The Election of 1865
Never before had the VSVR entered into an election campaign in such a feverish atmosphere of hatred and fear. In recent months events in the Republic had spiralled out of control and both the Marxists and Anarchists were desperate to taste the blood of their counterrevolutionary counterparts. Many feared that moderation was by this stage already dead alongside the terminally weak German Socialist faction however this assumption was wrong. With just weeks before the election Engels of the Marxists, Necazian of the Anarchists and the much respected independent Liebknecht joined together to form the United Cooperationists. This late development totally transformed the political landscape just in time for the 1865 election.
The first round of voting represented half of the entire process. The People’s Party would contribute 50% of the election and the workers themselves the other 50%.
Within the party the new force that was the UC secured a tightly contested victory. Although they had the smallest portion of the vote ever secured by a winning faction (they would have come 3rd with the same percentage in the previous election). Whilst it is easy to argue that the swing of support away from the traditionally large factions (the Marxists and Anarchists) towards the moderates (the UC and the German Socialists) within the party was powered by the demand for peace many still point to the fact that around ½ the Party voted for civil war as a reason that compromise would be impossible. Even if a narrow majority of the People’s Party was united in a desire for peace how could they possibly hold on to the other half that wanted war?
The results of the new facet of VSVR elections, the Workers’ Vote, were even more intriguing than the result of the People’s Party’s vote. The Anarchists, a faction traditionally lacking in mass support, narrowly overcame the Marxists to become the single most popular faction with the proletariat. The Marxists on the other hand saw a dismal showing in a reform that they had pushed through, believing that they would forever retain their popular lead over their opponents. Sadly for the United Cooperationists the speed at which they formed meant they were still rather obscure to the majority of the populace, it was only through their tireless campaigning that they secured such a large portion of the vote. Finally the German Socialists were remarkable only in the fact that they secured almost identical scores in both the party and Workers’ votes.
The reasons for the swing towards the Anarchists and away from the Marxists with the workers are numerous. Firstly the withdrawal of Karl Marx from the Central Committee robbed the Marxist faction of its iconic symbol and greatest asset. Marx was the more respected and trusted figure in the entire Republic and he was sorely missed as his faction scored disappointingly with both workers and party members. The ridicule of the pro-Marxist state paper and the rise in popularity of the unashamedly pro-Anarchist and anti-Marxist Anarchist Zeal almost contributed a great deal towards the shift. Whilst Blanqui did have a wide base of support he was a figure that greatly alienated a large section of the Marxist electorate, the majority of these voters rushed towards Engels’ UC. This created a strange situation where the UC had a largely Marxist base of support but a much more mixed leadership with the majority of its support within the party itself coming from ex-Anarchists. There may also have been a general desire for change after 10 years of Marxist rule and one cannot ever ignore the looming threat of civil war that was the single most important issue in this election.
The final result saw the United Cooperationists secure victory by 0.08%. A ludicrously fine margin. By the laws of the Republic Friedrich Engels was now the 3rd Chairman of the United Socialist People’s Republic. Yet things would not be so simple for Engels and the UC.
The UC might have secured political victory but all the power rested in the hands of the Marxists and Anarchists. And neither was happy to give up.
On January 8th, the morning after the result was made public the Anarchist Zeal opened with the headline ‘’Anarchist Victory!’’ the paper made accusation of electoral fraud and refused to recognise the result. Meanwhile Engels requested the other faction’s leaderships to admit defeat in order to avoid any unpleasantries. Lassalle was quick to throw his support behind Engels in public yet in private he warned him that the German Socialists would not fight to protect the UC government. From both the Marxists and the Anarchists Engels was responded to with silence.
The for the two radical factions was that would have been happy to go to war to depose the other if they had won neither was willing to openly attack a neutral government. Instead for the Marxist-Centralists the primary issue was not seizing power but preventing the Anarchists from doing so. Having secured a significantly larger slice of support from the workers than the UC and losing by just 0.08% the Anarchists had the right to be aggrieved that it was Engels and not Bakunin who was preparing for his inauguration as Chairman and subtle movements were made towards the mobilisation of the Anarchist militia ...