V. I.

Lenin

DEPUTY FRANK FAVOURS THE MASS STRIKE

The speech of the well-known Baden Social-Democrat
Frank, a most prominent representative of the opportunist
wing, in favour of the mass strike as a means of struggle
for electoral reform in Prussia, is something of an event
in the German Socialist Party.

The Social-Democratic Party organisation in
Wilmersdorf, a suburb of Berlin, invited Frank to give a lecture on
the subject. The bourgeois press, expecting peaceable and
tranquillising words to come “out of Baden”, loudly advertised the meeting. The free publicity was magnificent.
The meeting turned out to be a huge and most impressive one.

But whether because he was addressing the militant
Berlin workers or because as a southerner, accustomed to
the freer atmosphere of Southern Germany, he was outraged
at the shameless domination of the “Junkers” (the German
Black-Hundred gentry) whom he saw at closer quarters in
Berlin, Frank made a fiery speech in favour of the mass
strike.

The speaker began by outlining internal politics in
Prussia. Frank castigated the domination of the Junkers, the
reactionary electoral law for the Prussian Landtag (a law
rather like our own Third Duma law) and the absence of elementary democratic guarantees. When he noted that
under the Prussian electoral law the keeper of a brothel
had first-class electoral rights, and the Prime Minister,
only third-class rights, and that this was characteristic
of the Prussian “way of life”, the audience roared with
laughter in approval of his assessment.

The Berlin workers—Frank said with a smile—have proved by their struggle against Jagow (the mayor who vainly tried to prohibit demonstrations in 1910) that they
have talents in the sphere of street manoeuvres.

The speaker recalled the examples of mass strikes in history: by the Chartists in England; the Belgians in 1893,
1902 and 1912; the Swedes in 1903; the Italians in 1904,
and the Russians in 1905; he dwelt in greater detail on the
last example, stressing the help which the Russian workers
then gave their neighbours and brothers, the Austrian workers. The mere threat of a political strike then proved
sufficient to win adult suffrage for the Austrians.

In Prussia and in Germany, exclaimed Frank, we have the best labour movement in the world and the most
extensive working-class press. Let us then learn mass struggle
from the proletariat of the whole world! (Enthusiastic approval and applause of the audience.)

Naturally, this new form of struggle involves sacrifice
and danger, Frank continued; but when have political battles not entailed danger and sacrifice? Once we have
realised the necessity of struggle, we must carry it on to
the end, we must pilot our ship forward despite the possible reefs ahead. Those who fear them and remain in port
will certainly be safe, but they will never get to the other
shore—the objective for which we are striving.

Enthusiastically received by the meeting, Frank’s speech
showed once again the great indignation the reactionaries
have aroused in the German workers. A mighty protest is
maturing in the German proletariat slowly but surely.