in the last twenty months casts considerable susp1c1on upon the sincerity of those who are exploiting it in the Press, in the pulpit, and on the platform. Nevertheless, the mass of the people have accepted it as a new Gospel, and believe in it with all the fervour of fresh converts. Their fault is not insincerity, but sheer ignorance and incapacity for clear thinking.
The truth is that what is called "Prussian" Militarism is exactly the same as the Militarism of other capitalist countries—only better organised and more efficient. There was a time, it is true, when it was an essentially Junker institution. That was when Prussia-Germany was still an agricultural country with preponderately agrarian interests. Prusso-German domestic and foreign policies were then dictated by these interests, and the Junkers, as the landed aristocracy dominating all the institutions of the country, also used the national military organisation for the advancement of those interests. But forty years of economic evolution have not passed in vain. The Junkers still hold the chief political power in the land. They still control the army as they control the main civil departments of the Prusso-German State. But the chief economic power is no longer theirs, because the main interests of Prusso-Germany are no longer agrarian. A powerful bourgeoisie, industrial, commercial, and professional, has arisen in Germany, and it is their economic interests which are paramount in the State. The State may still be manned by members of the Junker class, but it is run all the same in the interests of the big bourgeoisie. Had it been different, there would have long ago been a revolution in Prussia-Germany similar to those which France and England had undergone more than a hundred years earlier. But the Junkers were and are no "backwoodsmen." They were and are men of the world and of business, and they were left in possession of the actual exercise of power on condition that they did the bourgeoisie's will. They accepted the bargain in the same way and in the same spirit as our own "old nobility," together with the Crown, accepted a similar one after their successive defeats in 1688 and 1832; only in the case of Germany the process was much quicker owing to the greater readiness of the German bourgeoisie to leave the actual political and military power in the hands of their new allies. This, in its turn, was due to two circumstances: on the one hand, the German bourgeoisie was anxious to get
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