Switzerland
The workers’ low standard of living led to a strike by bank employees in September-October 1918.
8 Militants who had previously been involved with the
Forderung Group and J. Herzog founded a Communist Party. In November, the labor movement, led by a “committee” set up by Olten and Grimm (centrists), called a general strike merely for the purpose of generating pressure to achieve democratic reforms. The professional employees, who had enjoyed the workers’ help in October, did not take part in the strike. The bourgeoisie, as elsewhere, repressed the strike and granted some concessions. In its Congresses of October 1918 and March 1919, the Communist Party was severely critical of the Socialist Party (Platten). The Communist Party participated in the elections of August 1919. Even so, the “Swiss ultra-leftists” were criticized by the Communist International in September 1919.
9 The Swiss Socialist Party, having undergone a split, sought extra-parliamentary means of struggle and provided itself with a flexible organizational structure, the Workers Union. During general strikes in Basel and Zurich, on July 31 and August 5, 1919, five workers were killed. The Socialist Party decided to join the Communist International, only to be expelled later, in December 1920, when confronted with the 21 Conditions. A minority within the party (8,000 militants) would eventually, in March 1921, join the “Old Communists” (
Altkommunisten) with Herzog, “who defended left communist positions (rejection of parliamentarism and participation in elections, propaganda for the formation of soviets)”.
10
According to Humbert-Droz, a French-speaking Swiss communist, before the Second World Congress, the German-speaking Swiss Communist Party “adopted, on the issues of the trade unions and parliamentarism, positions which were quite similar to those of the German KAP”.
11 Herzog intervened at the Second Congress against parliamentarism. Later, he subscribed to the Theses of this Congress, in its essential points. In January 1921, he conceded great importance to the trade unions, future “directing organs of communist production”.
12 He reproached the Russians for remaining “indifferent” in the face of “all the maneuvers of the center”. He accepted revolutionary parliamentarism, with the proviso that he could change his opinion in the event that it should prove to be opposed to revolutionary interests.