Obligations 7- of the Movement

7. This one-sided but clear and definite attitude must be manifested in the movement’s propaganda which should be made effective

If propaganda is to be of service to the movement, it must be addressed to one side alone.

If it varies the direction of its appeal, it will not be understood in the one camp or may be rejected by the other.

It would be thought of as merely insisting on obvious and uninteresting truisms. This is because the intellectual training of the two camps that come into question here has been very different.

Even the manner in which something is presented and the tone in which particular details are emphasized cannot have the same effect in those two strata that belong espectively to the opposite extremes of the social structure.

If the propaganda should refrain from using primitive forms of expression it will not appeal to the sentiments of the masses.

If, on the other hand, it conforms to the crude sentiments of the masses in its words and gestures the intellectual circles will be averse to it because of its roughness and vulgarity.

Among a hundred men who call themselves orators there are scarcely ten who are capable of speaking with effect before an audience of street-sweepers, locksmiths and navvies, etc., to-day and expound the same subject with equal effect tomorrow before an audience of university professors and students.

Among a thousand public speakers there may be only one who can speak before a composite audience of locksmiths and professors in the same hall in such a way that his statements can be fully comprehended by each group while at the same time he effectively influences both and awakens enthusiasm, on the one side as well as on the other, to hearty applause.

But it must be remembered that in most cases even the most beautiful idea embodied in a sublime theory can be brought home to the public only through the medium of smaller minds.

The thing that matters here is not the vision of the man of genius who created the great idea but rather the success which his apostles achieve in shaping the expression of this idea so as to bring it home to the minds of the masses.

Social-Democracy and the whole Marxist movement were particularly qualified to attract the great masses of the nation, because of the uniformity of the public to which they addressed their appeal. The more limited and narrow their ideas and arguments, the easier it was for the masses to grasp and assimilate them; for those ideas and arguments were well adapted to a low level of intelligence.

These considerations led the new movement to adopt a clear and simple line of policy, which was as follows:

In its message as well as in its forms of expression the propaganda must be kept on a level with the intelligence of the masses, and its value must be measured only by the actual success it achieves.

At a public meeting where the great masses are gathered together the best speaker is not he whose way of approaching a subject is most akin to the spirit of those intellectuals who may happen to be present, but the speaker who knows how to win the hearts of the masses.

An educated man who is present and who finds fault with an address because he considers it to be on an intellectual plane that is too low, though he himself has witnessed its effect on the lower intellectual groups whose adherence has to be won, only shows himself completely incapable of rightly judging the situation and therewith proves that he can be of no use in the new movement.

Only intellectuals can be of use to a movement who understand its mission and its aims so well that they have learned to judge our methods of propaganda exclusively by the success obtained and never by the impression which those methods made on the intellectuals themselves.

For our propaganda is not meant to serve as an entertainment for those people who already have a nationalist outlook, but its purpose is to win the adhesion of those who have hitherto been hostile to national ideas and who are nevertheless of our own blood and race.

In general, those considerations of which I have given a brief summary in the chapter on ‘War Propaganda’ became the guiding rules and principles which determined the kind of propaganda we were to adopt in our campaign and the manner in which we were to put it into practice. The success that has been obtained proves that our decision was right.

8. The ends which any political reform movement sets out to attain can never be reached by trying to educate the public or influence those in power but only by getting political power into its hands.

Every idea that is meant to move the world has not only the right but also the obligation of securing control of those means which will enable the idea to be carried into effect.

In this world success is the only rule of judgment whereby we can decide whether such an undertaking was right or wrong. And by the word ‘success’ in this connection I do not mean such a success as the mere conquest of power in 1918 but the successful issue whereby the common interests of the nation have been served.

A COUP D’ETAT cannot be considered successful if, as many empty-headed government lawyers in Germany now believe, the revolutionaries succeeded in getting control of the State into their hands but only if, in comparison with the state of affairs under the old regime, the lot of the nation has been improved when the aims and intentions on which the revolution was based have been put into practice.

This certainly does not apply to the German Revolution, as that movement was called, which brought a gang of bandits into power in the autumn of 1918.

But if the conquest of political power be a requisite preliminary for the practical realization of the ideals that inspire a reform movement, then any movement which aims at reform must, from the very first day of its activity, be considered by its leaders as a movement of the masses and not as a literary tea club or an association of philistines who meet to play ninepins.

9. The nature and internal organization of the new movement make it antiparliamentarian.

It rejects in general and in its own structure all those principles according to which decisions are to be taken on the vote of the majority and according to which the leader is only the executor of the will and opinion of others. The movement lays down the principle that, in the smallest as well as in the greatest problems, one person must have absolute authority and bear all responsibility.

In our movement the practical consequences of this principle are the following:

The president of a large group is appointed by the head of the group immediately above his in authority. He is then the responsible leader of his group. All the committees are subject to his authority and not he to theirs. There is no such thing as committees that vote but only committees that work. This work is allotted by the responsible leader, who is the president of the group. The same principle applies to the higher organizations–the Bezirk (district), the KREIS (urban circuit) and the GAU (the region).

In each case the president is appointed from above and is invested with full authority and executive power. Only the leader of the whole party is elected at the general meeting of the members. But he is the sole leader of the movement. All the committees are responsible to him, but he is not responsible to the committees.

His decision is final, but he bears the whole responsibility of it. The members of the movement are entitled to call him to account by means of a new election, or to remove him from office if he has violated the principles of the movement or has not served its interests adequately.

He is then replaced by a more capable man. who is invested with the same authority and obliged to bear the same responsibility.

One of the highest duties of the movement is to make this principle imperative not only within its own ranks but also for the whole State.

The man who becomes leader is invested with the highest and unlimited authority, but he also has to bear the last and gravest responsibility.

The man who has not the courage to shoulder responsibility for his actions is not fitted to be a leader. Only a man of heroic mould can have the vocation for such a task.

Human progress and human cultures are not founded by the multitude. They are exclusively the work of personal genius and personal efficiency.

Because of this principle, our movement must necessarily be anti-parliamentarian, and if it takes part in the parliamentary institution it is only for the purpose of destroying this institution from within; in other words, we wish to do away with an institution which we must look upon as one of the gravest symptoms of human decline.

10. The movement refuses to take up any stand in regard to those problems which are either outside of its sphere of political work or seem to have no fundamental importance for us.

It does not aim at bringing about a religious reformation, but rather a political reorganization of our people. It looks upon the two religious denominations as equally valuable mainstays for the existence of our people, and therefore it makes war on all those parties which would degrade this foundation, on which the religious and moral stability of our people is based, to an instrument in the service of party interests.

Finally, the movement does not aim at establishing any one form of State or trying to destroy another, but rather to make those fundamental principles prevail without which no republic and no monarchy can exist for any length of time. The movement does not consider its mission to be the establishment of a monarchy or the preservation of the Republic but rather to create a German State.

The problem concerning the outer form of this State, that is to say, its final shape, is not of fundamental importance. It is a problem which must be solved in the light of what seems practical and opportune at the moment.

Once a nation has understood and appreciated the great problems that affect its inner existence, the question of outer formalities will never lead to any internal conflict.

11. The problem of the inner organization of the movement is not one of principle but of expediency.

The best kind of organization is not that which places a large intermediary apparatus between the leadership of the movement and the individual followers but rather that which works successfully with the smallest possible intermediary apparatus.

For it is the task of such an organization to transmit a certain idea which originated in the brain of one individual to a multitude of people and to supervise the manner in which this idea is being put into practice.

Therefore, from any and every viewpoint, the organization is only a necessary evil. At best it is only a means of reaching certain ends. The worst happens when it becomes an end in itself.

Since the world produces more mechanical than intelligent beings, it will always be easier to develop the form of an organization than its substance; that is to say, the ideas which it is meant to serve.

The march of any idea which strives towards practical fulfilment, and in particular those ideas which are of a reformatory character, may be roughly sketched as follows:

A creative idea takes shape in the mind of somebody who thereupon feels himself called upon to transmit this idea to the world. He propounds his faith before others and thereby gradually wins a certain number of followers. This direct and personal way of promulgating one’s ideas among one’s contemporaries is the most natural and the most ideal.

But as the movement develops and secures a large number of followers it gradually becomes impossible for the original founder of the doctrine on which the movement is based to carry on his propaganda personally among his innumerable followers and at the same time guide the course of the movement.

According as the community of followers increases, direct communication between the head and the individual followers becomes impossible.

This intercourse must then take place through an intermediary apparatus introduced into the framework of the movement. Thus ideal conditions of inter-communication cease, and organization has to be introduced as a necessary evil. Small subsidiary groups come into existence, as in the political movement, for example, where the local groups represent the germ-cells out of which the organization develops later on.

But such sub-divisions must not be introduced into the movement until the authority of the spiritual founder and of the school he has created are accepted without reservation.

Otherwise the movement would run the risk of becoming split up by divergent doctrines. In this connection too much emphasis cannot be laid on the importance of having one geographic centre as the chief seat of the movement. Only the existence of such a seat or centre, around which a magic charm such as that of Mecca or Rome is woven, can supply a movement with that permanent driving force which has its sources in the internal unity of the movement and the recognition of one head as representing this unity.

When the first germinal cells of the organization are being formed care must always be taken to insist on the importance of the place where the idea originated.

The creative, moral and practical greatness of the place whence the movement went forth and from which it is governed must be exalted to a supreme symbol, and this must be honoured all the more according as the original cells of the movement become so numerous that they have to be regrouped into larger units in the structure of the organization. When the number of individual followers became so large that direct personal contact with the head of the movement was out of the question, then we had to form those first local groups.

As those groups multiplied to an extraordinary number it was necessary to establish higher cadres into which the local groups were distributed. Examples of such cadres in the political organization are those of the region (GAU) and the district (BEZIRK).

Though it may be easy enough to maintain the original central authority over the lowest groups, it is much more difficult to do so in relation to the higher units of organization which have now developed. And yet we must succeed in doing this, for this is an indispensable condition if the unity of the movement is to be guaranteed and the idea of it carried into effect.

Finally, when those larger intermediary organizations have to be combined in new and still higher units it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain over them the absolute upremacy of the original seat of the movement and the school attached to it.

Consequently the mechanical forms of an organization must only be introduced if and in so far as the spiritual authority and the ideals of the central seat of the organization are shown to be firmly established. In the political sphere it may often happen that this supremacy can be maintained only when the movement has taken over supreme political control of the nation.