The German Defeat Of October 1923
The German events of 1923 form the breaking point that inaugurates a new post-Leninist period of the Comintern. Lenin had fallen ill in the middle of 1922, and except for a brief period at the end of 1922 was no longer in active work and available to give his invaluable guidance in matters both internal and international. Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev were at the head of affairs. When the German events matured in 1923 Trotsky was already out of the secret council of this “triumvirate” as it was popularly known.
After the occupation of the Ruhr region by French troops early in 1923 a revolutionary ferment swiftly grew in Germany. By summer, the German bourgeoisie was in a hopeless position and a revolutionary situation existed. But neither the German Communist Party nor the leader-ship of the Comintern realised this. Stalin wrote as follows to Zinoviev and Bukharin in August 1923 about the situation in Germany:
“Should the Communists (at the present stage) strive to seize power without the social democracy—are they ripe for this already—this, in my opinion, is the question ... If now in Germany, the power, so to say, will fall and the Communists will seize it, they will fall through with a crash.... Certainly the Fascists are not napping, but it is more advantageous to us for the Fascists to attack first: this will rally the whole working class around the Com-munists. (Germany is not Bulgaria). Besides, the Fas-cists in Germany, according to the data we have, are weak. In my estimation the Germans must be restrained, and not spurred on.” These were in fact the views not only of Stalin but of his whole faction. The favourable opportunity passed. It was only at the end of September that the leadership of the Comintern became belatedly aware of what had happened. Even then the instructions to the German Communists were to enter the Social-Democratic Government in Saxony. The revolutionary situation “veered round to its opposite” and the offensive was taken by the Reaction. 9,000 workers were put on trial. Wage-cuts and increased hours followed, and the German events of 1923 ended in a bigger defeat than in 1921.
The 5th Congress met in June 1924 eight months after the defeat of the German proletariat. Its duty was to analyse the causes of the defeat and draw the necessary conclusions from it. Zinoviev and Bukharin threw the blame entirely on the shoulders of the Communist Party of Germany and absolved the leadership of the Comintern from blame. The Russian Opposition led by Trotsky which stated that the defeat was serious and that the Ger-man proletariat would take time to recover, was accused of a lack of faith in the proximity of the German and European revolutions, Trotsky himself was called a liquidator.[1] But the influence of the Communist Party of Germany declined in the following years, while the Social-Democrats who had been losing their influence in 1923, grew. It was not till after four years (till 1928) that the German prole-tariat began to advance again. The correctness of the criticism of the Russian Opposition was proved to the hilt.
But the leadership of the Comintern refused to realise that the post-war revolutionary wave on the continent of Europe was receding. Throughout 1924 they kept re-peating that Germany and Europe were on the verge of revolution. It is not surprising therefore, that the years 1924-25 were years of Left mistakes and putschist experi-ments. The Bulgarian putschist experiment of September 1923 and the Esthonian armed uprising of December 1924, both of which resulted in crushing defeats, were the direct result of the wrong policy of the leadership of the Comin-tern.
It was in these years that Stalin first invented his theory of Social Fascism. When it is able to do so, we know, the bourgeoisie rules through the form of government known as bourgeois democracy, utilising the social-democracy to deceive the masses. It is when the bourgeoisie is faced with an imminent revolutionary danger that it resorts to fascism. Social-democracy and Fascism are of course, two poles of the bourgeois front, but two poles nevertheless, and it is necessary to distinguish between them. But Stalin lumped these two together and laid down that “Social-Democracy is objectively a moderate wing of Fascism.” This incorrect over-simplification, as we shall see, led to the victory of German Fascism in 1933.
BUREAUCRATIC DISMISSALS OF LEADERS
Very soon, the most important communist parties, following the decisions of the 5th Congress (of 1924,) began to lose their influence. This was the result of the ultra-left policies followed. The leaders of these parties were now suddenly branded “ultra-leftists” removed violently by the Comintern, and other leaders put in their place. This practice of bureaucratic dismissal of leaders by the Comintern heads for having reaped the disastrous results of the wrong policies imposed by the Comintern leadership itself, hastened the degeneration of the Comintern. As, early as 1921 Lenin had warned Zinoviev and Btakharin by letter pointing out that if they demanded nothing but approbation in the International they would surround themselves exclusively with “Obedient fools.”
Not long before the dismissal of leaders for ultra-leftism, there had taken place (in the ultra-left period of 1924-5) a series of dismissals of leaders, who, together with the Opposition, had maintained the post-war revolutionary wave was now at an ebb. In 1924, in France, the leadership of Souverine and Rosmer had been accused of sympathies with the Opposition and been replaced by the “Left” leadership of Treint and Girault. In Germany Brandler and Thalheimer had been replaced by Fischer and Maslow. In Poland Varsky had been replaced by the “Left” Domsky. But none of these new leaders as we have seen, lasted long either. By 1926 Treint and Girault were expelled from the party and replaced by Doriot, Barbe and Thorez. Fischer and Maslow were expelled and replaced by Thaelmann and Neumann. The Domsky group was expelled and replaced by a new leadership. If in more recent times, such expulsions have not been so common, that is only because the leaders of the Communist Parties have degenerated into paid agents of the Comintern who merely carry out instructions and are ready to change policy to meet the demands of the latest communique from Moscow. Today they take all the blame for the mistakes of the Comintern leadership, and there is no necessity to expel them.
These changes of leadership in 1926 coincided with an abrupt change in the policy of the Comintern in 1925-6 from the previous disastrous one of ultra-leftism to the even more disastrous one of rightism. The policies of the Comintern in future, we shall notice, consist of a series of zig-zags. Driven from one extreme to another by the disastrous results of their policies both in the U.S.S.R. and outside, the bureaucracy will transform the Third Inter-national from a powerful weapon for international revolu-tion into an abject instrument of the foreign policy of the Soviet bureaucrats. The revolutionary International of Lenin will be transformed into a reactionary organization betraying the cause of World Revolution. Not only in policy but in personnel the International of Stalin will bear no resemblance to that founded by Lenin in 1919. The leaders of the October revolution, the militant rank and the Bolsheviks who refused to leave the revolutionary path will be persecuted, imprisoned and physically exterminated. The only resemblance between the Internationals of Lenin and Stalin will be in the name.
THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN COMMITTEE
The abrupt change to a rightist policy in 1925 led to even mow serious disasters to the international movement than occurred in the ultra-leftist period of 1923-5. The chief defeats were in Britain and China.
Late in 1924 a British trade union delegation led by Purcell, the president of the TUC, visited Russia, inspected he achievements of the Soviet Government and returning England issued a glowing report. As a result of this visit, in May 1925 there was formed the Anglo-Russian iiittee composed of representatives of the British and Russian trade union movements. The purpose of the Committee was stated to be to promote international trade union unity, to struggle against capitalist reaction and against the danger of new wars. The General Council of the TUC of Britain, composed of reformist labour leaders desired this committee, because, with the growing militancy of the British Workers at this time, association with Russia protected their popularity. But the Anglo-Russian Committee was useful also to the revolutionary movement It focussed the attention of the advanced workers on Russia; it helped to unite and mobilize large sections of the workers for the first step in a struggle against capitalist reaction. However, the reformist leaders being reformists would side with their own bourgeoisie in a critical situation. It was necessary for the revolutionaries to realise this and to prepare to expose them mercilessly when they did so. But this was precisely what the Comintern leadership (at that time, of Stalin and Bukharin) failed to realise and accom-plish.
The Opposition did not oppose the formation of the Anglo-Russian Committee, but they recognized it for what it was, and pointed out the danger of expecting the re-formist leaders to take part in any genuine struggle. Their arguments were not dealt with, but they were accused by the ruling clique of opposing the united front and of being in the pay of Sir Austen Chamberlain!
At this time Trotsky wrote a book called “Where is Britain Going?” (February 1926) in which he mercilessly attacked the reformist trade union leaders of Britain. “The Communist Party” he wrote, “can prepare for the role of leadership only by a relentless criticism of all the directing personnel of the British Labour Movement, only by a day in day out denunciation of its conservative, anti-proletarian, imperialistic, monarchistic, lackey-like role, in all spheres of social life and of the class movement.” The book was in effect a reply to the illusions that Stalin and his Rightist bureaucrats were sewing in the minds of British and Russian workers alike.
A strike of the British coal miners occurred in early 1926 and led to the General Strike commencing at the beginning of May of that year. A general strike is not an accident but a political phenomenon arising from the profound crisis of the capitalist system. It is a class war in its most acute pre-revolutionary stage. The next step leads to the openly revolutionary stage. But in order to develop the struggle to its higher stage there is required a working class party pursuing a correct policy.
The British Communist Party in 1926 was small. But size is not everything. It worked hard before the struggle, but the wrong policy of the International prevented it from preparing the working class in advance for the treachery of the reformist trade union leaders. Worse still, for a long time after these leaders had betrayed the workers the Communist Party was prevented by the ac-tions of the International from exposing them. After nine days of the General Strike, the reformist leaders, succumbing to the pressure of their own bourgeoisie, called it off. Immediately the opposition demanded a break-away from the Anglo-Russian Committee and an exposure of the British leaders. Stalin and Bukharin however violently opposed this, and persisted in sticking to these now useless allies for more than a year longer.
Towards the end of 1926, the Chinese revolution was advancing with tremendous force towards its high water-mark. The British reformist trade union leaders, apart from pious protests in theory, in practice supported British Imperialism in its repression of the movement in China. Yet Stalin continued to maintain this farcical united front. Towards the middle of 1927 the Chamberlain Govern-ment raided the Soviet Trade Buildings in London and broke off relations with Russia. The British Trade Union-ists who had now no longer any use of the Anglo-Russian Committee, openly withdrew from it of their own accord. The episode of the Anglo-Russian Committee provides us with a classic example of how the united front should not be made. A critical period in British politics had been wasted. Thanks to the policy of the Comintern the weak Communist Party of Great Britain, during a period when it could have enormously strengthened itself, was further confused and weakened.
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In its Rightist period of 1925-27 the Comintern support-ed the building of “Workers’ and Peasants’ Parties” instead of “Communist parties” in most of the colonial and Asiatic countries (India, Dutch East Indies, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, etc.). This was contrary to the whole theory and practice of Marxism which points to the im-perative necessity of forming, an independent party of the proletariat. The un-Marxist policy of the Comintern disorganized and demoralised the proletarian vanguard in these countries and is one of the important causes for the weakness of proletarian parties in these countries today.
[1] A treatment of the Left Opposition will be found in Chapter Five