optimism that has been on the rise here since 1870, our alleged, in reality long lost position of power, our apparent wealth, which lay only in the shop window. And behind it I saw the inevitable revolution that Metternich and Bismarck had clearly foreseen that revolution was inevitable, and not only in Germany, whether we had come home victorious or vanquished. Today I dare to say that the war, with its consequences for the whole world, and this revolution, were for us the mildest form of the inevitable, and that we continue on the path of our heavy destiny.

  So we experienced the dumbest and most cowardly, unethical and unimaginative revolution in world history. Out of disgust and bitterness, in the summer of 1919 Prussianism and Socialism was given as the famous description of this revolution, which caused a scream of rage and for which I was never forgiven. From this book the national movement has begun. I traced the deep ethical antagonism between the English and the Prussian view of life: the island that has no state, but instead a society where people are free to undertake private business; and here on the border to the east a state in the strictest sense of the tradition of the knights who colonised the land.3 In England, instead of the Authority of the State, that of parliamentarianism. Here instead of economic liberalism, the disciplining of the economy by political authority. The state and the political party are opposites, as are party and authority.4

  And I showed that Marx, with his theory, belongs to England, that his conception of the class struggle presupposes the conception of labour as a commodity, not as a profession, as the content of life; as goods that are negotiated and made more expensive according to the principles of the Manchester Theory.5 Marxism is a variant of Manchesterism, capitalism of the lower class, anti-state and English-materialist through and through. That “socialism” is an ethos, not an economic principle, but has not been understood to date in those national circles which took up this slogan. Idiots are still trying to preach “national” communism. Socialism, as I understand it, presupposes a private property.

  And I finally showed that Marx’s greatest victory over his adversaries consists in the general acceptance of the concepts of employer and employee, in which the claim is made that only one works, the other does not, and that the employer lives off the work of the employee. In a state where everyone works, however, this ethical contradiction does not apply and there is no silent contempt for the work of leadership and of technical skill. But the height, the existence of a national economy, the very existence of executives, depends on the quality of the work of the leaders - and in their annihilation out of ignorance, hatred, and envy there arises today the great danger that threatens the economy of the whole world.

  The essay on Russian dates back to 1922.6 Two months after the lecture, the Treaty of Rapallo contract was signed against the wishes and to the horror of the Chancellor and Foreign Minister, who were busy once again with English and French ministers, at Genoa. This had been the first independent act of German foreign policy for years. The Russians were then and in the future, in every sense, our next problem, but I do not see that anyone else has completely understood the problem until today. We are no longer the leading state in Central Europe, but the border state against Asia. This change in our geopolitical situation holds great potential, but it compels us to look more closely than is customary today, not with the simple formula: for or against Bolshevism. Bolshevism was identical with Lenin in 1922. With Stalin a decided change occurred. But will this immense mass of people slowly be freed from the intellectual limitations of Western European communism by new rulers, or will it be liberated by the peasantry by a religious awakening? That is the question for the future.7

  In the essay on new forms of world politics, I tried to develop the idea that France’s supremacy - it was the time of the occupation of the Ruhr and of the Dawes Plan - was only artificially and not permanently possible: no new thought, no constructive goal; a tremendous success has fallen in France’s lap, which will soon be thoroughly over. Its climax is already behind us: The Ruhreinmarsch. In addition, I showed the shift of power from the European “Concert of the Great Powers” into the vast areas of the entire world, the dwindling of the primacy of White peoples, and above all the fundamental change in the form and fact of “governing” : It is not just the replacement of sovereignty by the parties of private interests, but above all the impact of this fact and of the World War on the form of standing armies that have supported the system. I think they have survived since the intrusion of party politics has called into question the authority over these armed masses, and see in the future the emergence of smaller volunteer armies who, out of conviction, have come into the service of a leader. At the same time, in my opinion, the importance of the war fleets and thus of England’s ranking has fundamentally changed and diminished. The great lines of power across the continents are coming to the fore. Thus the last form of civilised powers, Caesarism, appears on the horizon. This is now called a dictatorship.

  On February 26, 1924, I delivered the lecture to the Würzburg students on the political duties of German youth. It was the day on which the high treason trial began against the authors of the Hitler coup in Munich. What I have said here is still valid today with undiminished force. The “young generation” did not understand it. It is the question of whether one can understand it at this age at all, but I hoped for it and still hope today. In this epoch it is questionable whether one can understand what is required at all. Youth in this sense is not one of years, but of judgement and a sense of responsibility. Those who do not have both are always too young for politics. But I saw the great vice of young Germany in full bloom again, as after 1815 : the inability to face reality, but to disguise it by ideal dreams, by romance, by party theatre with flags, parades and uniforms, and to falsify hard facts by theories and programmes. Enthusiasm is a dangerous dowry on political paths. It is bad for a ship when the crew is intoxicated in the storm. Politics is the opposite of romance, very prosaic, sober and hard. Youth must understand statesmanship and pay attention to learn to outwit their opponents by means and methods that are tough, fine, and calculated.

  But I found a disregard for the economic realities that are today a major problem of big politics and that cannot be treated by ideology. And I therefore showed that the decisive change in the economy of the nineteenth century was, on the one hand, brought about by the rule of coal, which completely changed the demographics, nationality, social stratification, and political rank of the leading nations; on the other hand, through the emergence of mobile, homeless finance capital as a result of the rule of shares over work. This speculative form of possession, which does not build on the economic body of a nation, but which attacks its inhabitants, attacks not only the “worker,” but industry, the peasantry, the state as a whole. It is childish to declare war on the entrepreneur and the stock exchange man at the same time. This ideology is that of inferior people. It is easy to dream up party programmes. However, the ethical demand of our day is to prepare oneself to be of service to future leaders. But that’s different than wanting to have a say. If the crew wants to instruct the general, the army has ceased to exist.

  In the Building of the New German Reich I summarised what I consider the tasks of future statesmen. Statesmen, not party leaders and masses, for a Third Reich. Above all, to build up the state, the Prussian opposite of the English-parliament
ary expression of an island-like national character, the state based on authority, and the moral type of state servant in the sense of Frederick the Great, which today has been lost as a concept.8 Education, which is today in the most complete decay, must be education for this state; not for a foreign humanism. Rights, I defined as the result of obligations to the state and the nation: the new basic idea of a future right-wing creation, which demands very deep reflection and, I believe, is worthy of a great people. And I finally showed how much Marxism, liberalism, democracy, all non-German ideals, have deliberately spoiled this.

  Here belongs what I have said about Steubenchivism,9 which in its whole terrible danger is still unrecognised today, because one government after the other lives on provisional means and leaves the solution of the problem to the future. Has anyone already understood today what “tax” is, and what has already been destroyed by senseless methods? This includes the destruction of the leading strata not only of the German people by Bolshevism in the form of taxes, which the envy of subordinate classes demanded; but also tax used to confiscate possessions that have been inherited, saved, or acquired, in which the condition for future achievements of economic and cultural natures were preserved. Also the expropriation of homeownership, acquired by the savings of the middle class, through communism by the tax bill, which made every government a thief, because it does not have the courage to think through the facts and draw conclusions.

  And finally: today’s relationship between world economy and world politics. This was said above all to those who today have the fate of the economy in their hands and live from day to day, instead of grasping the gravity of their task. It must be said again and again: politics comes first in the life of the peoples and the economy is secondary. A healthy economy cannot exist in a country without strong foreign policy leadership. It testifies to a disease of the national body when the relationship is reversed; when economics take precedence over politics. This is the case throughout the world today, but the consequences are before our eyes. The whole danger is that at that time - at a moment when flat optimism imagined as it is today, thought that the economy was “going up again” - no one wanted to see, and that today everyone sees but does not understand, that we are in an economic catastrophe which must be measured not by months but by decades.

  That’s what I said and wrote during these years, not for the moment, but for the future. I see more sharply than others because I think independently of parties, directions and interests. I foresaw things as they developed organically and fatefully. I see even more ahead, but I feel lonelier than ever, as among people who have been blindfolded so as not to see the collapse of the house while using their hammers. But I repeat again and again that I have only described facts, for people who can think and act in a state-minded way, and not for romantics.

  Munich October 1932

  * * *

  1 Prussianism and Socialism, The Two Faces of Russia and Germany’s Eastern Problems, Political Duties of German Youth, New Forms of World Politics, Building of the New German Reich, The Relationship Between Business and Taxation since 1750, The Current Relationship Between the World Economy and World Politics.

  2 French occupation of Morocco, during which Germany sent a gunboat to protect German interests.

  3 Spengler is referring to Prussia, which arose from ‘ducal Prussia’ whose lands had been settled by German tillers since the 13th century, after having been conquered by the Teutonic Knights.

  4 Spengler is contrasting two outlooks: the English and the ‘Prussian’. The English is liberal, the Prussian authoritarian. In England economics dominates and controls the parties; in Prussia economics is subordinated to political demands and to duty.

  5 The Manchester Theory of Free Trade, the dominant economic theory of England during the Industrial Revolution; the milieu in which Marx thought and wrote.

  6 ‘The Two Faces of Russia And Germany’s Eastern Problem,’ a speech delivered to businessmen, which is included in this volume.

  7 Spengler was prescient in regard to Russia. He early understood that in the underlying dichotomy between the native Russian spirit and the importation of foreign ideologies, both were present in Bolshevism, and there would be a struggle for supremacy within Bolshevism. He saw that Stalin had already moved Russia in a direction away from the foreign.

  8 The King as the “First Servant of the Nation.”

  9 Hidden property taxes. See the essay below: ‘Building the New German Reich’, part 6: ‘Against Steuerbschewism’.

  Prussianism and Socialism

  (1919)

  Prussianism and Socialism, based on notes for Volume II of Spengler’s magnum opus, The Decline of The West, remains a very important, albeit overlooked work. Much, perhaps most, of the “Right”, even the so-called “Far Right” has long since succumbed to Free Trade capitalism. That was not part of the traditional Right, including Conservativism. The movement that is called the “Conservative Revolution” in Germany, of which Spengler was a principal figure, was acutely aware of the “socialistic” character of Conservatism: of the nation-people-state as a social organism; not as economically contending individuals (Liberalism) or classes (Marxism). Conservative socialism was antithetical to Marxism and other forms of class-war “socialism” which shared with English capitalism the same 19th century “spirit of the Age” (Zeitgeist) dominated by questions of trade, economics, and the weighing and balancing of all questions like a merchant weighing his gold. England was the leader of this Zeitgeist, which remains animated now by the USA, founded on the Puritan sanctification of capitalism. What Spengler called “Prussian socialism”, what the anti-Hitler National Socialists Otto and Gregor Strasser, both influenced by Spengler, called “German socialism”, and what can also be called “ethical socialism”, aims not to expropriate capitalism for another class, but to transcend capitalism; to relegate economic questions to a subordinate position, and to destroy the dictature of Money, which Spengler states in the closing pages of The Decline of The West, dominates at the end cycle of a Civilisation. This is why the “Right” remains the only genuine rebellion against capitalism, and why Spengler stated in The Decline of The West, The Hour of Decision, and in this essay, that Leftist movements, including the Communists, are controlled by Money.

  - § -

  Introduction

  This essay is based on notes intended for the second volume of The Decline of The West. The notes comprise, at least in part, the germinal stage in the development of the entire thesis presented in that work.

  The word “socialism” designates the noisiest, if not the most profound, topic of current debate. Everyone is using it. Everyone thinks it means something different. Into this universal catchword everyone injects whatever he loves or hates, fears or desires. Yet no one is aware of the scope and limitations of the word’s historical function. Is socialism an instinct, or a planned system? Is it a goal of mankind, or just a temporary condition? Or does the word perhaps refer simply to the demands made by a certain class of society? Is it the same thing as Marxism?

  People who aim to change the word continually fall into the error of confusing what ought to be with what shall be. Rare indeed is the vision that can penetrate beyond the tangle and flux of contemporary events. I have yet to find someone who has really understood this German Revolution, who has fathomed its meaning or foreseen its duration. Moments are being mistaken for epochs, next year for the next century, whims for ideas, books for human beings.

  Our Marxists show strength only when they are tearing down; when it comes to thinking or acting positively they are helpless. By their actions they are confirming at last that their patriarch was not a creator, but a critic only. His heritage amounts to a collection of abstract ideas, meaningful only to a world of bookworms. His “proletariat” is a purely literary concept, formed and sustained by the written word. It was real only so long as it denied, and did not embody, the actual state of things at any given time. Today we are beginning to real
ise that Marx was only the stepfather of socialism. Socialism contains elements that are older, stronger, and more fundamental than his critique of society. Such elements existed without him and continued to develop without him, in fact contrary to him. They are not to be found on paper; they are in the blood. And only the blood can decide the future.

  But if socialism is not Marxism, then what is it? The answer will be found in these pages.

  Some people already have an idea of what it is, but they are so diligently involved with political “standpoints,” aims, and blueprints that no one has dared to be sure. When faced with decisions, we have abandoned our former position of firmness and adopted milder, less radical, outmoded attitudes, appealing for support to Rousseau, Adam Smith, and the like. We take steps against Marx, and yet at every step we invoke his name. Meanwhile the time for fashioning ideologies has passed. We latecomers of Western civilisation have become sceptics. We refuse to be further misled by ideological systems. Ideologies are a thing of the previous century. We no longer want ideas and principles, we want ourselves.

  Hence we now face the task of liberating German socialism from Marx. I say German socialism, for there is no other. This, too, is one of the truths that no longer lie hidden.

  Perhaps no one has mentioned it before, but we Germans are socialists. The others cannot possibly be socialists.

  What I am describing here is not just another conciliatory move, not a retreat or an evasion, but a Destiny. It cannot be escaped by closing one’s eyes, denying it, fighting it, or fleeing from it; such actions would merely be various ways of fulfilling it. Ducunt volentemfata, nolentem trahunt. The spirit of Old Prussia and the socialist attitude, at present driven by brotherly hatred to combat each other, are in fact one and the same.