Betrayals That Opened Door for Hitler

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Minister of Defence Noske (centre! and President Eber: irighr loske: chat LA common sight in Germany at the time, soldiers The magnitude of the feat inflicted on the German irking class by Hitler's zure of power can perhaps st be gauged by taking stock • the organisations of the arman labour movement Dr to 1933.

The Social Democratic Party (D) had, at the time, over one lion members, and published 6 daily papers, 18 weeklies and e monthly theoretical journal. The German Trade Union Fedation (ADGB), which was closely led to the SPD published merous journals of its own and imed a membership of some five lion.

The Communist Party of ттаду (KPD), was then the Best party in the Communist bernational, with the sole deption of the Soviet party, and the end of 1932 had a memberp of 350,000.

MILLION MEMBERS

It published almost a score of ly papers, several weeklies and i own theoretical journal. And at : peak, its own Red Trade Union ganisation (RGO) could claim D,000 members.

Thus between the KPD, SPD d their respective trade union ranisations, there were, allowing i the inevitable overlapping, #t six million members. At ction time the two groups could aster an additional six to seven lion votes.

Indeed, in the last "free" actions of Weimar Germany -ose of November 1932-they ind workers in discussion. together polled 1.5 million votes more than the Nazis.

Yet within months of those elections both the SPD and the KPD were outlawed; their membership was attacked and imprisoned, and the trade union movement they controlled had been • utterly crushed, leaving the German working class atomised and defenceless in the face the onslaughts of big business.

MAJOR BLOW

The reasons for this truly catastrophic defeat can only be found in an analysis of the objective conditions prevailing in Germany from World War I onwards, and in an analysis of the criminally mistaken policies pursued by both the SPD and the KPD during the same period.

The first major blow inflicted on the German working class by its own leadership was on August 4, 1914, when, in clear violation of its declared policy, the SPD decided to the Keichstag (parliament).

14 SPD deputies, led by Karl Liebknecht, opposed this policy in the SPD Reichstag fraction, although in the actual Reichstag debate they maintained party discipline and voted for war credits.

But Liebknecht's opposition persisted, and it was this which paved the way for the formation of the KPD in early 1919.

The establishment of the Communist Party occurred too late, however, to prevent the bourgeoisie from crushing the revolution which broke out in Germany at the end of 1918. New Yorkers throng Wall Street during the stock market collapse, 1929.

Under the influence of events in Russia, the German working class overthrew the Hohenzollern monarchy and established republic in its place.

But that republic had at its head an SPD government led by the right winger Ebert-a government whose sole aim was the stifling of the revolution and its containmnet within the straightjacket of bourgeois property relations.

From the very outset, Ebertaided by other SPD leaders, Noske and Scheidemann-actively colluded with the German high command in putting down the SPD intervention in the soldiers' and workers' councils which sprang up at the end of 1918, ensured that the German revolution would be wedded to a parliamentary road, and would not follow the road mapped out by the previous year, by the Bolsheviks in Russia.

The lack of a revolutionary party in Germany at this stage meant that the SPD's task was so ember-December 1918, it was decided by 400 votes to 50 to establish a parliamentary regime in Germany.

It wasn't until two weeks after this Congress that the first decisive steps were taken towards the formation of the Communist Party.

This development was thrown back when terrorists from the SPD-backed Freikorps murdered Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg on January 13, 1919.

The elections for the Constituent Assembly which followed gave the SPD and the USPD (the Independent Social Democrats, led by Kautsky) 45.5% of the vote. These groups then formed a "centre-left" coalition with the German Democratic Party and the Catholic Centre PUTSCH This was known as the Weimar Coalition, and it was to rule Weimar Germany for the first troubled years of its history.

But even though the bourgeoisie had managed to defeat the revolution, its problems were far from over.

1920 saw the Kapp putschan attempted right wing coup led by the reactionary General Yon Luttwitz. 1921 saw the KPD inspired "March Action"-an absurdly adventurist attempt to seize power which almost led to their destruction; that same year saw Hitler's shock troops, the Ordnertruppe, (i.e. Service tor Order, later known as the Storm Troops-Sturm Abteilung, or SA) attack workers' meetings; and in 1922 the Weimar's foreign minister, Kattenau, was assassinated.

UNHOLY ALLIANCE

The main reasons for such instability were two-fold. In the first place, the Weimar coalition was born of an unholy alliance between social democracy and the bourgeoisie against the revolution of 1918. • As early as 1919, the bourgeoisie were no longer in favour of the alliance, since its original motive -stemming a revolutionary movement of the proletariat-was no longer visibly present.

The bourgeoisie were now looking to ditch the SPD and make a new alliance with more right wing Secondly, the Weimar Coalition was the product of a cramped and frustrated democratic revolution, against absolute monarchy, and as such was inherently unstable, since it was only a socialist revolution which could properly solve the problems posed by Germany's late arrival on the historical scene.

REPARATIONS

It was this lateness which had in fact propelled Germany into the 1914-18 imperialist war, in a do-ordie effort to secure a share of the world market for its own greedy bourgeoisie.

Defeat in the war had merely exacerbated those difficulties, for in the treaty of Versailles of 1913, the victorious countries fleeced Germany in an attempt to keep her perpetually subservient to them.

At the start of 1923 the French bourgeoisie ordered its troops into the industrial Ruhr area of Germany, because Germany had delaulted on the payment of reparations stipulated at Versailles.

The entire country was suddenly plunged into a savage crisis: with senior officers ofthe Barariar troops. runaway inflation produced hundreds of bankruptcies; massive strikes in the Ruhr and other industrial centres provoked political frenzy and complete loss of confidence in the government.

The Nazis and other ultra right wing forces grew rapidly, but among the working class large scale support developed for the KPD as à force capable of resolvin 3 the crisis through revolutionary m eans.

By the autumn of 1923 a truly revolutionary situation had developed which could have brought the KPD to power.

•But the KPD leadership, now under the supervision of a Comintern led by Stalin, Zinovie and Co. hesitated, vacillated and finally missed the opportunity for the seizure of power.

The crisis in Germany passed; and with American aid the German government managed to restabilize the economy, and therewith their own political authority.

STABILITY

The years 1924-29 were the years of greatest political stability for the Weimar Republic. Plans drawn up by American capitalism under Dawes and Young ensured that Germany was now thoroughly

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SOCTALIST PRESS Metresier I: Jane. I5 on American rations, and that as long as all was well there, all would be well in Germany.

• Elections held in May 1928 gave the SPD 29.8% of the vote, compared with 26% in December 1924.

The Communist vote rose from 9% to 10.6%, while that of the Nazi's fell from 3% to 2.6%.

The SPD was again the largest party in the Reichstag, and after four years out of office was called upon to form a government.

FURTHER RIGHT

This time, however, they went even further to the right than they had in 1919, and allied themselves with the People's Party (DVP) in what was known as the Great Coalition.

The Social Democrat Hermann Muller became Chancellor, and presided over the coalition . Ior the next 21 months.

1928 marked another fateful event for Germany and its working class. In that year, the Communist International proclaimed its absurd, ultra-left doctrine of the "third period" • The Comintern, which in 1927 had seen the expulsion at Stalin's instigation of Trotsky and the Russian Left Opposition from its ranks, presented a hopelessly schematic analysis.

The 'first period' (1917-24) of capitalist crisis and revolutionary upsurge had, they declared, been succeeded by a 'second period' of capitalist stability, lasting from 1925-28.

period -the 'third period' , in which nothing but capitalist crises and proletarian revolutions were to be expected.

'THIRD PERIOD'

And whereas the 'second period' had been one of right wing opporțunism in which Social Democrats were uncritically wooed (as in the Anglo-Russian Committee of 192527), the 'third period' was now marked by an ultra-left sectarianism which deemed. that the Social Democrats had no place in the workers' movement, and were in reality a mere wing of fascism"social fascists" • This violent swing to the left was in fact dictated not by these feeble theoretical considerations, but by material developments within the Soviet Union itself, where Stalin in a belated, bureaucratic zig-zag of economic policy, was now desperately intent on policies of super-industrialisation; forced collectivisation and the infamous use of the Red Army to dispossess prosperous peasants until then pampered by the Stalinist But the left turn internationally was given a "theoretical" rationale by an article Stalin had written in 1924, in which he argued that:

"Fascism is the bourgeoisie's fighting organisation that relies on the active support of Social Democracy. Social Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism ... These organisations do not negate, but supplement each other. They are not antipodes, they are twins.

Stalin, Works, Vol 6, p. 294.

The logic of this position was that the policy of the united front, elaborated by the Fourth Congress of the Comintern was completely mistaken.

Since Social Democracy was merely fascism in disguise, Communists could undertake no joint work with it to defeat undisguised fascism"-i.e. Hitler and the Nazis.

UNITED FRONT

Occasional actions by local groups of the KPD and SPD could be carried out, (this was the "united front from below") but it was completely inadmissable for the KPD leadership to approach the SPD leadership with a view to national joint action.

In contradistinction to this rubbish, Trotsky called for the consistent application of the united front tactic, pointing out that the basis for joint actions did exist.

Fascism, he argued, meant the destruction of all working class organisations-regardless of whether they were controlled by Social Democrats or Communists.

Fascism's historic role consisted not just in destroying the vanguard of the working class, the Communist Party, but in fragmenting and atomizing the class itself, holding it in a state of forced disunity, and allowing big-business to jack up the rate of exploitation unhindered.

And to do that, fascism had to destroy the defensive organisations of the working class as well, namely its trade unions.

Social Democracy, he pointed out, rested on these organisations as much as did the Communists.

Fascism in power would be obliged to destroy Social Democracy also-despite the fact that the SPD were already Hitler with military leaders in the early 1920s.

completely subservient to the German bourgeoisie.

To implement the united front policy did not mean that the KPD's criticisms of SPD policy should cease. On the contrary, the United Front meant making those criticisms more effective, by éxposing in practice the role played by the SPD in paving the way for a Nazi victory.

"March separately, but strike together"-that was how Trotsky conceived of the United Front.

And, he added, joint practical actions would not only crush the fascist movement, but could decisiyely change the balance of forces towards the Communists, thereby raising the possibility of The SPD armed wing, the Reichsbanner their striking out on the proletarian revolution.

His pleas for the implementation of such policies met with little or no response, however. He himself was denounced as a "left socialfascist" whose aim was the destruction of the KPD and the overthrow of the Soviet Union.

The grim reality, unfortunately, is that it was Stalin's policy which led to the annihilation of the KPD, and which left the USSR almost completely defenceless when Hitler invaded it in August 1941.

The economic crisis of 1929 CHEW vermany wack ulu instability. By 1930 unemployment had reached the 3 million mark; by 1931, 4 million were out of work, and ás desperate American capitalists clawed back the loans they had made during 1924-28, big banks failed and small businesses were wiped out.

NoT was there any political equilibrium. KPD membership increased significantly-despite its suicidal tactics of splitting the unions in pursuit of its "social fascist" line.

UNPRECEDENTED But more alarmingly the fascist movement began to grow on an unprecedented scale. With large financial support from big business the Nazi's armed wing-the SAgrew until they numbered 100,000 by the end of 1930.

In the face of the worsening economic crisis the Great Coalition proved not so great, and Muller's cabinet resigned in March 1930.

It was to be the last Weimar Cabinet to rest on a parliamentary majority. The monarchist general Hindenburg, who was then President of the Republic, intervened and appointed Heinrich Bruning of the Centre Party as Chancellor with instructions to form a more right wing Bruning was unable to get the support of majority in the Reichstag and so decided to rule by "emergency decree"-a device which the SPD had introduced into the constitution to use against others, but which they now found unexpectedly directed against themselves.

REJECTED In July, Bruning's emergency decrees relating to the budget were rejected, and in this situation Hindenburg dissolved the Reichstag and ordered elections for 14 September 1930.

1110 suuwou from May 1928. The SPD vote fell by 67o, while the KPD vote rose by an impressive 40%-although their combined percentage of the total vote fell from 40.4% in 1928 to 37.6% in 1930.

But the outstanding change was the enormous increase in the Nazi vote (by some 700%), from over 800,000 votes in 1928 to 6.4 million in 1930. Clearly the fascists were attracting considerable support, and a correct strategy to defeat them was now more urgent than ever.

But astonishingly, the KPD felt able to call the election a victory for the Communists and the "beginning of the end" for the Nazis. The Comintern completely endorsed this judgement.

Frightened by the Nazi upsurge in the September elections, the SPD took a further step on the road to their own destruction by deciding on 18 October 1930, to tolerate the Bruning government as "a lesser evil"

This decision meant that Bruning was to hold the Chancellorship for a further twenty-six months, and although all his Cabinets were minority governments, SPD "toleration" meant that many of his measures were put into effect.

Stalin Such measures, designed chiefly to stabilise the German economy at the expense of the working class, were highly unpopular. And this unpopularity was seized upon by the Nazis, who were attracting more support from big business, and who were daily becoming more audacious in their attacks on working class opponents.

1930 ended with the fascists cock-a-hoop at their electoral successes, and with the working class in increasing disarray-the KPD blithely disregarding the realities around them; the SPI preaching restraint and "non-provocation"

Clearly, any continuation of such policies would allow the Nazis to stroll to power without the slightest resistance from the working class.

At the end of 1930 no one could imagine that this most pessimistic of all prognoses would turn out closer to the truth than all the hare-brained schemes of the KPD and SPD put together.

----- pull-quotes -----

support German capitalism's war effort by voting for war credits in

much: easier, and at the First Congress of Soldiers' and Workers' Councils, held in Berlin in Nov-

This 'second period', it was now ordained, had given way to another