Losing the Battle of the Streets

[redstar2000]

I have been reading a new book lately. It is called The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans.

It's a very good introduction to this subject; though, like most bourgeois historians, it downplays the role of the highest circles in the German ruling class in bringing Hitler and the Nazis to power because the bourgeoisie basically agreed with the Nazi aims.

But the work contains some interesting information about the KPD (Kommunistiche Partei Deutschlands) -- the Communist Party of Germany -- in the years leading up to the Nazi "revolution".

First, a bit of background. The KPD was the "crown jewel" of the Communist (3rd) International. It was the largest and most militant of all the communist parties then -- with a membership hovering around 350,000. Although most trade unions were allied with the German Social-Democratic Party, the KPD was very strong among industrial workers in Berlin and in the Ruhr, dockworkers in Hamburg and Bremen, coal miners in Saxony, etc.

It had a large parliamentary delegation that gained more seats with each election up through November of 1932. In that last "free election" of the Weimar Republic, the communists won exactly 100 seats...about 1/6th of the total of all the seats in the Reichstag.

And the KPD had its own group of paramilitaries -- the Red Front Fighters' League -- to contest the streets with the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) and the ultra-nationalist Stahlhelm. It's almost certain that most of the abundant street violence in the early 1930s consisted of battles between the SA and the Red Front.

But for all their bravery and combativeness, the Red Front lost the "battle for the streets".

I was curious as to why this happened and Professor Evans (indirectly) suggests some answers.

You understand, of course, that most of the SA (or "brownshirts") were not members of the Nazi party but rather loyal to the "idea" of Nazism and the personality of Hitler himself. Similarly, probably two-thirds of the Red Front were not members of the KPD but loyal to the idea of a communist revolution...and probably to some extent to the personality of Ernst Thälmann, the working class leader of the KPD.

On both sides, of course, there were a fair number who simply "liked a good punch-up" and were not above switching sides.

Both of these groups were composed mostly of young men who were unemployed...and, by 1930, had no hope of regular employment.

To be in a paramilitary group, therefore, was a kind of "job". You got a place to stay (sleeping space on the floor of a bar) and something to eat on a fairly regular basis (bread and soup, mostly, I expect).

I say "on the floor of a bar" because a local tavern was often the "headquarters" of a unit of the SA or the Red Front. There were "Nazi bars" and "Communist bars"...and a street battle would often begin when one group would raid the bar of the other group.

In theory, an SA or KPD fighter was supposed to pay for his own uniform, etc.,...but in practical terms, I doubt if that happened very often, especially after 1930.

So where did the money come from? Financing for the paramilitary groups came from their respective parties, of course.

But the KPD was at a serious disadvantage in this regard. Most people who were members of the Nazi party (1,200,000) were employed or had other resources and paid dues to the party; upwards of 95% of the KPD membership (350,000) were unemployed -- in fact, most of the demonstrations and large public events organized by the KPD after 1930 were on behalf of the unemployed.

The Nazis enjoyed a substantial income by charging people to hear Hitler speak in person...something many people paid from curiosity or out of fear of "Jewish-Bolshevik revolution".

The KPD had no such "attraction".

Then, of course, the Nazis enjoyed direct financial support from the ruling class...initially from a few ultra-conservative businessmen but from the class as a whole by mid-1932.

It's known now that the KPD was largely financed by "Moscow gold"...though we don't know how much.

So, up to 1932, the parties "paid" their respective paramilitary groups to fight each other...and the KPD's Red Front "held its own" against the brownshirts.

But there was a presidential election in 1932 (with a runoff) and two parliamentary elections in the same year.

Those elections were a massive strain on the finances of the Nazi party (which was the first party in Germany to run "American-style" campaigns)...and simply overwhelmed the KPD. Resources diverted from the Red Front to those campaigns resulted in a "shrinking" of the Red Front. The tavern owners could no longer be paid to serve as gathering points for Red Front fighters -- the bars closed or were taken over by the SA.

And worse, the KPD could no longer feed its paramilitaries...some number of which undoubtedly defected to the SA.

Thus the SA began to win the battle of the streets...and people seeing this drew the "obvious" conclusion. The Nazis "were going to win".

Many Germans were shocked that the Red Front was nowhere to be seen on January 30, 1933 when Hitler came to power...or in the weeks and months that followed. Even the Nazis were puzzled and a little afraid...surmising that the KPD was hoarding its strength in preparation for a massive uprising.

Their fears were groundless; the Red Front didn't really exist anymore. In fact, the KPD itself was "withering away" under Nazi violence...though a hard core did remain in existence.

And the irony? The KPD's parliamentary delegation never accomplished anything throughout the history of the Weimar Republic. The resources diverted from the Red Front was "money down the toilet"!

The KPD won "a lot of votes" -- over six million at their peak -- but those votes never translated into any kind of revolutionary strength.

Does that mean that if the KPD had avoided the Reichstag like the plague and used all of its available resources to support active resistance to the capitalist order and its Nazi thugs that "things would have turned out differently"?

We'll never know, sad to say.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Zingu]

Hm, I never knew the left ever had a militant organization, sort of the "red-shirts" so to speak.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

Very interesting information.

Thank you :)


PS: By "street battles" and "fighting" do you mean with actual guns? BANG BANG? :o

[praxis1966]

No, they were generally minor street-fights called zussamenstosse (collisions). Mostly brawling took place, but occasionaly hand to hand weapons were used.

What's ironic was that though the SA helped Hitler solidify his power in the first place, they were eventually purged during the Reichsmordwoche of 1934, or "Blood Purge" (more commonly known as The Night of the Long Knives).

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by NotWeirdOnlyGifted
By "street battles" and "fighting" do you mean with actual guns?

Usually not...Germany did not really have the kind of "gun culture" that America had (even back then).

But occasionally, yes, the SA and the Red Front opened fire on each other. Since neither side had much training in weapons handling, deaths were not common but certainly took place...quite a few on both sides suffered gunshot wounds at one time or another.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[h&s]

Interesting, I'm reading a book on Weimer Germany at the moment to see how much my history teachers last year lied to me (almost all of the time as it turns out), but I haven't got that far into it yet.
From what I have read though, it seems to me like the real oportunity for the KPD was not the late Weimar period, but the pre-Weimar one. I had been taught in school that the war was stopped by a mutiny that developed into a general strike, Ebert declared that the Kaiser had abdicated, and then the SPD took power in a proper way.
They never told us that the initial mutineers raised red flags above their ships, they never told us that workers occupied and rose flags above palaces, but what really pisses me off is that they never told us that the workers had set up soviets all over the country. I was under the impression that it was a peaceful revolution, akin to that of the 'Orange Revolution' last year. From what I have now learned the opportunity was there for the communists to seize power, had they only done things the right way. In the initial peace negotiations before Versailles the allies demanded that Germany was to destroy its 30,000 machine guns, but Ebert replied that he needed 5,000 to use on the people should the tim come.
The book I am reading has eye-witness accounts from Russia when the people heard Lenin say that the Germans were rising up against the Kaiser they rose up in deleight, 'our isolation is over, the world revolution has begun,' one said. The fact that the KPD failed to take the state out of the hands of the borgeoise and pretend Marxists is almost criminal

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by h&s
The fact that the KPD failed to take the state out of the hands of the bourgeoisie and pretend Marxists is almost criminal.

I think you are much too "hard" on the forerunners of the KPD (the Spartakist Bund and the Independent Social Democrats -- the groups that later formed the KPD).

The Spartakist Bund did try to mount an armed uprising in Berlin in January of 1919...but the support needed from the German working class was simply not there.

Yes, there was some...but not nearly enough.

And although there were many revolutionary sailers (as in Russia), there were almost no revolutionary soldiers or ex-soldiers in Germany.

Indeed, ex-soldiers were mostly to be found in the "freikorps" -- paramilitary organizations that were thoroughly reactionary. They frequently massacred groups of rebellious workers and leftists throughout Germany.

Lenin and the Bolsheviks were confidant that conditions were "ripe" for revolution in Germany at the end of World War I.

And indeed they were...but they were ripe for a bourgeois revolution.

Lenin made that mistake all the time.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Severian]

Of course the Nazi's paramilitary organization was better-financed. This was inevitable, which should suggest that the KPD's whole strategy was bad. Spending more money on hiring fighters and less on election campaigns would not have solved the problem.

The Brownshirts had another unavoidable advantage over the Red Front as well, which RedStar doesn't mention: the cops are naturally going to be more sympathetic to fascists than to "Reds".

We might as well assume right now that anything supported by the capitalists will be better financed than anything workers' organizations can do.

So what's the strength of the working class? Numbers, solidarity, our role in production.

Rather than a strategy of hiring unemployed youth for sporadic gang-fights with Brownshirts or skinheads, there's needed a strategy of out-mobilizing the fascists by drawing on much broader layers of the working class.

In 1930s Germany, this required proposing united action to the Social Democratic Party. As RedStar says, most of the KPD's following was unemployed...the SPD had the support of most employed workers. It also had its own fighting organization, the Reichsbanner, whose members wanted to fight the Nazis and sometimes did despite the central SPD leadership's cowardice.

The Nazis could have been defeated with a strategy for mobilizing the full strength of KPD-sympathizing workers - not just the Red Front - and for bringing SPD workers into the fight, with or without their leaders. The KPD never seriously tried to reach out to SPD workers for common action, calling them "social fascists" certainly did not help.

During the early 30s, the Communist International and KPD were on an ultraleft, super-revolutionary-seeming course. They rejected the united front, labelled every other party "fascist", really most everything RedStar could ask for except boycotting elections. This ultraleft course failed, and helped make it possible for Hitler to seize power.

That's the verdict of history. For anyone to come along now and say, if only they'd been even more ultraleft, maybe that woulda helped....fer crying out loud.

****

h&s is basically right, I think. The "objective conditions" in Germany were certainly better than in Russia....but there was no experienced revolutionary party as in Russia. The communists split from the Mensheviks only during the war.

The inexperienced revolutionary party made a lot of mistakes, including a premature uprising in Berlin, 1919, which RedStar mentions. That was as if the Bolsheviks had tried to seize power in April 1917.

Despite mistakes, revolutionary opportunities kept recurring, as late as 1923.

1933 was not an opportunity for taking power, the tide was flowing the other way....but the Nazis could have been stopped. With a fundamentally different strategy than the KPDs.

Here's one of the articles Trotsky wrote in '31 explaining what was wrong with the KPD's policy and what kind of policy was needed. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-ger/311208.htm)

[American_Trotskyist]

Um, www.newyouth.com one the right hand side they have books on line, one called, Germany:From Revolution to Counter-Revolution. Maybe that is what you are looking for.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
During the early 30s, the Communist International and KPD were on an ultraleft, super-revolutionary-seeming course. They rejected the united front, labeled every other party "fascist", really most everything RedStar could ask for except boycotting elections. This ultraleft course failed, and helped make it possible for Hitler to seize power.

That's the verdict of history. For anyone to come along now and say, if only they'd been even more ultraleft, maybe that woulda helped....fer crying out loud.

That is the "boilerplate" Trotskyist criticism of the Comintern's "third period" strategy...not "the verdict of history".

Its central assumption is that it was "possible" in that period for the KPD and the Social Democrats to "unite" in some fashion (carefully left unspecified) such as to frustrate the Nazi drive to power.

So, let's specify...what "could" the KPD and SPD have "united on" that would have made a difference?

After the elections of 1930, the only thing the Reichstag could ever agree on was dissolving itself and calling fresh elections. That would not have changed even had the SPD and the KPD been a "united parliamentary delegation" and voted the same way on every issue. The three chancellors prior to Hitler -- Brüning, von Papen, and von Schleicher -- all ruled by decree under the infamous Article 48 of the Weimar constitution.

The SPD even supported the Brüning government -- not that it made any difference. The SPD also supported von Hindenburg in the presidential runoff against Hitler and the KPD's Thälmann in 1932. When faced with voting for a working class communist or a reactionary Prussian aristocrat/militarist, the SPD naturally chose the Prussian aristocrat/militarist. (!)

This was no surprise to veteran members of the KPD...who (correctly) regarded the SPD as the murderers of Luxemburg and Liebknecht (in the January 1919 uprising in Berlin).


The Nazis could have been defeated with a strategy for mobilizing the full strength of KPD-sympathizing workers - not just the Red Front - and for bringing SPD workers into the fight, with or without their leaders. The KPD never seriously tried to reach out to SPD workers for common action, calling them "social fascists" certainly did not help.

The KPD called the leadership of the SPD "social fascists"...and with considerable justification in my opinion.

The KPD did call for a "united front from below" -- an attempt to reach out and mobilize ordinary workers in the SPD against the Nazis...with little success. In all probability, most SPD members approved of their leadership's policy...though there was a steady decline in SPD support at the polls and a corresponding increase in KPD support. I can rather easily imagine an SPD member being quite moderate...until he got laid off. Then it was "time to have a look at the KPD".

The SPD, rightly or wrongly, considered that their employed membership "would not respond to a call for a general strike under any circumstances" for fear of losing their jobs to an army of unemployed and desperate strikebreakers. The SPD leadership even rejected the idea of a general strike when Hitler actually became chancellor!

The only way in which any sort of "unity" between the SPD and KPD would have been possible is if the KPD had surrendered its positions on every question and become an auxiliary of the SPD.

The Communist Party of France, later in the 1930s, actually did what Trotsky thought the KPD should have done -- just rolled over like a puppy to the French Socialist Party and even the "progressive" bourgeoisie.

That didn't accomplish anything either.

Finally, I think that this ancient debate is another illustration of the "unworldly options" that seem so characteristic of Trotskyism.

When I suggest that the KPD should have put nearly all of its resources into the Red Front...that's something they actually could have done.

The Trotskyist plea for "unity" with the SPD could not have happened without the KPD's unconditional surrender to the SPD.

That could and did happen in France; it was never an option in Germany.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2005, 07:21 PM
That is the "boilerplate" Trotskyist criticism of the Comintern's "third period" strategy...not "the verdict of history".
Eh, Trotskyists are far from the only people who think the Comintern's strategy during this period was totally wrongheaded. Actually, I have a hard time thinking of anyone (other than you) who still thinks "social fascism" was a good idea. Even the Comintern itself did a total 180 a few years later, from no united front at all to the Popular Front - ultraleftism to reformism. So, yeah, verdict of history, according to 99% of humanity. I'm being generous in giving you the full 1%.


Its central assumption is that it was "possible" in that period for the KPD and the Social Democrats to "unite" in some fashion (carefully left unspecified) such as to frustrate the Nazi drive to power.

So, let's specify...what "could" the KPD and SPD have "united on" that would have made a difference?

After the elections of 1930, the only thing the Reichstag could ever agree on was dissolving itself and calling fresh elections. That would not have changed even had the SPD and the KPD been a "united parliamentary delegation" and voted the same way on every issue.

Ig. For an opponent of all electoral participation, you can sure talk like parliament is the be-all and end-all when it suits you.

As should be apparent from my post, what I'm talking about is not a united parliamentary delegation but united physical self-defense against the Brownshirts, and other united mass actions opposing fascism.

Possibly the confusion here comes from your early Stalinist training: you were taught that united front = reformist Popular front and still refuse to consider it might mean anything else.


This was no surprise to veteran members of the KPD...who (correctly) regarded the SPD as the murderers of Luxemburg and Liebknecht (in the January 1919 uprising in Berlin).

Yes, yes, the SPD murdered Luxemburg and Liebknecht. That doesn't mean they want to be murdered by Stormtroopers.


The KPD called the leadership of the SPD "social fascists"...and with considerable justification in my opinion.

Worse and worse....if the SPD is fascist, what does it matter whether they or Hitler are in power? The truth is the KPD was little better than the SPD in making a serious fight to stop Naziism, and the reason is this idea that they're all fascists anyway.


The KPD did call for a "united front from below" -- an attempt to reach out and mobilize ordinary workers in the SPD against the Nazis...with little success. In all probability, most SPD members approved of their leadership's policy...

They agreed with their leadership in most respects, and as you may be implying there, that's precisely why the "united front from below" was a failure. It tried to get the SPD workers to follow a KPD leadership, which if they were ready to do, they wouldn't be SPD workers.

But if that appeal to the ranks were combined with an offer to the leadership the latter would be put on the spot. And there's real evidence the ranks did want to fight the Brownshirts, whatever else they agreed with the leadership on. The numbers who joined the Reichsbanner, the general strike that happened in Lubeck despite the leadership discouraging it....

It's not like this kind of thing has never been done successfully. Antifascist actions involving a range of tendencies are held all the time. A small-scale, recent example of the kind of united front Trotsky was proposing: a number of different groups working together to stop LaRouchite thug attacks on the CP and later the SWP. Note the CPUSA is at least as worthless as the SPD. It worked, and nobody had to give up their political independence. On a larger scale, with mass parties mobilizing their mass followings, that's exactly what Trotsky proposed for Germany.

Varying groups, including social democrats, took common action against Franco in Spain....the error there was the Popular Front involving support to the government. Still and all, even in Spain the results were better than with the "social fascism" BS: Hitler took power almost without firing a shot but one can't say the same about Franco.

Best example, because it was done on a mass scale with a revolutionary leadership, was the united front against Kornilov's coup in Russia. Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Narodniks: even cooperation with Kerensky who was "a Kornilovist who has accidentally fallen out with Kornilov." The coup was defeated...and a few months later the Bolsheviks knocked over their former united front partners.

I realize you think it was bad the Bolsheviks succeeded, but you can't rationally deny that the Bolsheviks' tactical arsenal worked.


though there was a steady decline in SPD support at the polls and a corresponding increase in KPD support. I can rather easily imagine an SPD member being quite moderate...until he got laid off. Then it was "time to have a look at the KPD".

Uh, maybe so, and if unemployment in Germany had hit 100% maybe the KPD's basic strategy, with or without the modification you suggest, mighta worked. No way of knowing, since it's a historical hypothetical. But here on planet Earth....



The only way in which any sort of "unity" between the SPD and KPD would have been possible is if the KPD had surrendered its positions on every question and become an auxiliary of the SPD.

That was never tested. You're just making a papal proclamation about something which can't be known...as you admitted about another historical hypothetical in the first post of this thread, "We'll never know, sad to say."

Yes, "we'll never know, sad to say," how the SPD leadership would have responded if the KPD had offered united action, without offering to give up its political independence. Maybe they woulda turned it down. But even that woulda make clear to the SPD ranks, in action not words, who was blocking united self-defense....


The Communist Party of France, later in the 1930s, actually did what Trotsky thought the KPD should have done -- just rolled over like a puppy to the French Socialist Party and even the "progressive" bourgeoisie.

That's BS, and you oughta know it's BS, and probably do know it's BS. Considering that you weren't born yesterday. Trotsky didn't think the KPD should do anything of the kind.

It's well-known that Trotsky opposed the Popular Front, and the whole reformist zigzag it was part of, even more strongly than he opposed the earlier ultraleft zigzag. Trotsky certainly never suggested that the KPD should do renounce the right to criticize the SPD or join it in a coalition with capitalist parties or anything of the sort.

On the contrary: from the article by Trotsky I linked earlier:
Complete independence of the Communist organization and press, complete freedom of Communist criticism, the same for the Social Democracy and the trade unions. Only contemptible opportunists can allow the freedom of the Communist Party to be limited (for example, as in the entrance into the Kuomintang). We are not of their number.

No retraction of our criticism of the Social Democracy. No forgetting of all that has been. The whole historical reckoning, including the reckoning for Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, will be presented at the proper time, just as the Russian Bolsheviks finally presented a general reckoning to the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries for the baiting, calumny, imprisonment and murder of workers, soldiers, and peasants.

If you're going to be so ostentatiously weary of "boilerplate" Trotskyist criticism, you can't pretend to be ignorant of what Trotsky was advocating. So if not ignorance, that leaves dishonesty: the kind of falsification you learned in the Stalinist school of politics.

You're using the the logical fallacy known as the "excluded middle": you pretend only reformist or ultraleft policies exist, and ignore the revolutionary policy because you can't come up with a good argument against it.

Trotskyist "unreal" criticism: Trotsky himself was certainly not unreal. He helped led a real revolution, remember? He knew how it was done.

The policies of Thaelman and his ilk were real as well, and led to an amazing series of real, bloody defeats.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
Trotskyists are far from the only people who think the Comintern's strategy during this period was totally wrongheaded. Actually, I have a hard time thinking of anyone (other than you) who still thinks "social fascism" was a good idea.

Yes, I don't think I've come across even one bourgeois historian who puts the "blame" on the SPD rather than the "ultra-left" and "totally wrongheaded" KPD.


As should be apparent from my post, what I'm talking about is not a united parliamentary delegation but united physical self-defense against the Brownshirts, and other united mass actions opposing fascism.

No, actually it was not "apparent"...but be that as it may, so what?

Yes, occasionally the SPD paramilitaries also violently confronted the Nazis...but you know as well as I how rare that was -- and why.

The SPD were, in all likelihood, employed...meaning they were "weekend warriors" at best. A lot of them probably had family responsibilities -- unlike the single young guys in the Red Front and the SA. Most of the time, the SPD probably only defended their meetings and demonstrations from the Nazis...and then only when the Nazis thought it useful to attack them. 99.99% of Nazi violence was directed against the KPD and random Jewish victims. (One of the things that I don't think the KPD ever did was to publicly offer to protect Jewish assemblies from Nazi attacks. Such an offer might have sent a good message about the KPD.)

The idea of SPD paramilitaries "going to bat" for the KPD is ludicrous.


Worse and worse....if the SPD is fascist, what does it matter whether they or Hitler are in power?

In 1919, it didn't! The SPD turned the army and the freikorps loose against the most radical workers in precisely the same fashion as the Nazis turned the SA loose after January 30, 1933.

And there was no chance of the SPD returning to power in 1932...they were losing votes, remember?


But if that appeal to the ranks were combined with an offer to the leadership [of the SPD] the latter would be put on the spot.

And what "spot" would that be? The "spot" of telling the KPD that they would have to "stop fighting in the streets" or else it was "no deal"?

What neither you nor Trotsky seem to grasp is that the SPD (leaders and most members) did not really want to oppose the Nazis if it meant fighting them. Their whole "shtick" was bourgeois legality.

Their response to right-wing atrocities was...to file a lawsuit!


You're using the the logical fallacy known as the "excluded middle": you pretend only reformist or ultraleft policies exist, and ignore the revolutionary policy because you can't come up with a good argument against it.

I exclude the "middle" because I've observed that it never seems to amount to anything but delayed capitulation to the right.

And the delay is rarely a long one.


Trotskyist "unreal" criticism: Trotsky himself was certainly not unreal. He helped led a real revolution, remember? He knew how it was done.

And undone. First you hire some Czarist generals, then you crush the Workers' Opposition, then...

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[pandora]

I am not sure if I am remembering my history correctly but was not Rosa Luxembourg involved with KPD but told them that they were too soft to hold up against right wing forces if I remember correctly one of the key complaints was their lack of openess towards poor and downtrodden workers, and to take a more vehement stand in politics, and for her vehement speeches she was targeted by the brown shirts and assinated by drowning.
Then a few years later her lover who was investigating her death was murdered by the brown shirts. My suspiscion is that a chief motive then for the Red Shirts was protectionism and they were more of a defensive then offensive unit.

Also as anyone who has dealt with National Front individuals and others will confirm, these organizations are often fed a great deal of seed money from undisclosed wealthy sources that allow them to be able to train and draft more recruits, some of whom may be more into the money and violence than the racism :o but go along for the cash and because they grew up around racist views so violence on the case of racism seems natural for them. Backing up good old drunk daddy :lol: more so than any real drive to seek out and participate in racist organisations. Of coarse the resulting violence is the same either way.

The only reason I mention these individuals is that with early enough intervention such individuals are easily swayed to just be normal workers, they do whatever is easy without scruples. It is ironic that right wing organizations are so convinced of the black heart of humankind, when so many diabolical minds serve their cause while there are so many great beings that were involved in the Enlightenment in which the goodness of humans was extolled.

I am undecided whether those who are selfish simply believe all others to be, or their belief in humans being inherently selfish is used to absolve themselves of responsibility and without moral discipline they become evil in deed. But my only wish is that more of these individuals would change their minds.

[Edelweiss]

Thank you redstar, for publishing this article here, it's just excellent, I learned quiet a lot from, although I should actually know the facts as a German.... :) I just have published tha article in the ezine.
My only criticism is maybe that you don't mention that how far the KPD was really controlled by Moscow/Stalin, and how hesistant Moscow was to support revolutionary, militant action in Germany.
A discussion wether Stalin's "social fascist" policy was right or not is, as every discussion about historical possibilities of the past, difficult and a bit pointless. On a backsight, it seems to be that it was the wrong strategy, a "united front" maybe wouldn't have been realistic at that time, but still the aggresive and polarizing rhetoric against the SPD (and vice versa) in times of an iminent fascist state, wasn't the right things to do. Some kind of (verbal) truce would have been more appropriated IMO. In the early 30s the enemy clearly where the brown fascists NOT the SPD.

Another thing that the situation in the early 30s, but also the "revolution" attempts of 1918 show is the lack of ability of the German radical Left throughout history to accomplish anything which goes beyond a theoretical stage. Theory and philosophy has without question always been a "strenghth of the Germans", not only leftist theory, also bourgeois philosphy, but as the failed bourgeois revolution of 1848 has shown, the Germans seem generally to be unable to develop any effective revolutionary stuggle on a practical level. There never has been ANY succesful revolution in Germany, the lack of a succesful bourgeois revolution maybe is a big part of the problem, and one of the causes of the Hitler fascism. As Lenin once taunted "When the Germans want to squat a train station during their revolution, they buy a ticket before". :)
Today the radical German Left prefers to maul each other in endless debates wether it's right to side with the Palestinians or Israel, instead of managing to stand together against the blatant "class struggle from above" which is currently happening here, or against the increasing fascist threat in Germany.

But still: Rotfront! :)

[h&s]

The KPD called the leadership of the SPD "social fascists"...and with considerable justification in my opinion.
Come on. What the hell was the point of labelling the SPD as social fascists when the real fascists are breathing right down their necks? Why would you want to avert attention from the evil of the real fascists? The only thing that acheived was defeat to fascism, and the deaths of millions.
The leadership of the KPD were complete traitors to the movement, far more than they would of been had they united with the SPD - they actually organised a transport strike with the Nazi party! They should have been beating up the Nazis, not standing side by side with them.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Malte
My only criticism is maybe that you don't mention that how far the KPD was really controlled by Moscow/Stalin, and how hesitant Moscow was to support revolutionary, militant action in Germany.

Yes, I didn't say anything on that subject because I'm not sure how much is actually known.

The KPD was financed by the Comintern...but how much that translated into "control" is difficult to ascertain. Obviously, the Red Flag newspaper was not going to publish anything critical of Stalin or the USSR.

But did the Comintern (and ultimately Stalin) "order" the KPD to spend the money on electioneering or lose it?

I don't think that was likely to be the case; I think it was the judgment of the KPD leadership of that period that electioneering was the best way to "build the party". For all their combative rhetoric, I think the KDP leadership also had a "bias" towards legality...they didn't want to have the KPD banned (something that was possible to do under the Weimar constitution and had actually happened to the Nazis for a couple of years in the mid-1920s).

I think the picture of the Comintern as an "all-powerful" entity is overdrawn. If you look at the accounts of the congresses through the 1920's, you see that over and over again the Comintern tries to pull the Germans to the right and push the French to the left...and with a notable lack of success in both endeavors.


Some kind of (verbal) truce would have been more appropriated IMO. In the early 30s the enemy clearly where the brown fascists NOT the SPD.

Yes, I think you're right about this. It was the KPD analysis that revolution would not be possible "until" the working class was united in and behind the KPD -- and thus they did think that the SPD had to be removed as a major "player" before progress could be made. Although the KPD's attacks on the SPD were entirely journalistic (the KPD did not fight the SPD in the streets...that's a bourgeois myth), it was still the wrong thing to do. It would have been better to simply report the SPD's parliamentary behavior "dead pan" and let the readers draw their own conclusions, while reserving the verbal fireworks for the Nazis.

Perhaps the most serious blunder was that the KPD thought that the Nazi government would be a brief one (like the previous two governments)...even though they had the example of Italy right in front of them (Mussolini wiped out the Italian Communist Party!).

And here is another curious note: in the two elections of 1932, the KPD combed through their list of candidates and carefully removed any names that "sounded Jewish" to German ears. I think that sort of "tactical" anti-semitism was self-defeating; it would have sent a better and clearer message to have some prominent German-Jewish communists up towards the top of the list and publicize them...if you're going to play parliamentary politics, at least do it in a way that spits in the Nazi face.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Anarchist Freedom]

Thats very interesting RS2k I think that Nazism prevailed because of a shatterd economy...

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by h&s
The leadership of the KPD were complete traitors to the movement, far more than they would of been had they united with the SPD - they actually organised a transport strike with the Nazi party! They should have been beating up the Nazis, not standing side by side with them.

One wonders if the Berlin public transit workers had any idea that a whole "school" of "historical analysis" was going to be built on their efforts to avoid a pay cut and layoffs.

As any bourgeois ideologue will tell you (without asking!), the KPD "fought along side the Nazis" and "that's why Stalin was responsible for the rise of Hitler". :lol:

Yes, the KPD was involved in a militant transit strike in Berlin. Yes, the Nazis opportunistically "supported" that strike (they never supported any other strikes) -- possibly because the Nazis were starting to get a "rep" for hanging out with business leaders and aristocrats. (Also possibly because Berlin Nazis were slightly to the "left" of the "Munich cabal" around Hitler.)

So what do you think the KPD should have done? Quit supporting the workers because the Nazis had jumped into the situation?

Do you imagine that even while the strike was going on that the Red Front was not still fighting the Nazis in the streets?

That strike was exceptionally bitter, by the way. There were gun battles between workers (and their KPD and Nazi supporters) on one side and the police on the other...and fatalities on both sides.

The police chief in Berlin was a prominent member of the SPD.

Think about it.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2005, 11:22 PM


In 1919, it didn't! The SPD turned the army and the freikorps loose against the most radical workers in precisely the same fashion as the Nazis turned the SA loose after January 30, 1933.
If you think it doesn't matter, why are you even pretending to have a strategy for keeping the Nazis from taking power?

Which is why the KPD didn't put up a real fight against Naziism any more than the SPD did: they thought it didn't matter. Only Trotsky explained that it did matter a great deal.

The whole circus with the Red Front was intended to cover up this betrayal by the KPD, not to be a real fight.




But if that appeal to the ranks were combined with an offer to the leadership [of the SPD] the latter would be put on the spot.

And what "spot" would that be? The "spot" of telling the KPD that they would have to "stop fighting in the streets" or else it was "no deal"?

On the spot of being clearly, in action, before the eyes of the SPD ranks, the ones responsible for blocking united action against the Nazis. If they refuse, the conditions are far better for winning the ranks and even local SPD organizations to united action.

As it was, the KPD leaders were equally responsible with the SPD for the fact there was no serious resistance to the Nazis.

What are you really afraid of - that the SPD leadership would refuse united action? If that happens, what have you lost? Nothing.

Maybe you're really afraid they mighta accepted under pressure from the ranks....

IMO that's what the KPD leadership was really afraid of. They mighta had to back up their ultraleft rhetoric with some real mass action...ultralefts are often afraid of having to put their money where their big mouths are in my experience.

In any case, it's amusing to see a supposed anti-authoritarian so determined to defend the policy of Stalin's Comintern.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25 2005, 10:10 AM
So what do you think the KPD should have done? Quit supporting the workers because the Nazis had jumped into the situation?
You've got a point there. Though one wonders if the concrete tactics were right...a lot more detailed knowledge would be needed. Was it actually necessary to cooperate with Nazi gangs? Could an effort have been made to get strikers' support for excluding 'em from the strike? Etc.

In any case, if it's possible to cooperate with Nazis for a particular goal, why is it impossible to similarly cooperate with Social Democrats?

And of course the KPD also supported a Nazi referendum, in Saxony IIRC.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
...ultralefts are often afraid of having to put their money where their big mouths are in my experience.

Yeah, from the streets of Berlin to the Spanish plain, your vast "experience" has convinced you that "ultra-leftists" are "big-mouths" and cowards.

This...from a Trotskyist. :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Severian]

...and I see you still have no answer to real political questions involved.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
...and I see you still have no answer to real political questions involved.

You don't have any "real political questions"...if you did, I'd be glad to discuss them.

All you have to offer is a warmed-over version of Trotsky's imaginary "united front"...something that was never an option in the Weimar Republic.

When I offered a fresh interpretation of the KPD, your response was, in effect, "if Trotsky didn't say it, then it can't possibly be valid".

It seems as if Trotskyists can only repeat the "master's" words over and over again...cramming the whole world's experiences into the tiny mold of Trotsky's life from 1917 to 1940.

You have many sensible things to say about Tibet and Buddhism; probably because Trotsky never wrote about them.(!)

So if you have something fresh and interesting to offer on this or any topic, I will be delighted to pay respectful attention.

But if you'd rather throw flame-darts, then I will respond accordingly.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25 2005, 07:14 PM
[All you have to offer is a warmed-over version of Trotsky's imaginary "united front"...something that was never an option in the Weimar Republic.
BS. The KPD didn't control the SPD's response, of course, but it was obviously an option to offer a united front. You've given no reason not to. What's the worst thing that could happen?

"Fresh thinking"? You've offered a minor adjustment to a fundamentally flawed strategy. Different budgetary priorities, fer crying out loud, how petty can ya get?

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25 2005, 01:25 AM
My only criticism is maybe that you don't mention that how far the KPD was really controlled by Moscow/Stalin, and how hesistant Moscow was to support revolutionary, militant action in Germany.
The opposite is true. The overall ultraleft course and 'militant' Rotfront action was ordered by Moscow. It was carried out by Communist Parties internationally, not just in Germany, as part of the "third period" strategy of roughly 1928 to 34. (or something like that.) It was parallel to a Soviet domestic policy shift to the ultraleft as well - forced collectivization.

There was nothing revolutionary about this course - it wasn't aimed at nor capable of producing revolutions or bringing them closer - but it was exactly the kind of thing ultralefts usually mean by "revolutionary, militant action". Heck, there was more militant action and less purely rhetorical facade than is usual from ultralefts, since it was carried out by some quite large parties. Including, for example, the hopeless '28 Canton uprising, which should be militant enough for anyone.



A discussion wether Stalin's "social fascist" policy was right or not is, as every discussion about historical possibilities of the past, difficult and a bit pointless.

I disagree: all the basic issues of the 30s are before people attempting to resist fascism today.

Just a few years ago, we saw virtually the entire left voting for Chirac to stop LePen, just as the SPD voted for Hindenburg to stop Hitler. And in the modern version, they didn't even have the excuse of a real imminent danger of fascist takeover. "History repeats itself; The first time as tragedy, the second as farce."

And we also have the groups of radical young people going out to do single combat with fascist gangs, as if that by itself could stop fascism, which is a deep-rooted social phenomenon. As in the 30s, so today, a strategy that can bring broader layers of the working class into action is needed. Details like the role of different parties have changed.


On a backsight, it seems to be that it was the wrong strategy, a "united front" maybe wouldn't have been realistic at that time, but still the aggresive and polarizing rhetoric against the SPD (and vice versa) in times of an iminent fascist state, wasn't the right things to do. Some kind of (verbal) truce would have been more appropriated IMO. In the early 30s the enemy clearly where the brown fascists NOT the SPD.

There's some ambiguity there...it could easily mean the worst of both worlds. Combining the Popular Front's renunciation of criticism of the social democracy, with the Third Period's failure to take united action in self-defense. The party leaderships, alike in disunity and passivity, give each other a mutual amnesty.

'Course, if what's meant is not a truce on all criticism, but toning down overheated rhetoric and false charges like "social fascism", I agree that was an obstacle to unity with social-democratic workers.

The worse problem with "social fascism", along with labeling all types of bourgeois party as fascist, was that it led to passivity. This is already fascism, the Nazis can't be much worse, "after Hitler, us" and other excuses for inaction.

[Edelweiss]

I disagree: all the basic issues of the 30s are before people attempting to resist fascism today.

Just a few years ago, we saw virtually the entire left voting for Chirac to stop LePen, just as the SPD voted for Hindenburg to stop Hitler. And in the modern version, they didn't even have the excuse of a real imminent danger of fascist takeover. "History repeats itself; The first time as tragedy, the second as farce."

And we also have the groups of radical young people going out to do single combat with fascist gangs, as if that by itself could stop fascism, which is a deep-rooted social phenomenon. As in the 30s, so today, a strategy that can bring broader layers of the working class into action is needed. Details like the role of different parties have changed.

When I said that discussions about historical possibilities are a bit pointless, I meant that it's very easy to make historical judgements today, where we know how history went, and it's just smartassness to make theses about how history would have went if just certain decisions would have been different, as often happens in discussions about historical possibilities of the past. Such theses can never be proofed.

About tactics of fighting fascism today: I think there is no alternative to confront the fascists on the streets. No, of course it won't stop the phenomenon of fascism, and of course "a strategy that can bring broader layers of the working class into action is needed". But again, this is theoretical nonsense which doesn't help at all to actually do something against the fascist scum. In times where the fascist youth gangs are terrorizing whole small cities and districts, where encroachments on foreigners, leftists, homosexuals etc. are happening nearly daily, and people get actually murdered again by the fascists it would a blatant mistake to not to try to actually stop them where they commit their crimes. Also, I'm convinced that someone will think twice if they join a fascist gang if they know that this can result in serious physical harm for them. It's important to stand against the fascists on the streets, to stop them to commit their crimes, and to stop them at their marches. Everything else is just social worker or hippe shit. :lol: By all means, we can't leave them the streets. I'm convined that if there wouldn't have been the Antifa here in Germany, fascist parties and groups would have been much more succesful during the 90s.
But than again there are always people like you how speak of "ultra-leftists" and how wrong militant action and resistance nowadays is. Such people have made the Hitler fascism possible as well, THAT is a lesson to learn from history, not the wrong conclusions you have made.

[h&s]

Yes, the KPD was involved in a militant transit strike in Berlin. Yes, the Nazis opportunistically "supported" that strike (they never supported any other strikes) -- possibly because the Nazis were starting to get a "rep" for hanging out with business leaders and aristocrats. (Also possibly because Berlin Nazis were slightly to the "left" of the "Munich cabal" around Hitler.)

So what do you think the KPD should have done? Quit supporting the workers because the Nazis had jumped into the situation?
Oh so you'd be perfectly happy standing on a picket line next to someone holding a Nazi banner? I'm not saying that the KPD shouldn't have got involved in the strike, far from it, but they should have used the opportunity to campaign against the Nazis, not with them. They should have been campaigning amongst the trade unionists to inform them of the borgeois nature of the Nazis. I don't know the details of the Nazi policy towards the working class but today its extremly easy to counter the BNP's claims that they are for the working people by proving how they have supported bosses cuts, and I'm guessing that the same sort of information would have been easy to find about the Nazis. The hypocrasy of the Nazis would only be too apparent to the striking workers if the KPD had done their job properly.


Do you imagine that even while the strike was going on that the Red Front was not still fighting the Nazis in the streets?
Of course. I'm talking about the KPD leaders, not the RedFront.


The police chief in Berlin was a prominent member of the SPD.

Think about it.
Oh my god, the policeman was borgeois. I'd never had though that. What the hell has that got to do with anything? It proves that the SPD were social fascist does it? Even if it does, so what? The real enemy was the Nazis, not the SPD.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian+--> (Severian)Different budgetary priorities, fer crying out loud, how petty can ya get?[/b]

Your idealism is showing.

Red Front fighters who have nothing to eat and no place to sleep cannot fight the Nazis in the streets.

Material reality prevails...something you seem to have overlooked.


There was nothing revolutionary about this course - it wasn't aimed at nor capable of producing revolutions or bringing them closer - but it was exactly the kind of thing ultralefts usually mean by "revolutionary, militant action". Heck, there was more militant action and less purely rhetorical facade than is usual from ultralefts, since it was carried out by some quite large parties. Including, for example, the hopeless '28 Canton uprising, which should be militant enough for anyone.

And clearly too militant for you.

How is it that for Trotskyists, any kind of militant resistance that's not led by them is "ultra-left" and "hopeless"?

You don't like it when Greek anarchists burn down a police station now. You didn't like it when German "Stalinists" (heaven forbid!) fought the Nazis in the streets in the 1930s. And I remember from the 1960s that you didn't much care for SDS's "style of work" either...too confrontational, perhaps. I'm curious now as to what your position on the French student uprising and the general strike of 1968 was. Were French Trotskyists part of all that...or did they issue a critical manifesto?


I disagree: all the basic issues of the 30s are before people attempting to resist fascism today.

Let's do the time warp again!

People of various ideologies will fight fascism in the streets and you will provide links to Trotsky's articles on the subject.


And we also have the groups of radical young people going out to do single combat with fascist gangs, as if that by itself could stop fascism, which is a deep-rooted social phenomenon.

Resistance to fascism, may I remind you, is also a "deep-rooted social phenomenon".


As in the 30s, so today, a strategy that can bring broader layers of the working class into action is needed.

It would be something nice to have -- if it existed.

Trotsky's strategy (and yours) has no real-world meaning. It simply boils down to dropping all pretense of communism (and any acts of actual resistance) in the hope that social democrats and bourgeois liberals will tell their constituencies to vote for someone besides the fascist...which they will do anyway.

You want to know how the Nazis could have been stopped? It's easy! When the ruling circles around the senile von Hindenburg were still debating about bringing the Nazis on board, one of their major concerns was the possibility of civil war.

Suppose that concern had been elevated...by an even larger Red Front (who got fed and had a place to sleep) and who were conducting daily pitched battles with the SA? Suppose even the German Army (still limited to 100,000 troops by the Treaty of Versailles) hesitated at the prospect?

Do you think the German ruling class would not have seriously considered "other options"?

And they had them, of course. The SPD would have been delighted to lead a "government of national unity" as long as the Nazis were excluded. With few or no KPD members of parliament (no electioneering for them), the SPD would have had a delegation close to the size of the Nazis...and maybe even a little larger. Even army head General von Schleicher was predisposed to SPD-like measures (think FDR) to deal with the depression.

They could have frozen the Nazis out...had their fears of civil war been great enough.


The worse problem with "social fascism", along with labeling all types of bourgeois party as fascist, was that it led to passivity. This is already fascism, the Nazis can't be much worse, "after Hitler, us" and other excuses for inaction.

The Red Front was fighting the Nazis in the streets until they ran out of food and places to sleep...and this is called "passivity" and "inaction".

Behold! Another "miracle of the dialectic".


h&s
Oh so you'd be perfectly happy standing on a picket line next to someone holding a Nazi banner?

Actually, it would have been more like me and a guy next to me wearing a swastika on his arm shooting at cops who were shooting at us.

I told you it was a very bitter strike.


They should have been campaigning amongst the trade unionists to inform them of the bourgeois nature of the Nazis.

When cops are shooting at you, you don't, as a rule, stop and have an ideological discussion with the guy next to you.

I have no doubt that the KPD explained, as best they could, that the Nazi "support" was unreliable and opportunistic. I also have little doubt that the workers' reply was along the lines of "we need help now...afterwards we'll talk politics."


I don't know the details of the Nazi policy towards the working class...

The Nazis did attempt to set up party cells in factories...but without much success. Their rhetoric emphasized nationalism and anti-semitism...not any kind of specific benefits for workers. It was sort of "when Germany is great again, then workers will prosper".


It proves that the SPD were social fascist, does it? Even if it does, so what? The real enemy was the Nazis, not the SPD.

To be sure...but when an SPD police chief orders the Berlin police to open fire on striking workers, it's a little harder to tell the difference.

Think about that, too.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2005, 05:11 AM
it's just smartassness to make theses about how history would have went if just certain decisions would have been different, as often happens in discussions about historical possibilities of the past. Such theses can never be proofed.
OK, I agree.


it would a blatant mistake to not to try to actually stop them where they commit their crimes.

How is this done in Germany? The fascists don't typically announce the time and place in advance, do they?

From anti-racist skinheads I've known in the US, it seems more to involve going around beating each other up when they see each other. Not so much anything that can be clearly seen as self-defense.

I've always thought and acted on the basis, if you think something may be attacked, you organize a defense with whoever you can get, not waiting for broader masses at some unknown future time....but "whoever you can get" is precisely what the KPD refused to do.

I'm all for confronting their marches...I'm not for getting people beat up by the cops to little other effect.


I'm convined that if there wouldn't have been the Antifa here in Germany, fascist parties and groups would have been much more succesful during the 90s.

That's another one of those hypotheticals that can't be proven.

I'd need to know more details before I comment on the methods of the Antifa.

Another problem, in this country especially, is various small Klan and Nazi groups are treated as if they represent the main fascist danger, while the leading candidate for fuehrer, Patrick Buchanan, is not recognized for what he is.

The Klan and Nazis can't march without great difficulty and huge amounts of police protection, good. Buchananites, on the other hand, are actually welcomed into some left-organized antiwar demonstrations.

I'd guess this is less of a problem in Europe - LePen, Haider etc seem widely recognized as fascist - but perhaps it's a problem to a degree? Given their size it would seem probably hard to physically interfere with their functioning.

Proclaiming one's opposition to free speech is really not the best tactical approach to getting broader support either. I think it's better to emphasize that fascism is not about speech, but thug attacks, and the need for defence, and the right to counterprotest....defence does not have to be conceived in a rigid way depending on the tactical situation.

[Severian]

Edit: I notice Redstar is still avoiding any response to my main point of my last thread:
BS. The KPD didn't control the SPD's response, of course, but it was obviously an option to offer a united front. You've given no reason not to. What's the worst thing that could happen?

I tend to have overly long posts which take up all kinds of side points - especially a problem with RedStar as it helps him evade the main issue. So I'm going to prune this post down some.


Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2005, 10:35 AM
How is it that for Trotskyists, any kind of militant resistance that's not led by them is "ultra-left" and "hopeless"?

Uh, yeah, I'm sure everyone on this board has noticed how I think the Cuban Revolution was awful since it wasn't led by Trotskyists. Etc.

This complaint is sent to the wrong address. I have no interest in defending "Trotskyists", a meaningless label self-applied by a grab-bag of centrist and ultraleft groups. Really, it seems like yet another attempt to change the subject 'cause your position on the subject under discussion is indefensible.


People of various ideologies will fight fascism in the streets and you will provide links to Trotsky's articles on the subject.

Wait. People of various ideologies? Are "social fascists" allowed?


Suppose that concern had been elevated...by an even larger Red Front (who got fed and had a place to sleep) and who were conducting daily pitched battles with the SA? Suppose even the German Army (still limited to 100,000 troops by the Treaty of Versailles) hesitated at the prospect? They could have frozen the Nazis out...had their fears of civil war been great enough

Um, yeah, the German Army would have hesitated before the prospect of combat with the mighty fists of the unarmed Red Front. Yes, as we all know, if fighters are sufficiently well-fed, things like numbers, weapons, military training, and experienced military leadership are irrelevant...you don't give any estimate of the Red Front's size.

Here we go with the spoiled brat syndrome again, just like in the Redstar's youth with SDS! All kinds of children of privilege smashed windows and escalated their rhetoric, in an effort to scare Daddy into being nicer. Then they grew up and became stockbrokers.

Truly it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks.

Yes, let's bluff and throw temper tantrums until Daddy is nice to us and puts the bad Nazis away again!

So the whole ultraleft strategy is, as usual, reformist at heart: aimed at influencing the ruling class, not mobilizing the working class into a force strong enough to stop the fascist gangs ourselves.

h&S wrote:

It proves that the SPD were social fascist, does it? Even if it does, so what? The real enemy was the Nazis, not the SPD.

Redstar responded:

To be sure...but when an SPD police chief orders the Berlin police to open fire on striking workers, it's a little harder to tell the difference.

Not much harder. Under the SPD police chief, and the conservative national government, the workers had a union and were able to strike, despite repression which is sometimes bloody. Under Naziism, repression reached such a level that the workers' organizations were almost wholly smashed - not just driven underground, smashed. That's the difference between bourgeois democracy and fascism. Yes, bloody repression of the workers is part of bourgeois democracy, and always has been.

As you keep evading: if the SPD are social fascists, and the various bourgeois parties are all fascist, why fight to keep the Nazis out of power?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
I tend to have overly long posts which take up all kinds of side points - especially a problem with RedStar as it helps him evade the main issue.

The problem is not their length -- but yes, you do go "all over the place" and how one is supposed to guess what your "main issue" really is remains...a problem.

For example...


The KPD didn't control the SPD's response, of course, but it was obviously an option to offer a united front. You've given no reason not to. What's the worst thing that could happen?

I have responded to that point repeatedly.

There is no reason to make an offer that is certain to be rejected. At least, that's how the KPD perceived it and I see no reason to question their judgment on the matter...the SPD had already demonstrated its unwillingness to seriously (violently) confront Nazism.

A secondary reason might have been that such offers, when made and rejected, tend to make the offerer "look weak". And the KPD would have seen no advantage to that.

Trotsky's "option" was imaginary!

And now it's "off to the races" with your "side points"...


Proclaiming one's opposition to free speech is really not the best tactical approach to getting broader support either.

Idolatry...completely ignores the class nature of "free speech".


Uh, yeah, I'm sure everyone on this board has noticed how I think the Cuban Revolution was awful since it wasn't led by Trotskyists. Etc.

Fair enough...though I wonder why. Wouldn't it be more consistent if you regarded it as "just another Stalinist despotism"?

Then there are all of those British Trotskyists who are big fans of Hugo Chavez...so there are some militants that you support.

How do you decide?


Um, yeah, the German Army would have hesitated before the prospect of combat with the mighty fists of the unarmed Red Front. Yes, as we all know, if fighters are sufficiently well-fed, things like numbers, weapons, military training, and experienced military leadership are irrelevant...you don't give any estimate of the Red Front's size.

No, I don't...I don't think there are anything but estimates for the size of both the Red Front and the SA. It's certain, however, that both were substantially larger than the German army.

My point is that civil war and the undesirability of that was actually discussed at length in the months and weeks leading to Hitler's elevation...by those who were directly involved in that elevation.

Had the Red Front been even larger and more aggressive than it was...???


Here we go with the spoiled brat syndrome again, just like in the Redstar's youth with SDS! All kinds of children of privilege smashed windows and escalated their rhetoric, in an effort to scare Daddy into being nicer. Then they grew up and became stockbrokers.

I think that slice of reactionary bullshit speaks for itself.


Truly it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks.

As does that.


So the whole ultraleft strategy is, as usual, reformist at heart: aimed at influencing the ruling class, not mobilizing the working class into a force strong enough to stop the fascist gangs ourselves.

That's what the Stalinists said about the "ultra-left": "left in form; right in content!"

I rather doubt the KPD placed any hopes in "influencing the ruling class"...except in trying to keep their party from being banned.

That motive probably did inhibit the aggressiveness of the Red Front to some degree...unfortunately.


Under the SPD police chief, and the conservative national government, the workers had a union and were able to strike, despite repression which is sometimes bloody.

Hooray!


As you keep evading: if the SPD are social fascists, and the various bourgeois parties are all fascist, why fight to keep the Nazis out of power?

I don't think the KPD was fighting to "keep the Nazis out of power"...I think they were fighting to win the streets -- and from there to win power themselves.

The Nazi SA had the same motive.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[PRC-UTE]

The KPD didn't control the SPD's response, of course, but it was obviously an option to offer a united front. You've given no reason not to. What's the worst thing that could happen?

The KPD did make an eleventh hour appeal to a united front, which was completely rejected by the SPD.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

The Nazi SA had the same motive.

The SA wanted to put the KPD in power?

Oh, maybe I read that wrong . . . :P

[redstar2000]

A note on numbers...

As you probably know, google either hands you what you're looking for right away or else a million sites where the fact you want is hopelessly buried.

I found one site that said that the SA had 700,000 members at the end of 1932. That's about 58% of the size of the Nazi party membership of 1,200,000.

Assuming that the ratio was about the same for the Red Front/KPD, it's probably "in the ballpark" to suggest that the Red Front peaked at around 200,000 members in the first three months of 1932.

With KPD resources diverted to electioneering, the size of the Red Front probably began to shrink dramatically...especially after mid-1932.

By the end of 1932, the Red Front could have been down to as little as 20,000 or so.

I also came across an interesting footnote: there were adolescent street gangs in Berlin that were in quasi-alliance with the Red Front. They weren't very "political" but they really enjoyed kicking Nazi ass. And since they tended to be concentrated in the same parts of Berlin as the Red Front, mutual agreements were easy to reach.

The KPD could never decide if these kids were "true proletarians" or not. But the KPD did mount a campaign against Prussian "reform schools" -- detention centers for adolescents...sort of like our modern "boot camps" -- as snakepits of official brutality and abuse.

The kids were astonished...and attracted to an adult group that spoke up for them. Probably more than a thousand of them ended up in the KPD.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Severian]

Redstar wrote:

The problem is not their length -- but yes, you do go "all over the place" and how one is supposed to guess what your "main issue" really is remains...a problem.

Thinking helps - for example, this is a thread on 30s Germany, not 60s USA or France. Barring that, it oughta be a tipoff when I repeatedly say something's a main point. I'll try to cut down, an label primary points, more in future.

To some extent this is an inherent problem in internet debate: everybody's gotta snip when responding, but that makes it easy to cherry-pick what to respond to and avoid the strongest points. Where preferably, it's the weakest points that'd be ignored as not deserving a response.


There is no reason to make an offer that is certain to be rejected.

I've GIVEN reasons.


At least, that's how the KPD perceived it and I see no reason to question their judgment on the matter...

Yes, God forbid you should question the "judgement" of Stalin. That's who decided the policy, and decreed it on an international scale, not just Germany. Given that you've formally disavowed your past political loyalty, how come you keep deciding to defend it?



A secondary reason might have been that such offers, when made and rejected, tend to make the offerer "look weak". And the KPD would have seen no advantage to that.

At last! An actual reason a united front offer mighta been bad. Contrary to what you say (snipped), you have NOT responded before, this is the FIRST reason you've given.

But not a very convincing reason. If this is the best you have, I see why you've evaded so long.

Hint: when people have an exaggerated fear of appearing weak, it's usually because they are are weak. And in fact the KPD was too weak to defeat the Nazis by itself.

Bluffing and putting up a front is not a revolutionary strategy. Looking like one wants unity in action (and having the appearance be accurate) is more important than "looking strong" and macho.


Trotsky's "option" was imaginary!

Bubba, even if it was bad - and the ONLY reason you've given is that it might make the KPD look weak - that doesn't make it imaginary. It's called logic, try it sometime.



And now it's "off to the races" with your "side points"...


Proclaiming one's opposition to free speech is really not the best tactical approach to getting broader support either.

Idolatry...completely ignores the class nature of "free speech".

Most people do. Hence the tactical approach being bad.



Um, yeah, the German Army would have hesitated before the prospect of combat with the mighty fists of the unarmed Red Front. Yes, as we all know, if fighters are sufficiently well-fed, things like numbers, weapons, military training, and experienced military leadership are irrelevant...you don't give any estimate of the Red Front's size.

No, I don't...I don't think there are anything but estimates for the size of both the Red Front and the SA.

Uh, yeah, that's what I said, "estimate".

Interesting if they're bigger than the Army...but doesn't eliminate importance of weapons, training, discipline, leadership. You said the party was only 350,000, and not all of 'em woulda been Red Front members, so the core of displine and leadership there woulda been limited. Especially if many of the others were signed up for the stipend, food, and place to sleep, as you indicated earlier.

The poor military performance of Sadr's Mahdi Army, compared with Sunni insurgents who have Republican Guard trainers and officers to draw on, is a recent example.

I'm guessing the SA was significantly bigger than the RedFront, am I wrong?


My point is that civil war and the undesirability of that was actually discussed at length in the months and weeks leading to Hitler's elevation...by those who were directly involved in that elevation.


OK. And by "civil war" did they just mean fighting with the Red Front? I doubt it, because it was already fighting the SA in the streets. If that amounted to civil war - which it doesn't - they woulda already had one.

More logically, they coulda meant the possibility of larger forces mobilizing and taking up arms against the now-fascist regime...as in Spain. See, that's what a civil war looks like. The difference with Germany is not minor. 'Course that involved a united front, didn't it?

And in Spain, the social democrats didn't demand the Stalinists, or anarchists, or POUM, surrender their principles as a condition of the united front...they did that voluntarily. The Stalinists were to the right of many social democrats, even. The Bolshevik-Leninists were able to participate in the front against Franco without giving up their principles.



So the whole ultraleft strategy is, as usual, reformist at heart: aimed at influencing the ruling class, not mobilizing the working class into a force strong enough to stop the fascist gangs ourselves.

That's what the Stalinists said about the "ultra-left": "left in form; right in content!"

Eh, no actually. They didn't say forces to their left were reformist, like the social democrats...after all they were cozying up to social democrats.

They said anyone to their left was a...."Trotsky fascist". A paid agent of Berlin, even.

That was in the Popular Front period. During the period under discussion in this thread, nobody was to their left, in form anyway. And they called everyone fascist.


I rather doubt the KPD placed any hopes in "influencing the ruling class"...except in trying to keep their party from being banned.

You just did. And all of the Stalintern's policies were aimed at getting Daddy to be nicer to the USSR. That was the common thread between the ultraleft and Popular Front zigzags of its policy.



I don't think the KPD was fighting to "keep the Nazis out of power"

Which is exactly the problem. I think most people would agree.

Snipped: some stuff that could be interesting...in another thread.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
Given that you've formally disavowed your past political loyalty, how come you keep deciding to defend it?

In your eyes, the Comintern's policy (the "third period") in the late 20s and early 30s was "ultra-left".

In my view, it was further to the left than their policies before or afterwards.

I am an ultra-leftist.

Therefore, why would I not defend the Comintern's outlook? Indeed, it was almost certainly not ultra-left enough.

The Comintern should have sent the KPD more "gold" and should have insisted that it be used to build up the Red Front.

If anything, the Comintern's third period outlook was "ultra-left in form; not ultra-left enough in practice".


Hint: when people have an exaggerated fear of appearing weak, it's usually because they are weak.

So the thing to do is publicly display that weakness for all to see...including the enemy?

Were I a soldier, I would not trust you as an officer...your "tactical sense" leaves much to be desired.


More logically, they coulda meant the possibility of larger forces mobilizing and taking up arms against the now-fascist regime...as in Spain.

Dear me. That would have been remarkably prescient of those who brought Hitler to power...as the Spanish civil war didn't begin until more than three years later.


The Bolshevik-Leninists were able to participate in the front against Franco without giving up their principles.

Yes, you would bring up the POUM...but didn't Trotsky himself scathingly criticize the POUM's cooperation with the ultra-left Friends of Durruti?

"Bolshevik-Leninist" is, I take it, a term you prefer to "Trotskyist"?

You can have it as a title instead of "Sub-Comandante", if you like.


Which is exactly the problem. I think most people would agree.

I said the KPD/Red Front sought to win the battle of the streets as a road to power...not simply to defeat the Nazis.

You imply that this was incorrect of them...and suggest that "most people" would agree.

But whether it was correct or incorrect, that did seem to be their view of things (or at least a strong current of opinion within the KPD). Therefore, they had still another reason to disdain a "united front" with the SPD -- their goal was certainly not to "share power" with a corrupt reformist party.

So what does Trotsky's "united front" do had it even been possible? It cannot call a general strike -- the SPD leadership was opposed to the idea because they believed their employed members would not respond to such a call out of fear of losing their jobs. The SPD's paramilitaries (with rare exceptions) were not going to aggressively fight the Nazis in the streets -- that would have been totally out of character for them.

What's left is a parliamentary bloc. One in which the SPD would have had a slight edge on the KPD...and both together would have still been smaller than the Nazis plus their Nationalist and Center party allies.

Hitler would still have been named Chancellor, the SA terror against the KPD would still have happened, the "elections" of 1933 would still have taken place, the "Enabling Act" would still have passed, etc.

Another reason (admittedly in hindsight) for Trotsky's imaginary "united front" not to materialize...it wouldn't have made any difference at all.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Maksym]

If we compare Germany to Russia and China one glaring difference becomes clear. This difference is Russia and China had a weak state apparatus. Germany might have been in political crisis and depression but they had a strong state apparatus. The police and army were strong in Germany, unlike in Russia and China, so the state was able to control the situation. We could be looking to hard into what particular difference in strategy could have led to a different conclusion, considering the bourgeoisie state apparatus was in control either way.

[Severian]

Yes, of course, the German generals and cabinet wouldn't have used the Spanish example, duh. That doesn't answer the question of what they meant by civil war, just fighting with the RotFront or broader forces going into action against them. So: nice evasion.

Similarly, the fact you're an ultraleft and so was Stalin during this period, doesn't answer why you choose to accept his "judgement" in describing the situation, without (stated) supporting evidence.


Therefore, they had still another reason to disdain a "united front" with the SPD -- their goal was certainly not to "share power" with a corrupt reformist party.

Repeating your old logical fallacy here. United action in defense against fascism does not equal joining the SPD in government. If it did, the Bolsheviks woulda joined Kerensky's government after joining with the Mensheviks and SRs to defeat Kornilov.

This whole argument is going round in circles due to your playing illogic games.

Another example:
So what does Trotsky's "united front" do had it even been possible? It cannot call a general strike -- the SPD leadership was opposed to the idea because they believed their employed members would not respond to such a call out of fear of losing their jobs. The SPD's paramilitaries (with rare exceptions) were not going to aggressively fight the Nazis in the streets -- that would have been totally out of character for them.

Since the united front proposal is a proposal for common action for physical self-defense, what you're saying here is: even if the SPD had agreed to fight the Nazis in the streets, they would not have agreed to fight the Nazis in the streets. By calling the same thing by different names, you're trying to appear that there are additional real obstacles.

Incidentally: "the SPD leadership was opposed to the idea because they believed their employed members would not respond to such a call out of fear of losing their jobs." That just highlights the importance of unemployed support for any strike, general or particular, political or economic - if you know your US labor history, think of the '34 Toledo and Minneapolis strikes, and others during the Depression where the massive numbers of unemployed were organized to picket not scab. And to organize unemployed support, the KPD's help was necessary. The party divide in Germany paralleled an already deep division in the working class, employed vs unemployed; little could be achieved without cooperation across both divides.

What you also don't get is the whole united front tactic is aimed at winning the SPD ranks, not just the SPD leaders. United action was objectively needed. Who was responsible for the obstacles to it? I would say, the SPD and KPD leaderships both. Perhaps you think just the SPD leadership.

In the eyes of SPD workers, however, it was the KPD that was responsible. It was necessary to show, in action, that wasn't the case, that the KPD was holding the door open for united action and it was the SPD leadership that refused to walk through it. You just don't get this, and I think I'm starting to see why.

All political strategy is about "winning hearts and minds" as the class enemy puts it. Revolutionary strategy, even more so, since it's only the majority of working people who can make a revolution. But this rarely if ever plays any role in your arguments about political strategy.

That is, you never argue for a strategy on the basis that it'll help win working people to an action or movement. And you don't take seriously any strategy motivated on this basis.

Why? Perhaps because to you, most people are sheep, fools, often "godsuckers." You have contempt for them, which you've expressed on numerous occassions.

Which means that debating political strategy with you is like discussing color with the blind. You just don't get the one thing that political strategy, especially revolutionary strategy, is all about.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
All political strategy is about "winning hearts and minds" as the class enemy puts it. Revolutionary strategy, even more so, since it's only the majority of working people who can make a revolution. But this rarely if ever plays any role in your arguments about political strategy.

I think you mean something very different by that "winning hearts and minds" than I do.

I look for the most truthful things that can be said about a particular situation...even if they are not "immediately popular".

In fact, I'm looking to "win minds" much more than "hearts".


That is, you never argue for a strategy on the basis that it'll help win working people to an action or movement. And you don't take seriously any strategy motivated on this basis.

Why? Perhaps because to you, most people are sheep, fools, often "godsuckers." You have contempt for them, which you've expressed on numerous occasions.

In the United States at the present time most people are sheep, fools, and godsuckers. That is a deplorable situation...but that's how things actually are.

It's not "contempt", it's empirical observation.

You evidently assume that there is a "correct strategy" to overcome this...some way to "coax" the American masses into less foolishness and godsucking -- perhaps with "moderate" demands and "inoffensive" language.

Perhaps there is...but I've seen no sight of one from anybody.

In fact, most of what I've seen from the American left these days is just foolishness of a different kind, e.g., supporting Kerry, looking for a "great leader", calling for a "Labor Party", blah, blah, blah.

I don't think any of that crapola will win working people to a cup of coffee.

In fact, I don't even have a strategy -- or should I say A CORRECT STRATEGY.

I think all we can do in the U.S. at this point is to tell the truth to as many as will listen (and the numbers will be small for a long time to come).

There's no chance that a significant number of people in the Empire are going to give up foolishness and godsucking until the Empire itself is shaken with catastrophic defeats.


Which means that debating political strategy with you is like discussing color with the blind.

The color that you "see" comes from the rosy tint of your glasses; it has no real world counterpart.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Hobo87]

I have not looked into that period more than a few times. It seems though I was missing a lot more than I thought and will look into it more. Thank you redstar and all those who discussed this in the thread.

[OleMarxco]

Trotsky weren't making the "united front" plan of his "imagination", more of that what he thought the situation was in Germany and how the solution could've been...so I agree, taking participation (and wasting money on, if not energy!) a election at THAT time were, technically, totally meaningless! Should've taken more plan into violent action. But, however, as you might see....."they got back" by the end of the war, and the "commies came back" by i.e. thy reds from the east invaded - And saved Europe finally from the fascist-flame...with some help from the west, of course ;)

[A.J.]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/76/1932-kpd.jpg

An end to this system!

Rot Front! Rot Front!!! :hammer: :)

[Angry Young Man]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24, 2005 03:30 am
It's a very good introduction to this subject; though, like most bourgeois historians, it downplays the role of the highest circles in the German ruling class in bringing Hitler and the Nazis to power because the bourgeoisie basically agreed with the Nazi aims.


Did they? I thought the bourgeoisie in post-WWI Germany supported the various liberal parties and, because many were Jews, hated Nazi ideology. The backbone of Nazi ideology was that the Jew had stolen all of the property of "true" Germans. Therefore they were supported by reactionary classes like the nobility and the petit-bourgeios who saw this new Bourgeoisie as a threat to their status. So the Nazis provided a scapegoat.
When I was doing AS History, I found it quite strange the way that Soviet propaganda portrayed capitalists was very similar to the way Nazi propaganda portrayed Jews.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2006 12:54 pm
Did they? I thought the bourgeoisie in post-WWI Germany supported the various liberal parties and, because many were Jews, hated Nazi ideology.
Um, no. The Jewish capitalists of course opposed Naziism. But most German capitalists weren't Jewish!

The role of certain capitalists like the Krupp family (Krupp steel) in financing the Nazi party is well known. See any good general history of Naziism like Shirer's the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, or better yet Fascism and Big Business by Daniel Guerin.

Also: the liberal and other bourgeois parties melted away during the early 30s. Their supporters mostly went over to the Nazis. This is apparent if you look at the vote totals in the different early 30s elections - you can find 'em in "The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany" by Trotsky among other places.


The backbone of Nazi ideology was that the Jew had stolen all of the property of "true" Germans. Therefore they were supported by reactionary classes like the nobility and the petit-bourgeios who saw this new Bourgeoisie as a threat to their status.

I'm sorry, what new bourgeoisie? You speak as if the Nazi ideology was true. Which is wasn't. Most capital remained in Aryan hands.

The Nazis opposed only the Jewish capitalists, in reality. Rhetorically this helped 'em seem opposed to capitalism generally and appeal to the petty-bourgeoisie as you say. A scapegoat - which wasn't inherently threatening to capitalism. A deal was made - Shirer describes some of the meetings.


When I was doing AS History, I found it quite strange the way that Soviet propaganda portrayed capitalists was very similar to the way Nazi propaganda portrayed Jews.

Backwards. The Nazis propaganda was similar, because it imitated Socialist and Communist propaganda against capitalism, diverting it against Jews as a scapegoat..