We shall be told that if a revolution were such an easy task, it is inconceivable that the German people should not have risen before; and it is perfectly true that, since the bloody days of 1848, there has been no serious riot, not to mention any rebellion, in the German Monarchy. But the reason for this passive acquiescence in and for this servile surrender to despotism is due to the German revolutionaries themselves. One of the secrets of recent German history is that the revolutionists themselves have repudiated revolutionary methods. It is the Social Democrats who deserted the cause of democracy. In France Socialists were pacifists abroad and aggressive at home. In Germany the Socialists were pacifists at home and aggressive abroad. That is why, as I anticipated in my “Anglo-German Problem” (1912), the German Socialists are ultimately responsible for the war, even more than the Junkers. The Junkers and the Government knew that they had no reason to dread a renewal of 1848. They felt that they had a perfectly free hand. They knew the temper of the Social Democrats and the meaning of the Marxian creed. For it was an essential part of the Gospel according to St. Marx that the revolution, if it ever came, would come peacefully, inevitably, with the people raising their little finger, through the mere automatic pressure of economic concentration. Capitalism itself, so the Socialists said, was working for the triumph of Socialism. Once the process of concentration of production was complete, once all the capital was gathered in a few hands, the German revolution would come of itself, and Kaiser Bebel and Kaiser Liebknecht would simply substitute themselves for Kaiser William as the rulers of an absolute collectivist State. That attitude of passive acquiescence, that sordid materialistic creed, explains the ignominious collapse of the Social Democrats at the outbreak of the war. It explains the paradoxical fact that to-day von Bethmann-Hollweg in his tragic isolation is only supported by Scheidemann and the Socialist majority. The failure is not due to any lack of numbers. For the Social Democrats had millions of devoted followers. The failure is not due to lack of organization, for the Social Democrats were the most admirably organized party known to modern history. It was not due to lack of discipline, for the Social Democrats were subjected to an iron discipline. The failure is entirely due to a lack of spirit, and the lack of spirit itself is entirely due to the sinister and dreary Marxian creed. Between Marxian Socialism and Prussianism there is no opposition of principles. Indeed, one might almost say that the present war socialism, with its bread rations, its organization of industry, its suppression of every individual liberty, its hundred thousand regulations, is the nearest approach to the ideal of the Marxist.