FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION - CHAPTER VI
Palme Dutt
HOW FASCISM CAME IN GERMANY
THE victory of Fascism in Germany opened a new page in the whole development of Fascism.
Up to that time the view had still been generally expressed, in liberal democratic and social democratic circles, that Fascism and "dictatorship" in general was a phenomenon of backward countries, of industrially less developed countries without a strong industrial proletariat, of Southern and Eastern Europe.
But Germany was the country with the most highly-advanced and concentrated industrial development in Europe, and with the most highly-organised and politically conscious industrial proletariat in the whole capitalist world. Yet the most brutal and barbarous Fascist dictatorship yet known, leaving the Italian in the shade, triumphed in Germany in 1933. How was this possible? How did it arise? This question is of vital concern to the countries of Western Europe and America, with their closely parallel conditions.
The answer is to be found, not simply in the events of 1933, but in the whole fifteen years' development of the German Revolution. The establishment of the Fascist dictatorship was only the culminating step of a long process, which began already in 19 18 when Ebert and Hindenburg drew up the terms of their treaty of alliance against the proletarian revolution.
Superficial critics, with their eyes only on the events of 1933, speak often of the "sudden collapse," of the inglorious "defeat without a battle" of the powerful and highly-organised German working class. They speak of the "ease" with which Fascism won its victory, and of the "incapacity" of the German working class to fight.
This picture is a false one, as the whole past history of the German Revolution has already proved, and as its future will still more abundantly prove. The battle of the German working class against the advancing counter-revolution lasted for fifteen years before the Fascist dictatorship could be established; in that battle tens of thousands of German workers gave their lives under the bullets of the enemy; and if in the end the working-class forces had to retreat and could not prevent the establishment of the Fascist dictatorship, this was not due to any superior fighting strength of Fascism, but was solely because the action of the workers was paralysed and prevented by their own majority leadership, and by their own mistaken discipline and loyalty under that leadership. But the speed with which the vanguard of the working class has adapted itself to the new conditions, and taken up the struggle with renewed force under the leadership of the Communist Party in the face of all the terrorism and suppression, is the surest guarantee that the Hitler dictatorship will be only an episode in the long-drawn battle of the German working class and in its advance to the final victory of the proletarian revolution.
I. The Strangling of the 1918 Revolution.
The seeds of Hitler's victory were sown in 1918. TheGerman workers and soldiers had overthrown the old State and won complete power. The Workers' and Soldiers' Councils were supreme throughout the country. The bourgeoisie and old militarist class were unable to offer any resistance. All the conditions were present for building an impregnable Soviet Republic-save that no revolutionary party existed to lead the workers (the Communist Party of Germany was only formed in December 1918). The completeness of the proletarian power at the beginning of the revolution, before Social Democracy had squandered and destroyed it, is attested by the principal social democratic witnesses themselves:
The military collapse brought the whole power of the State into the hands of the proletariat at one stroke. (H. Strobel, The German Revolution, p. I.)
In November, 1918, the Revolution was the work of the proletariat alone. The proletariat won so all-powerful a position that the bourgeois elements at first did not dare to attempt any resistance. (Kautsky, Introduction to the Third Edition of The Proletarian Revolution, 1931.)
How was this absolute power of the proletariat turned in fifteen years into its exact opposite--into the absolute power of the bourgeoisie and militarist class, and the absolute subjection of the working class? The answer to this question, in which is contained the tragedy of the German Revolution of 1918, is comprised in two words-Social Democracy.
The German Social Democratic Party was built upon a long and glorious revolutionary past. Its early years had been watched over by Marx and Engels, and led by Bebel and the elder Liebknecht. It had refused to vote the war credits in the war of 1870, and had fought and defeated during the 'eighties Bismarck's twelve-year attempt at its suppression. It had stood for the programme of revolutionary Marxism, and on this programme had built up the mass organisations of the working class. But in the imperialist era, opportunism and corruption had made increasing inroads in the leadership especially in the reformist trade-union leadership. In their closing years Marx and Engels had already given warning of the danger and called for a split. Their warnings were ignored; and their messages and programme- criticisms were held back from the membership. The party and trade union apparatus grew in practice more and more closely bound up with the capitalist State. 1914 completed the process; the Social Democratic Party leadership openly united with the Kaiser, the militarists and the bourgeoisie in support of the imperialist war, against the working class. The scattered opposition elements, under heavily difficult conditions of combined warcensorship and party-censorship, gathered their ranks for the fight, in the revolutionary illegal Spartacus League, founded in 1 916, and in the Independent Socialist Party, founded in 1917. Through these forces the 19 18 revolution was organised.
The Social Democratic Party had no part in the victory of the 1918 revolution, but was on the contrary opposed to it from the first. As Scheidemann declared in his libel lawsuit in Berlin in 1922: "The imputation that Social Democracy wanted or prepared the November revolution is a ridiculous, stupid lie of our opponents." When the revolution broke out, the Social Democratic leaders were Ministers in the Coalition Government of Prince Max; in the critical days their Executive issued call after call to the population against revolution; Πwhen they found themselves compelled to press for the abdication of the Kaiser, they did so, according to Scheidemann (Vorwarts, December 6, 1922), in the hope to save the monarchy; the trade union leaders were negotiating a Treaty of Alliance withthe employers, which was actually signed on November 15, 1918.
Nevertheless, the main body of the workers, soldiers and sailors, who were in fact carrying through the revolution against the Social Democratic leadership, were at the same time organised in the Social Democratic Party and under its leadership. This was the fatal contradiction of the November revolution, which led to its downfall.
As soon as the revolution had triumphed on November 9, the Social Democratic leaders hastened to the revolutionary leaders, to Liebknecht and the Independents, to beg to take part in the leadership of the victorious revolution and form a joint government. It was at this point, already on the morning of November 9, that Centrism, in the shape of the Independent or Left Social Democratic leaders, took the disastrous step which sealed the fate of the revolution. Liebknecht correctly rejected such a coalition with the open agents of the bourgeoisie, which could only serve to restore their prestige and enable them to strangle the revolution. Had the Independents followed the lead of Liebknecht, and stood firm in a revolutionary bloc, excluding the social imperialists, at the head of the triumphant revolution (the Spartacists and Independents controlled the majority of the Berlin Workers' and Soldiers' Council), it is doubtful whether the discredited Social Democratic leadership, hopelessly identified with the overthrown old regime, could have prevented the victory of the revolution.
But the Independents in the name of "unity" chose the alternative course. They allied themselves with the Social Democratic enemies of the revolution in an equal coalition government. In this way, where all other channels had failed, bourgeois influence was re-established at the heart of the new order. (Within less than two months the Independents found themselves compelled to withdraw from the coalition government; but the work had been done; the bourgeois- militarist regime had been re-established under the protecting shell of Social Democracy.)
A Council of People's Commissars, responsible to the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils, was appointed, consisting of three majority Social Democrats, and three Independents. The forms which had thus to be adopted revealed how completely the pressure and demand of the masses in the moment of revolution was towards the Soviet Republic. But the leaders of the new formally soviet order were its sworn enemies whose only thought was to overthrow it.
If the November revolution were to maintain itself, it is obvious that its first task was to destroy the bases of power of the old regime, which was momentarily defeated, but still fully in being: to replace at all strategic points the old reactionary bureaucracy, military caste and magistracy; to break up the landed estates; to take over the banks and large enterprises; to build up the workers' armed guards for the defence of the revolution. Had this been done, when there was full power to do it, Fascism could never have raised its head in Germany.
But the Social Democratic Government did the opposite. At every point it confirmed and protected the old regime; maintained the bureaucracy and all reactionary institutions; appointed bourgeois Ministers for War, the Navy, Foreign Affairs, Finance and the Interior; ordered the disarming of the workers; and armed and equipped special counter-revolutionary corps under the most reactionary monarchist officers. Through these White Guard corps, authorised, financed and equipped by the Social Democratic Government, the workers' revolution was drowned in blood; Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were murdered, the officers who murdered them going scot free and openly glorying in their crime under the Social Democratic Government; the resistance of the workers was steadily suppressed with systematic terror through the end of 1918 and through 1919.
Thus the 1918 revolution was defeated by Social Democracy. Only so was the basis for subsequent Fascism laid.
What led the Social Democratic leadership to act in this fashion, which could in the end only mean the destruction also of their own positions? By 1920 the Social Democratic Ministers were already fleeing from Berlin in the night before the same officers they had themselves armed and equipped, and only the action of the workers saved them; by 1933, when the resistance of the workers had been still further broken and the power of the counter-revolution built up, their Organisation was formally dissolved, and they passed into exile.
Blindness, folly, stupidity is the common answer of those who still seek to apologise for them, in the face of the terrible sequel of their acts.
But in fact the Social Democratic leaders acted with full consciousness of what they were doing, and could not act otherwise on the basis of their whole line. For their one thought in 1918-19, as their subsequent memoirs have abundantly shown, was to "save Germany from Bolshevism," that is, in fact, to save the capitalist regime-always in the name of "democracy." But they could only accomplish this in alliance with the most reactionary and militarist classes as the sole force to crush the working class. Therefore they entered into alliance with the bourgeoisie, with the militarists, with the old General Staff, with the White Guards-always in the name of "democracy." In a revolutionary period the class struggle knows no halfmeasures: either the victory of the working class revolution, or the victory of complete reaction; either Kornilov or Bolshevism; either Hindenburg or Communism. The class-realities tore through the "democratic" pretences. Only two courses were open in post-war Germany: either the victory of the workingclass revolution or the complete victory of reaction. In their hostility to the former the Social Democratic leadership chose the latter. They entered into formal alliance with the representatives of the old regime.
The direct alliance of Hindenburg and President Ebert, the leader of Social Democracy, was formally sealed in an exchange of letters. Hindenburg wrote to President Ebert in December 1918 (the letter was quoted by the son of Ebert in February 1933, in a published appeal to Hindenburg, begging for the toleration of Social Democracy under Fascism in view of its past services):
I address you because I have been told that you, too, as a true German, love the Fatherland above everything, suppressing personal opinions and desires just as I had to do because of the plight of the Fatherland. In this spirit I have concluded an alliance with you to save our people from a threatening collapse. General Groener, Chief of the German General Staff at the time of the November Revolution, gave the same evidence in the course of a libel case at Munich in November 1925, that an "alliance" was concluded between the old monarchist General Staff and Social Democracy to defeat Bolshevism.
He stated:
On November 10, 1918, I had a telephone conversation with Ebert, and we concluded an alliance to fight Bolshevism and Sovietism and restore law and order. . . .
Every day between II p.m. and I a.m. the staff of the High Command talked to Ebert on a special secret telephone. From November 10 our immediate object was to wrest power in Berlin out of the hands of the Councils of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
Thus the seeds of Fascism and of the victory of the counterrevolution were planted by Social Democracy. From the beginning of the revolution continuously, while the workers were most stringently disarmed and subjected to heavy penalties if any were found in possession of arms, the illegal, armed counter-revolutionary corps and formations, which were the first forms of Fascism, were protected and tolerated by Social Democracy and by the Entente. "Disarmament" was never applied to these; the Fascist murder-gangs worked their will with impunity throughout the so-called "democratic republic," shown conspicuously in their murders of Erzberger and thenau. The tolerance of the Entente for these formations, in deference to the insistence of German statesmen that they were essential for the defeat of the revolution, is illustrated in the diary of the British Ambassador in Berlin, Lord D'Abernon, who as late as the autumn of 1920, two years after the armistice, is still recording "long conversations" without result on the issue.
Berlin, October 22, 1920. A long conversation with Dr. Simons at the Foreign Office. Regarding Disarmament, Dr. Simons said that the demands of the Entente for the dismemberment of various Einwohnerwehr and Orgesch (Fascist) organisations was equivalent to delivering up the orderly section of the population to their greatest foes. Without organisation the bourgeois element cannot resist the Reds, who are a real danger.
In fact, effective disarmament was never carried out. Through all the varying forms and phases of the Einwohnerwehr, the Orgesch, the Ehrhardt Brigade and its successors, the Organisation Consul, the Black Reichswehr, the so-called Labour Corps, and finally the Stahlhelm and Storm Troops, the counterrevolutionary formations were maintained under the aegis of Social Democracy and the "democratic republic" right up to the final triumph of Fascism. But the workers' attempt at self-defence, the Red Front, was ruthlessly suppressed by Social Democracy (by Severing as Minister of the Interior in1929).
On this basis was built up the Weimar Republic, which lasted from 1918 to 1932 on the basis of the coalition of the bourgeoisie and Social Democracy. Throughout these years Social Democracy was in governmental office: during the greater number of them in the Federal Government (from 19 18 to 1925 under the presidency of Ebert, and from 1928 to 1930 in the Muller Cabinet); during all of them in Prussia, through the BraunSevering Cabinets, governing the majority of the German population; and the principal Police President posts were held by Social Democrats. Thus Fascism grew to power under the protection of Social Democracy.
The Weimar Republic was on paper "the freest democracy in the world." In reality, it covered the maintenance and protection of the reactionary institutions of the old regime, combined with the violent suppression of the workers and constant recourse to martial law and emergency dictatorship against the workers (the bloody suppressions of 1918-19; the terror in the Ruhr after the Kapp Putsch in 1920, when the workers who had defended the republic were sentenced by military tribunals composed of officers who had taken part in the revolt; the Horsing terror in Saxony in 192 1; the military overthrow by the Reich of Πthe elected Zeigner Government in Saxony in 1923; the von Seeckt dictatorship and martial law throughout Germany; the shooting down of the workers' May Day demonstrations under Severing in 1929; the emergency dictatorship from 1930 to 1933).
Of this "democratic republic" the leading American bourgeois journalist, Mowrer, with no revolutionary sympathies, could only write:
A virgin Republic that appeals to old-time monarchists and generals to defend it against Communists! Inevitably it falls into the enemy's hands. . . .
What can be said for a republic that allows its laws to be interpreted by monarchist judges, its government to be administered by old-time functionaries brought up in fidelity to the old regime; that watches passively while reactionary school teachers and professors teach its children to despise the present freedom in favour of a glorified feudal past, that permits and encourages the revival of the militarism which was chiefly responsible for the country's previous humiliation? What can be said for democrats who subsidise ex-princes who attack the regime; who make the exiled ex-Emperor the richest man in deference to supposed property rights. . . .
This remarkable Republic paid generous pensions to thousands of ex-officers and civil servants who made no bones of their desire to overthrow it." (E. A. Mowrer, Germany Puts the Clock Back, pp. 17-19.)
He further notes that in 1914 30 per cent. of the officers' corps were of aristocratic lineage; in 1932 21 percent were of aristocratic lineage-an indication how little the real regime was changed under the so-called "democratic republic."
These were the conditions within which Fascism grew to power in Germany in the midst of bourgeois democracy. Fascism was able to utilise the growing discontent, the economic distress and the widespread anger against the slave treaty of Versailles and its tribute. But it was only able to utilise these, and to build a mass following on this basis, because Social Democracy, the majority leadership of the working class, had surrendered any leadership on these issues, and had on the contrary identified itself with capitalism, with Versailles and the tribute, and with the whole regime of oppression of the masses. And Fascism was only able to build up its strength on these issues, and to build up its armed formations, because it was protected and assisted at every point from above, by the State machine, by the police and military, by the judicature and by the big capitalists, right up to its final placing in power.
2. The Growth of National Socialism.
Fascism grew up in Germany, even more than in Italy, under the Πguidance and fostering care of the old regime, and, in particular, of the military authorities. The old General Staff remained the real centre of the State behind the outer democratic forms.
The early counter- revolutionary formations, which were the precursors of Fascism, were mainly composed of officers and ex-officers. Feder, the theoretical founder of National Socialism, was a Reichswehr instructor. Hitler was put through an intensive political course by the Army authorities before being launched as a mass agitator. As he has since recounted in his autobiography, he first came in contact with the National Socialist Party (then in its first form as the "German Labour Party" in 1919) under orders from Army headquarters. The semi-professional military Organisation of the Storm Troops was organised on lines closely parallel to the Reichswehr.
But Fascism, to conquer, requires to develop a mass movement. The early attempts of the counter-revolution, signalised in the Kapp putsch, based solely on the officers, junkers and bureaucracy, could only end in failure. The Ludendorff-Hitler putsch of 1923, although preceded by longer agitation, also ended in immediate ignominious collapse.
The leniency with which these armed revolts against the State were treated shows the semi-official protection under which the counterrevolution was being built up. The Kapp rebels went unpunished, while workers who had resisted them were subjected to heavy sentences. Ludendorff went unpunished; Hitler, an alien who had taken up arms against the State, was given a few months' detention and then allowed to continue his agitation. But the failure of these putsches showed that it was necessary to build deeper roots of a mass party, alongside military terrorist organisation. On this task Fascism concentrated its attention in the succeeding years.
The mass agitation of German National Socialism was built up on the basis of the Twenty-Five Points Programme originally adopted in 19 2 0 (see Chapter IX), and was especially developed under Hitler, and later under Goebbels and Gregor Strasser, to direct its appeal, not only to the peasantry and urban petitbourgeoisie, but to the working masses in the industrial districts. Whereas Italian Fascism early dropped any pretence of connection with "socialism," German Fascism could only reach a mass basis by professing to stand for "socialism." National Socialist propaganda distinguished itself by its wild and frenzied character of combined anti-Semitism, anticapitalism, and chauvinist denunciation of Versailles and of the subjection of Germany. Its contradictions, unscrupulousness and demagogy were far more blatant than in the Italian example. As Hitler declared in Mein Kampf (in a sentence subsequently deleted since the twelfth edition in 1932):
"The German has not the slightest notion how a people must be misled, if the adherence of the masses is to be sought."
Hitler took as his model the British war-time propaganda, which he admired as the finest example of the art of demagogic lying.
Fascism can, however, as the Italian example had already shown, only reach a mass basis after Social Democracy has fully exposed itself and created widespread mass disillusionment in the midst of growing economic crisis and gathering revolutionary issues. This is the general background for the growth of Fascism. A first wave of advance to such a basis was reached in the end of 1923 and the beginning of 1924, after the inflationruin of the petit-bourgeoisie and the failure of the proletariat in the revolutionary situation of 1923; in the elections of May 1924 National Socialism reached a vote of 1.9 millions (against 6 millions for Social Democracy and 3.6 millions for Communism). But the subsequent stabilisation period, and the widespread promises of Social Democracy of a new era of "organised capitalism" and "economic democracy," led to new hopes in Social Democracy and the dream of the peaceful, reformist "democratic" path to Socialism. By December 1924, the Nazi vote fell to 900,000. Four years later, in the 1928 elections, it had fallen to 800,000 (against 9.1 millions for Social Democracy and 3.2 millions for Communism). Only when the world economic crisis and the Bruning hunger-regime had exposed the final bankruptcy of all the promises of Social Democracy, only then Fascism leapt forward in the headlong advance which was revealed at the elections of September 1930, in a vote of 6.4 millions (against 8:5 millions for Social Democracy and 4.5 millions for Communism). This was carried forward in the Presidential elections of April 1932, to 13.4 millions, and in the elections of July 1932 (the highest point), to 13.7 millions.
What led to this sudden expansion of Fascism in Germany in 1930 to 1932? The world economic crisis, which undermined the basis of stabilisation and of the Weimar Republic, undermined equally the position of Social Democracy which was closely linked up with these. Capitalism in Germany required to advance to new methods in face of the crisis. It required to wipe out the remainder of the social gains of the revolution, in respect of social legislation, hours and wages, which bad constituted the main basis of influence of Social Democracy in the working class and its stock-in-trade to point to as the fruits of its policy. In place of the concessions of the early years of the revolution, capitalism required now to advance to draconian economic measures against the workers.
For this purpose new forms of intensified dictatorship were necessary. Social Democracy was thrust aside from the Federal Government, and the Bruning dictatorship was established in the summer of 1930, ruling without parliament by emergency decree- but with the support of Social Democracy. On this basis the famous Hunger Decrees were carried through. Between 1929 and 1932, according to official figures, the total wages and salaries paid by the employers fell from 44.5 billion marks to 25.7 billion marks; unemployment rose to eight millions; unemployment benefit was cut to an average of slightly over 9 marks. All this dictatorship and offensive was carried through with the support of Social Democracy. These were the conditions that made possible the rapid growth of Fascism.
Had Social Democracy been prepared to join forces with Communism in resisting the Bruning dictatorship and the hunger offensive, there is no question that the heavy capitalist attack need not have weakened the working-class front and played into the hands of Fascism, but would have on the contrary intensified the class struggle and strengthened the working class front and the widest mass mobilisation on this basis , leaving no room for Fascism to win a bold. But Social Democracy, rather than join forces with Communism, preferred to support the Bruning dictatorship, to support the Hunger Decrees, and to help to carry through the attack on the workers, in the name of the policy of the "lesser evil." This was the crucial weakness in the proletarian camp in the decisive years of the preparation of Fascism. This support of the Bruning dictatorship by the majority working-class organisation, controlling the trade unions, disorganised and shattered the proletarian ranks. It was only through this disorganisation of the proletarian ranks that the initiative in the critical years 1930-32, and the main gains from the universal distress, which should have strengthened the working-class front, passed instead to Fascism.
The leaders of German capitalism were well aware (as the revealing Fuhrerbriefe" or confidential bulletins of the Federation of German Industry during the period, quoted in the next chapter, make abundantly clear) that the policy they were compelled to pursue in the economic crisis, with the attacks on all sections of the workers, including those who had gained by the previous social legislation, inevitably meant the weakening of the basis of Social Democracy, their main support in the working class, and the strengthening of Communism. The weakened and discredited Social Democracy could no longer hold back the growing Communist advance. The Weimar Coalition basis was bankrupt. The German capitalists clearly recognised that it was necessary to advance to a new political system, and to build up, alongside Social Democracy, a parallel new system of mass organisation, to defeat the Communist advance, against which Social Democracy was no longer adequate, and to disrupt and smash the working class.
In consequence, it was from this period, from the time of the Bruning dictatorship, that the overwhelming support of the main body of German capitalism and landlordism began to be placed at the disposal of the hitherto only partially supported National Socialism, the instrument found ready to their hand. Unlimited funds, not only from German bourgeois, but also from foreign bourgeois sources, were poured into the National Socialist coffers. An overwhelming, all- sided, lavish agitation without parallel in political history was conducted during these years; while the terrorist bands received abundant police and judicial protection to break up working-class agitation, the hand of the government dictatorship was heavy on all militant working-class organisation and agitation. The gigantic, artificial expansion of National Socialism during this period (it bad begun to sink again as rapidly already by the autumn of 1932 was a highly organised product of the entire mechanism of the capitalist dictatorship. All the politically backward discontented elements of the population, petit-bourgeois, declassed elements and backward workers, were swept into the National Socialist net.
The class-conscious workers who became disillusioned with Social Democracy passed to Communism. The politically backward elements passed to Fascism. This process is shown by the successive voting figures. Between 1930 and 1932 Social Democracy lost 1,338,000 votes, while Communism gained 1,384,000 votes. Thus the Communist gains almost exactly approximated to, slightly exceeding, the Social Democratic losses. Thanks to the existence of a strong Communist Party, the losses from Social Democracy did not pass-as in England, in the National Government elections of 193 1-to abstention or the class enemy, but to the militant working-class front. The gigantic Nazi gains were essentially derived from the previous voters for the old bourgeois parties, who lost many millions of votes, and from those who had not previously voted at all.
3. The Crucial Question of the United Front.
In spite of all the highly subsidised, and violently supported, Nazi agitation, the combined working-class forces, if they had been united, were immeasurably superior to the Fascist forces. Even in the merely numerical test of the electoral votes, they were throughout superior, Πwith one exception. If we add together the Social Democratic and Communist votes as an indication of the potential combined working- class vote (which would have at once become immensely higher if there had been the enormous stimulus of a united fight against the capitalist dictatorship), this total exceeded the Nazi total on every occasion, save July 1932. On that occasion it totalled 13,229,000 against 13,732,000 for the Nazis. But already within four months, by November 1932, it totalled 13,241,000 against 11,729,000 for the Nazis. This, however, is merely in respect of the electoral counting of heads. In every real social and political test, in Organisation, in homogeneity, in their social role, in political consciousness and in fighting power, the working-class forces, if they had been united, were immeasurably superior to the Nazi electoral miscellany.
The decisive question was thus the question of the united working- class fight. To this the Communist Party devoted all its efforts. As the issue grew more and more urgent, the Communist Party issued appeal after appeal for the united workingclass front against Fascism and the capitalist attack, both to the mass of the workers and specifically to the Social Democratic Party and to the General Trade Union Federation.
The first nation-wide appeal for the united front was launched in April 1932, by the Communist Party and the Red Trade Union Opposition, who called for a combined action of all labour organisations against the then impending general wage offensive. This appeal won a measure of response among the lower trade union organs and social democratic membership, but was rejected by the Social Democratic and trade union leadership, who maintained a ban on the united front.
The second appeal for the united front was made on July 20, 1932, after the von Papen dictatorship had expelled the Social Democratic Government of Prussia. The Communist Party directly addressed itself to the Executives of the Social Democratic Party and of the General Trade Union Federation, proposing the joint Organisation of a general strike for the repeal of the emergency decrees and the disbanding of the Storm Troops. The Social Democratic leadership rejected this appeal for a united front, branding any call for a general strike as a provocation, and declaring that the only method to oppose Fascism was the ballot.
The third appeal for a united front was made on January 30, 1933, after Hitler had been installed as Chancellor. This appeal won such wide response that, though the Social Democratic leadership made no official answer, it was compelled to explain its refusal in its Press and put forward tentatively alternative suggestions of a "non-aggression pact" (i.e., abstention from verbal criticism), but specifically excluding any action against Hitler on the grounds that he was legally in power Πand should not be opposed.
The fourth appeal for a united front was made on March 1, 1933, after the burning of the Reichstag and the unloosing of the full Nazi terror. This appeal was left unanswered by the Social Democratic and trade union leadership, who were endeavouring to come to an understanding for the toleration of Social Democracy under Fascism.
Alongside these direct appeals for the united front, the Communist Party endeavoured to the utmost of its power to build the united front from below with the Social Democratic, trade union and unorganised workers throughout Germany. This won a wide measure of response, as shown in increasing mass demonstrations and partial strikes and actions; but it was heavily handicapped from reaching effective strength by the official ban of the Social Democratic and trade union leadership, who excluded all active members and organisations that took part in the united front.
In the face of this record, it is impossible for any impartial judge to reach any other verdict than that the united working class front, which could alone have defeated Hitler, was rendered impossible solely by the official ban of the Social Democratic and trade union leadership. This was the decisive condition which made possible the victory of Fascism in Germany.
Social Democracy rejected the united working-class front because it was pursuing an alternative line, which it declared to be the correct line for defeating Fascism-the line of unity with the bourgeoisie and support of the bourgeois State, even under conditions of dictatorship. This was the so-called line of the "lesser evil." What was this conception of the "lesser evil"? The existing bourgeois dictatorship, even after democratic forms had been flung aside, even under Hindenburg, Bruning, von Papen or von Schleicher, was declared to be a "lesser evil" than the victory of Fascism. Therefore it should be supported, and every blow against the workers accepted passively without struggle (the same line was subsequently pursued by Austrian Social Democracy in the support of Dollfuss). But these forms of dictatorship were only preparing the ground for complete Fascism, destroying the resistance of the workers step by step, and, as soon as their work was complete, handing over the State to Hitler. Thus the line of the "lesser evil" meant the passive acceptance of every stage of development to complete Fascism. And even when Hitler came to power, his rule, on the grounds that he was "legally" in power, was proclaimed a "lesser veil" to an "illegal" Nazi terror, and therefore not to be opposed. Thus the line ran continuously without a break to the complete Nazi terror and suppression of all working-class organisations. In this way the line of Social Democracy ensured the victory of Fascism in Germany without a struggle.
The first step in this policy was the "toleration" of the Bruning Πdictatorship since 1930.
The second decisive step was the support of Hindenburg as President in 1932. Social Democracy urged that the victory of the reactionary Hindenburg was necessary to defeat Hitler (as against the Communist warning to the workers that "a vote for Hindenburg is a vote for Hitler"). As soon as Hindenburg was installed as President by the support of Social Democracy, before a year was out, he placed Hitler in power.
The third decisive step was the passive acceptance in July 1932, of the forcible ejection of the constitutional Social Democratic Government of Prussia by von Papen.
All over Germany Socialists who read the news of the ignominious dismissal of Braun and Severing waited for the inevitable answerthe general strike-and waited in vain. (Mowrer, Germany Puts the Clock Back, P. 7.)
The Social Democratic Ministers, instead, appealed to the Supreme Court at Leipzig, which indulged in some very delicate legal discussions as to the legal status of the dismissed Ministers in relation to the Commissar imposed in their place-until the completion of the Fascist dictatorship rendered further discussion unnecessary.
This was in fact the culminating point already in July 1932. From this point it was clear to the bourgeoisie that the complete Fascist dictatorship could be put through without resistance from Social Democracy, which would only exert its powers to hold in the workers.
4. The Causes of the Victory of Fascism.
Although the effective building of the united working-class front was thus prevented by the official ban and active opposition of Social Democracy, there was a growing measure of partial united front development from below through the initiative and leadership of Communism. During 1932 a rising wave of resistance developed among the workers. This showed itself in the rising strike movement in 1932, led by the Communists, and the overwhelming mass demonstrations against von Papen, culminating in the Berlin transport strike of November 1(32. The Berlin transport strike was led by the Red Trade Union Opposition, after an overwhelming majority vote of the men for a strike (14,000 Out Of 18,ooo voting and 21,ooo eligible to vote) had been turned down by the trade union officials; it was completely effective in stopping all traffic, and was only broken by wholesale Government violence, arrests and shootings. At the same time the November elections reflected the rising wave: the Nazi vote fell by over two millions, the Social Democratic vote fell by 700,000, while the Communist vote rose by 700,000 to nearly six millions.
This situation, as revealed both in the Berlin transport strike and in Πthe elections, opened up the prospect of the effective leadership of the working class passing rapidly in the near future to Communism, while the Fascist tide was visibly ebbing. Urgent measures had to be taken by the bourgeoisie. Von Papen had to resign on November 17. Long negotiations followed between Hindenburg and Hitler. It was clear, however, that, in view of the rising working-class resistance, it was necessary first to temporise and manoeuvre for a short space. The "social General" von Schleicher was accordingly installed as Chancellor for a couple of months, during which he relaxed some of the emergency decrees, especially with regard to the freedom of the Press and assembly, proclaimed his main concern with the "social question," negotiated for an alliance with Leipart and the trade union chiefs, who accordingly praised him highly in their Press, and in general sought to lull the workers' resistance. (At the same time, strong police protection was given to the Nazis, as in their provocative demonstration in the Billow Square on January 25, 1933.) Then, when the ground seemed adequately prepared, Hitler was installed as Chancellor on January 30.
The ebbing of the Fascist tide in the elections of November 1932, had been universally hailed by Social Democracy as the end of the Fascist danger. The Social Democratic Press spoke of "the final annihilation of Hitler." The leading Second International organ, the Vienna Arbeiterzeitung wrote:
"One thing is now clear: Germany will not be Fascist."
The British Labour publicist, Laski, wrote in the Daily Herald:
I think it is a safe prophecy that the Hitlerite movement has passed its apogee, and that it is unlikely to retain much longer the appearance of solidity it had a few months ago. Hitler or some of his partisans may enter the von Papen Cabinet; but in that case they will be rapidly submerged by the forces of the Right. . . . The day when they were a vital threat is gone . . . . All that remains of his movement is a threat he dare not fulfil . . . . He reveals himself as a myth without permanent (H. J. Laski, Hitler: Just a Figurehead, in the Daily Herald, November 19, 1932.)
Such was the wisdom of Social Democracy on the very eve of Hitler's dictatorship. At the same time the Communists were giving the warning with regard to the election defeats of the Nazis: "However great the defeat of National Socialism may have been, it would be criminally foolish to talk of the smashing up of the mass-movement of Fascism" (Communist International December 1, 1(32).
Once again the Communist diagnosis proved correct, as in the case of the election of Hindenburg, and on issue after issue in the whole development to Fascism, and the Social Democratic diagnosis proved hopelessly incorrect. The electoral retreat of the Nazis in November, so far from meaning the annihilation of Fascism, meant the opposite just the evidence of waning mass support hastened the decision of the bourgeoisie to place Fascism in power, before its stock should have hopelessly sunk and Communism grown to full strength in the working class, in order that on the basis of State power Fascism should be able to rebuild its strength and smash all opposition.*
If the coming to power of Fascism in Italy was already the opposite of a "revolution," being entirely carried out under the guidance and protection of the higher authorities, this was still more ignominiously the case with the coming to power of Fascism in Germany. There was no pretence of a "march on Rome." There was no question of a parliamentary majority or combination. There was no question of a conflict with the existing ruling authorities. So far from Fascism coming to power on the crest of a popular wave, as the myth is attempted to be created after the event, Fascism was heavily ebbing in mass support, and its leaders were actually discussing (according to the expelled Otto Strasser in his Black Front) the danger of the rapid disintegration of their movement. It was just because of this menace of decomposition of the last reserves of defence for bourgeois rule that the bourgeois dictatorship decided to take the plunge and place Fascism in power as the final measure. Fascism was placed in power by the grace of a social-democratically-elected President.
The significance of placing Hitler in power was above all the amalgamation of the already existing dictatorial State machine, prepared by Mining and von Papen, and the extra-legal Fascist fighting forces to create a single unparalleled instrument of terror for war on the working class. Whereas in Italy the great part of the work of terror and material destruction was carried out already before the conquest of power, in Germany this was not possible to anything approaching a similar degree, owing to the superior strength of the working class; and the overwhelming terror and destruction, the unleashing of all the furies of lawlessness, only took place after the Nazis were safely ensconced in State power. As the American bourgeois observer, Calvin Hoover, writes:
It must be emphasised that there was no revolution at all in the sense of seizure of the State power against resistance from the armed forces of the State or from any other force. Von Papen had completed taking over the State without resistance in July 1932, and bad passed the State power on to von Schleicher, who in turn had handed it over to Hitler. Consequently, the assaults which took place were against unarmed and unresisting individuals. . . . The extraordinary skill of Hitler in paralysing the will to resist of his opponents had, strictly speaking, made all these acts of violence unnecessary except as a means of satisfying the blood-lust of the S.S. an(Calvin B. Hoover, Germany Enters the Thir111-2.)
The "extraordinary skill" was not necessary; the "paralysing the will to resist" was accomplished, not by Fascism, but by Social Democracy.
The question is often asked why the advent to power of Hitler and the unleashing of the Nazi terror did not immediately release a universal movement of resistance of the powerful German working class. The question reveals a failure to understand the conditions. The control of the majority of the working class, and in particular of the overwhelming majority (nearly nine-tenths, according to the factory councils elections) of the employed industrial workers, and of the entire trade union machine, lay with Social Democracy. The traditions of the German working-class movement are, more than in any country, the traditions of a disciplined movement. The decision as to the action or otherwise of the German working class in the face of Hitler lay entirely in the hands of the Social Democratic and trade union leadership.
But the policy of Social Democracy was to "tolerate" Hitler, and even (especially in the case of the trade union leadership) to seek to reach an accommodation with him. Already in 1932 the Social Democratic leadership were speaking favourably of the prospect of a Hitler Government. Thus Severing declared in April 1932: "The Social Democratic Party, no less than the Catholic Party, is strongly inclined to see Herr Hitler's Nazis share the Governmental responsibility." And the party organ Vorwarts wrote in the same period: "Apart from constitutional considerations it is a precept of political sagacity to allow the Nazis to come to power before they have become a majority." Let Hitler come to power; Hitler's coming to power is inevitable; Hitler's coming to power will be the quickest way to expose him: this was the fatal line of thought of Social Democracy. Only the Communists were opposing this line and proclaiming in the same period (Rote Fahne, April 2 6, 193 2 ): "We shall do everything to bar Hitler's way to Governmental power." But the Communists were in the minority.
When Hitler came to power on January 30, the Social Democratic leadership rejected the Communist appeal for a united struggle. They declared that Hitler had come to power "constitutionally" and "legally" (i.e., by the appointment of Hindenburg from above), and therefore should not be opposed. The only course was to await the elections on March S. Meanwhile Hitler armed the Storm Troops and incorporated them in the State as "auxiliary Police" with special control of the "policing" of the elections, suppressed the entire Social Democratic and Communist Press, forbade all working-class meetings and propaganda, arrested all leading militants, and let loose the terror, and under these conditions held his "elections."
Even the conservative Times was compelled to declare that such conditions, already a fortnight before the burning of the Reichstag and before the full terror and suppression, "render the holding of normal elections impossible" (London Times, February 15, 1933). On the eve of the poll the Daily Herald wrote (March 4, 1933): "The people of Germany go to the polls under the shackles of a vile terrorism. . . . The result of the poll will be no index of the thought of the nation." The figures of the polling, which in some districts exceeded the number of electors, revealed also the falsification of the poll, in addition to the terror.
Yet after the terror elections the entire Social Democracy seized eagerly on the plea that Hitler had now a "democratic mandate," and that it would be indefensible to oppose him save as a "loyal parliamentary opposition." Stampfer, the former editor of Vorwarts, wrote in the party bulletin after the elections:
The victory of the Government parties makes it possible to govern strictly in accordance with the Constitution. . . .
They have only to act as a legal Government, and it will follow naturally that we shall be a legal opposition; if they choose to use their majority for measures that remain within the framework of the Constitution, we shall confine ourselves to the role of fair critics.
Kautsky wrote: The Dictatorship has the mass of the population behind it. (Kautsky, What Now? Reflections upon March 5th.)
The Diplomatic Correspondent of the Daily Herald, W. N. Ewer, wrote:
The triumph of Hitler, everyone is saying, is a heavy defeat for democracy. Yet it is really nothing of the kind. It is a victory of democracy, or at any rate of demagogy. He (Hitler) has come to power by the most strictly constitutional means. He is Chancellor of Germany under the Weimar Constitution, and by virtue of the Weimar Constitution. Of course there was a certain amount of intimidation at the elections. There always is. But it was under the circumstances curiously small. . . . The figures indeed are proof that the election was practically free. (W. N. Ewer, "Why Hitler Triumphed," Plebs, April 1933.)
The Chairman of the Independent Labour Party, Maxton, wrote:
The brutalities do not make my statement false that Hitler first contrived to get a popular mandate for setting up his regime. (J. Maxton, New Leader, December 29, 1933.)
Thus Social Democracy endeavoured to cover its subserviency and bootlicking to Fascism by the transparent devise of ignoring the terror preceding the election, and thereafter arguing that the mock "election" conducted under the terror constituted a "democratic mandate." The victory of Fascism was, in the Labour and Social Democratic view, a "victory of democracy*-" There was a "certain amount of intimidation at the elections," but "curiously small." The complete suppression of the Communist and Social Democratic Press; the arrest of the Communist deputies; the raids on Communist and Social Democratic buildings; the armed occupation of the Communist headquarters; the suppression of all freedom of speech and meeting; the beating up and imprisonment of thousands of the most active Communist and Social Democratic workers: all this is a "curiously small" amount of "intimidation at the elections." "The election was practically free." Stich is the Labour Party conception of "democracy," which throws a revealing light on their pose as champions of "democracy" or their claim through it to bar the way to Fascism.
The line of Social Democracy after the elections, in the face of the full operations of the Fascist dictatorship and terror, continued this degradation and subserviency to the extreme point, in the endeavour to win favour with Fascism. The speech of the leader, Wels, at the opening of the Reichstag on March 23, was the signal expression of this line of endeavouring to win the favour of Fascism. Wels, as leader of the party, publicly resigned from the Executive of the Second International, in protest at the spreading of "atrocity stories" by the latter against the Nazis, The trade union leadership proclaimed their readiness to co-operate with Fascism, acclaiming in their Press the Fascist "revolution" as a triumphant "continuation" of the 1918 revolution, urging that the common enemy was Communism, and that their "socialism" also was "a German affair" (Sozial Demokratischer Pressedienst, March 9, 1933). On this basis the trade union central executive officially called on the workers to participate in Hitler's May Day. "The union leaders," declared the Labour Daily Herald (April 24, 1933), "have sealed their reconciliation with the new rulers of Germany." Nevertheless this subserviency did not win for the reformist leadership the hoped for position of a recognised and tolerated adjunct to Fascism. A large proportion of the workers in the big enterprises refused to obey their leaders' instructions and held off the Nazi May Day demonstration. As soon as it was thus clear that the hold of the reformist leadership on the workers was insufficient to serve the purposes of Fascism, immediately on the next day, on May 2, the Nazis took over the trade unions, incorporating them into their Labour front, and threw the leaders into prison, replacing them by Nazi officials. "The Leiparts and the Grassmanns," declared Dr. Ley, the leader of the Nazi Labour front, "may profess their devotion to Hitler; but they are better in prison."
* Interesting confirmation of this analysis of the situation preceding the advent of Hitler to power is afforded by the American observer, C. B. Hoover, in his book Germany Enters the Third Reich (1933). Arriving in Germany in the latter part of 1932, he found the situation following the November elections as follows: "During this period the writer discussed the political situation with industrialists, editors, bankers, political leaders, university professors, labour leaders, economists, and others. Almost without exception they insisted that Hitler had missed his hour. . . . in spite of the fact that the writer had come to Germany in September 1932, with the fixed belief that Hitler's coming to power was a virtual certainty, the fact that nowhere could there be found anyone outside the National Socialist movement who would even entertain the possibility finally shook this conviction" (p. 64). ΠHe admits that alone the Communists judged the situation more accurately: "With the possible exception of the Communists, the opposition parties and classes had been living in a fool's paradise. . . . 'Responsible opinion' was unanimous that the process of disintegration in the National Socialist Party was progressing at an accelerated pace" (p. 88). He notes further that just this disintegration of the Nazi movement convinced the big bourgeoisie of the necessity to take immediate steps to counteract this: "After the losses of the National Socialists in the Reichstag elections of November, German 'Big Business' decided that the immediate danger was that tile National Socialist Party might disintegrate too rapidly" (P. 83).
The Social Democratic Party trod the same path of ignominious capitulation, followed by dissolution. On May 17 the entire Social Democratic Party in the Reichstag voted for the Fascist Government's resolution, and joined in the unanimous acclamation of Hitler. This also did not avail them. The entire property of the Social Democratic ΠParty was confiscated, and on June 2 2 the organisation was formally declared dissolved. If the attempt of Social Democracy to become an officially recognised and tolerated adjunct of Fascism thus failed (in fact, a considerable number of the functionaries, state and municipal officials, police presidents, trade union organisers, etc., directly joined the Nazis and continued in their posts, as also the Reichstag leader, Loebe, and the former Minister of the Interior, Severing, later declared their support of the Nazis), this was manifestly not for any lack of trying on the part of the leadership, but only because Fascism had no confidence in their power to control the workers and no use for any form of independent working-class Organisation, however subservient the leadership. Social Democracy was thus forced by the bourgeoisie, in spite of all its pleadings, to perform its task of disruption under the conditions of illegality, under which conditions it could be of more use to the bourgeoisie in the event of a rising revolutionary wave in the working class than if it were openly identified with Fascism. The opposition to Fascism thus rested throughout with the Communist Party alone, which was the sole political force in Germany to maintain the fight against Fascism unbroken through all the terror. But the Communist Party was not yet at the moment of the Fascist coup in a strong enough position to lead the working class in the face of the opposition of the Social Democratic and trade union machine. The figure of six million Communist electors is a deceptive measure of the real fighting strength, because the fighting strength of the working class depends on the employed industrial workers in large- scale industry, and just there Communism was weak. In 1930 at enterprises employing 5,900,000 workers, the reformist trade unions had 135,689 factory committee members, or 89.9 per cent. of all factory committee members. The proportion of Communist influence was thus inadequate to draw the working class into the struggle. The Communist call for the general strike against Hitler remained without effective response; the majority of the workers remained faithful, to their own heavy cost and subsequent disillusionment, to Social Democratic discipline. In this situation for the Communist Party to have attempted an insurrection as a minority, in isolation from the mass of the working class, would have been an indefensible putsch, resulting only in the destruction of the vanguard of the working class and ensuring Hitler's power for a generation. The Communist Party was compelled in consequence to pursue the difficult course of postponing the decisive struggle, to maintain its organisation, to spead an ever-widening network of agitation and organisation in the midst of conditions of unparalleled terror, and in this way to build up the illegal revolutionary movement and the leadership of the working class and to prepare the final Πdecisive struggle for the overthrow of Hitler and the victory of the working-class revolution. The speed, tenacity, heroism and self- sacrifice with which this task is being accomplished--on. a scale unparalleled in workingclass history under conditions of illegality and terror, as testified even by all bourgeois observers-is the guarantee of future victory.
The decisive causes of the temporary victory of Fascism in Germany thus stand out sharply and clearly:
First, the strangling of the 1918 revolution, the destruction of the power of the working class in the name of "democracy" and the restoration of the capitalist dictatorship and the protection of the reactionary institutions of the old regime under the cover of Weimar "democracy."
Second, the support of the Bruning dictatorship, and of the successive stages of emergency dictatorship in preparation of Fascism, by Social Democracy and the trade unions.
Third, the rejection of the united working-class front, and active ban on the united working-class front, by Social Democracy and the trade unions.
Fourth, the refusal of Social Democracy and the trade union leadership to resist Hitler on his accession to power or on the opening of the Nazi terror.
The experience of Germany from 1918 to 1933 is the classic demonstration before the international working class of how a working-class revolution can be destroyed and squandered and brought to the deepest abyss of working-class subjection. It is the classic demonstration before the international working class of where the path of bourgeois "democracy" leads, step by step to its inexorable conclusion.
History has produced in the two great post-war revolutions the Russian Revolution and the German Revolution, the gigantic demonstration of the two main paths in our epoch and where they lead. The Russian October Revolution and the German November Revolution occurred within twelve months of each other; but they followed divergent paths. The one followed the path of the proletarian dictatorship, of the Communist International. The other followed the path of bourgeois "democracy," of the Second International. The theoretical expression of that divergence was contained in the controversy at the time of Kautsky and Lenin. To-day, a decade and a half later, we can see where those two paths have led.
The path of the proletarian dictatorship, of Lenin, of the Communist International, has led to the ever-greater strengthening of the workers and the triumphant building of Socialism.
The path of bourgeois "democracy," of Kautsky, of the Second International, has led to the victory of Fascism.
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