GERMANY

Taranaki Daily News, 27 February 1919, Page 5

GERMANY

SPARTACISTS AT WORK, ELECTION BOOTHS RAIDED. Received Feb. 2G, 8.10 p.m. Copenhagen, Feb. 25. Advices from Dusseldorf state that bands of Splartacists interrupted the municipal elections. They appeared at the polling booths armed with rifles and hand grenades, and seized the voting returns and electoral lists, which they burned or threw into the Rhine.-—Reuter. AGREEMENT WITH UKRAINE. GERMAN HOSTILITIES CONTINUED. Warsaw, Feb. 24. Official.-—The Poles and Ukrainians have reached an agreement at Lemberg to cease hostilities. The arrangement is subject to twelve hours' denunciation. The chief of the American Food Mission to Poland telephoned from Posen that the Germans were continuing an active bombardment all along the front. —Reuter.

THE PROLETARIAT'S REVENGE. AUER'S ASSASSIN BOASTS OP DEED. Received Feb. 26, 11.25 p.m. Berlin, Feb. 24. The Vorwaerts learns that Herr Auer's assassin is a butcher named Lindner, who is a member of the Revolutionary Workers' Council. He openly boasts of the deed. Ho apparently entered the Diet by the deputies' entrance through collusion with the guards. Herr Hageinesiter, president of the Workers' Council, after the shots wove fired, shouted: "That's the proletariats' revenge."—Reuter. NEW LEADER OF SOVIETS. ARMING OF ALL WORKERS.

London, Feb. 25. The Munich correspondent of the Daily Express interviewed Max Levien, Doctor of Zoology, the new Soviet leader. He said the Soviets demanded the arming of all workers, also the abdication of Commander Durr, the Republican Government's military chief. He said the Spartacists were going to fight to establish Eisner's ideal Soviet Republic. The correspondent later saw Commander Durr, who said that he would not arm the workers nor abdicate. He declared that the Spartacists distributed among the unemployed were dangerous elements. Dr. Levien asserted that Munich students wearing masks secretly assembled ;.t the University and decided to assassinate him, but he had taken 50 aristocratic, hostages. The correspondent states that there was extreme tension on Sunday when the rival factions, well-armed, jostled in the streets, but the expected clash never came. Thousands of Bolsheviks attended meetings at which orators urged the crowds to follow Dr. Levien to a proletariat victory. Meanwhile Levien hid during the firing and assassination. The correspondent met Levien's sweetheart, who said she was getting Levien's food, he had not eaten for two days and dared not go out. But Levien appeared an hour later with an armed guard, and, mounting a truck with his sweetheart, cried "Victory is ours. The workers will be well-armed to-morrow and the Soviet Congress will assemble on Tuesday." A hushed pause ensued and Levien resumed: "I stand in Eisner's place, where is my assassin?" There was no reply, and Levien departed.

Professor Bonn said the Soviet revolution was a bluff. Levien would not go further than Eisner and Eisner would be buried on Wednesday. He added that Eisner was proceeding to the Landtag to tender his resignation when he was murdered. They were all Socialists, but the Spartacists would not compromise. Germany to-day was worn out and anything might happen. Levien was the most dangerous man Liebknecht.—Aus.N.Z. Cable Assn.

COUNCIL CONTROL AT MUNICH. POPULAR GUAJIBS REPLACE REGULAR TROOPS. Berlin, Feb. 21. A Council of eleven, mostly Majority Socialists, aro controlling affairs at Munich. They dismissed the regular troops and replaced them by the popular guards. The Council voted a pension of 10,000 marks ( £500) to Herr Eisner's widow.

The authorities seized the extremists' lists which contained the names of a large number of persons to be assassinated and the names of 20 hostages to be taken from the ranks of the aristocracy. The new man of the hour is Dr. Levien, who returned from Russia. He is preaching the Spartacist creed of war against the middle classes.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Association.

A SHOCKING OUTRAGE. MINERS IMPRISONED. Amsterdam, Feb. 25. A shocking outrage is reported from Essen. A mob of 200 Spartaeiat rioters destroyed the airshaf., of a mine, imprisoning 000 miners, who cannot be liberated for a fortnight. Policemen who attempted to stop the outrage were mur-dered.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.

SPARTACUS. ROME AND GERMANY, A FANTASTIC NAME. According to ivj .<.. •.•miing over from Berlin, Germany, iike the true sentimentalist she has always been, has decided to take her dpfeat in a style worthy of the ancift '~ uu-is. X > < tlu> least theatrical ■■ ■ ■ v hy of ou-nts is the ri£e of tin :..n.<iievik party, under the le&derahiD of Kvl Liebkneclit. Not

satisfied with the ultra-modern name of Bolsheviks, this.leader has gone tack into the archives of Rome, and has emerged with a treasure of a name for his followers, the Spartacus group, as they are now commonly called. In a despatch last- week it was stated that Liebknecht, exponent of anti-mili-tarism, addressed the populace of Berlin, calling them to rally to'his side, from a truck protected by good, militaristic machine-guns. So, perhaps, he imagines the Roman slave stood, surrounded by the weapons of warfare of his own time and fashion, for the famous address, beloved of all schoolboys, which has been put into his month: "Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who, for twelve long years, has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast the broad Empire of Rome could furnish, and who never yet lowered lur arm. If there be one among you who can say that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue let him stand forth and say it. Jf there be three in all your company can lace me on the bloody sands, let them come on. And yet, I was not always thus—a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men!"

With equal truth and equal justice might the leader of the Spartacus group ;n Germany say that he was not always thus. The ancient Spartacus goes on to tell how he had been a peaceful shepherd in the valley of Thrace when the Romans came to Greece and captured him, making him one of the slave gladiators of the dissolute metropolis. As it is known in history, he called the eighty other gladiators of the School of Capua to his side and started one of the most fearsome revolutions in Rome, which lasted from 73 B.C. to 71 B.C. At that time Rome was in a state of moral disintegration, which allowed of luxurious living and wild dissipations on the one hand and keen suffering from famine and autocratic oppression on the other. The corn law providing for the gratuitous feeding of the starving proletariat in Rome had to be continually changed to meet the demands of the people. The armies of the State were absent on foreign service. All these things made the moment ripe for the uprising of Spartacus. Before very long he had gathered a vast army recruited from the ranks of suffering'Thracians, Gauls and Germans. The armies of Rome met with defeat after defeat at their hands,) and for a time it looked as though the (tables of Rome were being turned in a manner vastly distasteful to the ruling classes. But, as is true in most rapidly rising militant movement-., there was dissention in the ranks of the victorious slaves, and the army divided ii: two, some going to the side of one Crixus, a rival leader, the rest standing firm by Spartacus. All the members of the ranks were, however, agreed on one point, that to the victorious army belonged the spoils of their conquests'. As a result, much against the wishes of Spartacus, the soldiers, drunk with power, pillaged, raped, and plundered the country in manner vastly superior to that of their aforetime oppressors. In the end, of course, the superior forces of the organised Roman armies defeated them, and made a horrible example of them by crucifying 5000 rebel scldiers on the Appian Way. Spartacus died like a true soldier, with his sword in his hand.

The story marks one of the bloodiest pages in Roman history, and in Berlin they are finding other Roman parallels. In true Ciceronian style, Theodor Wolff, editor of the Tageblatt, demands from Liebknecht, 'How much longer, 0 Karl, will you abuse our patience?" With deep earnestness he goes on to tell of the needs of supressing the movement of the Spartacns group, and organising the work of the Government along sane lines.

"Liebknecht, no debassed glutton like Catiline of Rome," says Wolff, "is worse than the vainglorious fanatic. Why did they make him a martyr by taking him from the Reichstag to prison, which foolish mistake alone endeared him to the fanatic masses Liebknecht W on nnp side and a number of would-be Catalines are on the reactionary >,; de. "We fear much for a Government that has no organised military power to rely on. "That despite the present chaos, the German people will continue to observe law and order with their customary discipline is greatly to be admired, but foreign nations only see machine-guns, Liebknecht's armored car, confusion of Soldiers' Councils, street riots, and reactionary intrigues, while our inimitable self-discipline escapes them completely." The desire of Liebknecht may be to take on the role of the martyr Spnrtacus. His tongue is gifted. So was the tongue of Spartacus, who is made to say in his final appeal!

"0 Rome! Rome! Thou hast been a tender nurse to me. Ay! Thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd lad. who never knew a harsher tone than a flute note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the sword through plaited nails and links of rugged brass, and warm it in the marrow of his foe: to paw into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Nnmidian lion even as a boy upon a laughing girl! And he shall nay them back until the yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its deeriest ooze thy lifeblond lies curdled.

"Ye stand here now like giants as ye are. The strength of brass is in your toughened sinews; but to-morrow some "Roman Ailoins, lireatliinir sweet perfume from his curly lodes, shrill with his lily fingers pat your red brawn find bet his sesterces upon your blood. Hark! hear ve yon lion roaring in his den 'Tis three dnvs since he tasted flesh; but tomorrow lie shall break his fast upon yon —and a dainty meal for him ye will he. "If ye are beasts, then stand here like fat oxen waiting for the butcher's knife! If ye are men follow me! Strike down your guard, gain the mountain passes, and there do bloody war, as did your sires at old Thermopylae! Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that you do crouch and cower like a belabored hound beneath the master's lash ? "Oh, Comrades! Warriors! Thracians!—if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves! If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors! Tf we must die, let it be under the clear sky, by the bright waters, in noble, honorable battle!"

The'spirit of Spartaeus kept his army alive for two years. That his cause was worthy none will deny. Yet in spite of that, there was in the end an ignoble death of his men, whom a taste of power had turned into vandals. How worthy is the cause or how timely the uprising of the new Spartaeus is still matter for debate. But in choosing his name the German leader forgot to take into consideration that, similar as he thought the present situation to Soman times, the movement of the original Spartaeus has attached to it, besides the glory of the temporary victories of the oppressed, the Btiama of ultimate defeat,