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Nazi Whip
From The Militant, Vol. VI No. 27, 20 May 1933, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The German working masses instinctively knew their enemy and were seeking the means of defense; but the leaders failed and disarmed the workers each in their own way. The social democrats prevented the workers from preparing the defense, counselled patience and trusted in the constitution for which, however, they said they would sound the call to fight should Hitler violate it and resort to “illegal” methods. The social democratic leaders who had long ago given up their pretense to socialism and become completely bound up with bourgeois ideology had thereby also long ago abdicated the last pretense of actually leading a fight for the defense of the democracy, So when the last shreds of democracy went down in the torchlight blaze and gunpowder smoke, trampled upon by Fascist heels, their miserable position became fully revealed.
But Hitler found the Weimar constitution, written by the social democrats, sufficiently flexible to serve his purposes. He could, by the failure of his opponents, carry out all measures necessary to complete the first stage of the consolidation of his power, including the crushing of the Communist party and the throttling of the social democrats.
The Communist party leaders started from the absurd idea of concentrating the main fire against the social democratic party as the twin brother of Fascism. It was precisely the deep antagonism between the social democratic workers and Fascism which should have been made the bridge to the united working class defense. But even this simple historical lesson had been lost to the party leaders. Their bloated exaggeration of party strength and frivolous proclaiming of the general political strike could not become a substitute. On the contrary, it threw confusion and demoralization into the ranks and accelerated the party catastrophe. In the industries and within the mass organizations, from which the united working class defense should proceed, the party policy had torn up its own roots. Save for its election victories, which were empty, it was in reality isolated from the masses long before the decisive hour had arrived. So much so, that Goebbels, the new Fascist minister for culture and propaganda, could declare, in a speech on March 31: “We broke Communism with one blow and we have isolated the social democratic party from the people.”
How well was the party rooted in the industries? We remember that for some years there has been within every German factory, shop, mill and mine a factory council established by the factory council law. This law, it is true, imposes definite limitations as to their powers but nevertheless they have been in the position of functioning as important organs of struggle. In a certain sense they have furnished an embryo structure of future Soviets. Naturally they should be an important basis for Communist party activities. And there is also the place to actually gauge the strength of the revolutionary party. But it is precisely in this field that its fatal weakness was most glaringly demonstrated.
In this we can now much more clearly perceive the disastrous fallacy of the so-called united front from below practiced by Stalinism. The actual results prove a thousand times stronger than words that this sort of policy contradicts all tenets of genuine united front policy. The so-called united front from below was only a mask to cover up the refusal of the Stalinist leaders to build the bridge of the workers’ unity of defense, composed of all organizations, Communist, social democratic and trade unions.
Actual working class unity against Fascism under the conditions existing in Germany would have unmasked all of the bureaucratic incompetent leaders. And in this the Communist party leaders, equally with their prototypes of social democracy, feared for their positions and prestige. But from this state of affairs Fascism gained enormously in strength and self-confidence and the social democratic lenders escaped exposure. Elections to the Factory Councils The factory council elections particularly demonstrated the Communist party’s weakness. One can argue, and with considerable justification, that in the Reichstag elections held March 5th, the party could not at all mobilize its full strength because of the pressure of the Fascist terror. But within the shops and factories at the factory council elections matters are different. That is at the source of production and exploitation where the workers are the most accessible and where they respond in the most direct sense to a correct revolutionary program. That it at the very foundation, where the class struggle receives its dynamic expression. At the present time it is necessary to add that with the increasing suppression of all of the rights of ordinary democratic channels and the general campaign of terror the party was duty bound to increase its efforts to connect the more solidly with the masses in the industries. In turn it was to be expected that the contacts below would be the stronger expressed. The party, however, was not rooted in the industries. That was proven by the factory council elections held during this period of seven weeks. To attempt to give a picture, I am presenting a cross section of these election results, reporting mainly the larger concerns.
In the “Leuna Werke,” a chemical factory and one of the biggest concerns in Germany, the factory council election results were the following: The Reformist ticket received 2,981 votes, Communists 884, Christian trade unions 285, Fascists 2,094 and Steelhelmets 1,043.
In the “Wolfen Film,” the second largest chemical concern, the results were the following: Reformists 942, Communists 1,795, Fascists 439, Steelhelmets 198 votes.
In the Hamburg Street Railway council elections the Reformists received 4,319 votes, the Communists 189, the Fascists 158, others 106.
At the Elevated Railroad in Hamburg the results were Reformists 1,152, Communists 416, Fascists 160 votes.
At the Troisdorf Dynamite factory the Reformists received 1,249 votes, the Christian trade unions 309, the Communists 189 and the Fascists 199.
At the Bremen Street Railway council elections the Reformists received 869 votes, the Fascists 160, the Steelhelmets 106 and the Christian trade unions 72.
At the Phoenix Rubber Factory, Marburg, the Reformists received 1,595 votes and 13 delegates, the Fascists elected one delegate, others none.
In the various Kiel factory council elections out of a total of 61 delegates elected, 57 were Reformists and 2 fell to the Fascists.
These results are only a general cross section, if a more complete tabulation was to be made the results would show even less favorable for the Communists.
When we add the total votes cast in these factories where exact figures are given we have the following results: The Reformists scored a total of 13,098 votes, the Communists 3,403 and the Fascists 3,210. There is a serious weight expressed in these figures but not on the side of the revolutionary party, despite the elections taking place at the most acute moment of attacks upon the workers. That more than anything else perhaps gives the lie to the delusions of grandeur contained in the empty boasts of the party leadership conjuring up altogether non-existing victories in this field. Thus for example the Wedding party congress held in June 1929 declared:
“The factory council elections in which the Communist Party of Germany came forward for the first time in the sharpest struggle against reformism as the bearer of the united front of the organized and unorganized, became a triumphal march in the most important industrial fields and large factories. The labor masses elected countless red factory councils under the banner of struggle against the state power, the employers and reformism.”
Nothing more, nor less. The only trouble is that it was an attempt to ascribe to the party a strength it did not possess which subsequently had to be admitted by the party controlled trade union Left wing congress. Such is the method of inflating one’s own strength out of all proportion and simultaneously minimizing the strength of the enemy. It is typical of the self-complacent bureaucracy but it is mortally dangerous to the party – as the events have now so decisively proven. Against this the Left Opposition has many times warned: The way to get strong is not to begin by the mistake of exaggerating one’s own strength.” Not only that, but the policy of consistently separating the militant minority from the bulk of the trade union membership in the factories by their separate red election lists, even though appearing under the grand name of “unity lists,” contributed heavily to the isolation of the party and to the disorganization of the movement. One can say chat though the party apparatus never followed a consistent policy it certainly managed to be consistent in its mistakes, even to the extent of disarming the workers.
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