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crowd and arresting and beating those taking part in the demonstration! An old sick woman who was carrying a little flag with the inscription: "We demand attention for the blind," and was arrested on the spot and the flag was roughly wrested out of her hand.
The first thing that strikes one in modern Germany is the absence of any uniform system. You cannot state definitely which political system is now prevalent in Germany. What is Germany at the present time? Is it a Republic? If so, what republic—a bourgeois, a proletarian, or a republic dominated by generals? Or, do we witness here some peculiar relics of the old monarchy? Even now I have seen in public institutions the portrait of William II. hung in the most prominent place. And this does not seem to shock anybody. "Respectable" people hold that William suffered unjustly; the bourgeoisie has preserved all its former respect for this monarch, and his portrait continues to adorn public institutions.
At the same time the condition of affairs differs very largely in various parts of Germany. Thus in Bavaria and in Munich, its capital, the most rabid reaction now reigns, whereas in Prussia and its capital, Berlin, there is comparatively more liberty. In Prussia, in Berlin, the Communists may print at least one paper—the "Rote Fahne." Nothing of the kind could appear in Bavaria. Every Communist or Left Independent is arrested there, and the White Guard gangs are being openly and unrestrictedly organised. Only a couple of weeks ago, when there was trouble brewing in Berlin, many people were of opinion that the White Guards would move from Munich to Berlin in order to repeat the Kapp "putch" there. Bavaria and Munich are now the strongholds of White-Guard reaction. And if in the near future there will be a new march on Berlin, similar to that which took place last spring during Kapp's coup d'etat, there is no doubt that it will proceed from Bavaria, which at the present time is somewhat like the Promised Land for all the German White Guards.
But there are even more glaring instances of this absence of uniformity; not only various parts of Germany but even of individual towns are totally unlike each other with regard to political conditions. The present bourgeois Menshevik
