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In Balance
From The Militant, Vol. VI No. 13, 27 February 1933, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
There need be no doubt that the millions of German workers who have definitely expressed their sympathy and support either for the Communist party or for the Socialist party instinctively feel that Fascism represents the Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, threatening their organizations with destruction, threatening their even now miserable standard of living and threatening their very lives. There are examples every day of such an instinctive feeling. But compared to the immensity of the needs of the situation there is passivity. A dead hand of paralysis still holds the working class in its grasp. Its organizations are either unable or their leaders unwilling to act. At times it seems as if the paralysis and the passivity is breaking. Last Sunday the social-democrats called a demonstration at the Lustgarden in Berlin. It became a monster turnout. Otto Wels, after many radical phrases declared for a “non-aggression pact” with the Communists. It was only a further step to sabotage the genuine united front; but that declaration alone nevertheless expresses the increasing pressure for unity of action which these leaders feel upon them from their own mass following. Again yesterday afternoon, February 10, a gigantic funeral procession wended its way through Berlin to the cemetery of Friederichsfelde in honor of the three class victims Bermer, Kollatesh and Schultz, who were murdered by the brown-shirted bandits. Despite the police prohibition over 100,000 workers marched through the streets. Without a united front being formally established the S.P.. the Y.S.L., the Reichsbanner and the C.P. officially participated. The Reichsbanner spokesman appealed to the workers of his columns for common struggle with the Communist workers and for a united front of action. The Y.S.L. spokesman admonished his followers to make all possible sacrifice for the establishment of a fighting united front. Comrade Pieck. in the name of the C.P., called upon all the workers to join the united front. Yet the party fails to act, fails to organize the united front.
There are radiant rays of hope when one feels the throb of such mighty marching columns. The broad shoulders of these husky German proletarians, within each row almost touched one another. Their faces were solemn but showed distinct determination. What a splendid picture of class solidarity. Power is expressed in these heavy footsteps.
But the defeat of Fascism in Germany is an enormous task. Even such powerful demonstrations can only be the small beginnings. Why then are these strong hands paralyzed? That is the question of the position of the parties, of policy and of leadership. Never before has the treasonable role of the Socialist party bureaucracy been so clearly revealed as at this moment. Since their betrayal of the revolution in 1918 and their murder of the best working class fighters they have made a parliamentary shambles even out of their own party’s social democratic aims in order to fully re-establish capitalism. Thus they prepared the road for Fascism. And in the development of this brown shirted menace they deliberately fostered the illusions that this would be only another affair to be conquered by ballots and to be conquered by the forces of the “iron front” including all the supporters of Hindenburg. They still speak in the name of this “iron front”. As a matter of fact the social democrats are now all that is left of it. But, and that is important, millions of workers still follow these traitors, who only out of fear for their own hides simultaneously give lip service to the slogans of struggle against Fascism. Yet that is precisely the reason why the formation of the united front of the entire working class becomes the key to the situation which the Communist forces must take hold of. It is the means to defeat Fascism, it is the means to finally unmask the traitors. This the Left Opposition has demanded since the beginning of the Fascist menace. In this our small forces have attempted to show the way.
The Communist workers, however, were also unprepared. They were lulled into a false underestimation of the sinister menace, into the false security that “We come after the Fascists”. They were misdirected by the slogans of “national liberation” and of a “people’s revolution”. They were sharply divided from their class brothers by the false concepts of “social Fascism”. They were split away in small sections from the mass organizations by the criminal policy of independent revolutionary trade unions. The position of the party leadership to date has represented a criminal capitulation in face of the existing menace. When Hitler received his nomination, it threw out the slogan of the general strike in a sort of hit or miss fashion and naturally the response was almost nil. The party leadership set up phantom united front organs. For example in Berlin on the fateful night of Jan. 30, a conference attended by more than 2,000 delegates convened to take measures against the Fascist danger. It listened to much oratory, decided to meet the next day to organize the general strike and collapsed. It represented in reality nobody outside of the party. The general strategy of these Stalinist leaders has since sunk to the level of isolated demonstrations, mass meetings, demonstrative strikes of one hour or two hours, one day in one smaller factory or small town, another day in another and in some places merely economic strikes against certain special measures. This strategy, or lack of strategy to be more exact, could only demonstrate the frightful weakness of the party position and particularly its separation from the workers in the industries. The party’s own membership composition is about 80 percent unemployed. The party’s inability to lead and to mobilize masses became sadly revealed. Such is the balance sheet to date of the party Stalinist leadership.
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