It took but little time to arouse my indignation when I saw the miserable comedy which was being unfolded before my eyes.
Democracy in the West to-day is the forerunner of Marxism, which would be inconceivable without Demo¬ cracy. It is the feeding-ground of that world pestilence which is enabled to develop there. In its outward form of expression—the Parliamentary system—it appeared as “a monstrosity of filth and fire” (eine Spottgeburt aus Dreck und Feuer), in which, to my regret, the fire seemed to have burnt itself out only too quickly.
I am more than grateful to fortune for putting this question before me in Vienna for examination, since I fear that in Germany I could not then have so easily answered the question. If I had learned to know the absurdity of that institution, called Parliament, for the first time in Berlin, I might perhaps have fallen into the opposite extreme, and with no apparent good reason have ranged myself with those in whose eyes the good of the People and Empire lay in exalting the Imperial idea, and who thus set themselves blindly in opposition to mankind and the times.
In Austria that was impossible. It was not so easy there to slip from one mistake into another. If Parlia¬ ment was worth nothing, the Habsburgers were worth still less—not more in any case.
Parliament decides upon something, be the con¬ sequence ever so devastating ; no single man is respon¬ sible, no one can be called to account for it. For can it be called taking responsibility for a Government which has done all the harm merely to retire from office ? Or for the coalition to be changed, or even for Parliament to dissolve ? For how can a varying majority of men ever be held responsible at all ? Is not every conception of responsibility closely connected with personality ? But can one in practice indict the leading personage in a Government for dealings, the existence and carrying out of which is to be set down solely to the account of the will and pleasure of a large assemblage of men ?