Beaten But Not Defeated Read online

  41. Bavaria was not unique. In other parts of Germany, the fascists were taking on the left such as at Jena where the fascists and municipal police together killed demonstrators. In Halle, the fascists of the stadhelm attacked a left newspaper office (Serge).

  42. One month later, von Kahr declared himself to be a temporary replacement for the Bavarian king!

  43. The Stresemann’s government’s response was typically – but tragically - to attack the left at this point, not the fascists. Stresseman only lasted from August to November 1923.

  44. The causes of the Putsch’s failure falls outside this narrative but Serge essentially suggests that the bourgeoisie and rich industrialists (some of whom were already financing it) took fright, at least for the time being.

  Chapter 4

  1918 - 1933 Political Background to the KPD

  Siegi’s time in the KPD in Germany was relatively brief - as far as we know from 1929/30 to 1933 but it was at the centre of his life for those four years and framed his thinking for the rest of his life. It is worth first reminding ourselves of the position of the KPD as a backdrop to Siegi’s activities up till 1933. A brief glimpse into the twists and turns of the KPD are a necessary prelude to understanding Siegi’s political choices and activities; moreover given that we will find Siegi actively resisting the Nazis, it is worth providing a background to enable us to analyse in subsequent chapters how his activities followed - or failed to follow - a KPD line. In a period of political and economic turmoil, the faction fighting around the KPD took on a far more than normal significance - its bare bones are summarised (and simplified) below. (For readers interested in the alphabet soup of different grouplets whose internecine feuding was to determine all our fates, keep an eye on this chapter’s endnotes and the appendices.)

  The threat from the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) in Berlin in the years up to 1928/29 was growing, but was vastly outnumbered by the left and was largely unobserved. We do not know the membership of the newly established NSDAP Berlin branch, but by 1926, the NSDAP were beginning to draw people from right wing paramilitary organisations and right wing athletics clubs, as well as campaigning amongst the ever increasing numbers of unemployed (Rosenhaft, 1983:18). Already in 1927, hundreds of the SA had the confidence to confront a carload of the Rotfrontkämpferbund (RFB or Red Front) following a Nazi meeting at Trebbin, close to Berlin (Rosenhaft, 1983:18).

  By early 1929, the SA in Berlin had a membership of about 800. By comparison, the membership of the KPD in 1927 in Berlin was greater: 15,000, one tenth of German membership (Rosenhaft, 1983:11), the RFB in 1929: 11,000 (Rosenhaft, 1983:18). The left far outnumbered the right - which contributed to the KPD’s failure to pay them sufficient attention. In the 1928 elections, the Nazis only received a very small proportion of the Berlin vote (nationally 2.6% against the KPD with 10.6% and the SDP with almost 30%). Two years later, in 1930, the Nazis gained 18.3% and in 1932 their share nationally had risen to 37.3%, though ‘only’ 30% in Berlin (Rosenhaft, 1983:19). (In the November 1932 election, the Nazis lost votes, creating further illusions.) This was the context against which KPD policy needs to be assessed.

  1918-1928

  Any observer would have predicted that, if any country were to move towards socialism, then Germany would be the first. By the early 1900s, the SPD (Social-Democratic Party of Germany) was already both the biggest Socialist Party in the world and the main opposition in Germany. It had been founded by associates of Marx and Engels and held a formally Marxist position of class struggle and the need for the overthrow of capitalism. However, many of its leading figures were already committed to a ‘reformist’ perspective. Dating back to its founders’ opposition to the 1870 Franco-Prussian War one of its key principles was never to vote for the military budget. The SPD vote for war credits in August 1914 led eventually to the split in 1917 with a pro-peace, if not anti-war, minority. This formed the Independent SPD (USPD) and alongside them a number of hard-line and actively anti-war revolutionary groupings, principally the Spartacus League around the leading theoretician Rosa Luxemburg and the former leader of the SPD youth, Karl Liebknecht. These groupings came together in December 1918 under the leadership of the Spartacists to form the new German Communist Party (KPD), which became the biggest and most influential Communist Party outside the Soviet Union. Germany was seen by most revolutionaries as the key to the success or otherwise of the Russian, indeed the world, revolution. In this sense Siegi was an important participant in one of the most important struggles in world history.

  From its foundation the KPD suffered from divisions, factions and splits between those who saw themselves as continuing Luxemberg’s struggle to build a mass party and a mass workers’ movement, and those who stigmatised them as passive and opportunist and were in turn accused of irresponsible and sectarian leftism. But, unlike in the period from 1929, the overwhelming majority of the KPD had, from 1921, with Comintern approval, upheld the tactic of the United Front. In late 1920, at its Halle Congress, the majority of the USPD had voted to merge with the KPD (the minority were to rejoin the SPD in 1922). The new party’s policy was for a United Front with the Trades Unions and the SPD, which had been crucial in the defeat of the Kapp Putsch (see previous chapter). The tactic of the united front involved attempts at uniting all organisations linked to the working-class, from the ‘ultra-left’ KAPD to the SPD, around a militant, and if necessary armed, defence of workers’ living standards and struggle against authoritarianism. The KPD’s argument was that either, if the SPD accepted the alliance, they would be able to pull over a significant section of the SPD into joint activity leading towards revolution, or, if the SPD rejected the approach, then the KPD could win over their membership.

  In 1923, the KPD, now led by the ‘centre-rights’ Brandler and Thalheimer, decided to plan for a full-scale revolution, with the hope of bringing on board as much of the SPD as possible. In Saxony and Thuringia where a strong SPD leaned to the left,45 KPD leaders had become ministers in SPD dominated governments and it was hoped this would give the revolution financial support, control of local police and distribution of arms to militias (LaPorte). But the left Social Democrats started to pull out, no arms were distributed in Saxony and Thuringia and, following the failure of the ‘United Front’ Chemnitz conference of 21st October to agree plans for a general strike, the rising was called off at the last minute by the KPD CC (after a strong intervention in favour of doing so from Radek on behalf of the Comintern). The failure of the 1923 events is a turning point: it marks a fundamental defeat for the revolutionary left and laid open the space for the growth of an ultra-right alternative to the Weimar fiasco.

  At this point the factional struggles in the KPD became entangled in the factional struggles within the leadership of the Soviet Union and the Comintern (Radek, the main link between the KPD and both the Comintern and the Soviet CP, held responsible for the defeat, was a supporter of Trotsky against the ‘troika’ who took over after the death of Lenin). The Brandler-Thalheimer leadership were excluded from all influence following the April 1924 KPD conference and were moved to Moscow to work for the Comintern (during 1924 similar ‘purges’ were carried out in several European Communist Parties). The Communist International (Comintern) became increasingly dominant in providing a leadership and settling bitter internal disputes, to the point where it is often thought KPD policy was effectively decided in Moscow.

  What the 1923 defeat also opened the door to, was the dropping in practice of the United Front policy. The Berlin-based leftists Ruth Fischer and Arkady Maslow who had opposed the United Front tactic, in particular the entry of KPD members into government in Saxony and Thuringia, now took over. Then, from 1926 to 1928, following the ‘leftists’ removal by the Comintern (see endnote), the KPD was led by the ‘Centre’.46

  1928-1933

  Siegi’s main period of political activity occurs once he arrives in Berlin - he is still only 24, and it is therefore an analysis of the KPD’s po
licies between 1928 and 1933 which is of most importance as it provides the background to all Siegi’s activities. It coincides moreover almost exactly with the ‘Third Period’. It is also worth noting that the Berlin KPD had, from its earliest days been strongly influenced by the hard-line ‘left’ of the party.

  The Social Democrats and the KPD saw the working class as a battle ground, certainly in Berlin, Siegi’s stamping ground, who, having undergone mass unemployment and poverty, were generally deeply disaffected from the main parties and parliamentary system. For every ‘front’ organisation of the KPD, we will find an alternative with the SPD. It is important to recognise how significant the division between the KPD and the SPD was in the years leading up to 1933 and how far it framed the KPD’s lack of attention to the rising NSDAP. While what is written here will focus almost entirely on the KPD, it is fully recognised that the SPD was as sectarian as the KPD but, unlike the KPD, was in some areas in power and in control of the police - therefore in a very different ‘locus’ of power to the KPD. Nevertheless, the SPD’s responsibility for the rise of Nazism has to lie outside this book.

  In 1928, the 6th Congress of the Comintern introduced the Third Period, a profound shift from the ‘second period’: a period of consolidation and of the tactic of the united front, already described. Now however, the Comintern saw a period of rising economic and political crisis and increasing class conflict - capitalism would consequently look for solutions outside capitalist ‘normality’ (even if an extension of it). The bourgeoisie would rationalise capitalism, using increasingly authoritarian methods. The Social Democratic leadership would place increasingly severe restraint on the working-class and thus compromise with and become an open vehicle of the ruling class. Like the actual fascists, the ‘social fascists’ would gain a popular base with fake policies appealing to the less well off.47 Thus the KPD came up with the infamous position that Social Democrats were ‘social fascists’.48 The major alternative was that capitalism would turn towards Fascism itself (Rosenhaft, 1983: 30-32). Both the ‘social fascists’ and the real fascists were defined as ‘national fascists’, both equally seen as enemies, (Rosenheim, 1983: 59, Carr, 1982: 15 passim49 ). So, the choice was one form or another of fascism or the Communist movement taking over the leadership of the ‘inevitable’ mass protests and seizing power.

  Early on in the Third Period, once the Social Democrats were defined as ‘social fascists‘, the KPD rejected making even formal appeals to the Social Democratic - or ‘social fascists’‘ - for proletarian unity, as they had done earlier. As Carr (1982:15) states about the position of the Politburo in April 1930: ‘Nothing…suggested any weakening in the determination to brand the SPD and its leaders [my italics - note Carr 1982’s distinction here] as social-fascists and as a prop to the bourgeoisie’. Crucially, it was implied and sometimes openly argued, such appeals would be counter-productive as workers and other ‘popular’ classes would rapidly move to ‘pre-revolutionary’ consciousness and action such as strikes and street protests and away from confidence in both parliamentary politics in general and social democracy in particular.

  Though the interpretation of the third period varies between leading members of the CC between 1930 and 1933 (Carr, 1982: p29-83 passim), the CC position was generally not a refusal to work with Social Democratic workers as the Third Period is frequently represented. Rather the emphasis is on pulling SPD workers away from their leadership and into the Communist fold, so that the KPD would become the leadership for the whole working class (Carr, 1982:35). It is the leadership who - generally - are referred to as ‘social fascists’. This is very different from the normal concept of ‘united front’. Indeed, the criticism that both Trotsky and Brandler, removed from leadership of the KPD in the aftermath of the failure of 1923, made of this position was that attacking the Social Democratic leaders, even though not apparently the workers, would actually drive away the working class members of such organisations, and therefore split the German working class and the left (as so tragically proved to be the case). I did not hear any evidence from the Berlin 3 that the policy of pulling Social Democratic workers into the Communist fold was put into practice. The one area where there was sometimes joint activity: the Red Front (discussed below, and in which Siegi played a role), I would argue was as much a product of circumstance - the increasing local power of the SA and Nazi thugs - than policy.

  In subsequent chapters, there is a discussion as to whether Siegi himself adopted the concept of ‘social fascist’, a term that was not universally employed. Indeed LaPorte (2002: 305) (partly based on research by Gert Reuter) documents that in 1929 the KPD leadership purged those who resisted the use of this term and its implementation but that these currents continued to exist latently as a basic tendency within the party.

  LaPorte’s (2002: 183) analysis of the relationship between KPD leadership’s line and the activities of the membership is instructive and unique. Though his focus is Saxony, many of his conclusions have a far broader pertinence - and, as will be seen in later chapters, is borne out by my interviews with the three old KPD Berliners. Even before the implementation of the third Period line in 1928, the leadership of the KPD, a ‘stalinised’ party, was already ‘unable to impose the Comintern’s ever changing line on a membership which remained rooted in their local environments.’ Party policy was already decided ‘from above’, and opponents from the KPD but also RFB were purged. Nevertheless, the strength of the factions, on right or left, was rooted in the local environment in which activists campaigned and this gave them an independence of thought. LaPorte (2002) indeed argues that in general the KPD leadership (unlike the SPD) failed to bring the rank and file with it in its many changes of line, and particularly relevant here, in its confrontational attitude to the SPD.

  LaPorte (2002) argues that already by 1929, the attempt of the party leadership to impose ideological uniformity generally destabilized the relationship between the party and its membership. The KPD leadership in late 1928 tried to bed down the new turn to the left. At the Second Party Workers’ Conference in Berlin, (its delegates were not elected but appointed), Neumann, one of the leaders of the German KPD whom we shall soon re-encounter, insisted that the term of ‘social fascist’ was merely the application of past principles to present conditions and pointed to a radicalisation of the workforce, such as displayed in the strike in the Ruhr iron and steel industry (in fact, a lock-out in which the KPD had little influence). The link between party organisation and the implementation of party policy was also tightened by the introduction of ‘organisational discipline’ (Körperschaftsdisziplin) (Rosenhaft, 1983:266-268). Party debate must end after a decision was reached by a higher authority and Trade-union and other delegates were restricted to their own organisation and level.50 LaPorte (2002) quotes Weber that the Opposition already stood no chance against the party machine.51

  Talking to the Berlin 3 gave me an insight into how meaningful the ‘social fascist’ line was. Rudi and Hans had observed and undergone arrests, harassment and beatings before 1933, of course by the SA, but more significantly here, by the police under SDP control and the SDPers themselves.52 Moreover, Rudi at least remembered the 1929 events in Berlin (discussed in next chapter) when demonstrators were shot down by the police under Social Democratic control. It is also likely that he knew older comrades who would have experienced and remembered similar events of 1918 and 1923. The lived experience of these rank and file KPD’s prejudiced them to see the SDPers as no better than the Nazis. LaPorte (2002), looking at the relationship between line and membership in his analysis of the KPD between 1924 and 33, similary argues that KPD directives were interpreted and responded to in specific political contexts.

  Though Siegi was not active in a trade-union, it is worth briefly examining the KPD’s Third Period policy towards establishing and joining separate unions as an example of how far KPD leadership were successful in enforcing the ‘line’. The Party’s so-called independent revolutionary trade u
nion was the Red Union. To take Hans as an example of a rank and file trade union member: Hans lived in Leipzig, Saxony, and belonged to the Social Democratic Union, not the Red Union. This was almost certainly because it was the stronger union, maybe also because there was no Red Union there or it was not viable. He could not easily be forced to carry out policies that “failed to account for the realities of their own specific political environment.” Moreover, Hans said that he actually did not carry out much political work in the union. Indeed, LaPorte (2002) referring to the very beginning of the period that interests us, 1928, in Saxony, records the reticence of Communists to do political work in the factories because of their fear this would lead to their expulsion from their union. Whatever the reasons for his non-involvement, Hans’ case is an example of the limitation of the KPD policy of separate Red Unions. Membership of a SDP dominated union was presumably seen at a rank and file level as politically appropriate.

  LaPorte (2002) examining the causes for the multi-fracturing of the working class and the relationship to the KPD argues that there is no evidence that the Party members – whether unemployed or employed, skilled or unskilled workers – supported the policy of Red Unions and that this policy was instead a ‘radicalisation from above’, which found very little support in the factories.

  In fact, a close reading of the KPD’s debates on the formation of separate Red Unions shows much ambiguity, as to the desirability of separate formations, though in general the line supports this position. LaPorte (2002: 288) argues that the purpose behind the separate union position was to ‘push the gulf between the SPD and KPD at national level into the parties’ social bases‘. The KPD wanted to end the internal party political consequences of contact with the wider workers’ movement, even calling on the replacement of long serving Communists, who were frequently former Social Democrats. In reality, the KPD rather demanded that KPD candidates were put forward for shop steward positions. But ‘Often Communist union functionaries, as well as rank-and-file members, simply ignored party directives for drawing up independent candidate lists in the factory council elections.’ (LaPorte, 2002: 286).