Workers' Councils

GA 331a

The Workers' Councils of Württemberg III

Documents on the termination of cooperation, June 1919

June 18, 1919
Ludwig von Polzer-Hoditz in a letter to [Walter Johannes Stein]
Document archive at the Goetheanum

Hotel Marquardt Wednesday, June 18, 1919 Stuttgart

Dear friend!

Unfortunately, I have no good news to report; one could say that the matter is more than doubtful. The bourgeoisie has failed again, so that the necessary formation of a cultural council is encountering the greatest difficulties. Without supplementing the works councils by emphasizing the separation of spirit, we would be sailing into a two-tier system, which would be tantamount to Bolshevism, which under no circumstances can be allowed to happen on our part.

The day before yesterday [June 16 = June 15], I drove to Tübingen by car; several professors had been invited to a meeting with Pastor Häusler. It was disheartening. Blume is failing more and more.

But now there is something else. The day before yesterday [June 76], our workers, those of the labor committee, were summoned before a tribunal of their party, that is, the U.S.P. Much depended on this; they feared expulsion from the party, but still hoped for victory over the party.

Yesterday evening [June 77], there was a committee meeting at 6 p.m. that lasted until after 9 p.m. The people reported, feeling like victors, since they had not been expelled from the party the day before yesterday, but it turned out that we were dealing with a defeat, since they had actually capitulated to the party instead of strongly representing their point of view, that is, that of the threefold social order. Yesterday it became clear that the party was more important to them than the threefold social order, that they wanted to make it more of a party issue, that they wanted to push the others out, that even Dr. Steiner should no longer speak to the others. All this came out in the undertone.

Afterwards, the four of us sat down with Dr. Steiner, and he said that this was the beginning of the end.

I then stayed for dinner with Alice Kinkel, where I witnessed terrible pessimism on the part of the doctor. He said: "You have not had any pleasant experiences so far; the next ones you will experience will not be any better. Nothing can be done with the leaders, especially of the socialist parties; we should have won over the masses more quickly and continuously before the leaders intervened, then our workers on the committee would have continued to go along with us, but now they are far too afraid of their leaders, and that includes the press people." He thinks that our [workers] are also leading us by the nose. At the moment, I am not quite sure what should happen, nor what I should actually do. He [Rudolf Steiner] always says to me: “You'll stay here for a few more days!” and similar things. I think he wants to gradually lead me to something; in any case, he wants me to stay here.

In his public lecture the day before yesterday [June 76], he spoke of the imminent great spiritual conflict between the Orient and the Occident, of the impulses that will come from a half-starved India, as if it were no longer a matter of Central Europe. He said that a people that puts up with all this deserves nothing better.

Nevertheless, external work is continuing calmly for the time being.

These lines are only for [my] closest friends, [Emil] Hamburger, [Eugen] Kolisko, [Franz] Thomastik, [Josef] van Leer.

Warm regards to you all

Yours [signed] Ludwig P.

Things are not going well in Munich.

June 19, 1919
The Working Committee of the Association for the Threefold Social Order to the State Committee of the Workers' Council of Württemberg
Document Main State Archive Stuttgart, E 135a, Bü 212

Association for the Threefold Social Order Stuttgart, June 19, 1919 Champignystraße 17

To the State Committee of the Workers' Council Stuttgart

Neues Schloß

We would like to inform you that next Tuesday, June 24, at 7 p.m., a meeting of the workers' and employees' committees and the existing works councils of Greater Stuttgart and the surrounding area will take place in the ballroom of the trade union building, to which we would like to invite you and your representatives.

The topic of the evening will be the works councils and the position of the parties on these works councils, and we kindly ask you to make it possible to attend this important event.

The speaker for the evening will be Dr. Steiner, who will, however, speak relatively briefly in order to allow sufficient time for discussion. This will be an opportunity to clarify any misunderstandings about the efforts of the Association for Social Threefolding.

The Association for the Threefolding of the Social Organism

On behalf of the Working Committee: [sign.] Kühn

June 20, 1919
Hans Kühn to the local groups of the Threefold Social Order Association
Circular No. 7 from the Association for the Threefold Social Order to its members

In order to respond to numerous requests, I would like to mention here a few things about how we established contact with the working class and how we maintain this contact. No matter how much we ourselves undertook with workers' councils and parties, we were frequently rejected, and in proletarian circles simply because we ourselves were not members of the party or the workers' council. However, after one of our friends was able to interest one or two of his colleagues, we formed a circle around these two as soon as possible and did not appear in public for a while, so that trust could be established before we showed ourselves again to a small circle of workers. This small circle grew very quickly, as more and more reasonable people were brought in, while some who were less interested dropped out. However, a fairly solid core has emerged, which, it is fair to say, consists of the best minds among the Stuttgart workers. Meetings are now held regularly with these people in the presence of Dr. Steiner, in which our worker friends take a keen interest. Invitations bearing the signatures of our working-class friends also led to regular meetings with the workers' and employees' committees, and about a dozen works councils have now been formed, while the same number are currently in the process of being formed. We have always arranged for all committee members to take their seats on the podium at public lectures attended mainly by middle-class citizens, while at lectures or meetings exclusively for proletarians, we sit in the audience and leave the committee table to our working-class friends. Experience has taught us that it is absolutely necessary to take such small customs into consideration, because the mistrust of the working class, which has been cultivated for decades, is not so easy to overcome and could all too easily be rekindled by a misstep. Only a few outside friends take part in the proletarian meetings, but no members of the local Anthroposophical Society, because this has been expressly requested by the workers. In general, we give our worker friends as much control as possible.

In doing so, we must be aware of one danger, namely that too little attention is paid to the fundamentals of the threefold social order and that our movement could easily become a party issue, for example in relation to the works councils. On the other hand, experience has unfortunately shown that our worker friends show relatively little interest in the equally necessary efforts to establish a cultural council or an independent spiritual organization that must counterbalance independent economic life, so that we must be very careful not to end up with a one-sided result. The separation of economic life from the state without the simultaneous separation of cultural life, i.e., a two-part rather than a three-part structure, as is being sought by some other parties, would mean the opposite of what is necessary and, from our point of view, would be an absolute failure. You can see from this how necessary it is that importance be attached to the separation of spiritual life in other places as well, but in this regard I would ask you to wait for the next circular, which will report on the important Cultural Council meeting taking place in the next few days and the path subsequently taken towards the formation of a Cultural Council.

Hans Kühn in his memoirs
Hans Kühn, Dreigliederungs-Zeit, Dornach 1978, p. 77

It must have been during these days [late July/early August 1919] that Rudolf Steiner granted an audience to a leading Spartacist, Gert [= Felix] Haupt, at his request, an audience that took place at midnight at Landhausstraße 70. As always, the doctor sat in the Red Room, where he gave advice to anyone who wanted it. He had to convince himself that the influence of the workers' councils was waning. Nevertheless, the questioner was deeply impressed by this encounter.