Outline History of the German Working-Class Movement [Reprint 2022 ed.] 9783112617601, 9783112617595

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OUTLINE HISTORY OF THE GERMAN WORKING-CLASS MOVEMENT

Outline History of the German Working-Class Movement

AKADEMIE-VERLAG 1963

• BERLIN

Erschienen im Akademie-Verlag GmbH, Berlin W 8, Leipziger Straße 3-4 Copyright 1963 by Akademie-Verlag GmbH Lizenznummer: 202 • 100/250/63 Gesamtherstdlung: IV/2/14 . VEB Werkdruck'Gräfenhainichen • 1952 Bestellnummer: 5521/C • ES 14 A/E

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

The The The The The

• •

first main period second main period third main period fourth main period fifth main period

'

10 13 14 17 22

CHAPTER I

The beginning of the German working-class movement. The foundation of scientific Communism and the creation of the first revolutionary party by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The Revolution of 1848/49. (Period from the beginning of the German working-class movement until 1849.)

30

CHAPTER II

The further development of scientific communism by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The struggle for a revolutionary mass party of the German working class and for the revolutionary-democratic unification of Germany. The formation of the First International. The foundation of the Social Democratic Workers' Party. (Period from 1849 to 1871.)

35

CHAPTER III

The lessons of the Paris Commune of 1871. Germany becomes the centre of the international workers' movement. The struggle of the German working class against Prusso-German militarism and the development of the German Social Democratic Party to a revolutionary mass party. The foundation of the Second International. (Period from 1871 until the end of the century.) . . . .

40

CHAPTER IV

The beginning of the era of imperialism. The centre of the international workers' movement shifts to Russia. The foundation of Leninism and the formation of the Bolshevik Party under the leadership of V. I. Lenin. The mass struggles of the German working class against reaction and danger of war, under the influence of the Russian Revolution of 1905. The development of the three factions in German Social Democracy and the predominance of opportunism. The fight of the German Left against German imperialism and militarism and against opportunism in the German workers' movement. (Period from the end of the century until 1914.)

46

5

CHAPTER V

The imperialist world war. The collapse of the Second International. The open desertion of the right-wing Social Democratic and trade union leaders into the imperialist camp. The struggle of the German Left against the imperialist war and social-chauvinism. The growth of the mass movement against the war. The influence on Germany of the February Revolution in Russia. (Period from 1914 to October 1917.)

57

CHAPTER VI

The Great Socialist October Revolution and its influence on Germany. The beginning of the world historical epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism. The November Revolution and the foundation of the Communist Party of Germany. (Period from November 1917 to January 1919.)

61

CHAPTER VII

The revolutionary post-war crisis, The formation of the Third International. The significance of the Communist International and V. I. Lenin's assistance to the German working class. The struggle of the working class and the working people under the leadership of the KPD for the defence and extension of democratic rights and liberties against the positions of power of the counter-revolution. The development of the KPD into a revolutionary mass party. The struggle for social and national liberation of the German people in 1923. (Period from January 1919 up to the end of 1923.)

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CHAPTER VIII

The relative stabilisation of capitalism. The struggle of the working class and the working people under the leadership of the KPD against the resurgence of German imperialism and militarism. The formation of the Thalmann Central Committee and the development of the KPD into a Marxist-Leninist mass party. (Period from 1924 to the autumn of 1929.)

84

CHAPTER IX

The world economic crisis. The struggle of the KPD for unity of action of the working class and for a broad antifascist front against the threat of fascist dictatorship. (Period from autumn 1929 to January 1933.)

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CHAPTER X

The establishment of the fascist dictatorship and the preparation of the Second World War by German fascist imperialism. The significance of the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International. The fight of the KPD for the unity of action of the working class and the anti-fascist Popular Front, for the overthrow of the Hitler-Dictatorship and for the preventation of war. (Period from January 1933 to August 1939.) CHAPTER XI

The Second World War unleashed by German fascist imperialism. The struggle of the anti-fascist resistance movement under the leadership of the KPD, to terminate the war by overthrowing the Hitler dictatorship. The invasion of the U.S.S.R. by Hitler Germany, and the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet People.

6

102

The foundation of the National Committee "Free Germany". The destruction of Hitler fascism by the glorious Soviet Army. (Period from September 1939 to May 1945.)

Ill

CHAPTER XII

The formation of the socialist camp. The struggle of the German working class and its allies under the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist party for the establishment of the anti-fascist democratic order. The unification of the working class by the amalgamation of the SPD and KPD into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. The People's Congress movement for unity and a just peace against the imperialist policy of splitting Germany. (Period from 1945 to 1949.)

117

CHAPTER x m

The consolidation of the socialist camp. The foundation of the German Democratic Republic. The struggle of the working class, under the leadership of the SED, and the other parties and mass organizations working with it in the National Front of Democratic Germany for the strengthening of the rule of the workers and peasants, the building up of the bases of socialism in the G.D.R., and the restoration of the unity of Germany as a peace-loving, democratic state. The Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Moscow Conference of the Communist and Workers' Parties of 1957. (Period from 1949 to 1957.)

135

CHAPTER XIV

Socialism becomes the determining factor in the development of society. The Moscow Conference of the Communist and Workers' Parties of 1960 and the Twenty-second Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The fight of the working class led by the S E D and of its allies in the National Front of Democratic Germany for peace, the victory of socialism in the G.D.R. and the future of Germany. (Period from 1958 up to the present.)

152

INTRODUCTION

The "Manifesto o f the Communist Party" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was the first document o f scientific communism, and the League o f Communists was the first international and at the same time the first German revolutionary workers' party. This enabled the international proletariat, which had been trying to find its independant path since the beginning o f the thirties o f the 19th century, to fulfil its historic role. This constituted the beginning o f the history o f the international working-class movement, and the history o f the German working-class movement is an inseparable part o f it. At the same time communism began its victorious progress all over the world. This victorious progress has led from the League o f Communists, comprising about 400 members, to the powerful world movement with its 88 communist and workers' parties totalling over 40 million members. This victorious progress has reached its culmination so far in the foundation and rise of the socialist world system and in the transition o f the Union o f Socialist Soviet Republics to the comprehensive construction o f communist society. With its new programme, the Communist Manifesto o f our epoch, adopted at the Twenty-second Party Congress, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is showing the perspective of socialism and communism to the international working class and to the whole o f mankind. More than a hundred years ago Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels began the Communist Manifesto with the words: " A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre o f Communism." Today this " s p e c t r e " has become the strongest power o f our time. Socialism, at that time still scoffed at and derided, is now becoming the decisive factor in the development o f human society. Communist and workers' parties steeled in battle rule the destinies o f powerful socialist countries. In our generation communism is no longer a dream o f the exploited and oppressed, but is becoming a reality. In all countries, here sooner, there later, the breakdown o f capitalism and the realisation o f socialism and communism take place

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according to the historical necessity by the struggle of the working class and the masses of the people. The development in Germany has always been an inseparable part of this historical process. In the course of a complicated, century-long struggle, involving many losses and leading to great victories and heavy defeats, the German revolutionary working-class movement, fighting against powerful and experienced exploiting classes and strong opportunistic influences, became the leading force of the nation. The German working class is the natural inheritor of everything great, progressive and humanitarian created by the German people during its historical development. From its very beginning the revolutionary working-class movement has defended the truly national cultural and scientific traditions against their distortion and abuse by the ruling reactionary classes of exploiters. After the destruction of the Hitler regime by the glorious Soviet people, the German working class, leading the masses, smashed imperialism in one part of Germany and is now leading socialism to victory. Thus it is fulfilling its historic role and in this way helping to bring about those social changes which accord with the laws of historical development. It is proving that in Germany, too, the vital issues of the nation can only be solved by the overthrow of imperialism and the establishment of the socialist order. The history of victorious progress of the revolutionary international working-class movement and along with it the planning and implementation of the correct policy for gaining political power, for liberating mankind from oppression and exploitation and for the construction of the communist society went through various main periods, which represent at the same time the main periods of history of the German revolutionary working-class movement.

The first main period

of the history of the German working-class movement stretches from the beginning of the working-class movement and the birth of Marxism, from the Communist Manifesto and the League of Communists to the foundation of the Social Democratic Party in 1869 and the Paris Commune in 1871. In the history of the international working-class movement this period comprises the era during which the modern industrial proletariat formed into a class and the working class undertook its first independent actions against the bourgeoisie. During this era the origin and elaboration of scientific communism and the formation of the first revolutionary party of the working class took place. 10

Along with the modern industrial proletariat grew up that class whose historical task it is to liberate mankind from all exploitation and oppression, from want and wars, to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and to erect the truly humanitarian society of socialism and communism. In carrying out this task the working class fights not only for its own class interests but at the same time for the interests of the working people and the whole nation. Scientific communism, originated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, taught the working class how to liberate itself and all working people from capitalist exploitation, oppression and war and how to lead the whole of mankind to the bright heights of communism. Thus Marx and Engels brought forth the greatest work of the human mind. This work is valid not only for the German working class but for the whole nation, its history and future. "Every German can and must be filled with pride", says the proclamation made by the Central Committee of the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) on the occasion of the KarlMarx-Year 1953, "that the German nation gave the world the great thinker and the fervent revolutionary Karl Marx and his comrade-in-arms Friedrich Engels. The theory of Marx and Engels, Marxism, represents the highest cultural inheritance and the highest cultural achievement of the German nation, which has secured for it the highest esteem of all the peoples of the world." The "Manifesto of the Communist Party" set forth the historical task of the working class and with its world-historic appeal "Working men of all countries, unite I" it constituted the first programmatic document of the international working-class movement and of scientific communism. Of the initiative of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels the League of Communists was founded. The main task of the League of Communists and of the International Workers' Association, established later, consisted of making the working class aware of its historic mission and of enabling it to fulfil its historic task. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels amalgamated the working-class movements of the various countries into the First International, spread the ideas of scientific communism against all non-proletarian, pettybourgeois sects and schools of thought and worked out the strategic and tactical principles for the revolutionary struggle of the international working class. Thus they created the preconditions for the foundation of proletarian revolutionary parties in the various countries. The first main period in the history of the German working-class movement is determinated by the revolutionary struggle to do away with the power of the princes and Junkers and to solve the national question on a bourgeois-democratic basis. The decisive event in this struggle was the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1848/49. Its main 11

task was to solve the contradiction between the character of the new productive forces and the outdated production relations ending the division of Germany into feudal states and by the establishment of the bourgeois German national state. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as the representatives of the proletariat were together with their comradesin-arms the only ones who fought for the consistent solution of the national question: for an indivisible German democratic republic, living together with its neighbours in peace and friendship. The German big bourgeoisie opposed the revolutionary struggle of the masses already at the beginning of the revolution. It fully capitulated to feudal absolutism, set up an alliance with it and thereby betrayed the revolution, the interests of national unity and democracy. So the feudal-militarist counter-revolution gained the upper hand. National unity was not, therefore, a result of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. It was brought about under the leadership of the Prussian monarchy and through counter-revolutionary struggle against all democratic forces. It was not democracy which became the foundation of the developing German national state and of the national ideology characterising it, but Prusso-German militarism. This set its seal on the historical development in Germany for a long time. Already at that time, the German big bourgeoisie had shown its incapacity to solve the national question. Since the very beginning of the democratic movement for national unification the German revolutionary working-class movement, which is the inheritor of all progressive traditions of German history, has been the most consistent fighter for it. Since then it has been struggling for democracy and people's rule, for the democratic sovereignity of the German people, for the national unity and independence of Germany. In the revolution of 1848 and in the years till the foundation of the Social Democratic Party and the Paris Commune, the revolutionary forces, led by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, were striving to free the working class from the ideological, political and organisational tutelage of the bourgeoisie and from all pettybourgeois influences like Lasalleanism, and to spread Marxism in the German working-class movement under the complicated conditions of German particularism. The independent, revolutionary party of the German working class was founded in Eisenach in 1869. This was achieved in the struggle for the national unification of Germany through the bourgeois democratic rev9lution and as a result of the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The Social Democratic Party came into being in the struggle against Lasalle's opportunism and under the decisive influence of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and the First International, which they led. 12

The second main period of the history of the German working-class movement stretches from the foundation of the Social Democratic Party and the Paris C o m m u n e of 1871 to the beginning of imperialism. In the history o f the international working-class movement this is the period o f the first great struggle o f the working class to set up its own class rule, it is the period of the large scale growth of the working class and o f its preparation for the decisive class struggle against the society o f exploiters. The Paris Commune, the first great attempt in the history of mankind to carry out a proletarian revolution and to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, was of decisive importance for the further development of the working-class movement. The Paris Commune confirmed Marxism in its revolutionary practice. F r o m this first proletarian revolution Karl Marx drew essential conclusions for the development of Marxism, particularly for the path of the working class to political power. The Paris Commune taught the European proletariat to put the tasks of the socialist revolution in a concret manner. With the Paris Commune the epoch of the victory and the consolidation of capitalism in the developed countries was over. In the last third of the nineteenth century the transition f r o m laissez-faire capitalism to monopoly capitalism began. The quick growth o f the international working-class movement expressed itself above all in the foundation of the Second International in Paris in 1889. Its historic achievement in those years is that it promoted the foundation of workers' parties in a great many countries. After the suppression of the French working-class movement the German workers were placed in the vanguard of the proletarian struggle. From the 70's to the turn of the century German Social Democracy rallied the workers to its revolutionary banner and, above all by fighting against the anti-socialist laws, it developed into the most respected and most influential party of the international working-class movement. Under the constant political, ideological-theoretical and organisational guidance of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and under the leadership of August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht it grew into a mass party in which Marxism gained the upper hand. During these years German Social Democracy learned how to take advantage of the bourgeoisparliamentarian institutions of the empire. It built up its own daily press and its own educational institutions. In the trade unions, guided by the party, and in other mass organisations the party united the forces o f the German proletariat for the coming class struggles. But German Social Democracy did not draw any lessons f r o m the Paris Commune,

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although Karl Marx, criticising the draft of the Gotha programme, had pointed out its opportunistic errors. It didn't succeed in overcoming all petty-bourgeois trends in the working-class movement. A strong opportunistic tendency, which was influenced by Lassalle, continued to exist. During these decades, too, the revolutionary vanguard of the German working class was struggling for a consistent solution of the basic national question. The unification of Germany into the Prusso-German empire, the foundation of which was connected with the sanguinary suppression of the Paris Commune, turned out to be disastrous for the German nation. The revolutionary and democratic transformation of the national state, corresponding to the interests of the nation, and with the aim of erecting a bourgeois-democratic republic and the removal of the last survivals of particularism, and, above all, the struggle against Prusso-German militarism remained, therefore, on the agenda.

The third main period of the history of the German working-class movement stretches from the beginning of imperialism to the Great Socialist October Revolution. In the history of the international working-class movement this is the eve of the proletarian revolution. These were the years of the development of Marxism into Leninism, of the creation of a party of a new type and of the planning of the strategy and tactics of the working class in its struggle against imperialism and for the seizing of political power by the proletariat. At the turn of the century imperialism became the ruling system in the world. Imperialism is monopoly capitalism, parasitic and moribund capitalism. It aggravates all contradictions inherent in capitalism, above all the basic contradiction of capitalism - the contradiction between the social character of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation. Together with the aggravation of the contradiction between capital and labour we see the development of the contradiction between a small clique of monopolists and the broad masses of the people. Imperialism, which inevitably generates imperialist wars, is in its essence antidemocratic and the deadly enemy of the vital interests of all nations. These contradictions inevitably placed the socialist revolution on the agenda. This means that the question of the carrying out of the historic role of the working class and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat was put forward concretely and urgently. As the only histo14

rical force able to solve the contradictions of the new epoch at the head of the oppressed and exploited masses, the working class now moved into the centre of social development. By seizing political power and freeing the productive forces from the fetters of capitalist production relations the working class at the same time saves the nation from its monopoly-capitalist and militarist enemies and leads it towards a new (lowering as a socialist nation. Under these new conditions the comprehensive development of Marxism and the formation of workers' parties of a new type became a historical necessity. This meant first of all overcoming the influence of the bourgeoisie on the working class and crushing revisionism which had inevitably arisen together with imperialism. Since the turn of the century the ruling classes have used revisionism as a decisive means to split the working class movement from within and thus preserve the rule of the imperialist bourgeoisie. The formation of parties of a new type in the struggle against revisionism constituted the decisive condition for overcoming the split in the working class and for its unification on a revolutionary basis. The problem of how the working class should seize power was only solved in Russia, in the country which had become the focus of all social contradictions and the centre of the international revolutionary workingclass movement. Lenin developed Marxism further corresponding to the historical conditions of imperialism and brought out the theory of the socialist revolution. In the struggle against the revisionists' general attack on Marxism and under the guidance of Lenin the first MarxistLeninist party of action, the model for the whole international workingclass movement, was built up. This was the beginning of the Leninist stage of the international working-class movement. Marxism-Leninism became the most powerful ideological weapon in the revolutionary transformation of society. The correctness of Lenin's policy and its international importance and validity were confirmed by the bourgeois-demokratic revolution of 1905/07 in Russia. This was the first revolution in the era of imperialism. It raised all basic problems of the class struggle under the new historical conditions and proved that henceforth the vital questions of the nation could only be settled under the leadership of the working class, led by a party of a new type. During this revolution Lenin, standing at the head of the Bolshevik Party, worked out the strategy and tactics of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution and in his book " T w o Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution" he set forth the essential questions of the transition from the bourgeois-democratic to the socialist revolution. 15

With the beginning of the new era the crushing of German Junkerbourgeois imperialism became a vital question for our nation. The struggle of the working class against imperialist war policy and for its own social liberation was in line with the peaceful and democratic interests of the masses of the population and of the whole nation. The new conditions of class struggle made it necessary for the German working class, in alliance with the peasantry and the middle strata, to overthrow the rule of the imperialists and militarists, to seize political power and to build up a peaceful, democratic and socialist Germany. This was the only way to solve the national question in Germany. The class struggle arising in connection with the aggressive imperialist policy and the war preparations of German imperialism and militarism intensified considerably. Within German Social Democracy the struggle between the Marxist and opportunist forces was developing. The Lefts, led by Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and others, were the only ones to defend Marxism against all opportunistic attacks and to stand firmly on the basis of the revolutionary class struggle. They lifted the banner of struggle against militarism and the danger of imperialist war. This was their great service to the nation. However at that time in Germany, contrary to Russia, Leninism and the experience of the Bolsheviks were not yet made the basis of the struggles of the German working-class movement. The Left did not realise the necessity of forming an independent organisation of the revolutionary trend within Social Democracy and of waging a consistent struggle for the removal of the revisionists from the party. They did not draw the necessary lessons from the Russian revolution in 1905 and from Lenin's important works. Under the influence of Rosa Luxemburg's theory of spontaneity they did not break with opportunism in time. They did not understand Lenin's advice to establish a close alliance between the working class, the peasantry and other strata of the working population and to co-operate with all oppositional trends in imperialist Germany. Therefore the question of how to seize power under the conditions of the class struggle in Germany remained unanswered. A party of a new type was not yet formed. On the contrary, in the course of the pre-war period the advance of opportunist forces ended in the transformation of German Social Democracy into a reformist party. This became obvious at the outbreak of the First World War. Although at that time, broad sections of the German working class were ready to fight, the opportunist leaders of the party and of the trade unions openly changed over to the camp of German imperialism, shamelessly betrayed all the revolutionary traditions and Marxist principles of the working class and took up the positions of social chauvinism. Thus 16

they split the German working-class movement. The open outbreak of the crisis within German Social Democracy occured on August 4th, 1914. The Second International, whose most powerful party was that of the German Social Democrats, broke down. In spite of their erroneous views, the Left proved to be the only force in Germany which gave the working class a revolutionary orientation, fought against the war, defended the true interests of the German nation and thus remained faithful to proletarian internationalism. They were the heirs of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in Germany and they carried an the great traditions of struggle of the German working class and of all the progressive forces of the 19th century.

The fourth main period of the history of the German working-class movement stretches from the Great Socialist October Revolution to the liberation of Germany from Fascism. In the history of the international working-class movement these are the years of the victory of the Great Socialist October Revolution, the victory of socialism in one country, the rise of a communist world movement and the victory of Leninism in the revolutionary working-class movement. The Great Socialist October Revolution ushered in the epoch of the worldwide transition from capitalism to socialism. With the erection of the first socialist state the proletariat of Russia, led by the party of the Bolsheviks and by V. I. Lenin, for the first time answered in deeds the question of how the working class can fulfil its world-historic role, overthrow capitalist class rule and establish the political power of the working class in alliance with the peasantry. The first victorious dictatorship of the proletariat and the victory of socialism in one country showed the only possible way of solving all the basic contradictions of imperialism and refuted in practice the opportunist theories of the peaceful transformation to socialism, theories which try to subjugate the working class to imperialism. The October Revolution was the first step towards the worldwide victory of socialism. Since the victory of the October Revolution, capitalism has once and for all ceased to be the system ruling the whole world. The world was split into two camps, the camp of dying capitalism and the camp of growing socialism. Henceforth the struggle between them formed the main content of world history. The October Revolution led to the full development of the general crisis of capitalism, which had begun with the First World War. 2

Outline History

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The victory of the Great Socialist October Revolution led to the quick introduction of Marxism-Leninism into the international working-class movement. In many capitalist countries the existence of the victorious Soviet power speeded up the complete break between the revolutionary, truly internationalist elements of the working-class movement and opportunism, and accelerated the amalgamation of the revolutionary forces into communist parties. The new, truly revolutionary International - the Third, the Communist International — was founded in March 1919. The basic experiences of the C.P.S.U., the vanguard of the international working-class movement, in its struggle for power and in the construction of socialism in the U.S.S.R. became a model and a lesson to all communist and workers' parties and inspired them in their struggle. V . I. Lenin worked out the concrete plan for the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union and thus formulated the universally valid laws of the construction o f socialist society in any country. The victory of the Great Socialist October Revolution, which brought about a fundamentally new relation of forces in the world, created the bulwark for the liberation struggle of the working class, which was fighting together with the mass of the people all over the world for peace, national independence, democracy and socialism. The Soviet Union showed all peoples and especially the colonial and dependent countries, how to solve the national question. Inspired by the example of the Great Socialist October Revolution the German working class stood up in arms against German imperialism and militarism. This was the November Revolution of 1918. That revolution was supported by the people, who were determined to achieve the immediate ending o f the imperialist war. The best sections of the German proletariat fought under the slogans of the Spartakusbund for the overthrow of imperialism and for a close alliance between the German revolution and the young Soviet Power. The right-wing leaders of the S P D (Social Democratic Party) and of the trade unions, however, betrayed the revolution because, according to their bourgeois class position, they rejected the leading role of the working class and the conquest of political power by the proletariat. The democratic illusions, spread for many years in the working class and a m o n g the working people by the social-democratic leaders, made broad masses believe that the political power would be achived and the people's sake would have been victorious if the monarchy was overthrown and some democratic rights were obtained. By their alliance with German monopoly capitalism and militarism the social-democratic leaders of the party and of the trade unions subjugated large sections o f the working class and of the working people to the policy of the ruling 18

class. A s the right-wing leaders of the S P D betrayed the revolution, as there was no revolutionary party of the proletariat, and as the road to the conquest of state power was not clear to broad sections of the w o r k i n g class, that class could not play its historic role in the revolution, could not even finish the bourgeois-democratic revolution. It suffered a defeat. The power of German monopoly capital and of militarism remained intact. The fire o f the November Revolution gave birth to the Communist Party of Germany, the cornerstone for a Marxist-Leninist party of action. This meant that the working class had drawn the lessons of the class struggle since the turn of the century. N o w in Germany, too, the force had arisen which led the working class and its allies on the path of the struggle for political power. The defeat of German imperialism in the First World War, the imperialist enslavement of Germany by the Versailles robber treaty, the exceptional intensification of the irreconcilable contradictions between the interests of the monopolists, militarists and Junkers on the one hand and the interests of the working class and the masses of the people on the other, made Germany the focal point of all imperialistic contradictions and the weakest link in the chain of imperialist states. Therefore, the class struggle in Germany, one of the industrially most developed countries in the world with a highly organised working class, held a keyposition in the world-wide struggle between rising socialism and decadent imperialism. The fate of imperialism, at least in E u r o p e , largely depended on the result of the class struggle in Germany. Since the end o f the First World War, therefore, all efforts of the German working class, led by the K P D (Communist Party of Germany), to solve the national problem of our people had been faced by the severe resistence not only of the German monopolists but at the same time by the resistance, above all, of American, British and French imperialism. The class interests o f the imperialist powers in maintaining a monopolycapitalist system in Germany, and in the anti-Soviet orientation of German imperialism, contributed considerably to the fact that the struggle of the German working class and working people for peace, democracy and socialism was extremely difficult, complicated, protracted and claimed many victims. In the new epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism and of the Soviet Union's rise to a world power, the situation of German imperialism has become even more contradictory and hopeless than before. Its defeat in the war further increased the especially aggressive attitude o f the restored German imperialism towards foreign countries, above all towards the Soviet Union. It increased its hostility towards all democratic, truly humanitarian aspirations within 2*

19

Germany. German imperialism found itself compelled to use cunning methods in its exercise of power, because at the time conditions were suitable for the establishment of peace and democracy in Germany and for solving the problem of the national existence of the German people. The victorious socialist construction in the Soviet Union opened the way for the German people themselves to safeguard peace by close, friendly, economic and political co-operation with the first workers' and peasants' state. Among the whole German population there grew a sympathy for a peaceful and democratic future of Germany and for the fight for socialism. The militancy of the German working class grew stronger and the irreconcilable contradiction between the interests of the imperialists and militarists and those of the nation increased still more. The forces of German monopoly capital and militarism on the one hand and the working class and the masses of the people, led by the KPD, on the other, faced each other in bitter class struggle. While the most reactionary and aggressive forces of the ruling class sought their way out in fascism and war, the KPD at the head of the working class made every effort to save Germany from the danger of fascist dictatorship and war. As legitimate heir to all the revolutionary traditions of the German working-class movement and to all the progressive, humanist traditions of German history the KPD was the only party which showed the way to defeat German imperialism and militarism in this struggle and thus to solve the problem of national existence of the German people. The main point of the activity of the KPD was to organise the struggle in order to implement the joint demands of the German working class and the working people and to protect the vital interests of the whole nation. In those struggles the KPD made efforts to reach the unity of action of communists, social democrats, christian and non-party workers, to rally all working people and democratic forces round the working class and to overcome the split in the German working-class movement. After socialism had begun its triumphal march on the international level and Germany had become the weakest link in the chain of imperialist states, the revisionism of the Social Democracy became still more important for the maintenance of imperialist class domination. The rightwing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions not only continued their anti-national and anti-social policy of class co-operation with German imperialism and the splitting of the working class, the policy of August 4, 1914. From decisive governmental positions in the Weimar Republic they also carried out the power-politics of the big bourgeoisie, using the policy of a so-called third way as a cover. Anticommunism became their main ideological means of subjugating the working class and the masses 20

to the class rule of the monopolists. Their refusal to try to bring down the reactionary forces who carried through the Kapp-putsch, their rescuing of monopoly capital in the revolutionary crisis of 1923, their active support for the rearmament of German imperialism, the measures taken by social-democratic ministers against the Roier Frontkämpfer- Bund (Red Front Fighters' League*) and the capitulation of the Prussian Social Democratic Government to Papen - all that aided and abetted the ruling class. By rejecting a united front with the Communists, the right-wing leaders of the SPD weakened the working class so that it was not in a position to prevent the establishment of the fascist dictatorship by finance capital. The most reactionary and aggressive circles of German monopoly capital and militarism brutally defeated the working class and the masses of the people with the help of the Hitler regime and launched the Second World War for world domination. Their attempt to turn back the wheel of history ended in complete defeat, in accordance with the objective laws of historical development, a defeat the extent of which far surpassed the breakdown at the end of the First World War. Although the Social Democratic Party as a result of its policy had lost one position after another and was finally banned by the Hitler regime, most of the right-wing leaders of the SPD turned towards groups within the German big bourgeoisie and towards the western imperialist powers during the fascist period also, and prevented the joint struggle of all opponents of Hitler. That alignment, anti-national and against the interests of the workers, sharpened the contradictions within the SPD and led to certain sections of the Social Democratic rank and file and functionaries going over to joint anti-fascist struggle with the communists. The KPD was the only force in the nation which showed the German working class and the German people the way to liberation from the fascist dictatorship. The lessons of the anti-fascist struggle in Germany and of the Popular Front in France and Spain were taken to heart. At its conferences in Brussels and Bern the Party elaborated the strategy and tactics for the defeat of Hitler fascism and for democratic antifascist reconstruction. In this way it answered the question of how, in Germany too, the struggle for workers' political power could be victoriously carried through. That programme stood its test when the transition from capitalism to socialism extended its irresistible power to Germany also as a result of the victory of the Soviet Union and her allies in the anti-Hitler coalition in the Second World War. * Antifascist defence organisation of the German proletariat.

21

Thus the Communist Party of Germany became the great anti-imperialist, democratic and socialist force of the German working class and the whole nation. In bitter struggles against imperialism, right-wing opportunism and left-wing sectarianism it developed into a Marxist-Leninist party. In hard struggles and with great sacrifieces the party gathered great experience to help it solve the historic tasks of our nation. It learned how to apply Marxist-Leninist theory under the conditions of the class-struggle in Germany and how to lead the German people on the new road of peace democracy and socialism.

The fifth main period of the history of the German working-class movement stretches from the victory of the Soviet Union over Hitler Germany and from the construction of the anti-fascist democratic oder to the present time. In the history of the international working-class movement it is the period of the development and consolidation of the world socialist system and of the transition of the U.S.S.R. to the all-round construction of communist society. The communist and workers' parties received a mighty impetus. The communist world movement is becoming the most influential, organised political force of today, the most important factor in social progress. As a result of the victory of the Soviet Union and her allies in the anti-Hitler coalition over the fascist aggressors in the Second World War, the international balance of power decisively changed in favour of democracy and socialism. While the Soviet Union emerged from the war as a strong power, the general crisis of capitalism increased profoundly. The world capitalist system was gripped by a deep malaise of decline and decay. After the Second World War two great world camps developed, the socialist camp led by the Soviet Union and comprising one third of the world, and the imperialist camp with the United States at its head whose sphere of domination and exploitation was considerably restricted. Socialism became a world system and becomes a decisive factor in world policy and in the development of mankind. There was no longer an imperialist encirclement of the Soviet Union. The epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism, initiated by the Great Socialist October Revolution, entered a new phase. The complete victory of socialism is inevitable. The transition to communist society is beginning. United States imperialism has become the greatest international exploiter and the main bulwark of world reaction in which the decay of capitalism is most strongly revealed. World imperialism, united in 22

military blocs and under the leadership oft he United States, is trying to restrain the triumphal march of socialism and communism. This cannot, however, prevent the inevitable decline of imperialism, but only leads to a further sharpening of its contradictions. ' • The changed international balance of power has created favourable conditions for the national and revolutionary liberation struggle of suppressed and dependent peoples. In these last few years the national liberation struggle has led to the formation of more than 40 new states in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The complete collapse of colonialism is inevitable. The decay of the system of colonial slavery under the impact of the national liberation movement is the most important historic phenomenon after the creation of the world socialist system. The world wide democratic peace movement of all peoples was created and consolidated in the struggle against the aggressive war policy of the reactionary forces of imperialism. It is the strongest political mass movement that has ever existed in the history of mankind. The new international situation offers, to all who are interested in peace, a realistic way of banishing war from the life if the peoples. ! The historic victory of the Soviet Union and the forces of the antiHitler coalition over German fascist imperialism and the liberation of Germany from Hitler fascism gave rise to a profound change in German history. It enabled the working class, in alliance with all anti-fascist democratic forces, to uproot German fascism and militarism, and opened up for the German people the path of its national regeneration as a peace-loving, anti-fascist, democratic state. Only the German people themselves, under the leadership of the working class, were able to carry out this democratic and national main task, which was resulting from the lessons of two world wars. The Communist Party of Germany showed the way in its proclamation of June 11,1945, which was agreed to by the central committee of the SPD. In this document the revolutionary party of the German working class answered the question as to how the vital problem of the working people and of our nation must be solved in practice. This policy coincided with the interests of all peace-loving peoples and found its expression as international law in the Potsdam Agreement. By creating a new, peace-loving, truly democratic and socialist system and by establishing a state power of workers and peasants, die working class as the leading class of the nation was not only looking after its own interests now but it was at the same time looking after the vital interests of all classes and sections interested in the struggle against imperialism and militarism. Relying on the alliance of all anti-fascist democratic forces and in accordance with the purpose of the new epoch 23

of world history, it began the transition from capitalism to socialism in Germany also. The most important prerequisite for implementing this social and national task in its own interests, and in the interest of the whole people, was to achieve the unity of action of the working class and the final overcoming of the split in the working-class movement. The merging of the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party in eastern Germany was the climax of the struggle for the revolutionary unity of the working-class movement which had been going on since Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and was a triumph of Marxism-Leninism. A heavy defeat was inflicted upon revisionism in Germany. The foundation of the united workers' party, the alliance of the working class with the peasants, the union of all democratic forces and all forces ready to help in the construction work, in the bloc of anti-fascist parties and the formation of a unitary Free German Trade Union Association as the class organisation of the workers, of a Free German Youth and of other antifascist democratic mass organisations - all this enabled the working people in eastern Germany to take their fate into their own hands. The united working class led by its Marxist-Leninist party, the SED, true to its historic mission as a pioneer of peace, democracy and socialism and in alliance with the peasants, the intelligentsia and other sections of the people, carried through on the territory of the German Democratic Republic the greatest revolution in German history. At last the progressive section in German politics could be led to victory in one part of Germany. The struggle of the German working-class movement against exploitation and suppression, which had lasted more than one hundred years, and the humanist traditions of the German middle class in the struggle for rights of man and progress were brought to successful fruition here. In West Germany the great capitalist and Junker reactionaries together with U. S. imperialism, and supported by the social-democratic leaders prevented the union of the working class and the development of the democratic forces. They organised the division of Germany in order to save their own positions of power once more. They sabotaged the Potsdam Agreement, restored German imperialism and militarism politically, economically and militarily and again forced upon the people the antinational domination of monopoly capital. By forming the seperate Bonn state, the most reactionary forces of Germany, with the help of the imperialist occupation powers, seperated the three western zones from a united Germany. Renouncing the idea of a national state, the clericalmilitarist Adenauer regime again tried to take the path of revenge, aggression and war against the socialist states, in the framework of NATO, 24

in alliance with the United States and actively supported by the rightwing leadership of the SPD. Contrary to the Social Democratic Party in eastern Germany and contrary to the attitude of many of the social-democratic rank and file and functionaries in the western zones, the right-wing social-democratic leaders around Schumacher despised the lessons of two world wars. Biased by blind anti-communism they not only supported the policy of the monopolists, militarists and Junkers as in the years of the Weimar Republic, but they also struggled against the revolutionary achievements of the working class and the working people in eastern Germany. They maintained the split in the working class in western Germany, renounced a national German policy and actively supported the restoration of monopoly capitalist and militarist domination. They helped to split Germany and convert western Germany into a satellite state of U.S. imperialism. This policy without a future which is in profound irreconcilable contradiction to the interests of the working class and of all peace-loving democratic forces, must inevitably lead to the development of a crisis within the West German Social Democratic Party. The People's Congress Movement for Unity and a Just Peace arose to counter the policy of splitting Germany and restoring imperialism in the western zones. Supported by the anti-fascist democratic development in eastern Germany the patriotic forces in the whole of Germany joined that movement under the leadership of the working class. Later on, the National Front of Democratic Germany emerged from that movement. It comprises people of all classes and sections of the German people. After the division of Germany by the foundation of the Bonn state out of the three zones, the first workers' and peasants' state in German history was established by the foundation of the German Democratic Republic under the leadership of the working class. In violent struggles with the class enemy on the territory of the G. D. R. and against the monopoly capitalist forces in West Germany the transition to the socialist revolution has been carried through in a peaceful and democratic way. By the foundation of the German Democratic Republic the only legitimate German state was created in which the lessons of history have been learned, the Potsdam Agreement implemented, and imperialism eliminated. Her foundation not only marked a turning point in the history of Germany but also in that of Europe. As the first peaceloving German state the G. D. R. has pursued a new German foreign policy of peaceful and friendly relations with all peoples on the basis of equality and respect of their sovereignty. The G. D. R. has proved that 25

the working people under the leadership of the working class are able to solve finally and in a democratic way the problem of the national existence of our people by the construction of socialism. The main purpose of the German working-class movement in the periods so far described was the organising and training of the proletariat and the adoption and defence of the revolutionary outlook of the working class against all the forms in which bourgeois ideology appears, the daily struggle against the ruling class to defend the immediate interests of the workers and of the nation with the aim of winning the majority of the working class and all working people for the defeat of the bourgeoisie and for the construction of socialism. This aim was fundamentally changed at the beginning of the latest main period. In one part of Germany, in the G. D. R., the working class changed from a suppressed class to the ruling class exercising its power in alliance with the working peasants and other strata of the working people, abolished the exploitation of man by man, and organising, directing and leading the construction work in all fields of social life in the interest of the whole nation and consciously applying the objective laws of historical development. Now it is the task of the working-class movement to educate the working class for the implementation of this historic mission. The main essence is now the construction and consolidation of the new, truly humanist society of socialism, free from exploitation, want, crises and misery, the struggle for the development, change and quick growth of the productive forces in the interests of the whole nation and the universal development of the creative forces of the whole people. The new nature of the working-class movement has meant an extraordinary amplification of the role and responsibility of the party of the working class. The SED has developed into a party of a new type which plays its leading role with increasing awareness. The party has learned to elaborate the policy of the construction of socialism and to implement it together with the National Front of Democratic Germany and the democratic parties and mass organisations. This ensures for all sections of the people the perspective of a life in peace, freedom, justice and prosperity. It has made a creative contribution to Marxism-Leninism and has proved that socialism can also be built under the complex conditions of a divided country with temporarily open borders to imperialism and all this in a highly industrialised Central European country. In its struggle the party has always based its policy on the achievements of progressive science and on the democratic and humanist traditions of German history. Whilst the imperialist bourgeoisie of West

26

Germany uses the achievements of science for its anti-national policy, and holds on to all reactionary traditions, whilst it acts against the spirit of humanism and peace proclaimed by the great German philosophers, scientists, poets and artists, the German Democratic Republic under the leadership of the working class has become the home of a true science and art that is connected with the people and serves practical needs. This is expressed not only by the universal promotion and development of science, but also by the comprehensive cultivation of the progressive cultural and spiritual heritage of the German nation. The party has made many decisions to honour outstanding representatives and institutions of science and art - such as Friedrich Schiller, Max Planck, the Humboldt-University of Berlin, and others. The G. D. R. standing in the mighty socialist camp has become the unconquerable obstacle to the aggressive plans of the West German imperialists and militarists. It is the outpost of socialism in Western Europe and the true representative of the peaceful endeavours of the German people. Its development is in accordance with the fundamental historical laws of our time and more and more exerts its influence towards changing the balance of power of the classes in West Germany in favour of the working class and all the peace-loving and democratic forces. In the country of the birth of scientific communism, socialism is being led to victory in fraternal community with the Soviet Union and whole socialist camp. Whilst the government of the G. D. R. and the National Front of Democratic Germany under the leadership of the party of the working class has made every effort to safeguard peace in Europe and to reach understanding between the two German states, the clerical-militarist Adenauer regime has reinforced the preparation for a new war, completely disregarding the international relation of forces. The imperialist and militarist forces have turned West Germany into a hotbed of atomic war danger in Europe. This anti-national policy is actively supported by the anti-communist and revenge-seeking forces in the Social Democratic Party who have openly adopted the standpoint of German imperialism. Under the leadership of those forces the Social Democratic Party has changed from a reformist working-class party to a bourgeois working-class party with an anti-socialist, anti-democratic, imperialist programme and a practice which corresponds. The great menace to peace in Europe emanating from West German imperialism and militarism and the imminent danger of a new national catastrophe have made the liquidation of all remnants of the Second World by the conclusion of a peace-treaty and the solution of the West Berlin problem a vital question for the German people. 27

The development in West Germany compels the working class to realise fully its responsibilities. The struggle between the classes in Germany has reached such a point that the position is becoming obvious: imperialism and militarism on the one hand and the national interests, democracy and socialism on the other hand are antagonistic, contradict each other. In the epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism the life and future of our nation demand the overthrow of imperialism and militarism and the victory of socialism in the whole o f Germany. The decisive step is the strengthening o f the G . D . R. as a bulwark of peace in Germany, the strengthening of her political sovereignty and economic power, the victory of socialism in the German Democratic Republic. The historic development of Germany since the beginning of the 19th century proves that the national endeavours and just interests o f the German people, above all the creation o f a united, peaceloving and democratic German state, can only be implemented under the leadership of the working class and its Marxist-Leninist party. It is the historic importance and task of the G . D . R. that it confronts the disastrous anti-national course of the big bourgeoisie and Junkers, the imperialism and militarism that has brought so much grief upon the German people and that is still being maintained today by the ruling circles in West Germany, it confronts this course with the truly national policy o f peace, democracy and socialism, thus showing the way to a happy future for the whole German people. The experience o f these past five main periods in the history of the German working-class movement proves that only the policy of the Communists has been in accordance with the laws of historical development. The path trodden from the publication of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to our present time shows that only the Communists in their struggle for the interests o f the working class at the same time were and are the pioneers of the nation. The Communists are the only party who have stood the test of history. T h e international working-class movement and, as an integral part o f it, the German working-class movement also, is now at the beginning of a new main period. The 22nd Party Congress of the C. P. S. U . initiated this main period with its scientific programme for the construction of communist society. The national document " T h e Historic Task of the German Democratic Republic and the Future of G e r m a n y " provides a scientific foundation for the historic task of the working class in alliance with the peasants, the intelligentsia and the other sections o f the working people. This is the struggle for the victory of socialism in the G . D . R. and the 28

overcoming of imperialism in West Germany, and for the reconstruction of Germany in the spirit of peace, democracy and socialism. In the new main period the G. D. R. is actively taking part in developing the socialist world economic system and is supporting the struggle of the young anti-imperialist national states for their sovereignty and the construction of their own national economy. Marxism-Leninism is gaining tremendous victories. The joint declaration of the communist and workers' parties of November 1960 and the new programme of the C. P. S. U., the communist manifesto of the 20th century, show the international working class and all mankind and thus also our German people the way to a bright and happy future without exploitation and war, in prosperity and peace.

CHAPTER I

The beginning of the German working-class movement. The foundation of scientific Communism and the creation of the first revolutionary proletarian party by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The Revolution of 1848/49. (Period from the beginning of the German working-class movement until 1849.)

In the thirties of the 19th century capitalism developed much more rapidly than in the preceeding decades. Both in France (the Weavers' Revolt in Lyons) and in England (Chartism) an independent, workingclass movement arose and got to grips with the bourgeoisie. In Germany a national market began to appear. Inspired by the July Revolution in France, and by the growing anti-feudal and national movement of the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie in Germany, influenced, besides, by the workers' movement in France and England, the German workers and the proletarian travelling journeymen grew active in the political field. Between 1836 and 1838 proletarian travelling journeymen, then the political vanguard of the German workers, left the bourgeois-democratic Geheimbund der Geächteten (Secret Society of Outlaws). They formed the Bund der Gerechten (Union of the Righteous), who believed in "Weitling Workers' Communism", which, though having revolutionary tendencies, was still bourgeois in its ideological basic and Utopian aims. This Bund der Gerechten was the first step towards the "League of the Communists", which appeared later. In the forties, the centre of the revolutionary movement in Europe shifted to Germany, because there the struggle for the bourgeois-democratic revolution was immediately linked with the developing class struggle of the proletariate against the bourgeoisie. The contradiction between feudalism and capitalism was interwoven with the contradiction between Capital and Labour. The rising of the weavers in 1844 was the first big struggle of the German proletariat against the class of capitalist exploiters. It gave a 30

strong impetus to the political activities of the masses of people throughout Germany, speeding up, at the same time, the development of proletarian class-consciousness of the German working class. Germany, in which such outstanding learned men as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels lived, became the birth-place of scientific communism. In the early forties of the 19th century, Marx and Engels, as revolutionary democrats, had fought against feudal reaction, and had criticised bourgeois liberalism. Fighting for the interests of the working people, they took up the working-class position in 1844/45, gave up idealism for good and worked out the fundamental lines of dialectic materialism. Marx and Engels laid down the basic principles of scientific communism, fighting strongly against the ideologies hostile to the working class. They based their ideas on the experiences of the class struggle of the English, French, and German workers, and also on the previous results of scientific thought. Scientific communism embodies all that mankind has achieved in all its history. Its sources were: French Utopian Scialism, classical English political economy, and classical German philosophy. Karl Matx and Friedrich Engels laid the foundations of this new ideology in works such as "The Holy Family", "The German Ideology", "The Condition of the Working Class in England", "The Poverty of Philosophy". During the years 1846 and 1847, scientific communism began to merge in the vanguard of the German workers' movement. Marx and Engels led and organised this process. To this end they created an organisational, political, and ideological centre, the "Brussels Correspondence Committee". They propagated their scientific ideology, fighting constantly against all bourgeois and petty bourgeois theories and sects of socialism, against the reactionary German or "true" socialism, against antiquated "Weitling Communism" and petty bourgeois Proudhonism. When the "League of the Righteous" developed into the "League of Communists", this became the first revolutionary, independent, proletarian party, based on scientific communism. The "League of Communists" held that it was necessary to back all movements for democracy, freedom, justice and national progress. The "League of Communists", founded by Marx and Engels, was the base for all succeeding revolutionary parties of the proletariat. The revolution of 1848/49 developed out of the contradictions between the character of the productive forces and that of the feudal conditions of production. Its outbreak was stimulated by the world depression and speeded up by the February Revolution in France. The German revolution was a part of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions in the European countries. The main task of the revolution in Germany was 31

to create a bourgeois-democratic national state, to fight against the existing division into feudal states and thus smash the feudal system. The building up of a bourgeois-capitalist social system became imperative. Marx and Engels published the "Communist Manifesto" on the eve of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Germany. The "League of Communists" openly declared it was their aim to abolish the exploitation of man by man, to build up a classless systematically led society, the prior condition being the proletarian revolution. Marx and Engels, in the Communist Manifesto, proved scientifically the inevitability of the overthrow of capitalism. Considering the fact that no stage of social development can be by-passed, the revolutionary vanguard of the young German working class pointed out the necessity to carry through the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution first. This was at that time in accordance with the interests of the working class and of the whole nation. "The whole of Germany is to be proclaimed one indivisible republic". This was the slogan which headed the "Demands of the Communist Party in Germany", published there, after the publication of the Communist Manifesto, as the programme of the workers' movement for the revolution of 1848/49. By this programme for struggle, which implied the complete political and economic destruction of feudalism, the communists set all democratic forces - the proletariat, the peasants and the petty bourgeoisie - the task of waging a common struggle consistently to carry through the bourgeois-democratic revolution. This would have been an appropriate starting-point for the further proletarian fight for liberation. The demand for an united, indivisible republic was directed, in the first place, against Prussia and the Habsburg Reich. The Communist demand, however, was just a little in line with that of the petty bourgeoisie, who wanted the old conglomeration of small German states to go on. It was also different from those bourgeois liberals who were ready to content themselves with a Little Germany led by a militaristic Prussia. The only way a German national state could be won was by struggle against the individual sovereigns and the aristocracy and by ceasing to suppress foreign peoples, and supporting their national revolutionary movements for liberation. (Friedrich Engels: "A nation cannot be free and at the same time continue to suppress other nations.") Marx and Engels and their comrades in the "League of Communists", consistent proletarian representatives of democracy, pointed out that a policy of peace and friendship between the nations is not identical with pacifism. The working class must be ready to fight even arms in hand against the forces of reaction, in their own interests and in the interest of the whole nation. 32

During the first months of the revolution, the masses of the people dealt heavy blows to the absolutist rulers throughout Germany. In southern and south-western Germany, the working peasants and farm labourers rose in revolt and forced the feudal lords to give up their privileges. In Berlin the people beat back the Prussian soldiery, after heavy fighting on the barricades. Everywhere the working class played an eminent part in the struggles for democratic rights and liberties, offered the greatest sacrifices in their fight against reaction and proved to be the most uncompromising defenders of the vital interests of the German people. The majority of the German bourgeoisie allied themselves with the reactionary feudal Junkers because of fear of the working class. The German bourgeoisie was hostile to the revolutionary struggle of the masses and to the anti-feudal movements of the peasants, and betrayed the struggle for freedom waged by other peoples. The defeat of the workers of Paris in the Battle of June, 1848, was the turning point in the development of the European revolutions. From that time onwards, the counter-revolution in Germany too began to get rid of its liberal allies. The reactionary Junkers gathered and prepared for putting down the revolutionary masses. The suppression of the October uprising in Vienna and the counter-revolutionary coup d'état in Berlin in November, brought down the balance of power in favour of the counter-revolutionary forces in Germany. In contrast to the French petty bourgeoisie in 1793/94, the German petty bourgeoisie was no longer able of its own authority to carry out the task devolving upon it after the treason of the bourgeoisie, of continuing the revolution on democratic way. The petty bourgeoisie, it is true, produced quite a few outstanding fighters for democracy, but it failed to become the leading force above all potentialities in the campaign for a National Constitution. It became evident that the revolutionary potentialities of the petty bourgeoisie could only be brought to bear when under the uncompromising leadership of the proletariat and its party. During the revolution, the proletariat, standing in the forefront of all- thé mass struggles, began to organise and to be conscious of its role. This proletarian movement brought into being many local workers' clubs and loose unions of different workers' organisations on a regional as well as a national basis. In 1848/49 the first national trade union organisations arose. The members of the "League of Communists" played an important part in the foundation and development of many local workers' organisations. The majority of these organisations, however, was still wholly influenced by the petty bourgeoisie and confined themselves to economic aims. The so-called "Workers' Fraternity", founded during the revolution - a loose amalgamation on a national basis, of different 3

Outline History

33

local workers' clubs - also looked no further than bourgeois reforms or petty bourgeois reformism. At the head of the League of Communists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were fighting for a broad democratic movement. The "Neuc Rheinische Zeitung"*, run by Marx and Engels, with eminent contributors such as Wilhelm Wolff, Karl Schapper and Josef Moll, was "the best, unrivalled organ of the revolutionary proletariat". (Lenin). In this newspaper, Marx and Engels upheld the banner of revolutionary democracy, endeavouring to develop the class-consciousness of the young German working-class and to help them organise on their own. From the very beginning they fought for a democratic solution of the agrarian problem and stood for a strong militant alliance between working class and peasantry. Through the political experiences gained during the revolution and the influence of the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" the working class gradually began to break with bourgeois ideology. From the first until the last day of the revolution Marx, Engels and the members of the Communist League did their best to intensify this process and to create a nation-wide, revolutionary, proletarian, mass party. In view of the betrayal of the bourgeoisie and the unreliability of the petty bourgeoisie they increased their efforts above all after February, 1849. The working class of the cities was at the heart of the big revolts of 1848/49. The members of the Communist League took an active part, arms in hand, in the struggle during the campaign for a National Constitution, in 1849, because they realised that the inner dialectics of the movement would take them beyond the immediate clear-cut aim, to get the moderately liberal National Constitution that had been passed by the Frankfurt National Assembly, put into operation. It was then that the German Communists, for the first time in the history of the German people, led individual armed units. The defeat of the revolution had become inevitable, because the bourgeoisie had betrayed the revolution for fear of the proletariat to whom they were not willing to grant any bourgeois-democratic liberties. The working class in this revolution was really not yet able to take over the leadership of the masses. In spite of the defeat of the revolution, the final victory and the application of capitalist methods of production could no longer be prevented. The defeat of the revolution, however, was a great disaster for the German working class and for the whole German people. All anti-democratic, aggressive and, therefore, antinational forces were strengthened by it and subsequently were able decisively to determine the historical development in Germany. * " N e w Rhenish Gazette".

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CHAPTER II

The furtber development of scientific communism by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The struggle for a revolutionary mass party of the German working class and for the revolutionary-democratic unification of Germany. The formation of the First International. The foundation of the Social Democratic Workers' Party. (Period from 1849 to 1871.)

After the defeat of the revolution, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, along with other workers' leaders, began to reorganise the Communist League. After the summer of 1850, the capitalist boom frustrated the hopes of a new revolutionary upsurge in the near future. Marx showed the members of the League the need for a closer contact with the working class, in order to prepare the foundation of a proletarian mass party in Germany. Soon after the revolution, the League gained a great influence in numerous workers' clubs still existing. At the same time, Marx attacked a petty bourgeois group within the Communist League, who played at being revolutionary. They wanted to make "the will the only driving force of history", independent of objective conditions. After the Cologne communist trial — the first attempt of the reactionary Junkers and upper bourgeoisie to "root out" the revolutionary workers' party - the League disbanded on the proposal of Marx and Engels, since it no longer met the new conditions of class struggle. Marx und Engels drew political conclusions from the various experiences of the European revolutions from 1848 to 1849, especially in relation to the question of the state and the role of the party and its allies. They produced many works expounding their views. Above all they drew theoretical conclusions in works such as "The German Peasant War", "The National Constitution Campaign in Germany", "Address of the Central Committee to the League" in March 1850, "Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany", "The Class Strugg3*

35

les in France 1848 to 1850", "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte". In this latter work especially, Karl Marx gives an all-round characterisation of the bourgeois state, its political essence, the part it plays as an instrument of the ruling class in capitalist society. He developed the fundamental ideas of the Communist Manifesto by stating that the proletariat cannot seize power unless it destroys the old bureaucratic-militaristic state-machine of the exploiting classes. In these works Marx and Engels formulated fundamental ideas about the alliance of the working class and the peasantry, pointing out that only in the working class do the peasants find their natural ally and leader. In the fifties and sixties, there was a rapid advance in capitalist methods of production in industry and agriculture. The bourgeoisie grew to be the strongest class in the economic field. Capitalist development in agriculture was thoroughly Prussian. The differences between the interests of the Junhers and the bourgeoisie were no longer irreconcilable. Parallel with the quick development of capitalism there was a rapid numerical rise of the working class. From 1852 to 1859 the number of economic struggles of the proletariat increased. The workers organised in local craft unions and in general workers' unions, in which lay the seeds of trade union organisations. From the world depression of 1857 onwards, the factory workers were the most active in these struggles, especially in numerous strikes in many parts of Germany, when the workers strongly resisted the effects of the crisis. Due to the impetus of the general-democratic, national movement in Germany from 1859, which included people from many walks of life, the struggles of the workers began to be more and more political. At first, the liberal bourgeoisie and the democratic petty bourgeois forces had a strong ideological and political influence upon the existing workers' organisations. The national unification after the revolution of 1848/49 could have been carried through in Germany in two different ways: either by a revolution from below (a unified German republic as the result of a revolutionary people's movement against the individual monarchies and their social and political support inside and outside Germany) or by a revolution from above (unification under the hegemony of the Prussian state, preserving most of the monarchies.) The first way was in accordance with the interests of the German people, the second one with the interests of the counter-revolutionary forces. This second way was chosen under the leadership of Bismarck. It subjected the whole of Germany to the predominance of Prussian militarism. In their fight for a central, democratic republic, the most advanced workers began to free themselves from the influence of the bourgeoisie 36

in the organisational and the political field. Ferdinand Lassalle's response to these endeavours for organisational separation from the liberal bourgeoisie was the founding of the "General Association of German Workers" in May, 1863. The historic service performed by him "was the transformation of the working class from an appendage of the liberal bourgeoisie into an independent political party". (V. I. Lenin). Nevertheless, Lassalle offered the working class no revolutionary perspective, but spread the illusion among them of peacefully passing over to socialism. Within the "General Association of German Workers'", he and his successor, Schweitzer, set up a cult of the individual, incompatible with the character of the working class. Lassalle put the working class on the wrong road, both as to the aim and the tactics of proletarian class struggle in the sixties. He offered the workers the demagogic slogan of "Productive Co-operatives with state-support", thus advocating the collaboration of the workers with the state of the exploiting bourgeoisie and Junkers. To follow his line meant to take sides with Bismarck and Junker, big bourgeois, Prussian militarism; it meant advocating the unification of Germany by "blood and iron". In the sixties, too, the best representatives of the German working class stood out as the most resolute force for the democratic solution of the national question. From 1863 onwards there was a strong fight in the German Workers' movement as to which way to choose for the national unity of Germany: was it to be revolutionary or Prussianauthoritarian, proletarian or bourgeois, Marxist or Lassallean? At the same time the workers intensified their fight against exploitation by the bourgeoisie and again founded central trade unions. In these struggles the majority of the members of the petty bourgeois-democratic "Union of German Workers' Clubs", influenced by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht, took up a proletarian position and started fighting for the unification of Germany by a democratic people's movement. There was also an increase of those in the "General Association of Workers" who turned away from anti-Marxist Lassalleanism, with its "Royal Prussian Government Socialism" (Karl Marx) and from its dictatorial regime. An increasing number of women took part in the workers' movement. The beginnings of a proletarian women's movement appeared. The work of Marx and Engels and the activities of the First International (IAA) were of permanent help to the German workers' movement in reaching clarity in the political field. "The First International (1864 to 1872) laid the foundation-stone of the international organisation of the workers, preparing their revolutionary attack on Capital." (Lenin). In its statutes it was stated that the liberation of the workers could only be the work of the workers themselves. The foundation and 37

the activities of the First International were of extraordinary importance for the development of the German workers' movement. Marx and Engels explained to the German working class that it was necessary for them to have a party of their own, in order to carry out their own historic mission, to take the lead in the fight for a democratic solution of the national problem. In his "The Prussian Military Question and the German Workers' Party", Engels explained to the German working class that they had to stand up for bourgeois-democratic liberties, since they were uncompromising advocates of the interests of the nation. In 1867, the first volume of "Caiptal", Marx's chief work, was published in Germany. It was the result of a scientific study of many years and followed the preparatory work, "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy", published in 1859. During the revolution of 1848/49, Marx and Engels had, in the first place, worked out the political ideas of Marxism. In the early fifties the development of the economic theory of scientific communism had come to the foreground. In "Capital" Karl Marx demolished the theories of the bourgeois apologists of capitalism and, on the basis of many facts, showed the principles of the origin and development of capitalist production. With scientific precision Marx demonstrated that the capitalist exploitation system was doomed and that the working class had the historic mission to be the grave-diggers of capitalism and the creators of the new socialist society. The publication of "Capital" was of world-historic importance. It was, and still is, a strong intellectual weapon to be used in the fight for liberation from exploitation and suppression. The publication of the first volume of "Capital" speeded up the ideological defeat of Lassalleanism in Germany and contributed to the formation of a revolutionary party of the German working class. The Social Democratic Workers' Party, founded at Eisenach in 1869 and led by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht, was built up on a Marxist basis. Its members adhered to the scientific socialism and proletarian internationalism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In their decisive, theoretical, tactical and organisational principles the Social Democratic Workers' Party stood in conscious opposition to the theories and practice of Lassalle. In contract with the cult of the individual, cultivated by Lassalle and Schweitzer, but strongly opposed by Marx and Engels, the Social Democratic Party was organised on a basis of democratic centralism. This was the foundation-stone of the national revolutionary party of the German working class. Thus it was possible to build up the unity of the German workers' movement on the basis of the theories of Marx and Engels. The latter called the Eisenach party ' 'our Party". The building up of the Social Democratic Workers' Party, 38

on the basis of class struggle, was closely connected with the formation by Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel, of a trade union organisation, in 1868/69 ("International Trade Union Associations"). After the Franco-German War changed in September 1870, from a national defensive war into a predatory war of German militarism against the French people, the class-conscious German workers did not allow themselves to be deceived by national chauvinism. "No battle glory, no talk of German 'imperial magnificence' produced any effect on them; their sole aim remained the liberation of the entire European proletariat." (Friedrich Engels). Led by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht, the German socialist workers, in an extremely difficult situation, fiercely and unanimously resisted the continuation of a war that aimed at the suppression of the French people. The Franco-German war meant a hard political test for the German working class which they stood up to brilliantly. The principles of proletarian internationalism were deeply rooted, and the ideas of Marx and Engels were widely spread among the German workers.

CHAPTER III

Tbe lessons of tbe Parts Commune of 1871. Germany becomes tbe centre of the international workers' movement. Tbe struggle of tbe German working class against Prusso-German militarism and tbe development of the German Social Democratic Party to a revolutionary mass party. Tbe foundation of tbe Second International. (Period from 1871 until tbe end of the century.)

The Socialist German workers passionately supported the Paris Commune; they knew they were fighting for the same cause. August Bebel, Wilhelm Liebknecht and others boldly stood up for the Paris Commune. This shows that the best representatives of the German workers' movement had confidence in the triumph of the cause of the workers, in democracy and socialism. Karl Marx, in his work, "The Civil War in France", and in a letter addressed to Kugelmann, drew the conclusion from the Paris Commune how the working class, once having obtained power, has to smash the old state machine. On the basis of these experiences, he worked out the new principles of the proletarian state, which embodies the highest form of democracy in the interest of the majority of the people. The Paris Commune showed the necessity of a revolutionary policy of alliances. It proved that the liberation of all workers from capitalist suppression is possible only when the working class has a revolutionary Marxist party. It was of tragic consequence for the German people that the German national state had arisen out of the predatory war against the French people, and that its foundation was closely connected with the sanguinary suppression of the Paris Commune. Whereas the Social Democratic Workers' Party, led by August Bebel, Wilhelm Liebknecht and Wilhelm Bracke were fighting, along with the best representatives of the German democratic bourgeoisie, against the policy of annexations of Prusso40

German militarism, and were advocating the interests of the German Junkers and the reactionary forces of the German big bourgeoisie founded the new Reich on the basis of "blood and iron". This Reicb never ceased to be an antidemocratic, anti-worker and anti-popular power, never ceased to suppress other nations. In this way, at the beginning of its history, the two opposite class lines in the German politics were openly revealed. This national state, created in an undemocratic manner, bore the stamp of the most reactionary and aggressive classes, the Junkers and the big bourgeoisie, who were its masters. The state was "nothing else but an already by the bourgeoisie influenced military despotism, embellished with parliamentary forms, mixed with feudal appendages, built up on bureaucratic principles, protected by the police" (Karl Marx). Prussian militarism left its mark decisively on its social life. The rule of Junkerbourgeois reaction was in contradiction to the vital national interests of the German people. The chief class contradiction in Germany was now between the exploiters' coalition of Junkers and big bourgeoisie, and the working class, representing the interests of all workers and the whole nation.. On the other hand, the national unity of Germany allowed the productive forces of capitalist society to develop without restraint. Now the German working class was enabled to unite its forces on the basis of a united Germany and to develop these forces on a nation-wide scale. The big bourgeoisie having united with the militaristic Junker forces, it was up to the working class to take the lead in the fight of the masses against reaction. Now the great national task of the German working class was to overthrow the Prusso-German military state and to create a united, democratic republic. On the basis of the class struggles between the working class and the bourgeoisie, which developed after the unification of the Reicb, Marxism rapidly spread in the German workers' movement. The German proletariat was the first working class in history to adopt Marxism as its doctrine. At the same time it could profit itself by the fighting experiences of the English and French workers. For all these reasons the centre of the international workers' movement shifted from France to Germany. "For the first time", wrote Friedrich Engels, in 1874, "since a workers' movement has existed, the struggle is being conducted pursuant to its three sides — the theoretical, the political and the practicaleconomic (resistance to the capitalists) — in harmony and in its interconnections, and in a systematic way. It is precisely in this, as it were, concentric attack that the strength and invincibility of the German movement lies." After 1871, the unity between Lassalleans and Eisenachers began to ripen. The historical events of 1870/71 had settled the dispute, which 41

had lasted for years, about the way to national unification. When the class struggles began to intensify after the unification of the Reicb, the class-conscious proletariat in Germany realised more and more that the aims of the working class could only be reached by a united struggle against the bosses and the Prusso-German Military State. The influence of the dogmas of Lassalle in the German workers' movement receded. Eisenach socialists and Lassallean socialists were persecuted by the organs of state more and more, because both were in opposition to the ruling classes. The party programme, however, which had been passed at Gotha on the unification congress in 1875, was, in its fundamental theses, in contradiction to the Marxist theories and the experiences of the class struggle. In particular no conclusions were drawn from the heroic fight of the Paris Communards. Petty bourgeois and bourgeois thinking impregnated with Lassallean ideas, was adopted in this programme, instead of scientific communism. Next to the "Communist Manifesto" and "Capital", the "Critique of the Gotha Programme" is the most important theoretical document of Marxism. Karl Marx dealt with all fundamental problems of the new period of class struggles and developed the theory of scientific communism, arguing against Lassalleanism, especially concerning problems of state and revolution (dictatorship of the proletariat), and the two phases of communist society. The fundamental criticism of the Gotha programme, put forward by Marx and Engels, was disregarded by the responsible leaders of the Social Democrats and concealed from the party members. The new party programme was passed, and with this the seed for the revisionism was laid in the German workers' movement. Nevertheless, the amalgamation of the Social Democratic Workers' Party and the General Association of German Workers in Gotha was a success. The party of the German working class had now at last taken on a really national character. The experiences gained in the class struggle and the continuous help of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (especially Engels' "Anti-Duhring") helped the majority of the members to carry out a revolutionary workers' policy, in spite of the Lassallean phrases in the Gotha Programme. The growing class consciousness of the German workers, the strengthening of the Social Democratic Party and its growing influence on the working masses induced the /»»^/•-bourgeois state in 1878 to pass the "Exceptional Law against Social Democracy"; whilst, in the field of foreign affairs, Bismarck - within the limits of his class — had realistic ideas and acted accordingly, declining a preventive war against Russia in the interest of the Junkerbourgeois class, in the field of home policy he 42

had the completely unreal aim o f destroying the socialist workers' movement. Lenin called this tenacious and devoted fight of the German Social Democrats against the Anti-Socialist L a w " t h e heroic period o f the German workers' m o v e m e n t " . In those years the working class, led by the Social Democrats, gave an outstanding example o f their revolutionary resourcefulness and wisdom, of their heroism and spirit, of sacrifice in their fight against the ruling exploiting classes and the Bismarck state. The Party understood the need for new forms o f the class struggle, such as combining legal and illegal struggles, parliamentary and extraparliamentary actions. Under the leadership of the party, more and more German workers joined in the fight against the Anti-Socialist Law. This could be seen from the continually growing number of Social Democrat votes in the Reichstag elections, as well as f r o m the new rise o f the trade union movement, which had been temporarily destroyed by the "Exceptional L a w " . The influence o f the party also developed in some rural areas. By means of fundamental works, such as the "Circular Letter", " T h e Origin of the Family, Private Prosperty and the State", and " L u d w i g Feuerbach and the E n d o f Classical German Philosophy", the founders of scientific communism educated a great number of class-conscious functionaries o f the workers' movement. In their writings of that period, dialectical and historical materialism were further creatively developed. This was done by theoretical generalisation f r o m the recent historical experiences in the proletarian struggle for emancipation and in the fight against opportunist tendencies in the workers' movement; it was also based on important results o f research in the natural and social sciences. K n o w i n g that there cannot be revolutionary practice without revolutionary theory, Marx and Engels, the greatest sons of the German people, gave the working class and the masses fighting on their side, a strong ideological weapon dialectical and historical materialism. Works such as " W o m e n and Socialism", by A u g u s t Bebel, were very important for the revolutionary education o f the Social Democrats and of large sections o f the working class. The illegal newspaper, " D e r Sozialdemokrat", issued abroad under the direction of Marx and Engels, played an important part in the penetration of Marxism into the German workers' movement. Supported by Marx and Engels, the German Social Democratic Party developed into a revolutionary Marxist party in its fight against the "Anti-Socialist L a w " . However, a highly opportunist wing remained, which had its historical roots in the ideas of Lassalles.

43

The continued growth of the economic and political figth of the working masses against the anti-national policy of the Junkers and the bourgeoisie, manifested itself, among other things, in a nation-wide strike of more than 100,000 miners, in 1889. In 1890, the ruling class was forced to repeal the Anti-Socialist Law. The victory of the German working class resulted in the removal of Bismarck and proved that the rise of the revolutionary Marxist workers' movement could not be stifled, either by suppression or terrorism. After the removal of Bismarck, the Reicb Government began a socalled New Deal. The concentration and centralisation of capital made rapid progress, and the influence of the monopolies in politics grew more and more. The colonial policy, begun in the Bismarck era, was continued more energetically. In Germany the contradiction between the ruling classes and the working people became more acute. The ruling classes tried to subordinate the socialist workers' movement to the policy of the Junkers and the big bourgeoisie, by means of apparently liberal concessions but with the help of brutal force. In the nineties the tension in foreign policy, especially with England and Russia, intensified considerably. After the repeal of the Anti-Socialist Law, the German Social Democratic Party rapidly broadened. Trade unions sprang up in great variety all over the country. The amalgamation of the trade unions was favoured by the growing fight against capitalist exploitation, the higher classconsciousness of the workers and the increasing influence of the Social Democratic Party. During the trade union struggles, many workers were trained in outstanding proletarian qualities such as solidarity, discipline and militancy. Clara Zetkin played a decisive part in forming the first socialist women's organisations. Under her editorship, the newspaper "Equality" became a militant organ for all socialist and progressive women. It stood for equal rights and complete social liberation of women. N e w workers' organisations, such as Workers' Education Committees, Workers' Athletic Clubs, Workers' Choral Societies, and Consumers' Co-operative Societies sprang up. In the " E r f u r t Programme", adopted in 1891, the German Social Democrats drew the conclusions from the fight against the Anti-Socialist Law, taking into consideration the "Critique of the Gotha Programme" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, which was only then made known to the members. The Erfurt Programme, " o n the whole, was, in its theoretical aspects, on the basis of the science of today." (Friedrich Engels). The Programme did not mention, however, the revolutionary, militant aim of a bourgeois-democratic republic and the clear demand for dictatorship of the proletariate, although Engels had criticised that 44

point. This fundamental defect of the programme made it easy for revisionism to spread in the party, when the epoch of imperialism began. The German Social Democratic Party was the leading party in the Second International founded in Paris in 1889. The newspaper, "Neue Zeit" (Ne\v Times), theoretical organ of the Social-Democrats, edited by Karl Kautsky, with the collaboration of Franz Mehring, played a leading role in the international workers' movement. The first important works of Franz Mehring were published in the nineties. The works of Kautsky, too, helped at that time to propagate Marxism in the German workers' movement. The important part played by the German Social Democrats on a national and an international scale at the end of the 19th century, was due to the support of Friedrich Engels. Engels gave the German and the international workers' movement great theoretical and practical support by publishing fundamental works of Karl Marx (e. g. Volume II and III of "Capital") and by works of his own ( " T h e Peasant Question in France and Germany", etc.). In these works Engels referred to certain phenomenous which inaugurated the epoch of imperialism. With the transition to monopoly-capitalism, with colonial policy and the increased armament of Germany, the danger of war drew nearer. Engels pointed out that the German nation would be endangered by it and that the next war could only be a world war. He refuted the idea that war was the father of revolution and emphatically advocated a policy of peace in his pamphlet: "Can Europe Disarm?" In the course of the development of imperialism, there appeared in the German workers' movement more and more distinctly opportunist forces voicing revisionist and reformist opinions. These forces found their social basis in the aristocracy of labour and in the bureaucracy which developed simultaneously.

CHAPTER IV

Tbe beginning of tbe era of imperialism. Tbe centre of the international workers' movement shifts to Russia. Tbe foundation of Leninism and tbe formation of tbe Bolsbevik Party under tbe leadership of V. I. Lenin. Tbe mass struggles of tbe German working class against reaction and danger of war, under the influence of tbe Russian Revolution of 1905. Tbe development of the three factions in German Social Democracy and tbe predominance of opportunism. Tbe fight of tbe German Left against German imperialism and militarism and against opportunism in the German workers' movement. (Period from tbe end of tbe century until 1914.)

Capitalism with its uneven economic and political development became particularly erratic, as it entered its imperialist stage. A new balance of power developed between the Great Powers, no longer corresponding to the existing division of colonies and the sphere of influence. So imperialism constantly generates new wars for a redivision of the world; it es an enemy of peace. Its trend to violent imperialist conquests entails militarisation of the whole of social life and a continuous growth of armaments at the expense of the masses. This aggressiveness in foreign policy goes hand in hand with hostility to democracy at home. Imperialism and militarism, its chief instrument for warlike expansion and for the suppression of the masses, are fundamentally anti-democratic and reactionary, in all spheres of social life, in foreign policy and at home. Imperialism became a stumbling-block to the free development of the productive forces. It squandered them in order to prepare and carry out predatory wars, thus menacing the bases of national existance. From its very beginnings, German imperialism was characterised by a special aggressiveness. After the unification of the Reich, capitalism in Germany had developed erratically. At the end of the century, Germany had become, next to England, the biggest industrial power in 46

Europe. German imperialism entered the international arena at a moment when the seats at the capitalist dinner-tables were already occupied. Thi6 accounts for its eagerness to redivide the world, and for its feverish rearmament by land and sea in order to reach its expansionist aims by means of war. The exceedingly reactionary character of German imperialism was intensified by the fact that the 19th century bourgeois-democratic revolution in Germany had not been completed. The Junkers had kept their key positions in the army and in the administration and had closely united with the monopoly-capitalists on the basis of common class interests. Lenin, therefore, called German imperialism "Junker-boutgeois". Apart from being particulary aggressive and reactionary, German imperialism was impregnated by specific Prusso-German militarism. This found its expression in the increased suppression of the working class and the masses and in terrorism against all social and democratic tendencies at home. It used every means to stem the onward march of historical development, trying to prevent the working class from accomplishing their historical mission. Prusso-German militarism was, at the same time, the chief instrument for the aggressive expansionist policy of German imperialism and became a permanent menace to peace. The expansionist efforts of German imperialism were directed toward gaining hegemony in Europe. In its demands for redivision of the world it concentrated on East Asia, Africa and the Near-East. The especially aggressive and anti-democratic nature of German imperialism was revealed by the brutal suppression of the freedom struggle of the colonial and independent peoples and in the subjugation of national minorities who had been annexed by the German Reicb (Alsatians, Lorrainers, Poles, Danes). The rapid process of capitalist concentration in Germany not only intensified the contradiction between Capital and Labour, it also accelerated the proletarianisation of sections of the petty-bourgeoisie and small peasants and of the intelligentsia. The contradiction between the policy of war and conquest of a tiny group of monopolists, militarists and Junkers on the one hand, and the interests of the large majority of the nation on the other, grew more and more insurmountable. There were, it is true, at that period, big revolutionary mass activities against increased exploitation, against the imperialist policy of the armaments race and for democratic rights. Yet, by launching a big campaign of savage chauvinism German imperialism succeeded in chaining large sections of the nation to the chariot of its predatory, war-mongering, expansionist policy, although, already by then it could only give the perspective of more pauperisation and of a common grave. 47

The overthrow of the imperialist and militarist forces in Germany inevitably became an absolute historical necessity, a condition of life for our nation. Only the working class was able to take the leadership in this struggle. It attacked this catastrophic policy, contrary to the interests of the nation. Their fight was in accordance with the interests of all strata of the people, who wanted a peaceful democratic development of the whole nation. Genuine democratic conditions at home and firm, friendly relations with other peoples could, therefore, only be won by the working class fighting against imperialism and militarism. Immediately after the turn of the century the imperialist contradictions intensified rapidly. This could be seen, among other things, in the outbreak of the imperialist war between Russia and J a p a n in 1904, in several colonial wars and in the speed with which the class struggle came to a head in many capitalist countries. At the turn o f the century, the aggressive course of German imperialism, aiming at the redivision of the world, was finally put into motion. The differences between English and German imperialism came more and more to light (Fight of German financial capital for the BerlinB a g d a d Railway). German imperialism played an special part in suppressing the national and anti-colonial liberation movement (leading part played by the German expeditionary force in putting down the people's revolt in China in 1900 and the Herero revolt in 1904). In connection with the first periodic crisis in the era of imperialism (1900-1902), the class struggle in Germany intensified considerably. T h e crisis accelerated the process of the formation of monopolies and the rise of mighty employers' federations. A t the same time it caused the standard of life of the working class to worsen. Supported by the fighting spirit of the working class, the party organised a broad campaign of meetings against the Customs Tariff L a w of 1902, using the Reichstag as a tribune, and all legal methods to fight against the placing of the cost of armament onto the masses. The large mass influence, gained in this way, by the Party, is most clearly revealed in its big triumph in the Reichstag elections in 1903. In the international and in the German workers' movement revisionism sprang up on the social basis of the aristocracy of labour corrupted by the superprofits of monopoly-capitalist, on the basis of petty-bourgeois penetrating in the workers' movement and of a bureaucracy developing in the workers' organisations. This revisionism was hostile to the workers' movement. " T h e dialectics of history", wrote Lenin, " w e r e such that the theoretical victory o f Marxism obliged its enemies to disguise themselves as Marxists." 48

Revisionism, whose leader in Germany was Eduard Bernstein, opposed Marxist theories of class-struggle, proletarian revolution, dictatorship of the proletariat and the allies of the working class. The underestimation of the peasantry-question, as advocated by the revisionists in the German workers' movement, proved a hindrance in the development of an alliance between the working class and the peasantry in Germany. The revisionists declared, contrary to reality, that it was possible "quietly to grow into socialism", by reforms within the frame-work of existing bourgeois society. ("The movement means everything, the final aim — nothing." Bernstein). The revisionists took up the positions of bourgeois nationalism, distorted the essence of the national question, thus inducing the workers to underestimate that question for a long time. For years, revisionism (reformism) spread like a paralysing poison among the party of the working class and the trade unions and jeopardised their fighting strength, thus prolonging the existence of the outdated capitalist system. Revisionism was directed against the working class and the masses. Affiliated to imperialism, it is an anti-national force like imperialism itself. In the epoch of imperialism, revisionism is a decisive means of the bourgeoisie for splitting and weakening the working class, in order to secure their own class rule. Not only the imperialists, but also the rightwing leaders of the Social Democrats and of the trade unions are interested in maintaining the division of the working class. For the working class of every country the crucial problem in their fight to gain political power is to overcome bourgeois influence in the workers' movement as well as their splitting. In view of the especially aggressive character of German imperialism, it was of great national and international importance to overcome all shades of revisionism among the German working class and to bring about their revolutionary unity. The splitting of the German working class made it possible for the imperialists to inflict heavy defeats on the working class and to lure the German nation into the catastrophe of two World Wars. The development of class-consciousness and the revolutionary unity of the working class are the conditions for solving the vital questions of our nation. The intensification of the class struggle also manifested itself within the German workers' movement in the fight between revisionism and the revolutionary forces of the party. At the Party Congresses in Stuttgart (1898), Hannover (1899), and Liibeck (1901) revisionism was severely condemned. The Left-wing especially took up the fight against revisionism. (Rosa Luxemburg's "Social Reform or Revolution?" 1898/99). They advocated Marxism in theory and practice against revisionism and opportunism. 4 Outline History

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Now the differences in the development of the workers' movement in Russia and in Germany emerged quite clearly. While Germany, at the turn of the century, had become the centre of international revisionism, due to the especially aggressive and reactionary character of German imperialism, the centre o f the international revolutionary workers' movement had shifted to Russia. At the second Party Congress, in 1903, of the R.S.D.L.P. (Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party) under the leadership of Lenin and in fierce fight against revisionism, the Party of the Bolsheviks, the most revolutionary and consistent party of the international workers' movement, was created. In his works: "What is to be D o n e ? " and " O n e Step Forward, Two Steps B a c k " Lenin developed the principles o f the Party of a new type. This was a turning-point in the international workers' movement. Lenin showed that the working class needs a Party of a new type, if it is to achieve the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is to be a party led by the revolutionary theory of Marxism, associating the best, class-conscious forces of the working class and of the other working strata of the people, having a strong discipline and keeping its ranks free of opportunist elements. The Party must be able to understand what tasks history puts before it, and to help the masses of the people to tackle them. The Marxist revolutionary party, vanguard to the working class and the highest form o f class organisation of the proletariat, based on the principles o f democratic centralism, closely connected with the masses, stands out through its solid and unshakeable unity of purpose and of action. At the Dresden Party Congress of the Social Democratic Party (September 1903), which was o f particular importance in view of the election triumph of the Party and in view of the strike of the textile workers in Crimmitschau, revisionism was again rejected. Yet the Party Congress confined itself to a peaceable, formal condemnation of revisionism without fighting like Lenin and the Bolsheviks against it, with all the ideological and organisational consequences. The opportunists did everything they could to withould from the German workers the theories of Lenin and the Bolsheviks and to distort them. The inconsistency of the fight against the advocates of bourgeois influence in the workers' movement made it possible for the opportunist forces formally to accept the resolutions, but at the same time to gain a growing influence on the work in the Party, the trade unions and on the other proletarian mass organisations, and, step by step, to obtain important positions therein. August Bebel's speech at the Dresden Party Congress against revisionists was an example of "how to stand up for Marxist ideas and to fight for the truly socialist character of the workers' party" (V. I. Lenin).

50

August Bebel, the greatest German workers' leader, was throughout his life the deadly enemy of bourgeois society and its state system. Through his ardent commitment to the cause of democracy and socialism and against the enemies of the German nation he won the sympathy and veneration of the masses of the people. The struggle of August Bebel is among the best traditions of the German working class. But August Bebel did not realise the big historical task facing the workers' movement in the new stage of imperialism : the task of setting up a party of a new type. The strike of the textile workers in Crimmitschau (from August 1903 to January 1904) turned into a trial of strength between the capitalist bosses' organisations linked with the state machine, and the organised German working class. The interference of the organs of the state in favour of the capitalist employers gave this strike a still more political character. More and more masses of workers and other strata of the people joined the economic and political struggles, the women's movement developed and the workers' youth movement began to rise. In autumn 1904, the growing exploitation of apprentices and young workers caused the foundation of the first workers' youth organisations in Berlin and Mannheim. The Amsterdam Congress of the Second International (1904) called for the foundation of independent proletarian youth-clubs and proclaimed, in view of the growing danger of an imperialist war: Education of the youth means education against militarism. Early in 1905, the bourgeois-democratic revolution against the czarist régime had broken out. The revolution of 1905-1907 opened a new stage in the international workers' movement and strongly influenced the development of the international proletarian and democratic movement as well as the development of the national struggle for liberation of the colonial and semi-colonial peoples. The heroic proletariat of Russia became the vanguard of the revolutionary working class in the world. In his work " T w o Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution" Lenin analysed the special character of the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution in the stage of imperialism, and for the first time in the history of Marxism, developed the complete theory of the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the theory of the going-over from the bourgeois-democratic revolution to the socialist revolution. Lenin pointed out that the main condition for a successful struggle of the proletariat allied with the peasantry, was that the Marxist party of the working class took the lead. This theory of the social revolution, elaborated by him, was of paramount 4*

51

importance for strategy and tactics throughout the international workers.' movement. Influenced by the revolution in Russia, the mass struggles of the German working class took a great stride forward. In the Ruhr miners' strike of January/February 1905, more than 210,000 Social Democratic, Christian, organised and unorganised workers fought with their Polish class-brothers. More than 500,000 workers, men and women, took part in the strikes and economic struggles in 1905, that is more than in the years 1900-1904 combined. The extensive economic strikes were the basis for the political struggles of the German working class which began at the and of 1905 in Saxony, Prussia and Hamburg, and were directed against the anti-democratic three-class electorial system. In January 1906 the Hamburg workers staged the first political mass strike in Germany. Due to the mighty growth of the mass movement in Germany, and to the influence of the revolution in Russia, intense discussions arose in the German workers' movement about applying political mass strikes and about the part the trade unions were to play. Three trends emerged in these discussions: 1. The Revisionists, who advocated the co-operation of the classes, the renunciation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and revolutionary mass actions, complete submission to bourgeois legality, the pretence that the proletariat could "peaceably and gradually" pass over to socialism by means of reforms without impairing the bourgeois state and the capitalist conditions of ownership. The revisionists denied that the theories of the revolution in Russia were also valid for the German working class, and sharply refused to propagate and carry through political mass strikes in the German workers' movement. Revisionism means surrendering the working class to imperialism. 2. The Centrists. Ostensibly they advocated Marxism and were against revisionism, but in fact, under cover of "preserving peace and unity within the Party", they openly supported opportunists and revisionists and paved the way for them. Centrism, the most dangerous variation of opportunism, began to emerge in the discussions about engaging in new forms of unparliamentary struggle, in accordance with the new, revolutionary, conditions of struggle in the imperialist stage. Centrism meant subordination of the working class under revisionism and imperialism. 3. The Left, especially their leaders Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring, and Clara Zetkin who, continuing the best traditions of the German Social-Democracy, consistently advocated a revolutionary, class policy in the economic and social interests of the working class and the masses, and who demanded and propagated the fight against 52

militarism and imperialist war, the utilisation of parliament for revolutionary aims, combining the fight inside and outside parliament. Applying the theories of the revolution in Russia, they decisively advocated the political mass strike. They up-held the ideas of proletarian internationalism against the imperialist warmongers and the nationalist ideology propagated by the opportunists in the working class. They pleaded especially for the fraternal alliance of the German working class with the working class of Russia and Poland. They led the fight of the German workers' movement for the defence of national minorities in Germany. The greatest merit of the Left for the working class and the nation was their heroic struggle against German militarism and imperialism and against the war preparations at home and abroad. Karl Liebknecht, especially, in his works, analysed the anti-national role o f German imperialism, and revealed the nature o f Prusso-German militarism, as an enemy of the people. It was he who saw clearest that only the triumph of the working class over imperialism and militarism guaranteed a happy and peaceful life for the whole nation. Among all the Left groups o f the international workers' movement the German Left may be considered to have been the closest to the Bolsheviks, because of their fight against imperialism, militarism and revisionism. The Left still did not yet fully realise the new conditions of class struggle in the stage of imperialism and proletarian revolution. They lagged behind the theories o f Lenin in quite a few basic problems. The Left disregarded the theories in Lenin's works: "What is to be D o n e ? " and " T w o Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution", and they did not propagate them in the German workers' movement. Rosa Luxemburg's false idea of an automatic collapse of the capitalist social order and her theory of spontaneity prevented the Left for a long time from realising that it was necessary to break with all variations o f opportunism on the ideological and organisational field, and to create a party " o f a new type". Since they did not break with the opportunists in time, at the outbreak of war they had no party organisation of their own to lead the masses into the fight against the imperialist war. It was only during the war, and through the influence and support of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, that the Left, step by step, began to form a group, to differentiate themselves from the Centrists and get closer to Leninism. In the course o f the class struggle, the differences in the German workers' movement intensified. The Cologne Trade Union Congress (May 1905) turned down the propagation o f mass strikes. Class-conscious workers fought for the preservation of trade unions as proletarian, class organisations against the opportunist course favoured by rightwing leaders.

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Influenced by the mass enthusiasm for the revolution in Russia and by the activities of the Left, the Jena Party Congress (1905) had passed a resolution that provided for the use of political mass strikes. But the Mannheim Party Congress (1906), under the pressure of the revisionists, decided to leave decisions about mass strikes to the reformist trade union leadership. The Party was down-graded to an organisation of no more importance than the trade unions. In crucial questions it depended more and more on the trade union bureaucracy. This was, in effect, the first open triumph of revisionism in German Social Democracy. Other questions also gave rise to vehement discussions between the Marxist and the opportunist forces within the Party. Among the Social-Democrats there had been for years a discussion about the attitude of the "South-German Fronde", consisting of opportunist M. P. s and party officials, who, to carry favour with the court, approved the budgets in the separate SouthWest German states, and by similar actions sold out the approved Marxist principles of the Party and practised reformism. The Party stopped at mere condemnation of this reformist policy and those who practised it were not expelled. During this period, the groups of imperialist Powers which were to face each other in World War I, finally emerged. More and more vehemently, German imperialism made demands for a redivision of the world. It intensified the arms race and took measures in the field of foreign affairs and at home, to gag the working class and to unleash the war. By means of organisations such as the Alldeutscber Verband. (All-German Union) the imperialists fiercely attacked other nations and at the same time all progressive forces in the German nation. It became more and more clear that the imperialist policy of aggression was incompatible with the interests of the nation. With the growing danger of imperialist war, the question arose as to how the working class should fight against the war preparations and what it was to do in case war broke out. In 1907, the opportunists among the German Social Democrats openly advocated the armament and colonial policy of imperialist Germany. However, at the Stuttgart Congress of the Second International (1907), Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg succeeded in passing an additional motion which gave a revolutionary orientation to the fight against militarism and imperialist war. The stronger the danger of war grew, the more the German Left emerged as propagandists and organisers of the antimilitarist fight of the German working class and the working-class youth. (Karl Liebknecht's pamphlet, "Militarism and Anti-militarism", his speeches at the First International Conference of Socialist Youth Organisations, in Stuttgart (1907), his theses on militarism at the Second 54

International Conference of Socialist Youth Organisations, in Copenhagen [1910]). By their undaunted fight the Left, especially their leaders Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring a nd Clara Zetkin became true heroes of the nation. A s the most important representative o f the socialist idea of the role o f the women, and "the greatest woman leader in German history" (Walter Ulbricht), Clara Zetkin played a decisive part in winning over the women for the political fight of the working class. She initiated the First International Socialist Women's Conference on the eve of the Stuttgart Socialist Congress (1907), became secretary of the International Women's Secretariat, and deserves great praise for her part in organising the international proletarian women's movement. In A u g u s t 1910, the Second International Socialist Women's Conference in Copenhagen agreed to her motion to hold an annual International Women's D a y as a Fighting Day against imperialism, militarism, and war — for peace, democracy and equal rights for women. From 1910 to 1914 a new revolutionary upsurge developed on an international scale (e. g. the bourgeois revolution in China, mass strikes in imperialist states). While the German imperialists speeded up their preparations for a war of conquest in order to re-divide the world, the masses of the German working class and of many other working people more and more militantly opposed increased exploitation, the high cost o f living, the growing deprivation of rights and the menace o f war. The new wave of strikes surpassed that of the years 1905-1907. In 1910 and 1913 the dockers carried out big strikes. In the spring of 1910, the building workers fought for three months against the contractors. In the autumn of 1910, local strikes in the Berlin surburbs of Wedding and Moabit led to open street fighting. In 1912, miners of the Ruhr district went o n strike anew. In some of these fights there were direct clashes between the strikers and the military forces o f German imperialism. In many cities of Germany, in 1910, in spite o f brutal policy terror, the election fights turned into mighty mass demonstrations against the semiabsolutism of Kaiser Wilhelm's Retcb. These were revolutionary mass struggles to obtain democratic conditions especially in Prussia, the strongest political and economic bulwark of German militarism and imperialism. In the course of these fights Rosa L u x e m b u r g put forward the demand for a republic. A t the time of the second Morocco Crisis, in the summer of 1911, important anti-war actions were carried out. In 1912, the Reichstag election results expressed the growing readiness of the masses to fight against militarism, imperialism and the increasing danger o f war. In

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Germany, " a big revolutionary storm appeared, visible for all to see" (Lenin). In this class strife, only the Left gave clear leadership to the masses. In the Party and the trade unions the contradictions between the rank and file and the revisionists and centrist leaders grew. When, during the struggle for the right for equal votes, more and more workers demanded the use of, and began to use, the general strike weapon to achieve their political aims, the Social Democratic Party executive were able to disrupt the movement. The rapidly growing influence of opportunism on the policy of the Party manifested itself or was expressed by the closer relations between the centrists and the revisionists. Kautsky who in 1910 had gone over openly to the centrist side and who opposed the Marxist Left-wing, supplied the "theoretical basis" for the rejection of struggle outside parliament with his theory of the "Strategy of Attrition". At the Social Democratic Party Congress in Magdeburg (September 1910) there were, as Lenin remarked, two opposing ideological worlds, on the one hand the standpoint of proletariat class struggle supported by August Bebel and the Left, and the reformist view on the other. The Basle Congress of the Second International (November 1912) discussed the increasing danger of war. It adopted a manifesto against imperialist war which called upon the international proletariat to use every effective means to hinder war, and in the event of war breaking out to end it by the overthrow of capitalist class rule in their own countries. In this way the new revolutionary resolution of the Stuttgart Congress was confirmed. In opposition to the masses who were prepared to struggle against war, the majority of the Social Democratic Reichstagsfraktion voted in 1913 for the Property Tax Bill intended to cover armament expenditure, and thereby prepared the way for their betrayal on August 4th, 1914. Long before the eve of the First World War the revisionists had taken over the key positions in the Party. German Social Democracy had become a reformist labour party. There was no longer a revolutionary Marxist party in Germany which could lead the working class in defencc of their class interests and those of the nation as a whole and therefore no party which could lead them in the fulfillment of their historic mission. Only the Left carried high the banner of struggle against the danger of war and militarism, defended the idea of proletarian internationalism and at the same time the interests of the nation. (Karl Liebknecht's exposure of German armament capital [1913]). They represented the present and future interests of the German working class and the nation.

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CHAPTER V

The imperialist world war. The collapse of the Second International. The open desertion of the right-wing Social Democratic and trade union leaders into the imperialist camp. The struggle of the German Left against the imperialist war and social-chauvinism. The growth of the mass movement against the war. The influence on Germany of the February Revolution in Russia. (Period from 1914 to October 1917.)

The sharpening contradictions between the two imperialist blocs led to the First World War. It was an imperialist war on the part of all the great powers involved. The laws of historical development predetermined the defeat of German imperialism, which had started the war to establish its supremacy in Europe and to re-divide the world. In consequence of the war the German people suffered immeasurable sacrifices, untold misery and great poverty. The imperialists and militarists criminally opposed the vital interests of the German people and plunged them into the abyss of national catastrophe. At the beginning of the war the revisionist leaders of Social Democracy and the trade unions were able to mislead large sections of the working masses and other working people, to misuse their patriotic feelings and subordinate them to the war policy of the imperialist bourgeoisie. The workers had shown their readiness to struggle against the war through their numerous protest actions at the end of July 1914. Through their open surrender of the cause of German imperialism the right-wing Social-Democratic leaders stabbed them in the back. The voting of war credits was a direct betrayal of the interests of the working class, the nation and socialism. It meant an open split in the ranks of the German working class through opportunism. The crisis of Social Democracy came out into the open. The majority of the social-democratic parties in the Second International along similar lines to German Social 57

Democracy developed towards social-chauvinism. The Second International had collapsed and was now in a state of decay. Only Lenin and the Bolsheviks, without wavering, immediately took up the banner of Marxism and proletarian internationalism. They called for a struggle against the war and appealed to the working class in all countries to change the imperialist war into civil war and thus fight for the defeat of their own bourgeoisie. The Bolsheviks fought for the concentration of all revolutionary elements in the international workers' movement and for the creation of a truly revolutionary Third International. (Conference at Zimmerwald 1915 and Kienthal 1916) Lenin and the Bolsheviks made great efforts to persuade the Left of the German workers' movement to break with social-chauvinism and centrism and to lead them to adopt a Leninist position. Only the Marxist Left with Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring, Clara Zetkin, Wilhelm Pieck and others represented the interests of the working class and the nation against the enemy of the people - German imperialism. The Left exposed the imperialist character of the war and called for a struggle against the Burgfrieden* policy of the right-wing Social-Democratic leaders, a policy of collaboration with the monopolists, militarists, and landowners, which was simply a means of subordinating the working class to the catastrophic war policy of the imperialists. On December 2nd, 1914, Karl Liebknecht voted against the war credits bill in the German Reichstag. His courageous stand was a fighting call to the German working class against the imperialist war which resounded throughout the working-class movements of many western European countries. The hazardous Blitzkrieg strategy of German militarism met with defeat in the Battle of the Marne (September 1914). Despite this the German imperialists continued with the abortive war, sacrificed unscrupulously the lives and health of millions of people and made Germany into a military prison, to throttle and suppress the working class and the whole people. The historical achievement of Karl Liebknechts' stand in this period was, that he demanded the struggle against the imperialist-monarchist regime and the revolutionary ending of the imperialist war in a number of outstanding Marxist documents, above all the "Theses of November 1914", the leaflet "The Main Enemy is in Our Own Land", his letter to the Zimmerwald Conference and the draft of "The Guiding Principles"; thus he showed the way forward which fully corresponded to the interests of the working class and the nation. This anti-imperialist con* Class truce.

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ception of Karl Liebknecht became the platform around which the revolutionary forces of the working class and other sections of the •working people graduelly grouped themselves. Under the slogans of Karl Liebknecht the Left-wing prepared illegally the first mass actions against hunger and war. They organised the first anti-war demonstration of women workers in May 1915 in front of the Reichstag building. On May 1st, 1916, at the anti-war demonstration on the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, Karl Liebknecht cried: "Down with War I Down with the Government!" Under the influence of the Left the desire for activc struggle against the imperialist war grew, especially among women workers and young people. The evidence of this were the numerous struggles of 1916, primarily the strike of young workers in Brunswick and the protest strikes all over Germany against the conviction of Karl Liebknecht. The various revolutionary youth conferences of the years 1916 and 1917 were also of great importance for the organisation of the anti-war struggle. Out of the bitter struggles against police persecution, against social-chauvinism and social-pacificism there developed the organised coalition of the Left, the "International" Group, which constituted itself on the 1st of January, 1916 as the Spartacus Group. Besides the Spartacus Group there were other left-wing groups, too, for instance, the Bremen Left. "The Principles of the Tasks of International Social Democracy" which had been drawn up with the help of Rosa Luxemburg was accepted by the Spartacus Group as the new programme for terminating the war. Rosa Luxemburg's "Junius Brochure" published in February, 1916, was of great importance in exposing social-chauvinism and mobilising the revolutionary workers. The comradely criticism of Lenin of the mistakes of the "Junius Brochure" was simultaneously a criticism of the decisive weakness of the Left as a whole, namely the underestimation of the role of an independent revolutionary party and the importance of the national question in imperialism. This helped them to come nearer the Leninist conception. The February Revolution in 1917 in Russia, which led to the fall of Tsarism accelerated the growth of the revolutionary mass movement in Germany. Among its results were the great April strikes of the German working class especially in Leipzig and Berlin and the anti-war strike in August in Central Germany. The increasing class consciousness of the German working class expressed itself in the formation of revolutionary Shop Stewards' Committees in the factories. These opposed the opportunist bureaucracy of the Social Democratic Party and the trade unions. One of the most important actions which took place in Germany influenced by the February Revolution in Russia was the mutiny of the German High Seas Fleet in July/August 1917. It showed that the revo59

lutionary movement had also made inroads into the armed forces of the imperialist state apparatus. The heroic mutiny of the German sailors was a symptom of the approach of a revolution in Germany too. In numerous Social Democratic Party organisations the dissatisfaction of the rank and file with official party policy grew. The Left gained in influence. The right-wing Social-Democratic leaders answered this development with the expulsion of whole organisations. To counter the leftward trend and prevent large sections of the workers from going over to the Left, the centrist leaders founded the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) in April 1917. The mass of revolutionary workers flocked into this party, those workers, who did not agree with the policy of the right-wing Social-Democratic leaders which was against the interests of the nation and hostile to the working class. These workers saw in the USPD a new revolutionary party. The objective role of the USPD was, however, to attract into its ranks workers who were turning away from the Social Democrats, and prevent them from going over to the revolutionary camp. This meant that they were still subordinated to the policy of the right-wing leadership of the SPD, which was contrary to the interests of the nation and supported, whole-heartedly the interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie. The fact that the Spartacus Group joined the USPD with the reservation of politico-ideological indépendance, showed that a clear conception of the role of an independent Marxist working-class party had still not gained sufficient ground within the Left.

CHAPTER VI

The Great Socialist beginning of tbe world ism. The November of Germany. (Period

October Revolution and its influence on Germany. The historical epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialRevolution and tbe foundation of the Communist Party from November, 1917 to January, 1919.)

The victory of the Russian proletariat under the leadership of the Bolsheviks in the Great Socialist October Revolution was a turning point in the history of mankind and directly changed the whole international situation. Never before a revolution has had such an influence on the development of the whole of mankind and on every people as the first great socialist revolution. Under the slogan "All Power to the Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies", the proleratiat had taken control of the state machine. Lenin's Decree of Peace showed all peoples the way out of the slaughter and misery of the imperialist war. Alarmed by Russia's breaking away from the capitalist world system and by the influence of the Great Socialist October Revolution on the masses of the people in their own country, the warring imperialist blocs tried, each at the expense of the other, to find a way out of the war by means of an imperialist peace. At the same time they began military intervention to crush Soviet power. Since then the most aggressive imperialist circles have tried time and again - but without success to crush Soviet power and to stop Socialism spreading. Anti-communism became the basic principle for inhuman imperialist policy, for the division of the working class, for the suppression of the masses, for the unleashing of wars. Inspired by the victory of the Russian workers and peasants and V. I. Lenin's Peace Decree the struggle of the revolutionary forces in the international working-class movement against the imperialist war and for a demoncratic peace gained an important impetus. 61

The Great Socialist October Revolution showed the German working class the path to victory over the imperialist and militarist corrupters of the German nation, and to the creation of a workers' and peasants' government which would ensure a peaceful and happy future for the German nation. As a result of the victory of the Great Socialist October Revolution and its effect on the fight of working class and the working people in Germany, and in view of the growing economic and military superiority of the Entente Powers, the differences within the German ruling class over the way to an imperialist peace more and more intensified. ("Peace through victory" or "Peace by negotiation"). The big capitalist and military circles continued the war in the hope of finding a way out of the imperialist war of conquest to an imperialist peace which would ensure the safety of the position of power of German finance capital and the big landowners. In view of the grave defeats at the front and the growing anti-war struggles, finance capital together with the right-wing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions, sought a way to cripple the mass movement, to hinder the threatening revolution, and to ensure the continuedpower of the ruling class. For this purpose they worked out a programme of minor social reforms and developed plans for a "transition economy", i. e. for a transition from a war to a peace economy without the abolition of the basis of power of the war-criminals, monopolists and landowners. Kautsky, who had supported the open social-chauvinists during the war and completely betrayed Marxism came out prominently as a bitter enemy of Soviet power and the revolutionary German and international working-class movement after the Great Socialist October Revolution. He became one of the main representatives of open revisionism and militant anti-Bolshevism. German imperialism answered the peace proposals of the Soviet government with a campaign against the new Soviet power. This was the first imperialist intervention against the land of socialism and forced it to sign the imperialist peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The German imperialists could not, however, destroy Soviet power. Their anti-Soviet policy in fact accelerated their own defeat. This defeat, in accordance with the objective social laws, was finally sealed in autumn, 1918. German imperialism was bound to loose the First World War because it embodied the most reactionary social forces, because its war aims were the most aggressive, and because although its own defeat was already apparent, it was the most active opponent of the new Soviet state among the imperialist powers. German imperialism was also defeated because its. acquisitive aims were in contradiction to the real power relations between the states. 62

Under the direct influence of the victory of the Russian Revolution, and the great effect of Lenin's Decree of Peace, the revolutionary movement of the German working class reached a higher level. Over a million workers struggled in the powerful mass political strikes in January 1918 against the imperialist war and the aggressive anti-Soviet plans of German imperialism, and for an immediate democratic peace and the overthrow of the imperialist Kaiser government. The workers thus expressed their solidarity with the first socialist state. The influence of the Russian Revolution was also apparent in the formation of workers' councils, formed in struggle by the workers in furtherance their demands. The revolutionary ferment of the masses spread to the army and led to the growth of fraternisation on the Eastern front. The sharpening of the class struggle in Germany led to larger and larger sections of the working class taking an active part in the fight against the imperialist war. Whilst the leaders of the SPD undermined the mass actions against the war, and the leadership of the USPD took a social pacifist position on the question of peace, the Spartacus and other leftwing groups linked the end-the-war struggle with preparations for a revolutionary up-rising. The Left was the only force in the German working-class movement which mobilised the masses to take a stand on behalf of Soviet power. Under the influence of the Great Socialist October Revolution and with the help of the Bolsheviks, the Spartacus group made a decisive step towards the breech with opportunism and took the path of Leninism. At the beginning of October 1918 a revolutionary situation developed in Germany after the military collapse at the fronts. The imperialist Kaiser régime tried, because of this situation, to hinder the approaching revolution through so-called parliamentary reforms and the announcement of peace talks with the Entente. The right-wing leaders of the SPD, continuing their betrayal of August 4th, 1914, lent active support to the ruling classes in their attempts to save the monarchy and maintain imperialist rule. They sent their representatives to the government of Prince Max von Baden and prepared the way for the change over from the "class-truce policy" of the war years to the post-war policy of a "working coalition". But reaction was no longer in a position to avoid a complete military defeat and to hinder the revolutionary uprising of the masses. The historical task of the revolution in Germany was to solve the basic contradictions which had developed since the turn of the century between the democratic peace-loving masses, led by the working class, on the one hand, and the forces of German imperialism and militarism who were responsible for the war and the ensueing misery and poverty 63

on the other. This was in conformity with the demands of the new world historical epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism. In the interests of a peaceful, happy future for the whole nation it was imperative to overthrow German imperialism and militarism and create a peaceloving, democratic, socialist Germany which would be closely linked with the first workers' and peasants' state and would win the respect and the sympathy of all peoples. At its National Conference on October 7th, 1918, in which the Bremen Left group took part, the Spartacus group adopted the Programme of the Revolution. The central thesis was the immediate ending of the war, the revolutionary winning of democratic rights and freedoms through struggle and the downfall of German imperialism as the pre-condition for the transition to socialist revolution. The programm laid down in the main correctly, the basic national and social tasks of the November Revolution, taking into consideration the power relations between the classes ; its main features were based on Lenin's thesis, developed in his work - " T w o Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution". The National Conference proved that the Spartacus Group together with other Left groups, was the only force giving clear aims and direction to the revolution in Germany. The revolution in Germany broke out in the wake of the Great Socialist October Revolution and formed a part of the international revolutionary movement against imperialism and for peace. It began on the 3rd of November, 1918, with the mutiny of the Kiel sailors against the continuation of the imperialist war. The Kiel workers joined the armed up-rising of the sailors with a general strike. Workers' and Soldiers' Councils were formed. Kiel was completely in the hands of the revolutionary forces within two days. The revolution spread with ever increasing speed throughout the whole of Germany. Within five days the revolutionary workers, soldiers and sailors rose in almost the whole of Germany against the hated monarchic imperialist régime against the imperialist war and Workers' and Soldiers' Councils were formed. As a consequence of an appeal by the Spartacus group and the revolutionary shop stewards in the factories, the workers and soldiers also in the capital of German imperialism, Berlin, joined the General Strike on November 9th, and carried out the armed rising. The revolutionary struggle of millions of German workers and other sections of the working people made important gains in the first phase, their actions led to the downfall of the Hohenzollern monarchy and the Kaiser government, to the overthrow of the feudal aristrocratic rule in the individual German principalities and the winning of important democratic rights and freedoms for the mass of the people. 64

On November 9th, 1918, the first number of the "Rote Fabne" (Red Flag) appeared, published by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. It explained the tasks of the revolution to the revolutionary workers and mobilised them to carry them out. The formation of the Central Office of the Spartacus League on November 11th was an important step towards an independent revolutionary party. The Workers' and Soldiers' Councils exercised real power in many places in Germany in line with the slogans of the Spartacus League. In a whole number of towns and factories in which real revolutionaries headed the movement and had a corresponding influence on the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils, the purging of the local organs of state power and the limitation of the economic power of the monopolists by taking over control of production, was begun. The bourgeois-parliamentary illusions which were widespread in the working class and the non-existance of a militant Marxist party enabled the leaders of the SPD and the right-wing leaders of the USPD, who followed them in all important questions, to split the revolutionary movement and create a government which although called "socialis " was in reality a counter-revolutionary one. It united with the forces of militarism (Ebert-Groener Secret Agreement) and monopoly capitalism (Central Working Coalition) in the struggle against the revolutionary forces. The armistice which ended the war was demagogically used by the right-wing leaders of the SPD, the USPD and the trade unions to convert the genuine desire of the masses for peace into support for their opportunist policy. The working class wanted socialism, but because of the long-standing influence of opportunism it had only vague ideas about the struggle for the conquest of political power, the nature of socialism and the means and methods to achieve it. Therefore, under the influence of the leaders of the SPD, the first National Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils in December 1918 decided upon the main issue of the revolution either the destruction of imperialist power followed by the setting up of power through the Councils or the preservation of imperialist power in parliamentary form through the calling of a bourgeois National Assembly - in the interests of the bourgeois state. The decision of the National Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils prevented the direct seizure of power by the working class and other working people. The counter-revolutionary leaders of the SPD had saved the power of German imperialism and militarism from the onslaught of the masses. The Spartacus League and other Left groups such as the Bremen Left and the Left-wing of the USPD were the only sections who struggled consistently at the head of the masses for the victory of the revolution. 5

Outline History

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Under their influence the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils answered the attempt at a putsch by counter-revolutionary troops on December 6th, 1918 with great protest meetings and demonstrations. Since the end of November a wave of strikes had developed in many parts of Germany, at first mainly for economic aims but the demand for control of production and nationalisation became more and more a central feature. A climax of the revolutionary action of the masses was the powerful demonstration on the occasion of the opening of the National Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils on December 16th, 1918, in Berlin, organised by the Spartacus League and the revolutionary shop stewards, in which about 250,000 working people seconded the slogan "All Power to the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils." The Spartacus League, despite a certain lack of clarity on the question of alliances, also appealed to the agricultural workers and working peasants and tried to take the revolution out of the towns and carry it into the countryside. But this heroic struggle of the vanguard of the working class and the revolutionary workers and soldiers could not compensate for the lack of a revolutionary party. The experiences of the Great Socialist October Revolution and the revolutionary mass struggles in Germany led the Spartacus League to the knowledge that the final break with the USPD and the creation of a revolutionary Marxist party had become the most urgent task. The foundation of the KPD, in the days from December 30th, 1918 until January 1st, 1919 was a turning point in the history of Germany, the German working-class movement and the nation, because the leadership of the working class by its own revolutionary party is a basic condition for the solution of the historical task of the working class, for the downfall of the imperialist and militarist enemies of the people and for the setting up of a workers' and peasants' state. The KPD from the day of its foundation put forward a national policy of struggle for peace, democracy, international friendship and the humanist, socialist system of society. It opposed the anti-national policy of war and catastrophe of the ruling class of Germany. The foundation of the KPD meant that a German party had been formed which had grasped the essence of the new epoch and which, on the basis of the lessons of German history, showed the way to overcome German militarism and imperialism which was opposed to the vital interests of the German people. It also pointed the way forward to a Germany whose greatness lay in her peaceful endeavours in the cultural, economic and social fields. The foundation of the KPD implied a final break with right-wing opportunism and with centrism and laid the basis for the militant Marxist-Leninist Party of the German working class. This was the basic

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condition for the restoration of the unity of the whole German working class on the basis of Marxism-Leninism. The programme adopted at the foundation congress was based on the principles of Marx and Engels. It formulated the basic questions of the state and of revolution correctly, acknowledged the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat and was for a close link with the first socialist state. This programme drew the historical lessons from developments since the turn of the century and above all from the First World War. It showed the German working class and the nation the way out of the anti-national policy of German imperialism. There was still a serious lack of clarity in the young party on some theoretical questions and on the way to win the working class and the masses of the people for a united struggle against German militarism and imperialism. This was expressed at the Party Congress especially by the decision not to participate in the elections for the National Assembly, and also in an underestimation of the trade union question, the national question and the question of alliances with other classes. From the beginning, the KPD advocated a close alliance with the young Soviet power. Such an alliance was in the interests of the nation because it guaranteed Germany the aid and support of the first socialist state, and had saved her from an imperialist dictated peace with the Entente powers. The government of "Peoples' Representatives", however, followed a policy of hostility towards the Soviet Republic and sought backing from the western imperialist powers. After the policy of the SPD leaders had led to a change in the balance of power between the classes in favour of counter-revolution, these leaders together with generals of the Kaiser, began to use military means to crush the revolutionary forces. The counter-revolutionary attack started at the beginning of January, 1919, with the dismissal of the Berlin Police Chief Eichhorn, who belonged to the left-wing of the USPD. The revolutionary Berlin workers and soldiers answered this provocation with political strikes and mass demonstrations in which hundreds of thousands of workers participated. In heavy struggles they fought heroically against the superior counter-revolutionary forces. The newly formed KPD had, however, too little fighting experiences and its connection with the broad masses of the proletariat and the other working people was still weak. It was not in a position to unite large sections of the proletariat for the defence against the counter-revolutionary provocations and to lead them in struggle. It was not able to overcome the influence which the right-wing Social-Democratic leaders in the trade unions had on the majority of the working class, nor the capitulating attitude of some leaders of the USPD who had formed a 5*

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provisional revolutionary committee with representatives of the KPD. Through a false evaluation of the position and the relative power of the classes, the revolutionary committee called for an armed struggle to bring about the downfall of the Ebert-Scheidemann government. The counter-revolutionary Noske troops decisively defeated the proletariat and murdered its two most outstanding representatives, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. The "free" elections to the National Assembly (19th January, 1919) which took place in an atmosphere of white terror and gave the bourgeois parties the majority, sealed the final defeat of the working class in the November Revolution. The counter-revolution was not able, however, to annul the gains of the revolution nor to destroy the young Communist Party. The November Revolution was the first revolution of the German working class against German imperialism. Its course and results gave the German working class and the whole people important experience and taught them lessons which were to be of vital importance in the further struggle for peace, democracy and socialism in Germany. The working class won important democratic rights and freedoms and conquered a better position for itself in the struggle against German imperialism and militarism. Its revolutionary struggle saved the unity of Germany in the face of plans by the Entente imperialists to divide the country up. But the German working class suffered a defeat in the November Revolution as a consequence of the traitorous position of the leaders of the SPD and the right-wing leaders of the USPD who influenced the majority of the working class and the working people and further because of the lack of a militant revolutionary party at the outbreak of the revolution. It was not even possible to carry the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution to its full conclusion by depriving the large landowners of their power or purging the state apparatus of the Junkers. The November Revolution remained a bourgeois-democratic revolution which was carried out to some extent by proletarian means and methods. Its main task - the downfall of German imperialism — remained unfulfilled.

CHAPTER VII

Tbe revolutionary post-war crisis. Tbe formation of tbe Third International. The significance of tbe Communist International and, V. I. Lenin's assistance to tbe German working class. Tbe struggle of tbe working class and tbe working people under tbe leadership of tbe KPD for tbe defence and extension of democratic rights and liberties against tbe positions of power of tbe counter-revolution. Tbe development of tbe KPD into a revolutionary mass party. Tbe struggle for social and national liberation of tbe German people in 1923. (Period from Januaiy 1919 up to tbe end of 1923.)

The Soviet power through the support of the international proletariat after many bitter struggles with the foreign imperialist interventionists and counter-revolutionaries inside the country finally emerged victorious. It began to introduce the New Economic Policy and went over to peaceful construction. In this period the general crisis of capitalism sharpened. The victorious struggles of the Soviet people influenced the majority of capitalist countries which were gripped by profound revolutionary disturbances. In the revolutionary post-war crisis the struggle between the two basic lines of thought in the international working-class movement sharpened. In many countries the break with opportunism led to the foundation of Communist Parties. On Lenin's and the Bolshevik Party's initiative the Third, the Communist, International was founded in Moscow, in March, 1919. This was an important victory of MarxismLeninism over all the various brands of opportunism. For the first time in the international working-class movement the vanguard of the workers in Europe and America together with representatives of the proletariat of the colonial and dependent countries were united under the banner of proletarian internationalism. 69

Despite the decisive defeat suffered by the German working class in the January struggles wide sections of the proletariat staged mass strikes and took up arms in defence of the achievements of the revolution, for further political and social improvements and against the growing counter-revolution, in spring, 1919. Hundreds of thousands of workers took part in such important actions as the general strike of the Ruhr miners at the end of February, the general strike in the central German and Thuringian area in February and March, which started in the HalleMerseburg district, the general strike in Berlin and the miners' strike in Upper Silesia at the beginning of March, the general strike in Stuttgart and other Wurttemberg towns at the end of March and the beginning of April, and the general strike of the Ruhr miners in April. The workers struck for the improvement of their living standard, the disarming and dissolving of the counter-revolutionary organisations, the guarantee of the rights of the Factory Councils, the nationalisation and the immediate establishment of political and economic relations with Soviet Russia. Revolutionary workers and soldiers with great losses took up the struggle with the counter-revolutionary Noske troops who were renowned for their brutality. In Bremen (10th January-4th February) and in Munich (13th April to the beginning of May) the struggle of the revolutionary masses led to the temporary erection of Workers' Republics. The essence of all these struggles was the defence of the gains won during the November Revolution and opposition to the consolidation of the power of finance capital and militarism. They also fought for the right of the working-class participation in factory management. The revolutionary vanguard of the German working class tried to turn the struggles which developed into actions to abolish monopoly-capitalist and militarist power. Despite their heroic struggles the masses were also defeated in the spring of 1919. The main reasons for this were that the actions were too isolated from one another, that the workers did not have a united leadership and that the right-wing Social-Democratic leaders in the party and in the trade-unions allied with the counterrevolutionary forces prevented united action by the working class. The struggles of the November Revolution, especially the struggles in January, 1919, had proved that it was impossible to set up a dictatorship of the proletariat in one step. But the KPD did not recognise that as a consequence of the defeat of the working class in those struggles in January important changes had taken place in the situation. It therefore did not draw the necessary conclusions quickly enough for its strategy and tactics for the next stage of the struggle. The left-radical conceptions which became obvious at the foundation congress of the KPD and the prevalence of the false theory of sponta-

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ncity impeded the Party from uniting rapidly enough with the masses of the workers and the other working people. It was therefore unable to create the conditions for new successful actions by the working class against German monopoly capitalism. The brutal terror of the counter revolutionaries against the Party and all the revolutionary workers and the death of its best leaders two weeks after its foundation prevented a timely examination and alternation of Party policy corresponding to the changed objective situation. The Party with its insufficient fighting experience and firm organisation, without a stable leadership and forced overnight into illegality, was faced by the well-organised and well-armed counter-revolutionary forces. The sanguinary defeat of the working class in January and the struggles following it cleared the way for the monopoly capitalist and the militarist forces consolidating their position by founding a state: the Weimar Republic. The Weimar Republic was German monopoly-capitalist and Junker class rule exercised by the methods of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. The bourgeois parliamentary camouflage enabled the ruling classes with the help of the right-wing Social-Democratic leaders to deceive the masses about the real class character of the Weimar Republic, to awaken in them democratic illusions and to prevent them from fighting against monopoly capitalism and militarism and for a democracy corresponding to the interests of the working class and the masses of the people. The Weimar Constitution (August 1919) reflected the changes in the relations of power between the classes which had taken place as a result of the November Revolution. The Weimar Constitution, however, contained at the same time a number of democratic rights and liberties for the people which were the direct result of the struggle of the working class in November and it was in this sense an important step forward compared with the semi-absolutism of imperial, Kaiser Germany. Because of the defeat of the working class in the November Revolu tion the Entente imperialists were able to force Germany to agree to the predatory Versailles Treaty, signed in June, 1919. It intensified the national question, in that it subjugated the German working class and the other working people to double exploitation through the German and Entente imperialists and limited German sovereignty. At the same time, however, it allowed the basis of the power of German imperialism and militarism to remain. The imperialist, dictated peace was intended to restrict Germany as a competitor in the world market. At the same time it was designed to allow German militarism enough power to hold down the revolutionary forces in Germany and preserve it as a potential 71

force against the Soviet state. This was due primarily to the influence of the U. S. A. The Versailles Treaty carried within it the germs of a new war. Although the Versailles Treaty was the result of the predatory war policy of German imperialism, the most reactionary sections of German finance capital and the militarists used the heavy burdens which the Treaty placed on the German people to incite wide sections of the people, primarily the petty-bourgeoisie, to chauvinism and to lead them anew towards revenge and war. The Versailles Treaty was also a result of the anti-Soviet policy of German monopoly capitalism. Instead of looking for support in the field of foreign affairs from Soviet Russia, the ruling capitalist classes and the right-wing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions isolated Germany from the only state in the world which opposed the plan of the imperialists for annexation and enslavement and which desired relations with Germany on the basis of mutual equality. The German counterrevolutionaries not only led a campaign at home against the revolutionary proletariat in Germany but also took part in the wars of intervention against Soviet power in the Baltic countries. By agreement with the Western powers it helped in the brutal suppression of Soviet power in Lithuania and Latvia. The KPD was the only German party which called on the workers and the people generally to fight against the antinational policy and for solidarity with the first workers' and peasants' state in the world. The policy of the German monopolists and militarists was directed in this period towards consolidating their power which had been severely shaken, and placing the burdens of the imperialist war and the Versailles Treaty on the backs of the people. They further aimed at undermining, and then abolishing, the democratic and social gains of the November Revolution. They were able to rely on the support of the right-wing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions to achieve these ends. They camouflaged the class character of the Weimar Republic by means of the bourgeois coalition policy and the demagogic slogan "Socialisation marches on!". They were able to rally support among large sections of the working class and other sections of the working people for the monopoly capitalist state. Ever since the Great Socialist October Revolution anti-communism had become the official ideology of the rightwing leaders of Social Democracy and the trade unions. The KPD in this period took its place at the head of the great mass struggles of the German working class and other sections of the people for guaranteed living standards for the masses and for the defence and extension of their democratic rights and liberties. They also tried at

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certain high points in the struggle to turn it into an action for the downfall of the power of German finance capital. The Communist Party of Germany was confronted by the necessity of drawing conclusions from the defeat of the working class in the November Revolution. It was imperative that the Party worked out the kind of strategy and tactics which would liberate the mass of the workers and other working people from the influence of opportunism and, on the basis of their own experience, lead them to take political power. It needed in fact a policy which corresponded to the real conditions of struggle in Germany. The Party had to learn how to win the majority of the working class and the other sections of the people in the struggle for the defence and extension of their democratic rights and liberties gained in the November Revolution. It was necessary to use every possibility to raise the various movements to the level of mass action for the smashing of the power of the monopolies, large landowners and militarists. The aim of the struggle had to be the creation of a workers' or peoples' government as the preliminary basis for the establishment of a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants in Germany, which would later develop into the dictatorship of the proletariat. Planning and carrying out such a correct Leninist strategy and tactic was very complicated, due to the particular position of Germany in the struggle between the two social systems. This line of policy had to be worked out through hard struggle inside the Party, against the right-wing opportunism and left-radicalism which were apparent in the ranks of the Party. The Party had some success in dealing with these questions in this period but it also suffered serious defeats. After the defeat of the working class in January and the struggles immediately following, the revolutionary nucleus of the Party tried to ally itself with the proletarian masses. But petty-bourgeois left-radical elements gained a temporary influence in the party using the deep-rooted hatred of the revolutionary workers for the counter-revolutionary right-wing leaders of the SPD. These elements later capitulated under pressure of the imperialist bourgeoisie and the difficulties of the struggle to win the masses. In the summer of 1919 the discussions on anarcho-syndicalism and "national Bolshevism" began, both these tendencies seriously prevented the development of successful political revolutionary work on a mass scale. The Second Party Congress of the KPD which was held illegally in Heidelberg and other places in October 1919, was of great importance for the ideological and organisational strengthening of the party. The resolutions adopted relating to Communist strategy and tactics, parliamenterianism and the trade union question showed that the Party Con73

gress had overcome the left-radical mistakes which had emerged at the Foundation Congress of the Party. It meant that the way was now open to the winning of the majority of the working class. The Congress, however, not only expelled the representatives of left-wing opportunism who were enemies of the party but at the same time, without any basic ideological discussion, the ordinary rank and file members who had been led astray by them. This led to a temporary weakening of the party. In March 1920 the reactionary groups of monopolies and Junkers incited the Kapp Putsch supported by the "Free Corps" and army formations. Their aims were the abolishing of the gains of the November Revolution, the complete crushing of the working class, the establishment of open military dictatorship under the banner of anti-communism and an imperialist struggle against the Versailles Treaty. The German working class rose to a man against the danger threatening the nation. The powerful general strike of about 12 million working people suspended industry, traffic and communications for several days almost everywhere in Germany. In many places the workers took part in armed battles with the militarist counter-revolutionaries. Especially in Berlin and its surroundings, in central Germany, in Mecklenburg and in the Senftenberg mining area there were great actions by the proletariat and its allies. The struggles in the Ruhr area were especially broad in character. The 100,000 strong "Ruhr Red Army" formed under the leadership of the KPD and the left-wing of the USPD drove the Kapp Putschists out of the greatest industrial area in Germany in armed conflict. The workers organised in the KPD, USPD, the SPD and the trade unions, and alongside them Christian and non-party workers, in the greatest united action of the proletariat in the history of the German working class up to that time, defended the democratic rights and liberties of the people and decisively defeated the militarist counter-revolutionaries. Numerous members of the middle classes, the intelligentsia and the democratically-minded bourgeoisie gave them active support. The victory over the Kapp Putsch showed the historical lesson that a united working class acting in alliance with the peasants and other sections of the working people is a tremendous power. The majority of the working class had taken an active part in the struggles. The Communists, the mass of the members of the USPD and the Social Democratic workers had struggled side by side. The experiences of the KPD, however, were insufficient to maintain the great success and advance towards a workers' government or some form of people's government. The traitorous attitude of the right-wing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions as well as the right-wing leaders of the USPD split the united front of the working class and cheated the German working people of 74

the fruits of victory. After the right-wing leaders had achieved the disarmament of the working class, militarist reaction revenged itself in many parts of Germany, especially in the Ruhr, with a blood-thirsty terror against the working class. V. I. Lenin and the Second World Congress of the Communist International (July/August 1920) helped the Party decisively to overcome its ideological and organisational difficulties. The basic resolutions adopted at the Congress especially on the role of the proletarian party and the twenty-one conditions of entry to the Communist International were based on Lenin's thesis of the party of a new type and the world historical experiences of the Bolsheviks. The Congress orientated the Communist Parties to the struggle against open right-wing opportunism and centrism as the main enemy of the international proletariat and stressed at the same time the necessity of overcoming left-radicalism, which was wide-spread in the revolutionary workers' movement in many countries, so that the basic ideological pre-requisites for winning the majority of the working class for a united struggle could be created. The influence of the KPD increased, due to V. I. Lenin's advice and the resolutions of the Communist International, and also to its own experiences in the struggle against the Kapp Putsch, and increased the impulse of the left-wing of the USPD to unite with the KPD. The revolutionary forces in the USPD developed a great initiative to win the majority of its members for unity with the KPD. Through the unification of the revolutionary forces of the USPD with the KPD at the Sixths Party Congress in Berlin (End of 1920) the revolutionary sections of the German working class now formed one party. The KPD had become a revolutionary mass party. The unification crowned the heavy defeat of Centrism in Germany. Whilst the KPD in its fight to win the majority of the working class had up to then concentrated on the workers in the USPD, it reached a turning point in its mass propaganda in January 1921 with its "Open Letter" in connection with the demands of the Stuttgart metalworkers. In the struggle for unity of action of the working class it came to understand the importance of placing the daily economic demands of the working class and the defence and extension of democratic rights in the foreground. The Party began to work systematically in the trade unions and other mass proletarian organisations and to use the bourgeois parliament as a platform to enlighten and mobilise the masses. New revolutionary mass organisations came into being in the form of the Communist Youth League of Germany, Red Aid and International Workers' Aid. 75

The development of this succesful mass policy was disrupted by the March struggles of 1921. Afraid of the growing mass influence of the KPD, which had speedily increased especially in Central Germany, the counter-revolution tried to crush the vanguard of the working class. With the help of the Prussian Social Democratic government it provoked the German workers in Central Germany to armed action. In a heroic struggle the Central German workers headed by the Mansfield miners, and the Leuna workers, took up arms against the superior forces of the counter-revolution. Because of the lack of objective conditions for an armed rising, because the Party and the working class were not prepared for it and because the heroic defensive struggles remained isolated, mainly in Central Germany, the workers suffered a heavy defeat. In this dangerous situation the "offensive theory" put forward by the anti-Leninist forces in the party leadership weakened the influence of the KPD and threatened to isolate the proletarian vanguard from the masses. But the counter-revolution did not achieve its aims. The innerparty discussions which immediately followed with the right-wing opportunism of the renegade Levi, and the defenders of the left-secterian "offensive theory" led with the help of V. I. Lenin and the resolutions of the Third World Congress of the Communist International (June/July 1921), to a strengthening of the Party. The historical Third World Congress of the Communist International (June/July 1921) which also analysed the March events in Germany, was of basic importance to the whole Communist world movement and especially to the KPD as one of its strongest sections. The Congress drew conclusions from the changed international situation. On the one hand the Soviet land had triumphed over the foreign interventionists and the counter-revolutionaries at home and consequently was able to go over to peaceful construction. On the other hand the proletariat in the capitalist countries had been defeated, for the present, in the revolutionary class struggles of the first post-war years, because the right-wing leaders of Social Democratic Parties, united in the Second International, as well as the leaders of the reformist trade unions, and their policy had deepened the rift in the international working-class movement. It had been proved in the other capitalist countries just as in Germany that the working class could not achieve the dictatorship of the proletariat in one step. V. I. Lenin had shown the international Communist movement the way in his brilliant work "Left-Wing Communism - an Infantile Disease", which appeared in 1920. He pointed out the way in which the Communist Parties of the capitalist countries could overcome leftsectarianism in their own ranks, win the majority of the working class,

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ally themselves with the peasants and how they should lead the masses into the struggle for political power. Lenin generalised the experiences of the Bolsheviks and showed the Communists how to apply them, taking into consideration the conditions in their own countries. The Third World Congress bore the stamp of Lenin's policy. He put forward the slogan, "Go to the Masses I", and developed the basic tactical principles for the struggle for the development of a united proletarian front. V. I. Lenin's work, his speeches at the Congress and his discussions with representatives of the KPD helped the Party to draw the lessons of the struggle since 1919, especially those of March 1921, and to work out 2 strategy and tactics which corresponded to the conditions of struggle in Germany. The 7th Party Congress of the KPD which met in Jena, in August, 1921, analysed the Third World Congress and Lenin's letter to the party delegates and adopted, on that basis, important resolutions for the development of wide mass work by the party among the workers and other sections of the working people. After the Jena Party Congress the KPD quickly won mass influence in the trade unions and successfully organised big campaigns against the counter-revolution and against the placing of the burden of the war and the Versailles Treaty onto the masses. A sign of the new influence of the KPD were the united demonstrations which took place in numerous towns to protest against the murder of Erzberger by counterrevolutionaries on August 26th, 1921. Under pressure of the masses the Bundesvorstand of the ADGB* was forced in November, 1921, to publish ten demands which were directed against the offensive of the monopolies against the workers. While the ADGB leaders soon gave up their own demands, the class-conscious workers under the leadership of the KPD, organised the struggle for their realisation. Under the leadership of the Communists the working class, employes and officials stood united in defence of their vital interests against the employeers' offensive, in such strikes as the great railway workers' strike at the beginning of February, 1922, the South German metal workers' strike which lasted from the end of February to the end of May, 1922, and in which some 200,000 workers took part. Influenced by the activity of the Communist trade unionists a strong proletarian opposition developed against the reformist trade union bureaucracy, especially among the metal, building and transport workers. This was reflected in the Leipzig Congress of the ADGB in June, 1922, where the majority of delegates voted for secession from the counter-revolutionary Zentralarbeitsgemeinscbaft (Central Working Coalition), and for the formation of industrial trade unions. The trade * German equivalent of the General Council of the T. U. C. (trans.).

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union bureaucracy successfully obstructed the carrying out of these resolutions in the period following the Congress. The idea spread of a united struggle of Communist, Social-Democratic, Christian and non-party workers for the improvement of living standards and to protect their democratic rights and liberties. The discipline and organisation of the KPD improved and its membership increased again. The KPD was the only party which defended the national interests against the Versailles robber-treaty. It struggled against the anti-Soviet foreign policy which was carried out by the leading groups of monopoly capitalists and right-wing leaders of the SPD to curry favour with the imperialist Western powers. As the revolutionary party of the German working class and a consequent defender of the vital national interests of our people the KPD showed complete loyalty to the first socialist state in the world. At the head of the mass "Hands-off-Russia" movement, in 1920, the Party mobilised millions of German workers and other sections of the people in the struggle to defend the Soviet Republic against the intervention of the foreign imperialists. German workers stopped arms transports for the White Guard interventionists and thus supported the struggle of the Red Army. The organisation of the Aid to Soviet Russia Campaign in 1921/22 and the Party's stand for close friendly relations between Germany and the Soviet Power helped the idea of German-Soviet friendship to take roots in the German working class and among other sections of the people, especially the intelligentsia. This struggle led by the Party was an expression of the relations between the defence of the national interest in Germany and proletarian internationalism. Those groups of the German bourgeoisie who looked at the international situation more realistically tried in their own interests, by the conclusion of the Rapallo Treaty in April, 1922, between Germany and Soviet Russia, to break through the foreign political isolation which followed the defeat of Germany and its subjugation by the Entente Powers. They realised that it was more advantageous to them to have close trade and economic relations with the Soviet Power than to orientate themselves one-sidedly towards the imperialist Western powers. The conclusion of the Rapallo Treaty, which made friendly relations between Soviet Russia and Germany possible, was in the national interest of Germany and accorded with the desires of the majority of the German people. The treaty was in line with Lenin's principle of peaceful co-existence between states of a different social order and showed the genuine desire of the Soviet government to reach a lasting, friendly agreement between the two states. 78

But the most reactionary groups of German heavy industry and the big land-owners united with the right-wing leaders of the SPD against every agreement with the Soviet Republic and sabotaged the Rapallo policy in favour of co-operation with American finance capital. The only party which organised mass action in defence of Rapallo was the KPD. The murder of the German Foreign Minister Rathenau, who had signed the Rapallo Treaty on behalf of Germany with Reichs Chancellor Wirth, on the 24th of June, 1922, by "Consul", the counter-revolutionary terror organisation, released a powerful wave of protest from millions of German workers and other sections of the people in which famous representatives of the middle-classes, the intelligentsia and the democratically-minded bourgeoisie took part. The KPD tried in united struggle with the masses to carry through efficient measures against the counter-revolution and for the defence and extension of the democratic rights of the people. But the right-wing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions who had taken part in the protest under pressure of the masses split the united front after a few days and in this way prevented real success which could have been reached in the struggle against the counter-revolution. The movement of Revolutionary Factory Councils and Control Committees arose, under the leadership of the KPD, against the rapidly increasing pauperisation and growing misery of the German working class and other sections of the working people. This movement came into being after sharp skirmishes with the right-wing leaders of the SPD, and the ADGB. At the National Factory Council Congress, in November 1922, in Berlin, a proletarian programme of struggle was adopted which called on the German working class to unite for the defence of their vital interests against the growing counter-revolution and to work for the creation of a workers' government. The mass struggles of the German working class and other working people in the period of the post-war revolutionary crisis reached a climax in 1923. The military occupation of the Ruhr by the French imperialists, which had been provoked by the German monopolists, was a great threat to peace and the national interests in Germany. The Ruhr occupation increased the economic crisis of Germany. Whilst the banks and trusts grasped for profits without regard for the consequences the weight of inflation and accelerated exploitation was shifted onto the working class with the help of the Cuno government. This policy drove ever growing numbers of the working class, the peasants and the middle classes to unemployment, hunger and poverty. The anti-national position of the German bourgeoisie was further expressed in the intensified 79

revenge propaganda and the mobilisation of fascist and separatist forces. At the same time it carried on negotiations with French monopoly capitalism for the mutual exploitation of the Ruhr. The working class and the working people replied in ever grewing numbers with mass actions, strikes and demonstrations to defend their reights and the national interest. The Eighth Party Congress of the KPD in Leipzig at the end of January and the beginning of February, 1923, had the task of working out a policy for uniting the working class and the other working people around the Party and setting up a revolutionary workers' and peasants' government in Germany. At the Party Congress, however, there were basic differences of opinion on the question of the united front and the way to take power. Despite the struggle of the revolutionary forces at the Congress, the Brandler-Thalheimer right-opportunist group managed to get formulations included in the resolution, which did not orientate the revolutionary masses towards abolishing imperialist state power. This group maintened that one could use the bourgeois state apparatus and gradually change by "peaceful means" the bourgeois-democratic republic into a workers' and peasants' state. The revolutionary forces in the Party, with Ernst Thàlmann and Walter Ulbricht at their head, fought against this enemy ideology within the Party, and stood for the formation of a united front with the Social-Democratic masses and for the arming of the working class. The fact that these basic questions were not discussed to a final conclusion had serious consequences in the struggle later. One lesson drawn from the March struggles of 1921 and subsequent workers' actions, was expressed in the discussion which developed after the Party Congress, about placing more weight on the factory cell in Party organisation than on the residential cell. It was important to put into practice Lenin's slogan "Every factory must be our Stronghold!" The KPD was the leading force in the struggle for the social and national liberation of Germany. Together with the Communist Party of France, and supported by the Soviet Union and the other brother parties, the Party organised great struggles and strikes under the slogan •"Beat Poincaré in the Ruhr and Cuno on the Spree", against the foreign militarist intervention, against chauvinism and the pauperisation policy of the government, against fascism and separatism and for a workers' and peasants' government. Under the Party's leadership there had been broad mass movements developing against the anti-national, reactionary policy of the Cuno government. The great mass strikes, especially of the miners and steelworkers in the Ruhr, the Silesian agricultural workers and the Berlin metalworkers, in which hundreds of thousands of workers 80

participated, showed the rapidly growing readiness for struggle on the part of the broad proletarian masses. In the struggle against the class-truce policy of the right-wing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions, the unity of action of the working class grew.'Its organisational basis was in many places such united-front organisations as the revolutionary factory councils, the proletarian Hundertschaften* and the Factory and Unemployed Committees. The Communists gained increasing influence in the reformist-led trade unions. The working class, acting in unity and partly supported by sections of the petty-bourgeoisie in the town and country, forced the Cuno government to resign through the general strike of August, 1923. In the autumn of 1923 a revolutionary situation developed in Germany which quickly sharpened into a revolutionary crisis. The masses of the people did not want to go on living as they had been, and the ruling class could not hold on to its power by the old methods. Afraid of the growing revolutionary movement, the Stresemann government, to which right-wing Socialist-Democratic leaders belonged, capitulated to French imperialism and concentrated its whole force on the suppression of the actions of the working class and the working people. The Social-Democratic "Reichspräsident (State-President), Ebert, proclaimed a state of emergency and gave General von Seeckt and the army generals the executive power in Germany. The annulment of bourgeois democratic rights, provided for in the Constitution, showed the weakness of the ruling class and its unability to exercise power by the old means. The open appearance of separatist forces in the Rhine and Ruhr and the activation of monarcho-fascist elements in various parts of Germany, especially in Bavaria, were also evidence of the weakness and decadence of the ruling class. Extreme reactionary circles of German and foreign finance capital supported the Hitler movement which had its main centre in Munich in autumn 1923 and which spread a wild, revengeseeking, anti-communist and anti-democratic propaganda of hatred. Simultaneously the vast pauperisation of broad sections of the working class and other sections of the people increased rapidy as a consequence of the inflation in the autumn of 1923. Large sections of the proletariat and middle classes came to realise that only by the downfall of the powers that-be could their vital interests be guaranteed. The classconscious workers demanded the arming of the proletariat. The KPD prepared for an armed rising and the military council formed by the party leadership organised the proletarian Hundertschaften to be armed. * Workers armed in groups of a hundred each (trans.). 6

Outline History

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In this situation the KPD had to win the working class, the peasants and other sections of the workers for a united struggle and lead them in an uprising to overthrow the Strescmann government, and form a coalition government of Communists, Social Democrats and other democratic forces. Favourable conditions for the victorious struggle of the working class in the whole of Germany were created by the successful formation of workers' governments in Saxony and Thuringia which took place under pressure of the masses at the beginning of October, and which were formed through a coalition of left-wing Social Democrats and Communists. These governments had to act as true democratic organs of power, i. e. arm the masses and lead the fight consequently against the counter-revolution. But the workers' governments in Saxony and Thuringia were not able to carry out their historic mission. The Communists in the government followed the opportunist policy of the BrandlerThalheimer Group, behaved like the normal parliamentary ministers in a bourgeois coalition government and did nothing to organise the mass struggle. The lack of clarity on the role of the state which had not been cleared up at the 8th Party Congress of the KPD made it all the easier for the Brandler-Thalheimer group to carry out their anti-party policy, which crippled the revolutionary movement. The vacillation of the left-wing leaders of the SPD and the opportunist position of the Brandler-Thalheimer group facilitated the attacks of the counter-revolutionaries. The Keicbswehr marched into Saxony and Thuringia, liquidated the workers' governments and suppressed the working class. The possibility of a victorious struggle which could lead to the overthrow of monopoly-capitalist rule in Germany was proved by the heroic rising of the Hamburg workers led by the KPD and Ernst Thalmann. It proved that the working class was prepared, united under the leadership of a Marxist-Leninist Party, to struggle for the social and national liberation of the German people. The Hamburg workers were an example that the proletariat could take political power successfully, even when faced by highly organised and well-armed counter-revolutionary state power. Because the up-rising remained isolated from the rest of Germany and because of the traiterous position of the Brandler group and the lack of unity of action with the Social Democrats the Party organisation of the KPD decided to call off the rising. The class struggles of this period ended with the defeat of the German working class and the erection of the military dictatorship of General von Seeckt. Thus were created the political conditions for the intensified financial enslavement of Germany by American finance capital, 82

for the relative stabilisation of capitalism and the re-strengthening of German imperialism and militarism. The main reason that the monopoly-capitalist and militarist forces were still able to defend their position successfully also in autumn 1923 against the onslaught of the working class and other sections of the people was the counter-revolutionary policy of the right-wing SocialDemocratic leaders. Just as they did at the end of the First World War they joined a coalition government with the German monopolists and actively participated in crushing the struggling masses just when a deep crisis of imperialist class rule was imminent. The committment of the right-wing Social-Democratic leaders to the imperialist state power was shown, among other things, by the fact that the Social-Democratic Bdeicbsprasidettt took the responsibility of setting up a military dictatorship and using army units against legally constituted provincial governments to which Social-Democratic ministers belonged. The KPD was hindered from solving the tasks it had set itself by the opportunist policy of the Brandler-Thalheimer group. Simultaneously there were ultra-left conceptions in the Party which had still to be overcome. Alongside this the Party did not have sufficient experience in the struggle to take political power. The revolutionary forces who struggled against the Brandler line had still not learned how to lead the majority of the working class and the broad masses of the peasantry in the struggle for power. The result of the struggles of the post-war revolutionary crisis showed the necessity to carry the struggle for Leninism against all the influences of bourgeois ideology in the party to victory, and to develop the German Communist Party into a Marxist-Leninist Party on the pattern of the C.P.S.U.

CHAPTER VIII

Tbe relative stabilisation of capitalism. The struggle of tbe working class and tbe working people under tbe leadership of tbe KPD against tbe resurgence of German imperialism and militarism. Tbe formation of tbe Tbàlmann Central Committee and tbe development of tbe KPD into a Marxist-Leninist mass party. (Period from 1924 to tbe autumn of 1929.)

The defeat of the working class in Germany and in other European countries signified the end of the post-war revolutionary crisis and paved the way for a relative stabilisation of world capitalism. The temporary economic upswing in the capitalist countries was based upon more intense exploitation of the workers and the working people and upon more intense plunder of the colonies and the dependent countries. The relative stabilisation of world capitalism was faced by a steady consolidation and rise of the Soviet Union, manifesting itself in the beginning of socialist industrialisation and the first steps towards realisation of the first Five Year Plan. Under the conditions of the world historic period of the transition from capitalism to socialism it was therefore only a temporary stabilisation of capitalism, leading to a further sharpening of all the contradictions inherent in capitalism and bearing in itself the germ of a new cyclical crisis, new deep convulsions in the capitalist system. In Germany, the relative stabilisation of capitalism was accomplished by means of the Dawes Plan of American finance capital, placing dollar loans at the disposal of German trusts. This aimed at using Germany for the economic ruination of the Soviet Union and it increased the twofold exploitation of the German people. The American loans accelerated the process of concentration of capital in Germany, and promoted the formation of powerful monopolies, mainly in the heavy and chemical industries. German finance capital used the American loans for re84

organising heavy industry and for restoring its armament potential. The subjection of the government to the big monopolies was evidence of the development of state monopoly-capitalism. The main source of the relative stabilisation of capitalism in Germany was the increase in the exploitation of the working class and other sections of the working people by use of methods of capitalist rationalisation. In harmony with the financial oligarchy of the U. S. A. and Great Britain German finance capital used its stabilised power for reducing social and democratic advances gained by the workers and the other sections of the working people during the November Revolution. The relative stabilisation of capitalism brought about a resurgence of German imperialism and militarism. The formation of blocs of bourgeois parties tolerated by the right-wing leaders of the SPD, the election of the Junker and militarist, von Hindenburg, as president of the Reicb and the development of several militaristic revenge organisations showed the increasing influence of the most reactionary forces of German monopoly capital and the big landowners in political life in Germany. Camouflaged behind demagogic phrases of democracy, mutual understanding among the peoples and peace, the ruling circles began a policy of speedy rearmament and tried to renew their efforts forcibly to achieve a new partition of the world in favour of German militarism and imperialism, a policy which had failed in the First World War. The foreign policy of the German imperialist bourgeoisie, with its anti-Soviet tendencies becoming stronger and stronger, corresponded to this aim. The drawing of Germany into the Locarno Pact (1925) and her entrance into the League of Nations (1926) was proof of the imperialist Western Powers' efforts to make Germany their spearhead against the Soviet Union. The dominating forces in Germany used these events for their own imperialist plans. Misinterpreting the temporary boom as the beginning of a new era of "general peace" and "growing wealth", the right-wing Social-Democratic leaders deceived the people. They supported the resurgence of German imperialism, no matter whether the SPD took part in government or was in "parliamentary opposition". Through the spreading of illusions of pacifism and "industrial peace", through propaganda of "organised capitalism" and a gradual "growing into socialism", the opportunist leaders of the party and the trade unions deceived broad sections of the working class and the working people by hushing up the imperialist character of the Weimar state power and the danger of the policy of rearmament of German imperialism. Their splitting policy was the main obstacle to the common struggle of the German working class and 85

other sections of the working people against monopoly capitalists and militarists, for peace, democracy, and socialism in Germany. The main task of the KPD during this period was to unite the broad masses of the working class and the working people for the struggle against German imperialism and militarism, to bring about unity of action of the working class in combatting the influence of the opportunist forces, to effect a genuinely proletarian policy in the trade unions and to prepare the masses for a period of great new class battles. The struggles fought by the working class and the other sections of the working people, led by the KPD, aimed at securing the material needs, defending the social and democratic rights of the people against the attack of the capitalists, capitalist rationalisation, and the Dawes plan, and against the growing danger of a new war. This main task could not have been carried out by the Party without quickly overcoming the obstacles within its own ranks and developing into a Marxist-Leninist mass party like the C.P.S.U. The Party had to learn the world historic theory of Leninism and learn to use it under the real conditions of class struggle in Germany. It had to become a party strongly rooted in the masses of the workers and the working people, the strength of which would be based chiefly on its influence in factories, trade unions, and other organisations of the working people. It had to establish unity and unanimity within its ranks, combatting all adverse influences, right-wing opportunism and sectarianism. The carrying out of this task, bolshevisation of the KPD, presupposed the Party's meeting its historical responsibility and becoming the leading element in the struggle for social and national freedom of the German working class and its allies. In January 1924, V. I. Lenin, the great leader of the world proletariat, died. This was a heavy loss for the Soviet Union as well as for the international labour movement and all progressive people in the world. During the first years following V. I. Lenin's death, J . V. Stalin as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. served his party well in his struggle for socialist construction in the U.S.S.R., in his struggle against the Trotsky group and the right-wing opportunists. Later on, however, Stalin began to violate crudely Lenin's rules of Party life and the principles of socialist legality. His conduct was extremely detrimental to the renown of the C.P.S.U., the Soviet people, and the international labour movement. In the spring of 1924, still under the influence of the mass struggles of 1923, broad sections of the German working class offered resistance to the capitalist offensive, aimed at depriving the workers of their eighthour day and the right of co-decision. Under the leadership of the KPD,

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the Hamburg dockers, the miners and metalworkers of RhinelandWestphalia, the chemical workers of Ludwigshafen and the workers of other industrial centres carried out long-drawn and violent strike actions. These struggles proved that the defeat in the autumn of 1923 had not been able to break the fighting power and the will of the German working class. The Ninth Party Congress of the KPD, which was held illegally in April 1924 near Frankfort-on-Main, discussed the lessons to be drawn by the Party from the struggles of the preceding years and especially from the defeat of the German working class in the autumn of 1923. Measures for developing Party activity among the masses under new conditions of struggle were decided upon. The Party Congress removed the antiParty group of Brandler and Thalheimer from the leadership of the Party. Together with those fighting for a Leninist policy, an ultra-left group got into the leadership of the Party, taking advantage of the Party members' well-founded indignation at the treachery of the Brandler and Thalheimer group. This anti-Party Fischer-Maslow clique undermined inner-Party democracy, sabotaged the realisation of the resolutions of the Frankfort Party Congress and considerably reduced the Party influence among the masses by its sectarian dogmatic policy. The Fifth World Congress of the Communist International in June and July, 1924, drew the conclusions from the defeat of the working class of the capitalist countries in the autumn of 1923 and worked out the tactical programme to be applied by the communist parties under the new conditions. The task of bolshevisation of the communist parties, formulated by the Congress, had an immediate practical significance for the KPD. With the aid of the Communist International and the Central Committee of the C. P. S.U., the Leninist core of the KPD leadership together with the majority of the party members was able to prevent an isolation from the masses, which had to be considered as a serious danger for the Party, and to beat the ultra left-wing enemies. At the Tenth Party Congress in July, 1925, Ernst Thalmann, arguing with the ultra Leftists, formulated the tasks for mass Party activity. He orientated the Party towards the principles of Leninist trade union policy, which was extremely important in the process of winning most of the workers for the common struggle, for the daily wants and needs, for democratic rights, and against imperialism and militarism. At the Party Conference in October, 1925, the ultra left-wing group was removed from the Party leadership. The election of Ernst Thalmann as Chairman of the Party and the formation of the Leninist Central Committee with Wilhelm Pieck, Fritz Heckert, Walter Ulbricht, Wilhelm Florin, Ernst Schneller among others, was the precondition for the carrying out of broad mass activity by the Party. 87

The formation of the new Central Committee under the leadership of Ernst Thalmann signified the final victory of Leninism over various bourgeois ideological influences on the young Party, the victory over right opportunist proposals of capitulation, over left-sectarian dogmatism. A strong backbone of experienced Marxist-Leninist leaders of the German working class had formed in the hard battles against imperialism and militarism. The victory of Leninism in the Party and the formation of a Leninist Party leadership were the most decisive points in the development of the Party since its foundation. Thus the conditions were created for future success of the K P D and the S E D (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) in their struggle for the class interests of the German working class and the solution of the vital problems of the whole nation. Under the new Central Committee, the ideological and organisational principles of Leninism were put into practice in Party life. One of the most important measures repeatedly decided but sabotaged by the ultra left-wing elements was the building up of the Party on the basis of factory cells. This policy was now really carried out. Thus one of the most important lessons had been drawn from the post-war revolutionary crisis. This meant a final break with fatal Social-Democratic traditions in organisation, and was a decisive condition for a successful struggle of the Party to win the majority of the German working class. It was a historic service of Ernst Thalmann that the K P D began spreading the revolutionary ideas of Marx, Engels, and Lenin systematically among its members and among the working class. The 11th Party Congress in March, 1927, in Essen, decided to publish V. I. Lenin's works in German. Ernst Thalmann and other leading functionaries made a great contribution by their creative application of MarxismLeninism to the concrete conditions of class struggle in Germany. In 1926, a powerful democratic popular movement, the greatest united action during this period, developed under the leadership of the Party against certain plans pursued by a number of monopolists and big landowners. These plans provided the payment of milliards to the princes expelled during the November Revolution, at the expense of the working people. Unity of action between the party organisations of the K P D and the SPD was initiated by the K P D and established in many parts of Germany in order to fight off the attack of the reactionary forces and to achieve expropriation of the princes without compensation. People belonging to other social sections, chiefly peasants, tradesmen and members of the intelligentsia, gathered around the workers, united in struggle, organised in the K P D , SPD, and the trade unions. They subscribed to the proposal of the Central Committee of 88

the K P D for the expropriation of the princes without compensation. The mass movement o f millions of workers and other sections o f the working people was so powerful that the leaders of the S P D were forced to come to a central agreement with the C. C. of the K P D concerning the pre-referendum vote. In the referendum which followed, more than 14.5 million German electors voted for the expropriation o f the princes i. e. over 4 million votes more than the K P D and the S P D together had polled at the previous elections to the Reichstag. During the campaign for the Congress of the working people in the autumn of 1926 the K P D did its best to consolidate its influence a m o n g the masses won in the struggle against compensating the princes. The K P D tried to bring about the unity of the employed and unemployed workers in their struggle against the employers' offensive and capitalist rationalisation, and to develop links with the working middle class. The strike of the Hamburg dockers in October, 1926, was the first great strike of the German proletariat since 1924; this action, at the same time, supported the strike o f the English miners. In many other industrial and political battles, too, the Party made s o m e progress in establishing unity of action of the working class in support of the working people's social and democratic demands of the day. The alliance between the working class and the working peasants began to develop. The mass organisations led by the Party, especially the Roter Fronthampferbund, the K J V D (Communist Youth L e a g u e o f Germany), the Rote Hilfe (Red Aid) and the I A H (International Workers' Aid) grew stronger; the number of votes polled for the Party during the elections increased; the mass reputation of the Communist g r o u p in Parliament rose, and the Party members' influence in organisations led by reformists, mainly in the trade unions, grew stronger. The Bund der scbaffendett Landmrte (League of Working Peasants) and other peasant organisations played an important role in the struggle against the influence o f the big landowners and nationalist and clerical politicians on the peasantry, and prepared them for alliance with the working class. In those years, under the leadership of the Party, extensive cultural work was developed in the struggle against reactionary imperialist culture. This struggle was indissolubly linked with the proletarian class struggle, fighting reformist cultural ideology and carrying on the revolutionary cultural traditions o f the German workers' movement. Great socialist writers and artists like Johannes R. Becher, Erich Weinert, and Friedrich Wolf arose from the working class and from the best representatives of the bourgeois intelligentsia. These writers and artists united in the Bund Proletariscb- Revolutionarer Scbriftsteller (League

89

of Proletarian Revolutionary Writers) and other revolutionary cultural organisations. With great difficulties and out of many sacrifices, a German socialist culture began to develop. Humanistic representatives of the bourgeois intelligentsia acknowledged their loyality to the ideas of the working class, condemned anti-communism, and struggled against militarism and war, for peace and democracy. Faced with the increasing danger of an imperialist war of intervention against the Soviet Union and the speedy rearmament carried out by German imperialism, the party mobilised large sections of the working class and the working people from 1927 to 1928 for the struggle for the preservation of peace and in defence of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Revolution. The 11th Party Congress of the KPD stated that the struggle against the danger of war arising from world imperialism and against the war preparations of the German imperialists was the main task of the party. The KPD and the Roter Frontkämpferbund, the powerful organisation of the German working class for protection and defence, organised the struggle of the masses of the workers against strengthened militarism and the practices of the militarist and revenge organisations. In May, 1927, the KPD successfully mobilised the working people of Berlin against the provocative national meeting of the Stahlhelm*. In the autumn of 1928 the KPD organised a plebiscite in order to prevent the construction of armoured cruisers urged by the Hermann Müller government and thus demonstrated that the revolutionary proletariat and its Party have been the most consistent in defence of the national peace interests. The KPD and the Roter Frontkämpferbund carried out intense mass political activity combatting the German imperialists' policy of militarisation and war and even effected anti-militarist education among members of the Reichswehr and the police. During this period, the struggle of the KPD and other peace-loving Germans was instrumental in preventing the complete incorporation of Germany into a united anti-Soviet front of the imperialist countries. An agreement of neutrality, initiated by the U. S. S. R., the so-called Berlin Treaty, was concluded between the Soviet Union and Germany in 1926. This agreement made it more difficult for the German imperialists to take part in the anti-Soviet policy of world imperialism. The conclusion of this Treaty showed once more the effort of the first socialist country to come to good neighbourly and friendly terms with Germany. In Germany, like in many other imperialist countries, the first symptoms of a new economic crisis arose in 1927/28, signalling the approaching end of the relative stabilisation of capitalism. * Reactionary semi-military organisation (trans.).

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The inner contradictions inherent in capitalism sharpened. In imperialist Germany, this intensification manifested itself in stronger attacks of finance capital on the working class and other sections of the working people. The monopolists locked-out masses of workers, dismissed workers and members of Works Councils who opposed them, continued to reduce wages and social services and lengthened the hours of work. On the other hand, millions of workers under the leadership of the KPD offered resistance to the capitalist offensive and the intensified war preparations in great strikes and mass struggles for wages and bread. At the end of 1928, 213,000 metal-workers of the Ruhr district were successful in their great fight against a lock-out, for the eight-hour day and a wage increase. Women workers began to participiate actively in these struggles, which were fought with increasing bitterness. True elections for the Works Councils carried through in the spring of 1929 showed the increasing influence of the KPD amongst the working class. Due to the resolutions of the Communist International the KPD tried to overcome the policy of splitting and strike-breaking carried out by the right-wing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions, and to bring about a unity of action of the Communist and SocialDemocratic workers, of the organised and the unorganised workers. As a result of the expulsion of masses of revolutionary trade-unionists by the opportunist trade-union leaders, the actions of the revolutionary trade-union opposition (RGO) gathered momentum. In May, 1928, the Social Democratic Party took over the government for the first time in this period. Whilst the SPD, helped in the election campaign by the continuance of the boom and their demagogic opposition to rearmament, had won many votes, after the election their leaders sided fully with the imperialist policy of rearmament. In view of the intensifying class struggle, the decisive group of finance capital thought it more useful to have the speedy rearmament carried out by this rightwing Social-Democratic government. In the SPD the opposition grew against the militarist course of the right-wing party leaders. The Sixth World Congress of the Communist International (from the middle of July to the beginning of September, 1928) decided upon the programme and the statute of the Communist International, which scientifically generalised the experience of the international revolutionary labour movement and played an important role in the further development of the communist movement in the world. The Congress directed attention towards the new upswing of the revolutionary struggles of the masses, to be seen in the capitalist countries, and appealed to the international working class to fight against the imminent danger of fascism and war and for the protection of the Soviet 91

Union. The resolutions of the Congress showed how the communist parties could be further strengthened by combatting all anti-Leninist conceptions, Trotskyists and right-wing opportunists. Some points in the programme, above all mechanically putting the struggle against Social Democracy on an equal level with the struggle against fascism, and the fact that the communist parties of the high-developed capitalist countries were set rigidly on the course of an immediate struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat, made it difficult for the communist parties to work out a political programme that took into consideration the concrete conditions in each country, the approaching deep crisis of capitalism in the world and the increasing danger of fascism. The lack of differentiation between, and the dogmatic judgement of the role of the national bourgeoisie in the colonies and semi-colonies complicated the struggle against imperialism in those countries and resulted in failures and an undervaluation of the national problem in the struggle for the socialist revolution. With the aid of the Communist International, the unity and unanimity of the Communist Party was defended against the efforts of disintegration started by a right-wing group that denied the approaching collapse of the relative stabilisation of capitalism, and combatted the revolutionary policy of the Party. The champions of this right-wing opportunist influence were expelled from the KPD. Simultaneously, the Party was forced to struggle with a group who favoured compromise and who tried to camouflage the hostile action of the right-wing group and complicated the struggle of the Party against right-wing opportunism. The "Blood-May" of 1929 provoked by the right-wing Social-Democratic chief of the Berlin police gave evidence of the growing intensification of the class struggle. It was the first direct clash of the working class with the imperialist state power since 1923. The ban thereafter placed on the Roter Front kämpferbund by the Social-Democratic Minister of Interior Affairs, Severing, allowed the fascists to sharpen their attacks against the working class. The 12th Party Congress of the KPD held in Wedding, Berlin, in June, 1929, orientated the Party towards the great new struggles to come and warned of the danger of fascism. The Party Congress stated that the struggle to win the majority of the German proletariat was the main task of the Party and pointed out that it was necessary for the Party to do still more work among women workers' and young workers. It brought the struggle with the right-wing opportunists and the conciliators (The Conciliators were a group that tried to mediate between the Central Committee and the right-wing opportunist.) to an end and thus strenghthened inner-party unity and unanimity. 92

CHAPTER IX

The World economic crisis. The struggle of the KPD for unity of action of the working class and for a broad antifascist front against tbe threat of fascist dictatorship. (Period from autumn 1929 to January 1933.)

At the end of 1929 the capitalist world system was seized by the world economic crisis that began in the U.S.A. The crisis meant the end of the relative stabilisation of capitalism and made especially clear that this order of society was outdated and in decay. The world economic crisis of 1929 to 1933 was exceedingly serious and persistant because it arose from the general crisis of capitalism. It enormously sharpened all the contradictions inherent in capitalism and led reactionary circles to intensify their search for a way out by means of fascism and wars of aggression, and especially by intervention against the Soviet Union. The successful economic rise of the Soviet Union and the fulfillment of the first Five-Year Plan before schedule made the historical superiority of the socialist to the capitalist order of society obvious and considerably increased the attraction of the first socialist state to the working people all over the world. In the capitalist countries a revolutionary rise of the labour movement took place. The influence of the communist parties rapidly increased. As a consequence of the close financial relations with American finance capital (Young Plan 1929/1930), Germany had to suffer particularly hard from the results of the world economic crisis which originated in the U.S.A. The world economic crisis soon turned into a political crisis of the capitalist system in Germany that had become a focal point of all the contradictions in the imperialist camp at that time. The mass of the population, badly hit by the depression, no longer wanted to continue to live under these conditions. By strikes and de93

monstrations large sections of the working people fought against the attack of monopoly capital on their social and political rights and against the attempt to place the burden of the crisis on their shoulders. As the contradictions between the mass of the population and German finance capital quickly deepened, the ruling class were not able to maintain their power by the usual means. It began a systematic curtailment of bourgois democracy and set the course for the application of fascist methods of ruling and for intensified war preparations (policy of gradual fascisation: from Bruning's policy of emergency decrees it went over to the Gouvernments of von Papen and Schleicher, and finally to Hitler). The aggressive sections of German finance capital orientated themselves more and more towards the Nazi Party which was regarded by them as the most suitable mass basis for establishing a fascist dictatorship; it was therefore increasingly financed by them. The Nazi Party had managed to get influence among the masses by means of terrorism, revanchism, national and social demagogy. Its unscrupulousness and adventurism in the main fitted right in with the predatory interests of German imperialism. The Nazi Party's programme of nationalism and revanchism, supported by the main forces of the bourgeoisie, was confronted by the K P D ' s programme for national and social liberation of the German people decided upon by the Central Committee on the initiative of Ernst Thalmann in August 1930. The programme of the K P D showed the working class and the German people the road to peace, democracy, and socialism and thus met the interests of the whole nation. This path had to begin with the anti-fascist action aimed at the isolation and destruction of the Nazi Party and every measure of fascisation. The programme contained the main line of policy of the K P D in its struggle against fascism and was directed towards unmasking the Nazi Party as an enemy of the people, preventing a fascist dictatorship, breaking the power of the monopolists, establishing a real democratic order, and achieving a close co-operation with the Soviet Union. It made better relations with Social-Democratic workers possible and eased the fight for unity of action of the working class and the unification of all anti-fascist forces. It was the basis of the successful results the Party achived in fighting for the defence of democratic rights and liberties, against imperialism, militarism and fascism in this period. The programme for national and social liberation of the German people had a broad national and international significance. The programme of the K P D was based on Lenin's theory of the national question and was an important contribution to the propagation of this doctrine within the ranks of the Party and the German working

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class. With this document the Central Committee started an effective fight against sectarianism on the national question which still existed within the Party's ranks. The programme was the result of the KPD's twelve-year fight for the solution of the national and social question in Germany and showed the deep national responsibility of the Communist Party. The policy of the right-wing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions, however, which was camouflaged by slogans of toleration and the socalled lesser evil was directed towards compromising with sections of the bourgeoisie and had an anti-national character. These leaders refused any united fight of the working class and the anti-fascist forces of the people. Thus they widened the split in the working class and enabled the ruling classes to pursue their policy of fascisation. For the most part the bourgeois democratic forces did not actively object to Hitler-fascism because of their fear of the anti-fascist actions of the people and because of the influence of anti-communist virulence. The policy of compromise with sections of the bourgeoisie and the anti-communist propaganda of the right-wing leaders of the SPD, and the terrorism of right-wing Social-Democratic police presidents against the revolutionary working-class movement encouraged a certain sectarianism in the attitude towards Social Democracy within the ranks of the Communist Party and resulted in insufficient differentiation between the right-wing leadership and rank and file Social Democrats. The betrayal of the interests of the working class by reformist union leaders, also encouraged tendendies of Communists to resign membership of the trade unions and to turn the revolutionary trade union opposition into a separate union organisation. This, however, was bound to lead to the isolation of Communists from the mass of the workers organised in the unions. Although the Political Bureau and the Central Committee of the KPD strenuously fought such sectarian traits, these tactical failures hindered the Party's mass propaganda. The inability of a large number of left Social Democrats to advance to a Marxist policy led them to form a separate party, namely the SAP (Socialist Workers' Party) which had an anti-communist platform. Thus unity of action of the working class was rendered difficult and favourable conditions were created for the policy of splitting pursued by the rightwing leaders of the SPD. The struggle against the rapidly increasing misery and the menace of fascism and war united Communist, Social Democratic, Christian, and non-party workers in a large number of joined actions, e. g. on the occasion of the Anti-War Days carried out annually on August 1, and in strikes and demonstrations, such as the strike of the Berlin pipe-fitters

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i n the autumn of 1929 and the great demonstrations of the unemployed in the spring of 1930. Under the leadership of the KPD and the RGO (Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition) 14,000 miners in the Mansfeld district and 40,000 metal and foundry-workers in Rheinland-Westphalia went on strike against wage-cuts and the employers' offensive in the summer of 1930. The two weeks' strike of 140,000 Berlin metalworkers in October 1930 was an effective mobilisation; in the course of it a broad united front of Communist, Social Democratic, and non-party workers was formed together with the unemployed. The rapid sharpening of the class struggle became evident in the great strike of 300,000 miners of the Ruhr district and Upper Silesia in January 1931. It was directed against the mass lock-outs planned by the mine-owners and was meant as the answer of the German working class to the policy of the Briining Government to rule with emergency decrees. More and more frequently the workers united in demonstrations and actions of solidarity. In September 1930, the elections for the Reichstag brought a considerable increase of votes for the KPD in the most important working-class districts. In the capital, Berlin, the KPD became the strongest party. The Emergency Employment Programme of the KPD (in May 1931) pointed the way for the united struggle of the employed and unemployed workers against the policy of increasing misery followed by the ruling class. It says much for the high morale of the German working class that in those hard years monopoly capital hardly succeeded in recruiting any blacklegs from within the workers' ranks during the great strike struggles. The Peasants' Aid Programme of the KPD (in May, 1931) brought a change in the fight for a close alliance of the working class and the working peasantry. The programme was evidence of the great efforts which the Central Committee had made to put Lenin's theory of an alliance between the working class and the peasantry into practice. It was a matter of finally overcoming the underestimation of the peasant question in relation to the class struggle in Germany, a disastrous heritage of revisionist policy since the turn of the century. After the KPD had achieved individual successes in winning over peasants for a united struggle, there developed for the first time in Germany, the beginnings of a peasants' movement against the Junkers and monopoly capital and the threat of fascism, under the leadership of the working class, on the basis of the Peasants' Aid Programme. With the help of the Communist International and the C.P.S.U. the development of the KPD into a Marxist-Leninist party of action made quick progress. In order to enable all members of the Party to fulfill their new tasks in the struggle against fascism and the danger of war, it 96

became necessary to raise their ideological level. From 1931-32, on the initiative of the Central Committee, the K P D carried out an ideological campaign to achieve clarity on the national role of the Party and the working class. This ideological campaign helped the Party to strengthen its connections with the mass of the working class and other working people and helped to intensify the anti-fascist struggle. The ideological campaign destroyed the left-sectarian Neumann group whose political faults, as an expression of dogmatism, had seriously hindered the broad policy of the Party of winning the masses. Under the exceptionally complicated conditions of the class struggle in Germany, however, the K P D was still unable to overcome all obstacles and so to develop its policy that all the problems of that period of struggle could already be correctly dealt with. The K P D was the only party which consistently fought against oppression, exploitation, militarism, war, and the threat of fascist dictatorship, and for the democratic rights of the people and a lasting peace. It still linked this struggle, serving the national interests, with the aim of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat as the next strategic task, although this aim was not on the immediate order of the day considering the relation of class forces in Germany at that time. Now the situation in Germany demanded to win the working class and the other working people as well as all peace-loving and democratic forces in Germany for the struggle in defence of democratic rights and liberties, for preventing fascist dictatorship and for establishing anti-fascist democratic conditions as the next and immediate aim. That meant the application of the theory that Lenin had developed in his book, " T w o Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution", to the conditions of struggle in Germany. Furthermore, the course of the struggle for working-class political power corresponding to these conditions, had to be fixed. The K P D gathered the necessary experience for this struggle above all in 1932, when it concentrated all its strength more and more on the defence of the remnants of democracy and on the destruction of the forces of fascism and when it achieved important successes in the anti-fascist fight and linked itself more and more closely with the masses. These valuable experiences in the struggle enabled the K P D to develop the new strategy and tactics at the Brussels Conference later on. Under the impression of the ever deepening contradictions between the interests of German monopoly capital and those of the masses of the people seriously hit by the economic crisis, and in view of the growing influence of the KPD, the reactionary circles of German finance capital felt it necessary to force the pace of fascisation. In October, 1931, they had already tried with the creation of the " Har^burger Front", to link 7 Outline History

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the Nazi Party with the Deutscbnationalen (German nationals)*,; the "Stahlhelm"**, and other fascist organisations in order to establish a fascist dictatorship. In the spring of 1932, the reactionary von Hindenburg was re-elected as President of the Reicb with the votes of the SPD. In June, 1932, the Bruning Government was followed by the Papen "Pràsidialkabinett"***. This government represented the most reactionary forces of the Junkers, heavy industry, and influential circles of the Keicbswebrgeneralitât|. Papen legalised Nazi terrorism and overthrew the Prussian Coalition Government headed by right-wing Social Democrats, by the coup d'état of July 20, 1932, because it was no longer a satisfactory instrument for accelerating fascisation. The Social Democratic ministers capitulated in face of this attack of reaction and prevented the united action of the workers against the coup d'état, proposed by the KPD. The Papen Government was followed by the Interim Government of General von Schleicher, the representative of the Rjeicbstvebrfubrung\\. In the interests of monopolist and military reaction and tolerated by the right-wing Social Democratic leadership, it intended to camouflage the immediate establishment of the fascist dictatorship and to deceive the working people by a policy of seeming social manoeuvring. The struggle of the KPD in defence of democratic rights and liberties and against the threat of fascist dictatorship spread wider and wider and its effectiveness increased. In May, 1932, when the economic crisis had reached its nadir and the fascist danger rapidly increased, on the initiative of Ernst Thàlmann the Party appealed to the workers and to all anti-fascist Germans to develop the Antifascbistiscbe Aktion. Under the leadership of the Party new forms of the anti-fascist mass struggle were developed. In many parts of Germany, Communist, Social Democratic, Christian, and non-party, workers, as well as trade-unionists, and non-unionists, employed, and unemployed workers, and members of other strata of the people began to organise anti-fascist United Front Committees for the struggle against wage-cuts, fascism, and war. Determined to fight against fascist terrorism which rapidly sharpened, the workers formed organs of revolutionary mass self-defence. Under the leadership of the KPD the determination of the working class to fight increased. Communists and other revolutionary-minded workers used all their energy and made great sacrifices to defend the vital interests of the working class and the people against the fascist attack. On many * Reactionary party. ** Fascist semi-military organisation (trans.). *** Cabinett without a majority in the Reichstag. •{• Army generals. j-f Army leadership.

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occasions, in murderous battles, they beat back Nazi gangs, who were supported by the state authorities. The Antifascbistiscbe Aktion began to penetrate into the industrial undertakings and became the mobilising power for the large wave of strikes starting in the early autumn, 1932. The Antifascbistiscbe Aktion brought the common interests of all workers to the forefront. It directed the struggle against the common enemy, fascism. This made it easier to win over the Social Democratic workers and the trade unionists for working class unity of action. Discussions on measures for a united struggle against fascism were held by the local executives of the KPD and the SPD in Berlin, Bernau, Chemnitz, and other places. But the leadership of the SPD with threats and expulsion proceeded against all Social Democrats ready to co-operate with the Communists. By bringing in the agricultural labourers and the small peasants, by conferences of small peasants and by the formation of Small Peasants' Committees, the Antifascbistiscbe Aktion was also carried into the countryside in parts of Germany, such as Oldenburg, East Prussia, Brandenburg, and Mecklenburg. The Party's fight to develop the Antifascbistiscbe Aktion corresponded with their general policy worked out in the programme for national and social liberation of the German people; it meant a higher stage in the united-front policy of the Party. This policy made easier the winning of broader anti-fascist groups, outside of the working class, for united action. The Antifascbistiscbe Aktion of Communists. Social Democrats, trade unionists,, and democratic citizens became the germ of the antifascist Popular Front. The KPD intensified the struggle against the menace of imminent aggression against the Soviet Union and a new imperialist world war and its first signs, the Japanese aggression against China. Above all it mobilised broad masses against the war preparations of international imperialism supported by German monopolists, militarists, and Junkers, especially on the occasion of the preparation for the Amsterdam International Anti-War Congress in August 1932, In its fight against the policy of war and fascisation pursued by German imperialism the KPD was supported by the fraternal solidarity of the international communist movement and especially of the Communist Party of France. In October, 1932, Ernst Thalmann and Maurice Thorez appealed to the working people of Germany and France for a united fight against the Versailles System, against chauvinist propaganda and the threat of imperialist war, at a great mass meeting of Paris Workers. The masses' increasing readiness to fight and the rapidly growing mass influence of the Party were to be seen in the results of the 1932 7*

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elections in which the votes polled for the KPD amounted to nearly six millions, and above all in the strike of 28,000 Berlin transport workers in November, 1932, that was the culmination of the wave of strikes of that year. The anti-fascist struggle led by the Party gained such strength in the summer and autumn of 1932 that the influence of the fascist movement stagnated and diminished and a crisis developed in the Hitler party. At the end of 1932 the aggressive monopoly-capitalist forces hastened the transfer of the governmental affairs to the Nazi Party before that party's influence further decreased, and in order to prevent a further rise of the anti-fascist struggle. In consequence, however, of the treacherous policy of the right-wing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions who continued to refuse all proposals of the KPD for the establishment of a united front, and demagogically referred with empty promises to the polls, the unification of the anti-fascist masses could not be effected in time to prevent the establishment of the fascist dictatorship. The strength of the Communists and of those Social Democrats prepared for anti-fascist struggle was not great enough to overcome the opposition of the right-wing leaders and to achieve a broad anti-fascist unity of action of the mass of the working class. The establishment of open fascist dictatorship was made possible by the splitting of the working class and the popular forces, for which the policy of the right-wing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions was chiefly responsible. The fourteen years' history of the Weimar Republic had shown that neither the interests of the working class nor the vital problems of our nation can be solved by formal bourgeois democracy camouflaging the dictatorship of monopoly capital. The history of the Weimar Republic was not the history of a democracy serving the interests of the people. Rather did it reflect the building up of the imperialist, anti-democratic forces of finance capital and of militarism and their policy, that was masked by the bourgeois democratic facade of the Weimar state and was directed towards the abolition of democracy and the establishment of an open fascist dictatorship over the German working class and the whole German people. The history of the Weimar Republic shows that imperialist domination and real democracy stand in incompatible contradiction to each other. The establishment of the open, fascist dictatorship meant the complete bankruptcy of the right-wing Social Democratic policy of the so-called third way, the agreement with the monopoly capitalist Weimar Republic, and the coalition with sections of the finance capital, directed against the interests of the working class and the masses. It proved disastrous that the right-wing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions 100

saved the power of the German monopolists and bankers from destruction in the November Revolution and thus prevented the establishment of real democracy in Germany itself and in its relations with other nations, above all with the Soviet Union. The development of the Weimar Republic proved that anti-communism splits the working class and the nation, and that it must therefore be regarded as a disaster for our people. Having praised the Weimar Republic as the most suitable starting point for a slow and peaceful path to socialism, having defamed the socialist construction of the first workers' and peasants' state in the world by every possible means, and having directed their fight mainly against the Communists in Germany, the right-wing Social Democratic leaders strengthened the positions of the most reactionary forces of German finance capital and landed interest and weakened the positions of the German working class and its allies. The result of anti-communism was the establishment of the fascist dictatorship in Germany and the Second World War unleashed by it. At the same time socialism was successfully being built in the Soviet Union. The history and the collapse of the Weimar Republic clearly demonstrate that only the KPD showed a way that conformed to the interests of the nation. Subsequent development has confirmed the correctness of their position, i. e. that real democracy can only be achieved if big capitalists, Junkers, and militarists are deprived of their power and if the working people led by the united working class take over the decisive positions in the economy and the state.

C HAPTER X

The establishment of the fascist dictatorship and the preparation of the Second World War by German fascist imperialism. The significance of the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International. The fight of the KPD for the unity of action of the working class and the anti-fascist Popular Front, for the overthrow of the Hitler-dictatorship and for the preventation of war. ( Period from Januaiy 1933 to August 1939.)

The victory of socialism in the Soviet Union, the greatest event in world history next to the October Revolution itself, changed the international relation of forces further in favour of democracy and socialism. On the other hand the establishment of the fascist dictatorship in Germany was evidence that imperialism was trying to find a way out of its contradictions by crudely turning to naked force in its home and foreign policy, to fascism, militarism and war preparations. Many countries were threatened by the menace of fascism. The contradictions between the imperialist powers sharpened and resulted in the Second World War. The Nazi Party came to power by forming a coalition government consisting of, besides the Hitler party, the Deutscbnationale Volkspartei (German National People's Party). The Nazi Party also found allies in the reactionary representatives of other bourgeois parties as for instance the Deutsche Volkspartei (German People's Party) and the Zentrumspartei (Centre Party)*. In the March of 1933 the Nazi Party assumed a semblance of legality by the consent of the bourgeois party groups in the Reichstag, for the fascist "Enabling Act". With the Hitler party that party assumed power which for its adventurism, its terror against the masses of the people, its savage revanchism • I n fact not a party holding a central position, but a reactionary Catholic party (trans.).

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and anti-Sovietism and its unscrupulous national demagogy met most the class interests of the most reactionary groups of German finance capital. The fascist regime was the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinist, and most imperialist elements of German finance capital. Under fascism the process of development of monopoly capitalism to state monopoly capitalism was accelerated. The culmination of the process of fusion of the power of the German financial oligarchy with the power of the state was reached so far. Fascist ideology, whose main ingredient was the most extreme anticommunism, was embodied in the barbaric race theory, the Lebensraum theory and in crude chauvinism. It was the climax of the reactionary, unscientific and antihumane "theories" brought out in the interests of the ruling exploiting classes in Germany since the beginning of the decline of German capitalism. The fascist ideology served as a means of subjecting the broad masses to the fascist regime and to prepare them for the bestial annihilation of other peoples. Hitler fascism was the continuation and height of the reactionary course of German politics hostile to the people. It represented all the ruinous traditions in German history. The fascist dictatorship showed that there existed an insuperable contradiction between the anti-national, exploiting and power-grabbing interests of the ruling monopoly capitalist cirles and the vital interest of the people. Hitler facism struck the the main blow against all democratic forces, in the first place against the Communists. The Keicbstag fire, engineered by the Nazi government, served as a signal for unrestrained terror against the KPD and all anti-fascists. The KPD was the only national, democratic and humanist force which, from the very first day of the fascist dictatorship, under the leadership of the Central Committee, organised resistance against the fascist destroyer of the nation. The KPD, by its leadership, gave direction and aim to the resistance and thus embodied the progressive forward-looking policy for Germany. On January 30, 1933, and in the following weeks the Central Committee of the KPD appealed several times to the leaders of the SPD and ADGB, calling for a common general strike against the fascist dictatorship, which up to then had not been consolidated, in order to abolish the Hitler government and to protect the German working class and people from the terrible dangers of fascism which threatened. As early as January 30, and to an increasing extent in the days of February in the towns and factories of Germany, demonstrations of the workers and strikes took place and, against the wishes of the right-wing leadership of the SPD and the trade unions, Communists and Social Democrats joint in united actions against the fascist dictatorship. 103

Already in the first weeks of fascism the KPD and its members had to withstand the most difficult testing time in their history. After the Reichstag fire many thousands of Communists were imprisoned among them numerous members of the Central Committee and many district and sub-district organisers and although even the chairman of the Party, Ernst Thàlmann, fell into the hands of the Nazi hangmen, the fascists did not succeed in smashing or even destroying the KPD. Under the conditions of the cruel fascist terror and by overcoming many other difficulties, the Party took to working illegally and continued courageously its fight for peace, democracy and socialism, for the interests of the German working class and the German nation, true to its principles to which it adhered since its foundation. Some of the right-wing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions, on the other hand, tried to "adapt" themselves to the fascist state in order to make continued existence of their organisations possible at a time when many Social Democrats and union members were being imprisoned or murdered. The right-wing leaders of the ADGB even called for a participation in the fascist May Day demonstrations. Thus they aided the destruction of the trade unions by fascism. The Social-Democratic representatives still belonging to the Reichstag gave their consent to Hitler's foreign policy in May, 1933. This surrender to fascism hindered the anti-fascist fight and only encouraged the fascists to "incorporate" the trade unions and to prohibit the SPD in June, 1933, too. At the same time all other organisations of the working class and the other working people were disbanded, the bourgeois parties were "incorporated", anti-semitic progroms were unleashed, all really humanist ideas suppressed and the best representatives of German culture persecuted. The Communist Party continued its fight for the unity of action of the German working class, the fight to unite all anti-fascists to overthrow the Hitler dictatorship, under these changed conditions, also. Thus it carried on the policy which, under the leadership of Ernst Thàlmann, it had taken up in the previous period by developing the Antifascbistische Aktion against rising Hitler fascism. Under the leadership of the Central Committee the illegal Communist Party organisations made great efforts to organise anti-fascist struggle. They had to overcome the depression and passivity which had spread among large sections of the working class as a result of the consolidation of the fascist regime and as a result of the policy of capitulation of the right-wing leaders of the SPD. In the summer of 1933, they led many short strikes and other actions in the factories to defend the social and democratic rights of the workers. In spite of the grievous losses in the fight against ruthless fascist terror to which many thousands of the best Party members fell victims, already 104

in the first years of the Hitler dictatorship, the Party acted as a coherent firmly organised force. The heroic conduct of Georgi Dimitroff at the Reichstag fire trial in Leipzig had a profound effect on the illegal fight of the KPD and other anti-fascist forces. Georgi Dimitroff unmasked the Hitler fascists as incendiaries, as the worst enemies of the people and of peace and, by outdoing them, he struck a great political blow at Hitler fascism at the trial. He used this trial to call upon the German working class to make a determined common fight, which was the only way to victory over facism. He developed important principles for the fight for the unity of action of the working class and for a broad anti-fascist front according to the new conditions of the class struggle. Georgi Dimitroff's call resulted in the intensification of the anti-fascist struggle in Germany. The bankruptcy of the reformist policy of splitting and capitulation shown by the defeat of the German working class and by the victory of fascism in 1933, sharpened the crisis in the SPD. On account of their own bitter experiences and influenced by the policy of the KPD members and functionaries of the SPD began to realise that splitting the working class can only be useful for the enemies of democracy and socialism. They also began to understand that fascism could only be defeated by the united struggle of the parties and organisations of the working class. Against the wishes and decisions of the Social Democratic Party leadership, in exile in Prague, which still refused to have any contact with the KPD, illegal Social Democratic groups tried to find a way to their class brothers and to the illegal Party organisations of the KPD. Since 1934 more and more contacts of Communist Party organisations with Social Democratic groups and party members developed. In September, 1934, for the first time an agreement was reached between the illegal Party leadership of the KPD and the SPD in the district of Hessen-Frankfort to organise the united anti-fascist struggle. Similar successful united-front negotiations were carried out in Berlin, Dortmund, Baden, Württemberg, Lower Saxony and in the Saar district. Thus under difficult fighting conditions and in spite of the prohibition by the right-wing Social Democratic leaders, the beginnings of unity of action of the German working class was to be seen, limited to some places in Germany, and among the emigrants abroad. The policy of the KPD aiming at anti-fascist unity in struggle of the German working class gained its first successes. During the elections for "Vertrauensräte" (fascist shop stewards) in the spring of 1934 the fascist candidates did not get more than 25°/0 of the vote cast in most of the factories. The election agreement between the Communists, Social Democrats and non-party workers made it possible to elect independent 105

shop stewards in numerous factories. In the second half of 1934 and in 1935, in spite of the increased terror, the KPD succeeded in organising strikes against compulsory wage reductions and for higher wages especially among the workers on the Reichsautobabn, of the armament industry, the dockyards and the mining industry. After the prohibition of their party the right-wing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions, however, orientated themselves more and more towards sections of big business, German militarism, and the imperialist western powers and expected them to overthrow Hitler. The right-wing leaders adopted a policy of wait and see, and called on their members and the trade-union rank and file to abide by this policy. They objected to all anti-fascist mass actions and obstructed unity of action and the anti-fascist Popular Front, the only force that was capable of saving the nation by overthrowing Hitler. After the establishment of the Hitler dictatorship the Communist Party of Germany had the task of revealing the causes of the defeat the German working class had suffered in its fight against fascism in 1933, and from this analysis to draw the conclusions for its policy. The Party proved justly the historic guilt of the right-wing leaders of the SPD whose policy of splitting prevented the united fight of the working class and other strata of the working people against the rise of fascism. This policy had objectively supported the fascist seizure of power. The Party had to reconsider its strategy and tactics applied in the fight against the threat of fascist dictatorship and to work out a new strategy and tactics corresponding to the new conditions. The aim of this new strategy and tactics was the overthrow of the Hitler dictatorship, the establishment of the unity of action of the working class and the creation of a broad Popular Front. When the Party developed this new strategy and tactics it was able to start off from the fighting experiences the Party organisations had gained under the leadership of the Thalmann-Central Committee before 1933, first of all in the Antifaschistiscbe Aktion and secondly in the fight of the underground movement since the establishment of the Hitler dictatorship. At the same time the Party had to assess carefully the significant consequences resulting from the struggles of the international workers' movement against fascism, especially in France, Austria and Spain, in 1934. The Party worked out the new policy in the years from 1933 to 1935. This work was practically completed by the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International and by the Brussels Party Conference of the KPD. It was accomplished in the course of stormy debates on the left-sectarian dogmatism of some members of the Central Committee. Whilst these members insisted on old, obsolete and dogmatic slogans 106

and fighting methods and caused serious difficulties for the Party by this activity at certain times, Wilhelm Pieak and Walter Ulbricht above all worked out the foundamental problems of Party policy in a creative way based on Georgi Dimitroff's suggestions and began to carry through this policy in the Party. It was necessary to define the strategic aim and the tactical tasks in the fight for abolishing the fascist dictatorship in such a way that the unity of action of the working class was made possible and that the broad movement of all anti-Hitler forces was guaranteed. For this such problems had to be dealt with as, for instance, the significance of the fight for democracy, the new attitude towards Social Democracy, the establishment of united free trade unions, the utilisation of legal opportunities for the anti-fascist fight, the organisation of a broad anti-fascist Popular Front and the formation of a united revolutionary working class party by means of unity of action of the proletariat. Ernst Thalmann, the chairman of the Party, who was imprisoned by the fascists, fully agreed to the new orientation of Party policy. The Seventh World Congress of the Communist International (July to August 1935) drew the conclusions from the changed international situation and the changed relation of class forces in the world and stressed the world historic importance of the victory of socialism in the U.S.S.R. It developed a strategy and tactics, which true to their historic mission, enabled the communist parties to unite all peace-loving, democratic and anti-fascist forces in a common front for the fight against fascism, militarism and war, for democracy and peace. The Congress made it the duty of the communist parties to fight for the united front of the working class and the Popular Front. The Congress called the attention of the communist parties in the capitalist states to the necessity of defending the bourgeois-democratic rights and liberties of the working people against the attack of fascism. The resolutions of the Congress showed the working class and the other strata of the working people the way to achieve a new anti-imperialist democracy. This new strategy and tactics made it possible for the Communists in some countries to lead the broad masses of the working class and the people in the united struggle against fascism. The Brussels Party Conference of the KPD in October, 1935, was as significant as a Party Congress and it is looked upon as the 13th Party Congress in the history of the Party. It brought the discussions on the new strategy and tactics to an end and passed historic resolutions which were directives for the further development of the Party and the future of the nation. The Party Conference analysed the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International and agreed on a policy corresponding to the new situation after the coming to power of the Hitler fascists in Ger107

many. The policy of the Party laid down by the Party Conference concentrated on the fight for the democratic rights and liberties of the people. The new strategy and tactics aimed at the overthrow of the Hitler government, the prevention of war and the establishment of a coalition government o f the united workers' front or the anti-fascist Popular Front. By this line of policy the party set the aim for the anti-fascist fight of bringing about a new, anti-imperialist, really democratic order as a basis for the transition to socialism. On the basis of the resolutions of the Brussels Party Conference the Party developed the Programme for establishing the unity of action of the German working class and for the antifascist Popular Front of all Germans opposed to Hitler. That was the only programme of a German party which showed the way to unite all class forces and groups o f the German people who were for the overthrow of the Hitler dictatorship. The Party Conference elected Wilhelm Pieck as the chairman o f the Party. The oppression of the Communists and all other antifascist forces in Germany by Hitler fascism and the intensified communist-baiting, chauvinism and revanchism of the Hitler government served to hasten the preparation for war. Under the mask of demagogic speeches on "love of peace" and "German equality and self-determination" the fascist government in May 1935 introduced universal conscription, and one year later occupied the Rhineland and signed the so-called AntiCommintern Pact with Italy and Japan. Fascist German imperialism, tolerated and actively assisted by the most reactionary imperialist circles of the western powers made Germany the most dangerous source o f a new war in Europe. Under the leadership of the K P D and its Central Committee, headed by Wilhelm Pieck and Walter Ulbricht, the fight of the German antifascists against the war preparations and the first aggressive acts of fascism was intensified in the underground movement and in exile, after the Brussels Party Conference. In many German towns the Communist Party organisations initiated further agreements between Communists and Social Democrats for a united anti-fascist struggle and carried out common actions against exploitation and suppression and against the fascist war preparations. In the course of 1936 the number of strikes increased. Some o f them became open political demonstrations against the fascist dictatorship. Here and there agreements for a united trade unionist resistance were made. The heroic underground restistance developed in many parts of Germany and gathered support from wide sections of the people. Influenced by the experiences of the French and Spanish people the idea o f a Popular Front spread more and more among the German antifascists. At the suggestion of the Central Committee of the K P D the

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call for the formation of a German Popular Front was published in December 1936. It was the first document signed jointly by leading Communists like Wilhelm Pieck and Walter Ulbricht, and Social Democrats like Rudolf Breitscheid. It was also signed by distinguished German writers and other persons working in the cultural field like Heinrich Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger, and Arnold Zweig. In the underground resistance movement in Germany, for instance in Berlin, the Rhineland, Westphalia and the Saar district as well as in exile, the beginnings of a German Popular Front were organised against the resistance of the party leadership of the SPD in Prague. When the Franco fascists and their German and Italian imperialist allies engineered the counter-revolutionary putsch in Spain against the legally elected republican government, in July 1936, thousands of German volunteers, Communists, Social-Democrats, and non-party antifascists came to help the Spanish people at the call of the Central Committee of the KPD. In Germany the KPD organised an illegal movement for solidarity with republican Spain. The struggle side by side with the Spanish people against Hitler and Mussolini was not only a requirement of international solidarity in this situation, but also a national duty in the interests of the German people. The German Communists and other antifascists risked their lives on the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War for the freedom and peace of the German nation. In the fight against barbaric fascism a broad German antifascist literature was created representing the great traditions of German national literature. The best representatives of German intellectual life, revolutionary artists and writers and humanist middle-class people working in the cultural field stood in one front with the Communist Party of Germany against the Hitler regime and to save the nation. While the Soviet Union supported by the international revolutionary workers' movement and other progressive forces uncompromisingly advocated a policy of peaceful coexistence and collective security against the aggressive policy of the fascists, the Hitler government was supported by the reactionary anti-Soviet circles of finance capital in the western imperialist states and it was encouraged to start a military attack on the Soviet Union. (Policy of Appeasement towards Hitler Germany, with the "Munich Agreement" as a culminating point.) Encouraged by this attitude, fascist Germany passed over to open aggressive acts, prepared by its "Fifth Column" in other countries. It took an active part in smashing the Spanish Republic and invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia. Thus it created a jumping-off ground for unleashing the Second World War. In September, 1938, an anti-war movement was developed under these conditions which manifested 109

itself in downing of tools, break-downs in production, public discussions and other acts of resistance. These actions occured to an extent then unknown and they fought back fascist terror at some places. This antiwar movement embraced workers, peasants, people from the lower middle class as well as people from certain circles of the bourgeoisie. In this situation fraught with constantly increasing danger of war at the end of January and at the beginning of February, 1939, the Berne Party Conference took place, which was looked upon in the history of the party as the 14th Congress of the KPD. The Party Conference called the German working class and all other German patriots to unite to save the nation from the threatening war and to overthrow the Hitler dictatorship. Basing itself on the experiences of the fight of the anti-fascist resistance and on the changed situation, the Conference further developed the resolutions of the Brussels Party Conference. It formulated the programme of the new German democratic republic, which was to be the result of the untited fight of the German working class and all other anti-fascists against the Hitler dictatorship. In this republic monopoly capital was to be deprived of the power which it had exercised in the Weimar Republic and which had been supported by the alliance with the right-wing leaders of the SPD. The united working class in alliance with the peasants, the lower middle class and the intelligentsia was instead to determine the future of Germany. By this programme the KPD clearly showed the methods and aim of the fight to overthrow the Hitler regime and to solve the vital question of our nation. Thus it worked out that policy which enabled the working class after 1945 in Eastern Germany to root out German imperialism and militarism completely and to establish the legitimate German state, the German Democratic Republic. Faced with the imminent danger of war a number of strikes and actions of protest were initiated in the course of 1939, especially among the workers of the Siegfried Line, the miners of the Saar district and the dockers. In these anti-fascist struggles led in many cases by Communist Party organisations in collaboration with Social Democratic groups, the workers demanded higher wages as well as other social rights and they partly succeeded. As the western imperialist states also frustrated the last attempt of the Soviet Union to establish a united front against the fascist aggressor and as they had secret negotiations with Hitler Germany directed against the Soviet Union at the same time, the Soviet government signed a non-aggression pact with Germany in the August of 1939 following a German offer. This action thwarted the formation of a united anti-Soviet front of all imperialist states and secured peace for some time for the Soviet Union. 110

CHAPTER XI

Tbe Second World War unleashed by German fascist imperialism. The struggle of tbe anti-fascist resistance movement under tbe leadership of tbe KPD, to terminate tbe war by overthrowing tbe Hitler dictatorship. Tbe invasion of tbe U.S.S.R. by Hitler Germany, and tbe Great 'Patriotic War of tbe Soviet People. Tbe foundation of tbe National Committee "Free Germany". Tbe destruction of Hitler fascism by tbe glorious Soviet Army. (Period from September 1939 to May 1945.)

With its attack on Poland, German fascist imperialism unleashed the Second World War and conquered large areas of Europe during the first phase of the war (up to June 1941) in preparation for its predatory action against the Soviet Union. A barbaric regime of plunder and imprisonment was established in the occupied countries, and the extermination of whole peoples began. German fascist imperialism struggled for imperialist redivision of the world in its own favour, and for the realisation of its plans to dominate the world. It intended to destroy the workers' movement and any democratic and national movement in Europe and other parts of the world, above all to annihilate the Socialist Soviet Union. This second attempt by German imperialism in the course of a few decades to establish its domination of the world jeopardized the very existence of the German nation. The German people felt now that the Communist Party had been right in its warning given already before 1933: "A vote for Hitler is a vote for war I" The contradictions inherent in the imperialist system were the source of the Second World War. At its beginning, it was an imperialist war both for fascist Germany and for England and France. From the very beginning of the war the national and anti-fascist struggle of the libertyloving peoples for their national existence and independence, for protec111

tion of democracy and social progress from Hitler barbarism had been developing in the countries subdued or threatened by the fascist powers. In this struggle, the backbone of which was the working class, the Communists held a leading position. The actions of the people increasingly brought pressure on the governments of the countries jeopardized by Hitler fascism. The more determined the people's struggle, the more decisively did the war change into an anti-fascist and just war o f all countries combatting Hitler fascism. The assault of Hitler Germany upon the Soviet Union on June 22nd, 1941, opening the second period of the war, was the most terrible crime of German fascist imperialism against the nation. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, the war could be distinctly characterised as an anti-fascist war of liberation. After the fascist assault upon the Soviet Union, the imperialist governments of the U.S.A. and Great Britain, threatened by German fascism, were compelled to ally themselves with the Soviet Union. This was chiefly the result of the pressure of the majority of the peoples in those countries. The anti-Hitler coalition comprised states with different social orders. Under the leadership of the Soviet Union, it united the peoples attacked or threatened by the Hitler regime in their struggle against the policy of conquest and annihilation carried on by the German fascist imperialism. The main burden of the war against Hitler Germany and its allies was imposed on the Soviet Union, which made the greatest sacrifices for the victory over barbaric fascism. The citizens of the Soviet Union not only struggled for freedom, independence, and protection o f the socialist achievements of their country, they liberated all peoples, even the German people, from German fascist imperialism. The war unleashed by fascism placed new difficult tasks before the German workers, before all anti-fascists. The Communist Party of Germany was the only political force in Germany that from the very first day of the war had exposed the aggression of Hitler Germany as an imperialist policy of conquest. The Party explained to the German people why this policy must inevitably result in national disaster, and organised resistance to the Hitler regime and its predatory policy of war. In accordance with the resolutions o f the Brussels and Bern Party Conferences, the Central Committee instructed the illegal Party organisations and all Communists to unite the working class and all anti-fascist forces for the struggle to terminate the war by overthrowing the Hitler government and for a peace treaty in conformity with the interests of the people. The K P D called upon the German people to see to it that the non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union be kept. It 112

declared that the masses' need for peace was the only guarantee for securing good-neighbourly relations with the U.S.S.R. Now, in their struggle for the salvation o f Germany, all anti-fascists had to struggle as well for the national liberty of all peoples subdued or treatened by Hitler fascism. The illegal Party organisations, which were the leading core o f a number of anti-fascist resistance groups, had been struggling heroically and devotedly for the carrying out o f this national policy since the beginning of the war. In those groups, which worked mainly in Berlin, Hamburg and Central Germany, Social-Democratic and non-party workers had joined the common struggle with middle-class anti-fascists under the leadership of the Communists. Despite the great efforts of the Communist Party of Germany, the German working class was not able to prevent the assault o f the Hitler army upon the first socialist state. Split by the revisionist influence of decades and paralysed by the brutal terror o f the fascist regime, the working class was not able to save the German nation from this disgrace. The German anti-fascists under the leadership of the K P D answered the fascist attack on the Soviet Union with a considerable intensification o f their struggle. The Central Committee of the K P D explained immediately to the German people that Hitler had brought the most serious disaster upon Germany by this treacherous attack on the Soviet Union. The K P D called upon our people to save Germany from an unavoidable catastrophe by taking its fortune into its own hands, finishing the war by overthrowing the head o f the aggressors, Hitler, and enforcing a lasting peace. The policy of concerting all anti-fascist forces for the struggle against the war and the Hitler government proclaimed by the K P D , became now more and more effective in the growing co-operation between Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, and members o f the bourgeois intelligentsia in many anti-fascist resistance groups. In a heroic struggle against Gestapo terror, they intensified their work under the decisive influence of Communist Party organisations and individual Communists in all parts of Germany, in the countries occupied by the German fascists, and in the Hitler army. They spread the truth about Hitler fascism and the criminal war, and fought for the defeat o f Hitler and for the overthrow of the Hitler government as the only way to save the nation. The Central Committee of the K P D made great efforts to broaden and centralise the illegal struggle of resistance in Germany more speedily. Large, centralised, resistance organisations like the Uhrig group, the Schulze-Boysen-Harnack group, the "Inner F r o n t " group, the Bastlein-Jacob-Abshagen group, the Schumann-Engert-Kresse group, the Neubauer-Poser group and the Lechleiter group, carried on the struggle in Germany in agreement with this policy. 8

Outline History

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As the number of German prisoners-of-war in the Soviet Union grew, there, too, an anti-fascist movement developed among former soldiers and officers of the Hider army. In October, 1941, after a discussion with representatives of the KPD, 158 German prisoners-of-war appealed for the overthrow of Hitler as a requisite for a free and independent Germany. This appeal told the German soldiers as well as the German people the truth, namely that Hitler's war was leading to defeat and national catastrophe. The victory of the Soviet army in the battle on the Volga was the final turning point in World War II; it was proof of the change in the relation of military and economic forces in favour of the Soviet Union and all the nations of the anti-Hitler coalition. Thus the conditions for a successful struggle and closer union of all anti-fascist forces of the German nation improved. They were the prerequisites for the implementation of the People's-Front policy and for the formation of a national centre of the anti-fascist resistance struggle aiming at the overthrow of the Hitler regime and at ending the war, a policy decided on by the KPD at the Party Conferences at Brussels and Bern. In July, 1943, in Moscow, the National Committee "Free Germany" was founded by anti-fascist workers, peasants, intellectuals and officers of the fascist army, who had become prisoners-of-war, together with KPD members of the Reichstag, trade union functionaries and progressive German writers. It was formed on the initiative of the Central Committee of the KPD, above all of Wilhelm Pieck and Walter Ulbricht. It developed into the political and organising centre for German anti-fascists. In its essence the National Committee was the German anti-Hitler coalition. The aim of the policy of the National Committee "Free Germany" was to end the war by overthrowing the Hitler government, to achieve peace by the forces of the working class, the middle-class anti-Hitler opposition and the opposition in the army, and to cut short the people's suffering (Walter Ulbricht). Under the guidance of the representatives of the Political Bureau of the KPD the National Committee at the same time prepared for the building of a new anti-fascist democratic Germany. By the formation of the National Committee "Free Germany" a new chapter in the anti-fascist resistance struggle in Germany began. The policy of the National Committee "Free Germany" was in accordance with the political line of the underground groups working in Germany and gave them direction and purpose in the struggle. The anti-fascist resistance organisations extended their political activity ever more strongly to factories of the fascist armament industry. At the same time they broadened the anti-fascist resistance front on the basis of the programme of the NKFD (National Committee "Free Germany"), as the 114

directive given by the Central Committee. They intensified their work in the ranks of the fascist Webrmacbt and among the bourgeois intelligentsia and also among foreign prisoners-of-war and forced-labourers who had been hauled off to Germany by the Hitler fascists. In the first half of 1944 far more than 10.000 German workers and almost 200.000 foreign forced-labourers took part in walk-outs. At the same time more than 310.000 people were arrested by the Gestapo for anti-fascist resistance activities. The German Communists and other anti-fascists who were imprisoned in concentration camps were informed about the policy of the National Committee "Free Germany" and they organised the antifascist resistance struggle. From the evercloser collaboration of the largest underground resistance organisations, of the Saefkow-JacobBastlein group in Berlin with the Neubauer-Poser-group in Thuringia and with the Schumann-Engert-Kresse group in Saxony, developed anew the core of central leading committees of the party and of the antifascist underground struggle in Germany itself. The political line of the National Committee "Free Germany" became their guide. The "Free Germany" movement also spread among the German anti-fascist emigrants in many western countries such as England, France, Sweden, Denmark, the U.S.A. and Mexico. The defeat of German imperialism was historically inevitable and in accordance with social laws, because it waged the most unjust of all wars. German imperialism appeared as the spearhead of world reaction against the socialist Soviet Union, threatening whole peoples with enslavement and extermination. Its boundless plans of world domination stood in insoluble contradiction to its limited political, economic and military potentialities. The political, economic, military and moral superiority of the socialist order of society was obvious long before the opening of the second front. The struggle of the nations for democracy and independence was stronger than any policy of imperialist conquest. In view of the deep crisis in the fascist regime since the Battle on the Volga, leaders of the German monopoly bourgeoisie and of reactionary military circles, facing defeat in the Hitler war, tried to save the existence of German militarism with the help of the imperialist western powers. The Goerdeler-group intended to replace the Hitler government by a government of reliable representatives of monopoly capital and of militarists who had not been compromised too much by Hitler fascism. This government was to persue a military dictatorship against the people and, by signing a separate peace treaty with the western powers, to prevent the advance of the Soviet Union for a complete extermination of fascism in Germany. The plans of those who engineered the reactionary putsch of July 20, 1944, were bound to fail as they were directed against the 115

people and contradicted the real relations of power, which now existed through the victorious advance o f the Red Army and its allies. German patriots from among the army officers and from the ranks of the middle-class, who did not agree with the reactionary views o f the Goerdeler-group, and sought to link themselves with the active antifascist fighters of the working class and combatted the anti-national one-sided orientation of Germany towards the imperialist Western powers, also took part in the conspiracy of July 20th, 1944. The right-wing leaders of the SPD, on the contrary, stuck to their hostile attitude towards the Soviet Union even in this period and relied on those forces o f German and foreign monopoly capital that intended to save the fundamental basis of German imperialism. For that reason, they even now declined any common anti-fascist action. A great number of German and foreign anti-fascists, among them Ernst Thalmann and Rudolf Breitscheid, fell victims to the brutal terror o f Hitler fascism in the final phase o f the war. Large sections of the people were mislead ideologically and corrupted materially by the Hitler regime. This, together with the splitting policy of the right-wing leaders of the SPD, was the reason why there were no great anti-fascist mass actions of the German people till the end of the war. In spite of that, during the last weeks of the war, German anti-fascists, by courageous actions, succeeded at different places in saving human lives and preserving towns, villages, and factories from being destroyed by the fascists. All the activity of the Communist Party of Germany during the twelve years of Hitler dictatorship is the record of a genuinely heroic struggle for the interests o f the working class, and at the same time of the whole German people. The K P D was the only party that from the first to the very last day offered unbroken and consistently organised resistance to Hitler fascism, thus vindicating the honour of the German nation in the period of Germany's deepest disgrace, and contributing to the victory of the nations over Hitler fascism. The party sealed its faithfulness to proletarian internationalism, to the interests of the working class and of the nation with the greatest sacrifices, in its anti-fascist struggle. From about 300.000 Party members the K P D numbered in 1933, about 150.000 had been persecuted, imprisoned or deported to concentration camps, and tens of thousands of Party officials and members had been murdered. The world-historic victory of the Soviet Union and the peoples of the anti-Hitler coalition freed the German people from the yoke of fascism. The devoted struggle of the German Communists and all anti-fascists had been a decisive factor to enable Germany now to pursue a course towards a new democratic life.

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CHAPTER XII

The formation of tbe socialist camp. Tbe struggle of tbe German working class and its allies under tbe leadership of tbe Marxist-Leninist partyfor tbe establishment of tbe anti-fascist democratic order. Tbe unification of tbe working class by tbe amalgamation of tbe SPD and KPD into tbe Socialist Unity Party of Germany. Tbe People's Congress movement for unity and ajust peace against tbe imperialist policy of splitting Germany. (Periodfrom 1945 to 1949.)

The historic victory over fascism in Germany and Japan, in which the Soviet Union played the decisive role, led to fundamental changes in the world balance of power. The international influence of the U.S.S.R. had enormously increased. Some countries in Europe and Asia left the imperialist camp and took the road to the peoples' democratic revolution. The socialist world system came into existence. So the imperialist encirclement of the Soviet Union was smashed once and for all. The dictatorship of the proletariat crossed the borders of one country and became an international power. The revolutions in a series of countries in Europe and Asia were the most important event in world history since the Great Socialist October Revolution. After World War II the communist movement advanced immensely; communist and workers' parties formed in many other countries. This development had a powerful influence on the peoples of the colonies and the dependent countries/The struggle for national liberation developed. The imperialist colonial system began to fall to pieces. World War II and the formation of the socialist world system introduced a new stage in the development of the general crisis of the capitalist system. The reactionary forces of the imperialist states under the leadership of U.S. imperialism betrayed the principles of the anti-Hitler coalition and passed over to the aggressive policy of the Cold War, to 117

Atom-bomb threats and to the formation of anti-Soviet war pacts, especially the NATO. Against the aggressive policy "on the brink of the war" the world-wide peace movement, based upon the socialist camp, came into being. The peace-loving democratic forces of the whole world closed their ranks in such significant international mass organisations as the World Federation of Trade Unions, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, the Women's International Democratic Federation and others. The formation of the World Federation of Trade Unions in the autumn of 1945 was a great success for the international workers' movement and proved that the international unity of trade unions in the interest of the international working class is possible in spite of the different character of the seperate trade union organisations. The liberation of the German people from Hitler fascism and the extermination of the fascist armies by the Soviet army and their allies in the anti-Hitler coalition provided the condition for a fundamental change in German history. The decisive weakening of the imperialist forces made it possible for the whole of Germany to defeat the fascist and imperialist enemies of the nation definitively and to establish a truly democratic order. The twelve years of government and the predatory war of German fascist imperialism had plunged the German people into its greatest national catastrophe. The Hitler regime had left behind six million dead, complete economic ruin and most terrible devastation. Hunger and diseases threatened millions of people. The policy of the ruling class had proved bankrupt. Depression, demoralisation and disbelief in the future of Germany predominated amongst great sections of the population. Under these conditions a great national responsibility was placed on the German working class. They were the only force able to save the German people from their downfall and to guide them onto the new path, that of advancing to a peace-loving and democratic Germany and later on to the construction of socialism. After the defeat of Hitler fascism the revolutionary party of the German working class, the KPD, appeared before the people as the one and only German party with a scientific programme of democratic reconstruction for the whole of Germany. In their appeal of June 11th, 1945, the KPD consistently carrying out their resolutions at Brussels and Bern and the policy of the National Committee "Free Germany", showed how to emerge from the catastrophy and save the nation by smashing the basis of fascism and militarism. Creatively applying Marxism-Leninism to the concrete conditions of development, the KPD insisted that the bourgeois-democratic revolu118

tion must be brought to a conclusion under the leadership of the working class and that an anti-fascist democratic order must be established in the whole of Germany. This task met not only the interests of the working class but of all classes and sections of the German people, except the criminal gang of monopolists, militarists and Junkers. This historic task had to be performed under enormous difficulties. The predatory fascist war had left the German people in misery and chaos. Millions of Germans had become infected by na2i ideology. The fascists had killed tenthousands of the best working-class functionaries. The anti-fascist, democratic revolution was all the more complicated in that Germany had been occupied by states of different social orders exercising supreme power. The anti-fascist democratic programme was based upon the historic lessons of the development of the working class and the whole nation since the turn of the century. It created the basis for the German working class to overcome the disastrous influence of bourgeois ideology within their ranks and bring about their unity on a revolutionary basis. Only in this way was the German working class at the head of the masses able to establish a new supreme power corresponding to the interests of the whole nation, and to carry out their historic mission. The Potsdam Agreement of the Great Powers of the anti-Hitler coalition in accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, makes the struggle for the extermination of nazism and militarism incumbent upon the German people and forms the basis grounded in international law, for the construction of a peaceful, democratic order in the whole of Germany. Its principles corresponded with the interests of the German people which had found expression in the programme of the KPD. Suffering from privation, fighting against passiveness and indifference and against the reactionary forces in a fierce class struggle the most class-conscious workers and other Germans ready to take responsibility began to remove the ruins and set economic, political and cultural life in motion again. As "Activists of the First Hour" the Communists together with Social Democrats, trade-unionists and middle-class antinazis took up their position at the head of the masses and created a new life in East Germany. Under the leadership of the working class the remnants of the fascist state were removed and new anti-fascist, democratic administrative organs were established from the bottom up. Whereas reactionary bourgeois circles intended to restore the monopoly capitalist bureaucratic state and to guard it against the people, the K P D and other democratic forces carried through the national conception: they made democracy and people's sovereignty the central issue of the construction of the 119

German state. For tlie very first time in Germany such state organs developed which represented the interests of the people and organised the initiative of the masses for social reconstruction. Workers and members of the technical intelligensia took over the control of many concerns formerly owned by war criminals and active Nazis. The working class took control of production and overcame the worst of the damage. At the same time the working class, led by its vanguard, began to acquire the knowledge to enable them to play their leading part in the reorganisation of Germany. As the majority of the population, women played an important role in all these activities and more strongly than ever before in German history came to the fore in the shaping of social life. The anti-fascist democratic change-over took place under the hegemony of the working class. In this way the peoples' democratic revolution in East Germany began. It was a part of that great process of revolutionary change resulting in the formation of the socialist camp. From the very beginning this democratic struggle was fully supported by the socialist occupation force who consistently carried out the terms of the Potsdam Agreement, granted the working people democratic freedom, gave them all-round support and defended them from imperialist intervention. Protection and support of Soviet communists in uniform indicated the weakening of imperialism and the change in the relation of forces in favour of socialism and facilitated the struggle of the anti-fascist democratic forces in Germany. The national interests of the German people (extermination of fascism and imperialism) were also the interests of the Soviet Union and all nations who had to provide a constant barrier against a new intervention by German imperialists and militarists. Immediately after the liberation of Germany from Hitler fascism and the unconditional surrender of Hitler's Webrmacbt the Soviet Union helped the German people by supplying them, amongst other things, with food to protect life and to get the new economy going. All actions of the Soviet Military Administration were based upon the principles of proletarian internationalism and were in accordance with the spirit of socialist humanism. They were directed towards helping the German working class and the whole German population to smash the remnants of the fascist state machinery, to depose active Nazis and war criminals, to eradicate fascist ideology and so to exterminate fascism and imperialism. Their aim was to help the German people to organise a new democratic life. This aim was served by Order No. 2, for example, on the formation and activity of anti-fascist parties and free trade unions, and the Orders No. 124 and 126 concerning the confiscation of the 120

property of active Nazis and war criminals and many orders designed to set economic and cultural life in motion, to help in the establishment of anti-fascist democratic self-government and to the handing over of autonomous responsibility to the anti-fascist democratic state organs which came into existence. The U.S.S.R. was the first victorious power in history to support the defeated country whose armies of aggression had carried out unparalleled acts of violence and great devastations. The Soviet Union helped to guarantee national independence, to open the way to peaceful democratic development and to the overcoming of post-war difficulties by making enormous material resources available. The key to the solution of all complicated problems of anti-fascist democratic reconstruction was the swift unification of the working class. The bitter experiences of the fascist dictatorship and World War II had made the politically conscious workers finally determined to overcome the splitting of the working class. A great many of the functionaries and members of the SPD were ready for the united fight together with the Communists. On the initiative of the Communist Party the organised united actions of Communists and Social Democrats developed against the resistance of anti-unity SPD forces which had been supported by western occupation forces right from the very beginning. Based upon the programme of June 11th, 1945, the K P D under the leadership of Wilhelm Pieck and Walter Ulbricht, and the SPD under the leadership of Otto Grotewohl formed a unity of action in the Soviet occapation zone. In thousands of towns, villages and factories the workers of both parties, unionists and non-unionists demanded the unity of action and the unification of the working class. At thousands of meetings in all provinces of the Soviet occupation zone Communists and Social-Democrats resolved to act unitedly. The unity of action of the working class in East Germany became the basis for the mobilisation of the masses, for the formation of a solid alliance of the working class with the peasantry and the lower middleclass and bourgeois anti-Hitler circles. On July 14th, 1945, the bloc of the anti-fascist democratic parties was formed out of the K P D , the SPD, the Christian-Democratic Union of Germany and the LiberalDemocratic Party of Germany. After their formation in 1948, the National-Democratic Party of Germany and the Democratic Peasants' Party of Germany joined this bloc. In this way the resolutions of the Brussels and Bern K P D conferences and the policy of the National Committee "Free Germany" were carried out. The workers and all other working people had learned their lessons from the more than one hundred years' fight against capitalist exploita121

tion and oppression and from the summer of 1945 they came together in a unified, militant, trade-union organisation, the Confederation of Free German Trade Unions (FDGB). The unity of action of the KPD and SPD was the most important pre-condition for the construction of new free trade unions. The Confederation of Free German Trade Unions developed on the basis of the founding declaration of June 15th, 1945. Starting from the KPD programme of action they made themselves responsible for active co-operation in the construction of the antifascist democratic order and looked after the direct interests of manual and office-workers in the struggle for the solution of the questions vital to the nation. In March, 1946, the united, democratic youth organisation, the Free German Youth, arose from the activities of the antifascist youth committees. Under the leadership of the working class party they won many thousands of young people for the ideas of peace, democracy and socialism. In the course of the anti-fascist democratic revolution other mass organisations came into being, e. g. the German League of Culture, the Democratic Women's League of Germany, the Peasants' Mutual Aid Association and others. For the first time in German history all democratic forces had been given the possibility to realise, through their parties and organisations, the right to self-determination and to co-operate in the reconstruction in their own interests and those of society as a whole. Against the resistance of reactionary forces aiming at the restoration of the old capitalist state the masses understood that splitting and disunion of the people are useful solely to the imperialist and militarist enemies of the nation. The leadership of the united working class and the close alliance of all anti-fascist democratic forces enabled the masses of the people to exterminate fascism and militarism by their own strength and to overcome the influence of imperialist, fascist ideology in the struggle for the new democratic Germany. Under the leadership of the working class and based upon the democratic authorities many thousands of agricultural labourers and working peasants carried out the democratic Land Reform in the autumn of 1945. They overcame the violent resistance of the Junkers and big landowners and their political spokesmen, smashed /»»^/--capitalist landlordism and distributed the soil amongst the peasants. The emancipation of the peasantry, dreamt of for centuries, was introduced by the democratic Land Reform. The democratic Land Reform was the most important victorious revolutionary action of the masses, by that time, in German history. After the expropriation of the Junkers and big landowners the working class, who had already helped the peasants in gathering the first post-war 122

harvest, increased their help to the working peasantry (building of farmsteads for new peasants). A solid economic and political basis for the alliance of the working class with the peasantry came into existence. Under the leadership of the working class the process of profound ideological re-education developed along with the democratic revival of German culture and the democratic School Reform, begun in the autumn of 1945. The education privileges of the possessing classes were abolished. The working class formulated new democratic educational aims, and many thousands of their most gifted representatives devoted themselves as Neulebrer (new teachers) to the education of the youth. So theconditions for a broad expansion of the productive and intellectual creative faculties of the working people were brought about. At the same time legal reforms and the creation of the People's Police were begun. The People's Police had many workers in their ranks, well tried in stern class struggle, and from the beginning they confidently relied on the co-operation of the working people. To inform the people of the disastrous role of German fascism and militarism, to propagate the great historical ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and the ideas of humanism and friendship of the peoples and to win the masses for the road to the democratic revival of Germany under the leadership of the working class, all these were at the heart of the ideological work of the vanguard of the working class. So alongside the overcoming of the economic ruin, the chaos left by fascism in the thinking and feeling of millions of men was also overcome. Millions of Germans were shown the direction and the aim of a new life consisting of peaceful creative work for the benefit of the people and for the securing of peace. The unity of action of the working class was strengthened in the struggle to establish the basis of the anti-fascist democratic order. The strong trend to unity within the ranks of the working class, the purposive policy of the Central Committee of the KPD and the sincere readiness of the class conscious forces in the SPD for joint work made it possible to overcome the influence of those right-wing Social Democratic leaders who, like Schumacher, stuck to their anti-communist attitude and continued the policy of collaboration with the big bourgeoisie. The basis for the final ending of the split in the workers' movement and its unification into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany arose during the difficult struggle against all the splitting manouvres of imperialist reaction and its opportunist underlings. Mobilising the manual and office workers, the trade unions took an active part in the social changes of 1945. Thus "setting the factories in motion again was above all due to the activity of the Works Councils 123

and the trade unions" (Walter Ulbricht). The trade-union unity developing under the leading influence of the Communists and classconscious Social Democrats contributed to the formation of the political unity of the working class and enabled them to lead the anti-fascist democratic revolution. This historic significance of the FDGB (Confederation of Free German Trade Unions) found expression at its 1st congress (February, 1946). In 1945, in the western zones of Germany, large sections of the working class and other working people were also ready to exterminate fascism and militarism, to punish the war criminals and to take the course of a peaceful democratic development. The trend to unity quickly increased among the working class there, too. In many parts of West Germany, in such important cities as Hamburg, Munich, Bremen, Hanover, Brunswick, Frankfort-on-Main, Nuremberg, Karlsruhe, etc., in the Ruhr district and in South Baden, Communists and Social Democrats agreed upon united action for democratic reconstruction. In many cases the representatives of the workers' parties in the western zones took the agreement between the Central Committee of the KPD and the Executive Board of the SPD as an example. Communists and Social Democrats closely co-operated in the formation of trade unions and arranged for united trade unions to be formed in the western zones, too. Many thousands of Communists and Social Democrats in the three western zones stood for the formation of a united revolutionary fighting party of the whole German working class. The Communist Party organisations in the western zones together with the class-conscious members of the SPD made great efforts to form the organisational unity of the working class. Party organisations of the SPD in their entirety together with the organisations of the KPD resolved to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. But the imperialist occupation forces together with the German reactionaries and the rightwing leaders of the SPD made all efforts to obstruct the unification of the working class at least in the western zones. So the trend to unity of the whole German working class could only be realised in East Germany. The 15th Party Congress of the KPD and the 40th Party Congress of the SPD voted the unification to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. The unification congress on April 21st/22nd, 1946, accepted the "Principles and Aims of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany", the Party statute and a "Manifesto to the German People", as a basis for the policy of the Party. The foundation of the SED was the result of the natural development to unity of the workers' movement on a revolutionary basis. It embodies all good and revolutionary traditions from the 124

history of the German workers' movement. The unification of the working class was the most important achievement in the history of the German working class since the publication of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It was the historic victory of Marxism-Leninism over opportunism in Germany. For the first time in a highly industrialised country in the centre of Europe the unity of the workers' movement was brought about on the basis of revolutionary Marxism. So a powerful national centre for the unification of all patriotic. forces of the German people came into existence. The establishment of the unity of the working class corresponded with the interests of the peasantry, the intelligentsia and other sections of the German people in their struggle for the complete extermination of the basis of German fascist imperialism and militarism. It consolidased the political predominance of the working class in the anti-fascist democratic revolution and secured the consequent carrying through of this revolution. The most important event of the revolutionary change in East Germany was the expropriation of enterprises owned by war criminals and active nazis. A strong nationally-owned sector of industry in East Germany was created in a sharp class struggle against the imperialist bourgeoisie and their representatives who had found shelter in the bourgeois-democratic parties and in some government-boards. So the material basis was brought about for the anti-fascist democratic order, for a step-by-step reconstruction of the economy and for the development of the productive forces in the interest of the working people. The nationally-owned sector of industry guaranteed the sovereignty of the people achieved in hard struggles and formed the basis for genuine democracy, for a consistent national policy developed by the democratic forces in East Germany under the leadership of the working class. The first free democratic elections in the history of Germany took place in autumn 1946. The parties of the anti-fascist democratic bloc - SED, LDPD, CDU - had lists of their own. These elections demonstrated the process of profound change which had taken place in East Germany since May 1945. In spite of the counter-measures of reactionary circles in the Soviet zone and in spite of the vehement agitation of imperialist forces in West Berlin and West Germany the majority of the population voted for the construction of the anti-fascist, democratic order in Germany. For the first time in Germany parliaments came into existence that really served the interest of the people and the further development of the anti-fascist democratic revolution. The fact that half the votes went to the SED demonstrated the attraktive power of the united workers' party for the working people. 125

So within a historically short time the working class in alliance with the peasantry, the intelligentsia and other sections of the population completed the anti-fascist democratic change-over, the first stage of the peoples' democratic revolution. In hard class struggle without civil war however, the anti-fascist democratic state came into existence. This state was a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants together with other sections, and had won a broad basis among the masses. Creatively applying Marxist-Leninist theory to the concrete fighting conditions the Socialist Unity Party of Germany had demonstrated how to exterminate the basis of imperialism and militarism in a highly industrialised country peacefully and democratically and how to establish a new democratic state. The KPD programme of June 11th, 1945, had stood its historic test. The anti-fascist democratic revolution in East Germany was especially complicated because of the exertions of imperialist reaction to restore the power of monopoly capital in West Germany. Breaking the Potsdam Agreement and supported by the right-wing leaders of the SPD the imperialist occupation forces crippled and prevented the development of the democratic forces and the formation of the unity of the working class. They prohibited the unification of the KPD and the SPD into the SED in the three western occupation zones and used every possible means to prevent the formation of a united trade-union movement of all Germany. The KPD as the most consistent force in the struggle for the anti-fascist democratic revolution was handicapped by reactionary forces in every possible way. But German monopoly capital, which was beaten in World War II, and its political followers were given the opportunity to regroup their forces. With the support of the occupation forces the German industrial and financial bosses, whose political representative Adenauer was, founded the CDU/CSU (Christian Social Union)* as their political reservoir and relied on political clericalism. They adopted the bankrupt anti-communism and anti-Sovietism of Hitler fascism as the main basis of their ideology. Their conception was to rescue their economic and political positions by subordination to western, especially American, monopoly capital and the naked abandonment of the idea of a German national state. Adenauer was the first bourgeois politician of West Germany to declare for the formation of a separate state of the western zones under the overlordship of the imperialist occupation forces in October 1945 already. The most significant section of the German monopoly capital looked for a way out of the defeat at the expense of the German nation. They * Bavarian branch of CDU (trans.). 126

wanted to carry out the imperialist policy of the Goerdeler conspirators of July 20th, 1944, under the new conditions of the class struggle. The ruling circles of the western powers, especially of the U.S.A., supported these intensions. They wanted to include the western zones of Germany occupied by them in an aggressive imperialist coalition against the Soviet Union and the Peoples' Democracies and to transform them into a bastion against the forces of peace, democracy, and socialism in Germany as well as in Europe. The right-wing leadership of the SPD under Schumacher continued the disastrous policy that had assisted the fascist seizure of power in Germany and prevented the overthrow of the Hitler dictatorship by the strength of the German people themselves. Because of the catastrophic defeat of German imperialism, opportunism in the workers' movement became decisive for the rescue of the positions of the ruling exploiting class. The right-wing SPD leaders and trade union leaders like Tarnow and Bockler denied the leading part of the working class in the democratic revolution and, against the resistance of many members, practised a policy following the wake of the western occupation forces and the West German bourgeoisie. They actively supported the so-called decartelisation of the monopolies, that is the restoration of monopoly capital. They prevented the unification of the working class by the old revisionist slogan of a "third force" and by means of lying social demagogy, especially by use of the phrase "socialism as the task of the day". They helped the reactionary forces to reconsolidate the capitalist state. Once again they made use of the fatal ideology of anti-communism and persuaded the masses that democracy could be secured under the imperialist western powers. In West Germany the imperialist ideology was not overcome and its influence on the Social Democratic movement proved once more to be the worst disaster for the German working class. The right-wing Social-Democratic leaders prevented the solution of the vital problems of our people in West Germany by sabotaging the establishment of the unity of action of the working class. The KPD was the only party in the western zones which learned the lessons of fascism and war. Even after the prohibition of the unification of the KPD and SPD into the SED they did everything in their power to bring about the unity of action of the working class and to form a union of all anti-fascist democratic forces. They also never ceased working for the political and trade-union unity of the workers' movement. The Communists played a leading and exemplary role to help to secure food, in the normalisation of life and the reconstruction of the factories. The KPD turned to the masses in the western zones to win 127

them for the vital tasks in the interest of the people and the nation: for the extermination of fascism and militarism, for the punishment and expropriation of war-criminals and active nazis, for the right of codecision of the trade unions and Works Councils in the individual enterprises and in the economy, for a democratic Land Reform, for the establishment of a democratic administration, for the abolition of educational privileges and for a democratic school reform, for the overcoming of racism and chauvinism in order to provide the conditions for peaceful relations with all peoples. Together with class-conscious Social-Democratic, Christian and nonparty workers and with democratic forces from other sections of the population the KPD, under the influence of the democratic development in East Germany, managed to get laws passed in some provinces for the transfer of monopoly enterprises to public ownership and the carrying out of a Land Reform, and to gain some bourgeois-democratic rights and freedoms (Law for Nationalisation of the Coal-Mines in North Rhine-Westphalia, paragraph 41 of the Hesse Constitution, laws concerning Land Reform, e. g. in Schleswig-Holstein and North RhineWestphalia, laws concerning Works Councils in Bremen, Hesse, Württemberg-Baden). The implementation of these laws was prevented by the occupation forces and the bourgeois zonal administration. During the struggle for the democratic reconstruction of the political, economic and cultural life certain forms of unity of action of the working class developed against the resistance of the right-wing Social-Democratic and trade-union leaders. This found expression, above all, in the joint formation of Works Councils, in the struggle for democratic local selfgovernment and for consistent denazification and in the demand to remove the power of the big factory-owners. It was during that period that the working class carried out many actions against starvation and the dismantling of factories because of competition. In the Ruhr district especially, from the beginning of 1947, a broad movement developed the climax of which was the 24 hours strike of 334.000 miners from nearly all pits, on April 3rd. Workers in other branches of industry supported this strike with sympathetic strikes and demonstrations. The unity of the working class represented by the SED and the FDGB in the eastern part of Germany was most attractive to the workers and other working people in West Germany. The striving for unity of action of the German working class found expression in the collaboration of the SED and the KPD. From 1946 to 1948 trade union representatives from all parts of Germany assembled at interzonal conferences to discuss common aims in the struggle, where the FDGB was the spokesman for a working class policy in the trade unions; in the interests of the German 128

working class and the whole nation the FDGB got resolutions passed concerning the trade union struggle for a German peace treaty and for the destruction of the basis of imperialism. Whereas right-wing trade union leaders betrayed these joint resolutions and supported the imperialist splitting policy by sabotaging the interzonal conferences, the FDGB carried them out fully. In the western part of Germany, German reaction together with the imperialist western powers succeeded in stopping and oppressing the movement of the masses and in trampling down the right of self-determination. They relied on the experiences of the international bourgeoisie and on the support of the right-wing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions. By cunning and deceit, like the "decartelisation" manoeuvre begun in 1947, by sham démocratisation, by brutal harrying and persecution of democratic forces they prevented the realisation of the democratic principles of the Potsdam Agreement and subordinated the western zones to the world-domination plans of American financial capital by the inclusion of West Germany in the Marshall Plan, in 1948. In West Germany they did not take the line of anti-fascist democratic reconstruction but the old, fatal one of imperialism and militarism which twice already had proved disastrous for the German people. In order to save German imperialism in at least one part of Germany from downfall, in order to enable the power of the monopolies and militarists to be restored, and to prevent the creation of a peaceful, democratic all-German State, the reactionary forces in West Germany and the ruling circles in the U. S. A. split off the three western zones from a united Germany. While the western occupation powers were preventing the formation of a central German administration as laid down in the Potsdam Agreement, in 1947 and 1948 the West German reactionaries and the rightwing SPD leaders formed separate administrative organs for the western zones by establishing Bizonia and Trizonia, by order of these reactionary forces and against the will of the West German population. By introducing a separate west German currency (in June 1948), the imperialist powers destroyed the normal relations between East Germany and the western zones, thus beginning an open division of Germany. The imperialist western powers, led by U. S. imperialism, established the so-called Parliamentary Council, with Adenauer at its head, in the autumn of 1948, dictatorially overriding the will of the West German population. At the same time the imperialist western powers also destroyed the unity of Berlin which belonged to the Soviet occupation zone. In all parts of Berlin an anti-fascist democratic administration had been 9

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established after May 1st, 1945. Only after the American, English and French occupation forces marched into Berlin in connection with the formation of the Allied Control Council in that part of the city the power of monopoly capital was restored and antifascists removed from the administration. The imperialist western powers and the right-wing Social Democratic leaders made use of the terrible consequences Hitler had left in Berlin, in order to rouse a great part of the population in Berlin against the Soviet Union and the antifascist and democratic forces, helped by chauvinist propaganda and a boundless anti-communist campaign. They split Berlin in the autumn of 1948 and abolished all democratic achievements which had been established in the first postwar years in West Berlin as well. It is mainly the guilt of the right-wing SPD leaders who occupy the top posts in the anti-democratic administration in West Berlin and are pursuing the imperialists' policy, that West Berlin has become a "frontline city" against peace and democracy in Germany and throughout the world. As an answer to the separation of Berlin, in November 1948, the democratic City Council of Greater Berlin was formed, the legitimate representative of the interests of all democratic Berlin citizens. The population of the democratic sector expressed its support in meetings, in resolutions and in one of the biggest mass demonstrations Berlin has ever seen. Conscious of a high national responsibility, the SED took the leadership in the struggle to rescue Germany's national unity and to sign a peace treaty. As a counter to the reactionary policy of splitting Germany and restoring imperialism in the western zones and in West Berlin, in the autumn of 1946 the SED published the "Basic Rights of the German people", the constitutional principles of a united democratic Germany, acceptable to German patriots in all four occupation zones. The SED answered the Marshall Plan, the imperialist plan for splitting and enslaving Germany, with a German plan for democratic reconstruction at the Second Party Congress in September, 1947. Under the slogan, "Produce more, distribute justly, live better", the Party Congress called the working class and the working population to fight to overcome the great economic and supply difficulties and improve the living standard. They had to prove in this way that removing the power of imperialism and militarism was a precondition for peaceful advance and people's sovereignty. The Party Congress made it their task to develop the SED into a party of a new type. In the struggle against the threat to separate the western zones from a united Germany, the People's Congress Movement for Unity and a 130

Just Peace came into being throughout Germany in the autumn of 1947 ; it was initiated by the SED and led by the working class. This movement was based on the anti-fascist and democratic order in East Germany and raised the struggle of the patriotic forces to a higher stage. The monopolists and militarists were unable to prevent the formation of this national movement. In pursuance of a resolution of the Second German People's Congress, in mid-1948 a Volksbegebren (referendum)* was initiated. With their signatures 13 million Germans in East and West called for the carrying through of a plebiscite on German unity. In thé election for the Third People's Congress in May 1949 the working population of the Soviet occupation zone went on record for a genuine, democratic, united Germany. In the People's Congress Movement which later formed the National Front of Democratic Germany, the SED founded a broad national, anti-imperialist movement, comprising millions of people and unmatched before in German history. At that time the KPD in the western zones was struggling for national unity and independence against the imperialist splitters of Germany and their right-wing socialist supporters. The KPD uncovered the real aims of the Marshall Plan and called for the restoration of German unity and an all-German government of the democratic parties and trade unions. The Party also called for an early peace treaty and the withdrawal of the occupation troops, for the abolition of all measures that enslaved the German people and restricted trade, for building a new German peace economy, for liquidating militarism and Nazism and for fundamental democratic reforms in state, economy and culture. The representatives of the KPD in the Parliamentary Council demanded that this council should stop working on a separate West German constitution and resume all-German talks. They rejected the formation of a separate West German state, declaring: "We won't sign the partition of Germany"! The KPD stood at the head of the national struggle against the imperialist occupation powers and West German reaction. Because of this struggle the chairman of the KPD, Max Reimann, was sentenced to imprisonment by a British Court Martial on February 1 st, 1949. The necessity to strengthen the positions of the working class and the masses of the people in the struggle against the imperialist policy of dividing Germany and also the inner compulsions of the people's democratic revolution in East Germany made the accelerated, all-round consolidation and further development of the anti-fascist democratic order, essential. More and more, the success of the policy of the party * Actually a pre-referendum vote (Trans.).

9*

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depended on the rapid development of the productive forces and on strengthening and developing the nationally-owned sector of industry. Therefore the economic policy of the Party grew more and more important. Ever more in East Germany developed the new meaning of the workers' movement: the mobilisation of the masses for a planned increase of productive forces in the people's interest, the improvement of the new relations of production, being, already, germs of the growing socialist relations of production. The Party was learning better and better how to run the state and, supported by the mass organisations and the organs of the state, to lead the working class and the other working people to conscious and creative work. A deliberate development of social progress, a consistent transition to a planned economy began with the Two-Year Plan decided upon at the 11th meeting of the Executive Committee of the SED in June, 1948. The aim of the Two-Year Plan was to strengthen the positions of the working class and its alliance with the peasantry and other sections of the people. Led by the SED, the most conscious of the working class struggled against enemy class propaganda and opportunist ideas in their own ranks. Despite hunger, they strove for a new labour morale and high productivity of labour, in accordance with the altered role of the working class. The historic role of the working class as creator of a new form of society, as leader of the people to a better life, found its surest expression in the Activist achievement of Adolf Hennecke and the rapidly developing Activist's Movement. The FDGB supported the Party and the working class in developing mass initiative. Under the leadership of the SED the trade unions became the organisers of the Activists' and emulation movement. The Party and trade unions put much stress on getting really equal rights for women, both by legislation and also by education. Women of all strata, especially women-workers, could be won for active participation in the struggle to get rid of imperialism and fascism and for building and strengthening the anti-fascist democratic social order. For the further strengthening of the worker-peasant alliance, the Machine-Lending Stations (MAS) were established in 1948. The MAS were working-class centres in the villages. They helped to change the balance of power in the countryside in favour of the democratic forces by reducing the influence of the rich peasants and capitalist elements and linking the peasantry more strongly with the working class. The Soviet Union rendered decisive help in this field, by sending tractors and other agricultural machinery. The planned economic construction in East Germany began under complicated conditions and under much more unfavourable circumstances than existed in West Germany. In East Germany the destruction 132

of towns, industrial plants etc. were severer than in the western zones. The imperialist separation of Germany destroyed economic relations which had lasted for generations, separating East Germany which was industrially much less developed, from the key industries situated in West Germany. The working population in East Germany paid reparations as Germany's recompensation for part of the vast destructions which German fascist imperialism had inflicted on the Soviet Union and the other countries in Eastern Europe, whereas the monopoly capitalists who were responsible for the war and its consequences, evaded this duty by the separation of West Germany. The plants which the workers set going were equipped with obsolete machines. The working population in East Germany, especially the working class, had to make great sacrifices and to take enormous pains in order to overcome the consequences of the partition of Germany and to develop a peaceful, planned economy in the interest of the whole people. The new social tasks which had to be solved in hard class struggle against the reactionary forces in West Germany and West Berlin and against remnants of the imperialist big bourgeoisie in East Germany, demanded carrying through Leninism in the Party consistently and its speedy development into a party of a new type. A thorough ideological process of clarification began with the 11th, 12th and 13th meetings of the Executive Committee, in 1948. In persistent discussions with the revisionist forces of the West German Social Democracy and its adherents in the ranks of the SED, the party liquidated the opportunist theory of a "special German road to socialism", clearing its ranks of enemy elements and achieving clarity about the relation to the Soviet Union and the leading role of the C.P.S.U. and the anti-humanist role of U.S. imperialism. This inner-party struggle in the SED enabled it to strengthen its leading role and to lead the working class and the other working people to the heights of socialism. The SED developed into a politically and ideologically united party, based on the principles of democratic centralism and collective leadership. The First Party Conference of the SED in January, 1949, took important decisions for further strengthening the Party on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, and laid down the principles of its economic policy. The Party Conference called upon the people to make the nationally-owned sector of the economy supreme by economic competition with the private sector, and to strengthen the economic foundation of the workerpeasant alliance. The imperialist western powers and German reaction had tried in every way to prevent an anti-fascist democratic development in Western Germany. In breach of the Potsdam Agreement and on the basis of deci133

sions of foreign imperialist powers, the West German separatist state came into being, the imperialist anti-national state which was forced on the West German population, irrespective of the rigths of national selfdetermination. By founding the separate West German state, the western imperialist forces and the reactionary clique in West Germany aimed at preventing the carrying out of the principles o f the anti-Hitler coalition, of the Potsdam Agreement and of the United Nations in the part of Germany which they controlled. They also aimed at creating a basis for new aggression. This state embodies the evil, reactionary traditions of Germany, whose representatives have involved our people into the national catastrophe of two world wars in this century alone. The partition of Germany and the restoration of capitalist state power and of the monopolies in the western zones were made possible by the policy of the right-wing Social Democratic leaders. Schumacher and his political followers furiously struggled against the unity of the working class and the anti-fascist democratic revolution in East Germany; the Marshall Plan, however, they welcomed and took an active part in all measures to split Germany taken by the western occupation powers and West German reaction. The development o f the class struggle in Germany has increased the national responsibility of the working class and its allies in East Germany and made the transition from the anti-fascist democratic order to the socialist revolution necessary. This is the only way to strengthen the positions o f the peace-loving, democratic forces of the whole German people in the struggle to solve the vital national problems and to prevent for all time any restoration of imperialist conditions on East German territory. The transition to socialist revolution was in accordance with the internal laws of development of the people's democratic revolution which began in 1945. Struggling for carrying through the Two-YearPlan, the leading role of the working class in social life had increased, its alliance with the working population and all democratic forces had been strengthened and the influence of reactionary circles of the big bourgeoisie considerably weakened. In this way the forces had arisen for the transition from the anti-fascist democratic to the socialist revolution. In accordance with the basic features of our epoch the S E D deliberately guided the breakthrough to the process of transition to a socialist revolution.

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CHAPTER XIII

• The consolidation of the socialist camp. The foundation of the German Democratic Republic. The struggle of the working class, under the leadership of the SED, and the other parties and mass organisations working with it in the National Front of Democratic Germany for the strengthening of the rule of the workers and peasants, the building up of the bases of socialism in the G.D.R., and the restoration of the unity of Germany as a peace-loving, democratic state. The Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Moscow Conference of the Communist and Workers' Parties of 1957. (Period from 1949 to 1957.)

The relation of forces in the international sphere continued to change at a rapid pace in favour of peace, democracy and socialism. The Soviet Union, having finished the construction of socialism, went over to the gradual transition to communism. It launched a world-wide offensive for peace and international détente. The superiority of the socialist order of society became clear for all to see in the epoch-making successes of Soviet science and technology. The harbinger of these successes was the first man-made satellite, the Sputnik. The socialist world system further consolidated its position. In this process the victorious outcome of the Chinese people's revolution and the foundation of the People's Republic of China were of especially great significance. The friendly alliance of free states with equal rights has become a force that is constantly growing in strength and becoming ever more the decisive factor in the development of society. Under the favourable international conditions, resulting above all from the further strengthening of the socialist camp, the national liberation movements in the colonial and semi-colonial countries have scored tremendous successes. Since the end of the Second World War, and up to 1957, well-nigh 1,250 million people have liberated themselves from the 135

imperialist yoke. Neither by war and cruel oppression nor by hypocritical, demagogic promises could the imperialist powers succeed in stopping the further disintegration of the colonial system. Within the capitalist states themselves the democratic forces have gained in strength. The position of imperialism continued to weaken. All its inherent contradictions became more acute. Repeatedly aggressive imperialist circles, led by U.S. imperialism, attempted, as for instance in Korea and Hungary, to stem the triumphant advance of socialism by armed force, to export the counter-revolution and to turn the cold war into a third global conflagration. But the forces of peace in the whole world have grown to such a degree that peaceful coexistence has become recognised by ever more states to be a principle of world politics. As was demonstrated by the failure of the imperialist plans of aggression against Egypt and Hungary, a real possibility for the prevention of wars has developed. In Germany the struggle for the solution of the national issue entered a new stage as a consequence of the secession of the Bonn separatist state from a united German nation. The fight between the peaceful, democratic forces in West Germany hotted up. In the struggle for the national unity of Germany the National Front of Democratic Germany emerged from the movement around the People's Congress. On October 4th, 1949, the Executive Committee of the S E D adopted a resolution on " T h e National Front of Democratic Germany and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany". The Executive Committee submitted this document to the parties of the anti-fascist democratic bloc for discussion. With this resolution the S E D , bearing in mind the division of Germany, had created a platform which, under the leadership of the working class, offered all patriotic forces of the German people, irrespective of class or stratum, political convictions or religious views, the possibility of closing the ranks in the struggle to save the nation. The answer of the patriotic forces of Germany to the betrayal of the national interests by the ruling circles in West Germany was that the former, led by the working class and implementing the right of the German people to self-determination, on October 7th, 1949, founded the German Democratic Republic - the only legitimate German state. The Provisional People's Chamber of the German Democratic Republic, the first true people's parliament in German history, brought into force the Constitution of the German Democratic Republic, a constitution whose final wording millions of citizens had helped to accomplish. Wilhelm Pieck, the first worker-president in our history, was at the head of the G . D. R., embodying the revolutionary and progressive traditions of the 136

German working class and the German people. Comrade Otto Grotewohl was chosen Prime Minister of the G.D.R. Government. Under the leadership of the working class all democratic forces were represented in the Government. With the foundation of the G. D. R. the masses of the people, led by the working class and its revolutionary party, in one part of Germany answered the chief historic challenge facing the German people in the 20th century. For the first time in German history a truly peace-loving and democratic state had been born in which fascism militarism and imperialism and thus the roots of wars as well as the barbaric ideology of race hatred, revanchism and jingoism have been done away for good. The foundation of the G.D.R. was a turning-point in the history of Germany and Europe. It was the greatest victory of the idea of peace in Europe and the heaviest defeat of German imperialism and militarism since 1945, barring its path eastwards forever. The creation of the G. D. R. meant shaping the basis and establishing a model for Germany's national renaissance as a peace-loving democratic and progressive state, marching on the road to socialism. The foundation of the G. D. R. was the manifestation and the outcome of the bitter struggle between the two opposing trends in international and German politics: reaction, imperialism, war on one side, and progress, democracy, peace, and socialism on the other side. Whilst previously in German history the unpatriotic, anti-national idea had been able to prevail again and again, the real interests of the nation were now triumphant for the first time with the foundation of the. G. D. R. In the first German peace state all the noble traditions of our people, the revolutionary traditions of the working class and the humanist ideas of the middle classes were put into practice. This was the result of the fact that all national forces were led by the united working class and its revolutionary party. The main contradiction in Germany had now become the antagonism between the monopolists, militarists, and Junkers, with their imperialist state machine and the masses of the people in the German Democratic Republic as well as all peace-loving people in West Germany, for whom the workers' and peasants' power in the G. D. R. established a stable political basis. The workers' and peasants' power as one form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, in the shape of the multi-party system, is based on the National Front of Democratic Germany. The National Front of Democratic Germany became a broad popular movement for the strengthening of the G. D. R., the conclusion of a peace treaty with Germany and the creation of a united, peace-loving, democratic Germany. It 137

embraced all classes and strata of the people and in the period which followed has grown into a broad popular socialist movement. In the interest of the further development of democracy within the pattern of a people's democracy the SED strengthened its friendly relations with the parties of the democratic bloc, the progressive forces helping them to purge their leading committee of reactionary representatives of the bourgeoisie. The joint work on the great project of building a German state of workers and peasants made the existing divergencies in ideology and economic interests, among the members of the parties of the democratic bloc, recede into the background. Fighting sectarianism and lack of comprehension of the importance of an all-inclusive policy of alliance, the party of the working class, together with the other parties of the bloc, succeeded in involving ever larger sections of the whole population in active participation in political life and in the solution of problems of the national economy of socialist construction. In the first elections to the People's Chamber of the G. D. R. in October, 1950, the joint list of candidates of the National Front of Democratic Germany scored a brilliant success, thanks to the efforts of all democratic forces under the leadership of the working class. Focal point in the discussions at the Third Party Congress of the SED in July, 1950, was the struggle for peace and a unified democratic and peace-loving Germany, and the strengthening and further development of the peaceful economy of the G. D. R. The resolution on the first Five-Year Plan for the development of the national economy in the G. D. R. was the most important document of the Party Congress. It provided for an as yet unheard of pace in the development of the productive forces. The disproportions and discrepancies in the economy of the G. D. R., prevailing above all because of the split-up of Germany caused by the imperialists and militarists had to be greatly reduced. The Five-Year Plan became the programme of the National Front of Democratic Germany for the first section of that period. The Third Party Congress established the fact that the SED had grown to become a Party of a new type. This was expressed in the new Party statute agreed to at the Party Congress. After this Party Congress the introduction of the Parteilehrjabr (Party education) and the re-examination of all members were important measures for the further ideological, political and organisational strengthening of the Party and the increasing of its fighting power. By these measures the Party enabled its members to solve the new and complicated tasks resulting from the realisation of the Five-Year Plan, in the Party, the state, and the national economy. Both the content and the form of Party activities went on changing. The struggle for the attainment of the economic objectives, 138

for a new labour morale, new forms of human relations and political education became the centre of its activities. The attempts by the West German reactionaries and foreign imperialists to bring the young workers' and peasants' state to heel, bringing massive economic, political and ideological pressure to bear on this state, already fighting against heavy odds because of poorly developed heavy industries and the economic disproportions resulting from the split-up of Germany, were answered by the working people of the G. D. R. with heroic achievements in their work, in the struggle to fulfil the first Five-Year Plan to strengthen the Republic. The important emulation movements, especially in metallurgy and chemistry, proved that more and more working people had begun to understand that the fight against resurgent West German imperialism and against remilitarisation in the western zones had to be waged above all with greater efficiency in the sphere of production. The Third Congress of the Free German Trade Unions, held in August and September, 1950, dealt with the task of greatly encouraging the mass initiative of the workers for the fulfilment of the first Five-Year Plan. The recognition by the highest authoritative body of the trade unions, for the first time in the history of the trade-union movement, of Marxism-Leninism, of the leading role of the S E D , of the friendship to the Soviet Union and the principles of proletarism internationalism made the congress highly significant for the development of the trade unions into schools of democracy and socialism. The foundation of the German Democratic Republic led to an upsurge of the popular movement in West Germany, too. In the struggle for the unity of Germany and a just peace, committees of the National Front of Democratic Germany arose; however, they were prohibited by the Adenauer government. The K P D called for action against the re-militarisation just beginning in West Germany, for a peace treaty and the restoration of Germany's unity on a peaceful and democratic basis. It described the G. D. R. as the first truly democratic and peace-loving state in the history of the German nation. Pursuing its peaceful policy the G . D . R. instilled in the neighbouring countries faith in the new, democratic Germany and, to an ever-increasing extent, gained a reputation with all peace-loving peoples of the world. The agreement to accept the Rivers Oder and Neisse as the frontier of peace was concluded in July, 1950, thus laying the foundations of a firm alliance with our Polish neighbours. The relations with the French people were strengthened by the agreement concluded in June, 1950, between the F D G B and the C. G. T. on co-operation for the safeguarding of peace, and the declaration of November, 1952, by the President 139

of the first German state of workers and peasants that the G. D. R. would never again allow war to be waged by Germans against the French people. With the establishment of the workers' and peasants' power and the realisation of the first Five-Year Plan the working class, allied with the peasantry, the intelligentsia and the other working strata of the population tackled the job of the planned building-up of the basis of socialism in the country of the birth of Marxism. The decline in strength of imperialism, the growth in strength of the socialist world system rendered it possible to begin the construction of socialism even under the complicated historical and national conditions prevailing in the G. D. R. The Second Party Conference of the SED in July, 1952, proclaimed the construction of socialism as the fundamental task in the G. D. R. The new feature in the resolutions of the Second Party Conference consisted in the directives for laying the foundations of socialism, in the clearout working-out of the character and the tasks of the workers' and peasants' power, in the orientation on the planned increase of productivity of labour in the socialist industry, and in tackling the problem of socialist transformation of agriculture by encouraging the agricultural production co-operatives, whose setting-up had been started by former agricultural labourers and working peasants. The economic policy of the Party was oriented towards the creation of the material and technical basis for the building of socialism, for the advance to a higher stage in the development of society. Armed forces were set up to keep peaceful socialist construction safe. Especially among young people there developed a broad movement to increase the preparedness for defence. The Fourth Parliament of the Free German Youth decided that they should establish a Patenscbaft (sponsorship) to the German People's Police. The best members of the youth organisation volunteered for service in the armed forces of the G. D. R. In the transition to the planned and deliberate construction of socialism the SED applied the teachings of Marxism-Leninism creatively to the conditions of development in Germany and in the G. D. R. The open frontier with the imperialist camp made exacting demands on the policy of the Party, as regards its adherence to principle as well as its flexibility. The example set by the G. D. R. proves that the working people in highly industrialised Germany, too, can only solve all national, political, economic and cultural problems by the construction of socialism. The construction of socialism was the answer of the working class and the other working people of the G. D. R. in the interest of the whole nation, to the challenge of the resurrection of German imperialism and militarism in the western zones. This was their decisive contribution to 140

the changes in the relation of forces in Germany and Europe in favour of peace, democracy and socialism. The transition from capitalism to socialism in the G . D. R. was in accordance with the character o f the new epoch that world history is entering. It harmonised with the further increase in strength of the socialist camp, the growth of democratic and peaceloving forces in the capitalist countries and the advances made by the national and anti-colonial liberation movements. The transition to the construction o f socialism required the removal of the inconsistency between the new stage o f social development and the old forms of the state machinery. The legal measures adopted in 1952 linked the state machinery closer with the masses o f the people, adjusted the outer forms of state power to their new content and adapted their structure to the economic pattern of our Republic. On the suggestion o f the Party, Women's Committees grew up in industrial and agricultural enterprises as well as in state-run and other institutions with the change-over to the planned construction o f socialism. They played an important part in winning women for the fight for peace and socialism. After the foundation of the Bonn separatist state and in view of the restoration of German imperialism in the western zones and the remilitarisation looming large there, the conclusion of a peace treaty with Germany became a matter of life and death for the German nation. Only in that way could the remnants of the Second World War be cleared away and a new war starting on German territory, prevented. The G . D . R . Government and the National Front of Democratic Germany made great efforts to prevent the two German states from drifting apart and to smooth the way to the re-unification of Germany. Since 1946, the Soviet Union had repeatedly proposed to conclude a peace treaty and now, in March 1952, it put forward a draft peace treaty with Germany. The People's Chamber of the G . D. R. issued an appeal to the deputies of the West German Federal Parliament to accede to the proposal, which meets the interests of the German nation, and to hold free, all-German elections for a national assembly. The reactionary set-up around Adenauer irresponsibly turned down this offer. They prevented the conclusion of a peace treaty in order to forge ahead with their anti-national policy of rearmament and to pander to the appetite of imperialism and militarism for the eastern regions. Thus, already in 1952, it became obvious that in order to re-unify Germany the progressive forces in West Germany would themselves have to overcome the reactionary regime in the western zones. In 1953 the struggle to liquidate the consequences of the war and the war burdens, and the intensified subversive activities of the West Ger141

man and foreign imperialists against development in the direction of socialism in the G. D . R., brought about a temporarily difficult situation. The C. C. of the S E D decided to adopt measures to overcome the difficulties and to revise certain measures for the construction of socialism which had been overdone. It resolved to slow down the pace of development of certain sections of heavy industry and heavy engineering — a stepped-up pace forced upon us by the division of Germany - in order to appropriate more means for the production of consumer goods. These decisions aimed at a consistent continuation of the main line of policy of the Party, a speedy improvement in the material conditions of the working class and other working people, and a strengthening of socialist legality. The Bonn rulers, however, in collusion with the U. S. imperialists, tried to prevent this development and to overthrow the workers' and peasants' power in the G . D . R. They aimed at frustrating the revolutionary achievements of the working people of the G . D . R., to set up a counterrevolutionary regime and to build up another centre of war in the middle of Europe. That is why they engineered the fascist putsch of June 17th, 1953, which suffered a crushing defeat. The policy of the class enemy was assisted by the revisionist Zaisser-Herrnstadt group. This group failed to appreciate that imperialist rule in West Germany will be weakened to the extent that the objective laws of socialism are systematically applied in the G . D. R. They intended to delay the construction of socialism in the G. D . R. and capitulate to the imperialist powers in the West German Federal Republic. The Central Committee of the S E D , led by Comrade Walter Ulbricht, smashed this capitulationist faction, who had been supported by that enemy of the party, Beria; thus the ranks were closed and the unity of the Party was strengthened. In the course of the first Five-Year Plan the working class and the other working people of the G. D. R., under the reliable leadership of the S E D demonstrated their ability to run the state and its economy, whilst struggling to overcome the disproportions in our national economy; despite the need for bitter struggle against the resistance of the monopolists and militarists in West Germany and their agencies and other reactionary forces in the G. D. R., they strengthened the workers' and peasants' power, developed socialist democracy and initiated the socialist revolution in the cultural and ideological spheres. The working class gained ever greater control over the whole of production. The fundamentally new character of labour became constantly clearer. The movement of the Activists acquired the character of a mass movement and grew into a movement of innovators and rationalisators. In great socialist emulations the working people participated 142

consciously and actively in production. By the initiative of the Party and the Confederation of Free German Trade Unions certain forms of direct participation by the working class in the running of the state and its economy were developed, such as for instance the Production Consultations, Activists' conferences and economic conferences. Within the process of the increasing of the economic potential of the G. D. R. the trade-unions combined their duty of looking after the individual interests of the workers ever more closely with looking after the interests of society and made the factory agreements the basis of trade unionism in the works. At the same time the working class consolidated its alliancc with the peasants by supporting them not only by supplying machinery and agricultural implements but also by sending qualified staff from industry to work in the countryside. Through the deliberate action by the masses of the people, led by the party of the working class, an objektive law was brought into play: that the relations of production must agree with the productive forces of society. Thus the working class gave proof of their ability to create the new society and to be the leading force in the struggle for national liberation. Making heavy efforts and suffering many a hardship the working class and the other working people mastered the economic tasks of the Five-Year Plan and over-fulfilled the production targets. By setting up the necessary basis in heavy industry the working class laid the economic foundations of socialism and thus rendered G . D . R . independence safe from any imperialist plots. This process helped to solidify socialist relations of production. In the resolutions adopted by the Party as well as in the speeches and other works of Comrades Wilhelm Pieck, Walter Ulbricht, Otto Grotewohl and others the problems arising from the transition from capitalism to socialism were elaborated. Marxism-Leninism was flexibly and creatively applied to the complicated conditions of socialist reconstruction in the eastern part of heavily industrialised, divided Germany, where, with an open frontier, the two social systems were at war. Proceeding from the generally accepted objective laws of socialist revolution and socialist construction the Party proved that, where the working class has the lead, in a people's democracy, too, several parties can work together, as in the National Front of Democratic Germany, for the setting-up of a peace-loving, democratic and socialist country. The Party developed such forms and methods of socialist transformation which made it possible for all peace-loving and democratic strata of the people, even the majority of the rich peasants and the small and medium capitalist employers, to take part in the construction of socialism. It thus put before them the secure prospect of a life in peace, freedom and prosp-

143

erity. Owing to the changes in the relations of production and in the class pattern, and through the education of the working class and all other working people in the spirit of socialist consciousness, in which processes the FDGB had a prominent share, the political and moral unity of the people of the G. D. R. gradually began to take shape; this unity is now the weightiest force for peace in Germany. The SED, the G. D. R. Government and the National Front of Democratic Germany have acted as the true representatives of the German nation. Fighting resurgent German imperialism and militarism they developed the programme for the peaceful solution of the German issue by all-German discussions on the constitution of an all-German provisional government for the preparation of a peace treaty and free elections in the whole of Germany. The Fourth Party Congress of the SED (March/April 1954) with its resolution "The Road to the Solution of the Vital Problems of the German Nation" prepared a broad platform on which all German patriots could unite to fight the reactionary and disastrous development which was going on in West Germany under the rule of the imperialists and militarists. This resolution was a clear-cut programme for the reunification of a peace-loving and democratic Germany, which would be a member of the European community of nations with equal rights. The Fourth Party Congress adopted important measures for the further strengthening of the G. D. R. as the basis of the struggle for a new Germany; above all for the consolidation and development of the socialist relations of production in the nationally-owned economy and for the speedy development of the productive forces. In West Germany, however, the old, fateful, reactionary line of German policy had again come into its own during these years. With the help of U. S. imperialism, German imperialism had been resurrected there. "On the international level the western occupation powers and the Adenauer government wanted to prevent the realisation of the principles of the anti-Hitler coalition and the Potsdam agreement, to legalise their revanchist policy and thus also to counteract the principles of the United Nations Organisation, the banning of aggression. Within Germany itself the reaktionary forces of Western Germany intended to subject the people to the revanchist policy and re-militarisation and to prepare them to become atomic cannon-fodder." (Walter Ulbricht) In keeping with this anti-national policy the Adenauer government and the imperialist western powers continued to shrug off any proposals of the Soviet Union and the G. D. R. Government aimed at a peaceful solution of the German problem, above all the constructive draft programme presented by the Soviet Union at the Berlin conference of the 144

four foreign ministers in 1954. In place of that the rulers in Bonn intensified their efforts to carry through the policy of West Germany's remilitarisation. In October, 1954, Adenauer signed the Paris Treaties, legalising rearmament and including the western zone in the aggressive NATO (May, 1955). With that step the Adenauer clique officially forsook any independent German policy and sold Germany's national interests to U. S. imperialism. This coup d'état was the most brutal blow by the Adenauer regime against the interests of the nation. It was evidence of the fact that German imperialists considered the period of the stabilising of their power as finished and now intended to begin a policy of aggressive, militant solution of the German problem to their liking. Anti-communism and revanchism were raised by the Adenauer clique to the status of official policy. The turning of West Germany into a NATO state gave rise to a basically new situation ; in home policy it bolstered the revival of the militarist forces (evolution of the clerico-militarist, authoritarian regime) and further abolished the democratic rights of the people (democratic mass organisations were prohibited, the peace forces persecuted, above all the KPD) ; fascist methods were increasingly applied ; in foreign policy it meant turning West Germany into a hotbed of revanchist ideas and of war in Europe. Abetted by the western occupation powers West Berlin became ever more a diversionist and espionage centre against the G. D. R. and the whole socialist camp. At the expense of the G. D. R. population and the West German taxpayers West Berlin developed into an advanced post of the NATO military bloc in the cold war against the socialist countries. Thus the division of Berlin was deepened. With the revival of the militarist forces and the joining of NATO by the reactionary Adenauer regime a new situation arose in the struggle for the solution of the national problem. The checking of German militarism and the creation of a system of collective security in Europe with both German states participating, became a precondition for overcoming the split in Germany. In the G. D. R. this new situation demanded even greater efforts in the struggle for the construction of socialism. The increasing strength of the workers' and peasant's power and the rapid development of economic, political and cultural life as the result of the realisation of the first Five-Year Plan lent ever greater weight to the G. D. R. in the national struggle, consolidated its position as an integral part of the socialist world system and heightened its international reputation. In May, 1955, the G. D. R. became a member of the Warsaw Defence Alliance of the socialist states of Europe. 10

Outline History

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Of historic significance was the treaty between the German Democratic Republic and the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics of September, 1955. With its signing, the great revolutionary changes the G. D. R. had undergone found their international recognition. Through that treaty the G. D. R. gained its sovereignty and independence. Whereas the West German rulers handed the Bonn separatist state over to the NATO war pact and trampled the right to self-determination of the German nation under foot, the other treaty laid down that the G. D. R. was independent in any decisions concerning its home and foreign policy, especially as to the re-unification of the two German states, and thus was in keeping with the right of the German people to self-determination. The question of liquidating the remnants of the last war by the conclusion of a peace treaty has not yet been settled, since the Western powers and the Bonn government did not agree to it. Withthe signing of the treaty the foreign policy of the German Democratic Republic entered a new phase. Since its foundation the G. D. R„ in keeping with its state system and social order, had developed a foreign policy which had broken, once and for all, with the baneful imperialist traditions of German foreign policy, traditions which live on in :the Bonn state; the G.D. R.'s foreign policy is fully in keeping with the vital interests of the whole German nation. Based on Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, it has, from the beginning, been consistently directed to the consolidation of brotherly relations with the Soviet Union, to the strengthening of the unity of the socialist camp, to the defence of peace and the self-determination of the peoples, and to the realisation of the principles of peaceful co-existence in the relations between states of different social systems. Under the influence of the example given by the G. D. R. greater sections of the working class and of the rest of the people in West Germany resisted the policy of the imperialists and militarists, aiming at the increase of their power and the preparation of a new war of revenge. Prohibitive decrees by the Adenauer government notwithstanding, the patriotic forces in West Germany organised public opinion polls in 1951 and 1954, in which wide circles of the population voted against West Germany's re-militarisation, against the EVG (European Defence Community), and for the conclusion of a peace treaty. The fight of 1952 against the Factory Regulations Act and the General Treaty, the strikes of the metal workers in Hesse (August/September 1951) and in Bavaria (1954), the strike of the Hamburg dockers (October/November 1951), the twenty-four hours general strike of nearly 1 million miners and foundry workers in the Ruhr region (1955) and other strikes laid bare the deep inherent contradictions in the Adenauer regime and had a 146

far-reaching bearing on the popular movement against the ratification of the Paris War Treaties (Paulskircbenbmegung*). Of great significance for the organisation of the people's fight against the re-militarisation of West Germany were the strike movement of the West German dockers and transport workers against the shipping of war material and above all the struggle of West German youth ("Heligoland movement" of 1951; March to Essen in May 1952, where a young comrade, Philipp Mueller, was murdered by the police). At the same time sections of the West German working class fought for the trade-union participation in management and improvements in their working and living conditions. Their morale and the influence of the G. D. R. were reflected in the resolutions of the Third National Congress of the DGB ** N (October 1954) against re-militarisation and in the programme of action of the DGB of May 1st, 1955. Sections of the West German peasantry also took an active part in the struggle against re-militarisation, defending themselves against the seizure of their land for war preparations. The peace-loving and democratic forces in West Germany, in their just struggle for national self-determination, could count upon the G. D. R. and received support from the whole socialist camp and the international peace movement. The influence of the G. D.R. on the development of the fighting conditions of West Germany's working class came especially to the fore in the demands for which the metalworkers of Schleswig-Holstein went on strike from October 1956 to January 1957. The most importent result of these struggles was that the enforcement of the imperialist plans and rearmament in the western zone and their inclusion in the aggressive NATO was delayed. The success of this growing popular movement was frustrated by the policy of compromise conducted by the right-wing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions. By accepting the Bonn state these leaders confused wide circles of the working class and of the whole working people. This was assisted by illusions about the "economic miracle". The right-wing leaders of the SPD and the trade unions, to be true, paid lip-service to the fight against re-militarisation, but actually endeavoured by all means to hinder the masses of the people in their fight against the Adenauer regime and militarism. The main attacks were directed against the first German workers' and peasants' state, thus preventing unity of action of the working class in the whole of Germany. The SED made every effort to win the SPD for united action against West German re-militarisation and against its integration into the pact * So called because its supporters rallied in St. Paul's church in Frankfort-onMain (trans.). ** West German Federation of Trade Unions. 10*

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systems of the western powers. The Party exposed the sham opposition of the right-wing leaders of the SPD. At the same time it tried to find a common meeting-ground on all those points which would render possible combined action in the interest of the working class. In several letters it approached the leadership of the S P D as well as making direct approaches to the rank and file and the functionaries. O f special importance were the conferences for unity of action, which since 1954 have been continued in the form of All-German Workers' Congresses. With these conferences a new form of struggle for unity of action of the whole German working class was created. In West Germany the K P D , in spite of terror and persecution, has fought single-handed and consistently for the national interests o f the German people against imperialism and militarism (resolutions at the Munich Party Congress of 1951; 1952 Programme on the National Re-unification of Germany). The Party launched an appeal for the understanding of all Germans of good will in order to confront the German and foreign imperialists with a united front of all patriotic forces and, in the common fight to bring to power a government of national re-unification. The Adenauer regime, following the example set by Hitler fascism, forced the K P D again into illegality in 1956. It was afraid of the rising influence o f the K P D in its fight against the Paris War Treaties and of its constructive proposals on the struggle against the militarists, for democratic rights and liberties, of its fight for a democratic order supported by the people (resolutions of the Hamburg Party Congress of 1954, and the platform declaration at the 21st meeting of the Executive Committee of the K P D in 1955 " T h e New Situation and the New Tasks in West Germany"). This banning of the K P D was an outrage, directed against the national interests of the German people, against democracy, peace and goodwill. However, Adenauer's policy, which in essence follows Hitler's principles under changed conditions and with new methods, holds out even less prospects than those because of the changes in the relation of forces in the world and in Germany. It is bound to lead to a blind alley and to an ever-increasing isolation of the Adenauer regime. The Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (February 1956) began a new epoch in the international communist and workers ( movement. At this Party Congress it was declared that the growth o f socialism to a world system is the characteristic o f our time. Proceeding from the great changes in the international relation o f forces in favour of socialism the Congress declared that the question, "war or peaceful co-existence", had become the fundamental problem o f world politics, and creatively developed Lenin's principles of peaceful 148

co-existence. The Party Congress stated the reasons why under the prevailing international conditions wars have ceased to be unavoidable, predestined, and that mass struggle could well prevent the imperialists from unleashing another world war. General disarmament is the road to the safeguarding of peaceful co-existence and thus of peace itself. Within the framework of peaceful co-existence, peaceful economic competition becomes the centre of the struggle between the two social systems. In this struggle socialism is proving its superiority over capitalism and will triumph. Peaceful co-existence is the way to prevent wars, the way to the world victory of socialism. This policy as developed by the Party Congress underlined the tremendous creative potential that rests within the working class and the masses. The criticism of the Stalin personality cult, the definite condemnation of the errors and crimes committed under Stalin's leadership and the complete restoration of the Leninist rules of party life served the release and growth of all creative energies of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet people. The Third Party Conference of the SED in March, 1956, drew its lessons for the struggle in Germany from the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It resolved on the directives for the second Five-Year Plan for the development of the G. D. R. economy from 1956 to 1960. The plan provided for an increase of productivity of labour by mastering advanced technology and socialist economics, and by educating the people to a socialist consciousness, so that a substantial development of the productive forces should be achieved. The Party Conference appealed to the working class, the members of the intelligentsia and all the working people to fight for scientific and technical progress and for high technical standards of production in all branches of national economy. In contrast to the first Five-Year Plan the main target figures of the second plan were coordinated with the plans of all socialist states. The second Five-Year Plan showed the people of the G. D. R. the further road to socialist construction. It demonstrated to the working people in the two German states that the future of Germany belongs to socialism. The resolution adopted at the Third Party Conference on measures to strengthen the workers' and peasants' power and to further develop socialist democracy served the wider development of the creative potential of the masses. The Central Committee of the SED analysed the criticism of the Stalin personality cult and progressively did away with the results of it in the G. D. R. With this step the Central Committee made a decisive contribution to the mobilising of all forces of the people for the struggle for peace and the construction of socialism. Under the 149

conditions of the class struggle in Germany and of the development of the SED and because of the sound, far-sighted policy of the Central Committee, headed by Comrade Walter Ulbricht, no personality cult had had a chance to arise in the G. D. R. In the SED the Leninist standards of party life had always been observed and the proper proportions between collective leadership and individual responsibility had been maintained. Faced with the growth in strength of the socialist world system imperialist reaction in the world began its attack on the unity of the socialist camp. The forces of reaction exploited Yugoslav revisionism to create confusion in the international labour movement. The events in Hungary as well as those in Poland were exploited by the reactionary rulers in West Germany in conjunction with foreign espionage centres to prepare counter-revolutionary actions in the G. D. R. The leadership of the Social Democratic Party endeavoured, on similar lines as in Hungary, to support the West German bourgeoisie by propagating the idea of a ' 'third force". But the enemy could make no break through across the bo rder between the two world" camps, i. e. in the G. D. R. The attempts by the Adenauer regime and the NATO in 1956 to organiese counter-revolutionary provocations in the G. D. R. and to overthrow the workers and peasants' power were crushingly defeated. Together with the Kampfgruppen (worker's militia) in the socialised industry and the People's Army, the people of the G. D. R. were on the alert for peace. This was a decisive contribution to the maintenance of peace in Europe. The SED and the workers' and peasants' power stood the test of history. The Party resolutely smashed the attacks of such modern revisionists as the Schirdewan, Wollweber and Ziller group. The secessionist activity of this gfoup was directed against the realisation of the resolutions of the Third Party Conference. This group had not grasped the fact that West Germany's integration into NATO had created a new situation. They wanted to put forward an opportunist line against the Marxist-Leninist policy of the Central Committee, to change the Party leadership and to water down the fight for the maximum strengthening of the G. D. R. This policy, directed against the interests of the Party, amounted to support for the subversive activities of the class enemy. The Bonn government's refusal, in 1952, of a peace treaty and of reunification, and the conclusion of the Paris Treaties in 1954 and the integration of West Germany into NATO which followed had cemented the existence of two states on German territory. The western powers and the Adenauer government deepened the gulf in Germany. Using the deceitful assertion that West Germany's integration into 150

N A T O would lead to re-unification, the Adenauer government succeeded in getting the majority of the West German population to tolerate re-militarisation and atomic armament. The 30th meeting of the Central Committee of the S E D (January 30th to February 1st, 1957) drew the conclusions from the situation that two German states with opposing social systems had come into existance, and proposed, as the only realistic road to future re-unification, the formation of a confederation of the two German states. Basing itself on the decisions of the meeting the Party took the offensive in all spheres of socialist construction and mustered its forces to make socialism victorious in the G. D. R. The 30th meeting of the Central Committee and those that followed pointed the way to the complete victory of socialism, to the drawing in of all strata of the peasantry, the intelligentsia and the middle classes, with their respective interests, for the construction of socialism. The meetings of the Central Committee showed all the people of the G . D. R. the clear road to a life in peace, freedom and prosperity under socialism. The K P D at its Party Congress of 1957 took the new situation into account. It fought against atomic re-armament in the Federal Republic, for the banning of militarism, against conscription, against N A T O , and for a reduction in the influence of the all-powerful monopolies and the establishment of the democratic rights of the people. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Great Socialist October Revolution, in November, 1957, the delegates of the communist and workers' parties from more than 60 countries met in Moscow. They drew general lessons from the fighting experience of the working class and the masses of the people for peace, democracy and socialism during the previous decades and approved the principles set forth and the decisions taken at the 20th Party Congress of the C. P. S. U. on the most important questions of international development. The Moscow Declaration characterised the content of our epoch as that of the transition from capitalism to socialism, which had set in with the Great Socialist October Revolution. This characterisation is of decisive importance for the development of a proper strategy and fighting tactics of the communist and workers' parties to solve the vital issues of the present time. The Moscow Conference strengthened the unity of the world communist movement and demonstrated the role of the C. P. S. U. as its seasoned, steeled vanguard. The results of the Moscow Conference corroborated the correctness of the policy of the S E D .

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CHAPTER XIV

Socialism becomes tbe determining factor in the development of society. The Moscow Conference of tbe Communist and Workers' Parties of 1960 and tbe Twenty-second Party Congress of tbe Communist Party of tbe Soviet Union. Tbe fight of tbe working class led by tbe SED and of its allies in tbe National Front of Democratic Germany for peace, tbe victory of socialism in tbe G. D. R. and tbe future of Germany. (Period from 1958 up to the present.)

These years are marked by the speedy growth of the power and international influence of the socialist world system, the active process of disintegration of the colonial system under the blows of the national liberation movement, the increase of class struggles in the capitalist world, the further decline and crumbling away of the capitalist world system. This period includes years that are of world-historical significance for humanity. Internationally, the preponderance of the forces of socialism over imperialism, of the supporters of peace over those of war became increasingly apparent. The socialist world system is becoming the determining factor of international development. The main feature of these years is the "competition of the two social systems. In the present period it has become the pivotal issue, the basis of development in the world. In the development of society two lines, two historical trends have come out ever more in relief. The one is the line of social progress, peace and reconstruction. The other is the line of reaction, oppression and war." (N. S. Khrushchov). In the course of this period the socialist world system has entered a new stage of its development. The Extraordinary 21st Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (January/February 1959) resolved on the chief economic objective in the U. S. S. R.: to catch up with and to overtake the most advanced capitalist countries in output per head of the population in the shortest possible time according to 152

historical development. This will be a victory of socialism in its peaceful competition with capitalism that will make world history. In these years the people of the Soviet Union, under the leadership of the Communist Party, are tackling the task of all-round construction of communism. The powerful Communist Party of the Soviet Union with its ten million members has become the Party of the whole Soviet people. The unshakeable faith of the C. P. S. U. in Leninism, and its straight course to the construction of communism and peace have been of tremendous importance for the unity of the socialist countries, the unity of the international communist and workers' movement, for the maintenance of world peace and the prevention of another world war. The creative energies of the peoples of the Soviet Union, whose present generation will live under communism already, have been widely developed. All branches of the national economy have shown speedy development. Soviet science has celebrated new historic triumphs. The communists and Soviet citizens Gagarin and Titov were the first men to enter the cosmos and to orbit round the earth. The international reputation of the U. S. S. R. has grown still more. Other countries of the socialist camp have been successful in laying the foundations to socialism in fraternal solidarity with the Soviet Union. The majority of the socialist states have done away with the multifariousness of economic formations. They have entered upon the period of extended construction of socialist society and are on the eve of the complete victory of the socialist order of society. There has been an all-round development of fraternal co-operation and mutual aid between the socialist countries on new basic principles. Now the social and economic possibilities of the revival of capitalism have been done away with once and for all. The socialist states form a tightly united camp, whose economic and political unity steadily increases. This period saw a sweeping development of the movement of national and anti-colonial liberation in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. More and more of the previously oppressed nations have won their national independence. National-democratic states have grown up which have begun to play an active part in international politics. Colonialism is collapsing. The day of the final liberation of the peoples of the colonial and semi-colonial states from imperialist rule is now at hand. At the same time the general crisis of the capitalist system has entered a new phase. For the first time in history this is not due to a world war but is a consequence of the rapidly growing strength of socialism, the contradictions within the imperialist camp becoming rapidly acute, and the disintegration of the colonial system. The imperialist system is positively facing its final defeat. Even U. S. imperialism, the greatest inter153

national exploiter and the world gendarme of political reaction has proved unable to prevent it. Within the imperialist camp the relation of forces has undergone important changes. The U. S. A. has lost its absolute superiority, the positions of Great Britain and France have weakened, whilst West Germany and Japan have strengthened their respective positions and forged ahead. The contradictions in the imperialist camp have sharpened to an extraordinary degree. Led by U. S. imperialism the imperialist powers and all reactionary forces have made attempts to solve their contradictions and to escape their unavoidable downfall by gearing their economy to the needs of militarism, by war pacts, a net of military bases, the armament drive, and aggression against the socialist countries. This aggressive policy has produced the danger of an atomic war and threatened the lives o f hundreds of millions of people. The struggle for peace, disarmament and peaceful co-existence is the chief issue of our time. The development o f the socialist world system and the further growth of the consciousness and activity o f the masses in the whole world have created the precondition for the enforcement of peaceful co-existence between states of different social orders. Led by the Soviet Union, the forces of the socialist camp and all peace-loving people of the whole world have during this period succeeded in preventing the imperialists from turning the competition between the two systems into armed conflict. The socialist camp has proved a powerful shield of peace not only for the socialist states but for all humanity. War can be banished from the life of the peoples for ever even before socialism is triumphant on a world scale. In Germany the struggle for the solution of the national problem, the struggle between the supporters of peace and those of war, between the forces of socialism and those of imperialism has entered upon a new stage. Resulting from the fact that West Germany has been turned into a N A T O state, that the ruling imperialist and militarist circles of the West German Federal Republic have gone over to atomic re-armament that a standing army of aggression, commanded by former Hitler generals, has been set up again, that West Berlin is to an ever-increasing degree being developed into a centre of diversion and espionage, and that war of revenge against the G. D. R. and the socialist camp is in open preparation, the safeguarding of peace has become the essence of the German question. Proceeding from the changed relation of forces in the world and in Germany the Fifth Party Congress of the S E D laid down its programme of struggle for peace, for the victory of socialism in the German Democratic Republic and the national rebirth of Germany as a peace-loving democratic state. As a decisive contribution to the realisation of this 154

programme and as a part of the long-term aims of the socialist camp in the struggle for peaceful co-existence, and in view of the competition between the socialist and the capitalist systems on a world scale the Fifth Party Congress adopted the resolution on the chief economic objective: Within a few years the national economy of the G . D . R. is to be developed to such an extent that the socialist system of the G. D . R. can clearly prove its superiority over the domain o f the imperialist forces in the Bonn state in all spheres of public life. The decisive precondition for catching up with West Germany consumption per head o f the most essential foodstuffs and consumption goods is to steadily increase the productivity of labour based on a comprehensive application of the latest scientific and technical knowledge in all sections of the national economy. What mattered was to speedily create the material and technical basis of socialism in the G. D. R. by changing over from the myriad divisions under capitalism which still make themselves felt, to the concentration and specialisation of production, and by applying the latest scientific and technological advances. This had to be done within the framework of the over-all economic development of the socialist camp and the division of labour among the socialist states. Starting from the resolutions of the Fifth Party Congress the Party and the Government, in collaboration with the working class and the whole population have worked out the Seven-Year Plan. In order to fulfill the Seven-Year Plan a constant increase in the productivity o f labour will be decisive, thus rendering the economy of the G. D. R. immune against imperialist bids at disruption, and tying it inseparably to the economy of the U . S . S . R . , making it an integral part of the economic system o f the socialist camp. With the new objectives the role of the working class has gained in importance. It has become the conscious leader and organiser in materializing the objective laws of socialist development in the G . D . R. and educating the whole people of the G. D. R. to socialism. An expression of the new ideas in the development o f the working class and of all working people is socialist collective work. It is the key to the solution of the economic, political and cultural tasks on the road to socialism. Work acquires a new content. It has become the common concern of all members of society. In this way new socialist man evolves, marching on the road from " I " to the " W e " and acting according to new standards of socialist morality and ethics. Individual interests are being brought into line with those of society as a whole. A novel type of man emerges: the worker o f modern times. New socialist man is being shaped in constant conflict with old habits and forms of life, dating from capitalist times, as well as with those influences of the past coming from West Germany and West Berlin and making themselves felt in the

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G . D . R . Following the Fifth Party Congress the movement of socialist brigades and socialist working-teams developed into one of the chief forms of the struggle of the Party and the trade unions for the solution of the economic objectives and the education of the working people. The new role of the working class and the creative activities of the masses made higher demands on the Party and their rank and file and on the trade unions as the largest class organisation of the workers. The Party had to tighten its link-up with the masses still more, to keep strictly to the Leninist standards of Party life throughout its whole activities and to wage a relentless war against any revisionist approaches and dogmatic distortions of its Marxist-Leninist policy. With the importance of the revolutionary party of the working class growing, the part each individual member has to play, and he as an individual also gains in importance; higher demands are made on his political and general educational background, his perseverance and his activities among the masses. The F D G B has increasingly become a school for the education of people to socialists and has been assigned far-reaching control functions in the life of society. The Fifth Congress of the F D G B (October 1959) resolved on the tasks of the trade unions in the organising of the triumph of socialism, in the education of the whole working class to work, to study and to live the socialist way. As a result of the creative application by the Party of Lenin's plan for co-operatives, and the support by the working class and the socialist state, there ripened in the countryside the conditions for all peasants voluntarily to combine in agricultural production co-operatives. Whilst in the western zones we can observe the biggest ever dispossession o f the peasants in German history in the interest of the Bonn war policy, in the G . D. R. the peasants have definitely shed the fetters of capitalism, with the help of their democratic organisations and led by the working class and its Party. After the triumph of socialist relations of production in the preceding years, they were triumphant also in agriculture as the result of these revolutionary changes. The contradiction between socialist development in the cities and the relations of production prevailing in the countryside, namely petty production, was resolved. With the rise of fully co-operative villages any roots likely to encourage resurgence of capitalist conditions of exploitation were finally eradicated. With it the most difficult job of the period of transition from capitalism to socialism was successfully tackled and the class basis of the workers' and peasants' power further consolidated. The S E D made an important creative contribution to the armoury of Marxism-Leninism. It worked out the policy of how to carry through the socialist transformation in the countryside peacefully without nationalisation of the land, in a 156

highly industrialised country with a peasantry among which, owing to a centuries-old tradition, the ideology of private property was firmly rooted. In the countryside, there grew up the new class of co-operative peasants, who, allied with the working class, take part in running the state. Based on the new relations of production in agriculture extensive socialist emulation for efficient co-operative work and the increase of market production developed. Thus the SED is the only party in Germany to have carried through a national agrarian policy which is a model for the whole of Germany. Inextricably linkes and intertwined with the economic and political development the socialist revolution in the ideological and cultural spheres has continued to gain in strength. This revolution follows objective laws. Only if it is carried through can the working class, led by the SED, live up to its many-sided historic mission and educate the working masses in the spirit of socialism. Socialist revolution in the ideological and cultural spheres arises from the constant fight of the new ideas against the old ones, of the positive against the negative, of things emerging against things withering. In this struggle socialist consciousness is formed. Socialist standards and rules of individual and community life take shape. In a bitter struggle against reactionary ideological influences from West Germany the G. D. R. has been successful in overcoming, to a large extent, the fascist and imperialist past in people's minds, too. The socialist revolution in the ideological and cultural sphere proves that only under the leadership of the SED and the National Front of Democratic Germany all the creative energies of the people can fully unfold. The arts and sciences have found their way to the people, and the people have found their way to the arts and sciences. For the first time in German history science is in a position fully to serve progress and humanity. The road to socialism is the road to a nation on an elevated educated and cultural level. It is the historic and national mission of the G.D.R. as the only legitimate German state, to demonstrate its superiority over West Germany in the various spheres of culture and science also and to prove that in our Republic all good and progressive traditions of the history of our people are respected and honoured, cared for and kept safe. It is only in the workers' and peasents' state that the humanist inheritance of our past has its home. Only under the leadership of the working class which is allied with all other working strata of society can it be revived to blossom anew and be further developed. In the struggle for the victory of socialism it is becoming part and parcel of our socialist reconstruction. In this struggle the political and moral unity of the people of the G. D. R. gets closer, finding its striking expression in the National Front 157

of Democratic Germany. In the G . D . R . the exploiting class no longer exists^ The formation and all-round development of socialist relations of production rendered it possible to overcome capitalist class interests. Capitalists, tradespeople and rich peasants were given the opportunity to become part of socialist society. The working- class uses its power to remove class antagonisms altogether. This is the highest expression of the democratic and humanist character of the working class, which not only fights for its own interests but also for those of society as a whole. On September 7, 1960, Comrade Wilhelm Pieck passed away. He had been the first President of the first state of workers and peasents. The People's Chamber decided to set up the State Council of the German Democratic Republic, and elected Comrade Walter Ulbrieht as its chairman. The Platform Declaration of the Chairman of the State Council of the German Democratic Republic, based on the resolutions of the Fifth Party Congress of the S E D , answered the questions emerging in the construction of socialism in the specific conditions in Germany and showed all our people the prospects for peace, democracy and happiness under socialism. All circles of the population approved of the declaration. In accordance with the resolutions of the People's Chamber, the State Council laid down the principles of socialist state management in connection with the realisation of the Seven-Year Plan. The Labour Code, the regulations on the tasks and methods of the local people's representations and their executive organs, the resolution on socialist judicature as well as on the elections to the regional and local councils were important steps in the development of socialist relations and civic rights. This were important steps for drawing the people into the task of solving the basic problems of our policy. Thus, since 1945, the greatest revolution in German history has been carried through on the territory of the G. D. R. Without a civil war and with a tremendous campaign of elucidation and persuasion in its stead the socialist German state emerged by peaceful means; it stands for the interests of the whole nation. In just a part of that country from whence German fascist imperialism unleashed the Second World War it was possible to set up a people's democracy, because the weakening of imperialism and the changes in the international relation of forces in favour of socialism were turned to proper account. This fundamental and exemplary about-turn in the history of our nation was carried through under the leadership of the working class and was led by its MarxistLeninist party prudently and with full regard to the complicated conditions of class struggle in Germany. Close co-operation between the parties of the democratic bloc in the National Front of Democratic 158

Germany was the foundation of the progress achieved. All democratic parties and mass organisations have made their active contribution to the great common cause. Owing to the successes of the socialist construction the international authority of the G. D. R. grew and gave the basis for its increased activity on an international level. Associated with the Soviet Union and the socialist states by fraternal ties the G.D.R. has stood for ever closer economic and cultural relations among the states of the socialist camp and attained a responsible position within the family of socialist nations. Being part and parcel of the socialist world system the G.D.R. has made an ever-increasing contribution to the strengthening of peace, fighting for disarmament and the realisation of peaceful co-existence between the states with different social orders. The attitude of the G.D.R. has contributed to the crushing of aggressive imperialist manoeuvres. Against the fierce resistance of the Bonn separatist state the G. D. R. has been able to establish various relations with nearly all states of the world and has attained membership of a large number of international organisations by its consistent safeguarding of peace and fight for the equality of peoples. The Geneva Conference of the foreign ministers in 1959, in which the G. D. R. participated with equal rights, discussions were held on settling the question of peace in Germany; here it was demonstrated that even the imperialist western powers have begun to take the existence of the two German states into account. Being consistently opposed to imperialist colonial rule the G.D.R. established fundamentally new relations with the peoplesx)f Asia, Africa and Latin America. It established friendly relations, based on the idea of equal rights, with the newly emerging anti-imperialist national states and lent them support in various ways in the defence for their independence and the development of their economy and culture. The G.D.R. has made great efforts to establish close relations to all neighbouring states, which are menaced by resurgent West German imperialism. It took the initiative in the international fight to turn the Baltic Sea into a sea of peace. While the Government of the G.D.R., the National Front of Democratic Germany and the people of the G.D.R. jointly with the Soviet Union and the other states of the socialist camp, supported by many peace-loving forces in the whole world, made all efforts to safeguard peace in Europe, German imperialism, having turned West Germany into a satellite state of the United States, continued the fateful traditions of the German militarists and revanchists. It intensified its expansionist policy directed against the West European capitalist states in order to secure economic, military and political hegemony in Western Europe, 159

shielded by U. S. predominance. Using neo-colonialist methods it directed its colonial expansion against the peoples of Africa, against a number of Asian and South American states. But above all it prepared civil war against the G.D.R. and war against the socialist states of Europe. The Bonn state has become the chief adversary of disarmament and détente and the chief breeding ground of an atomic war in Europe. The aggressive imperialist policy of the Bonn government is based on the attempt of German monopoly capitalism to make higher profits, to achieve revision of its defeat in the Hitler war and to expand the territory of its economic and political overlordship. The militarist forces in West Germany have shown themselves to be the most aggressive force in Europe, propagating their territorial claims and other revanchist aims, using all means of jingoist instigation, by demagogically exploiting the slogan of the right of self-determination and misusing national feelings. The war-preparations of the militarists appeared together with the increasing application of fascist methods (emergency service laws, emergency laws etc.), the shifting of the armament burden onto the working people, the eviction of smallholders and middle peasants from their land, the gagging of peace-loving intellectuals and the prevention of the co-operation of the social organisations of the two German states. Thereby class antagonisms in West Germany were continuously exacerbated, and the contradictions grew, not only between the masses of the people and the clerico-fascist regime, but also within the bourgeoisie itself. West Germany has seen the development of a popular movement against the equipment of the West German army with atomic and rocket weapons. In mass rallies and demonstrations, in the collection of signatures, in resolutions adopted at factory and trade union meetings, in committees against nuclear armament and in other ways the resistance of millions of West German citizens to the atomic-war policy of the Adenauer government has found its expression. By brutal terror methods of the state and owing to the treacherous policy of the right-wing leaders of the Social Democracy and the trade unions these movements have been suppressed and stifled. Under the pressure exercised by big business and the militarist forces, and using deceit and trickery towards the Social Democratic rank and file the right-wing leadership of the SPD, holding on to its policy, have jettisoned all former aims of Social Democracy, quite openly surrendered to imperialism and militarism and resolved on a programme of capitulation and subjection to the imperialist policy (Party Congresses at Godesberg and Hannover; election programme in the 1961 elections to the Federal Parliament). They have renounced an independent policy 160

against the clerico-militarist, Adenauer regime and have openly gone over to the reactionary and militarist course steered by Adenauer (June 30th, 1961). They hasten to bring the D G B into line with the home and foreign policy of West German imperialism and militarism, thus depriving this workers' organisation of its class character and subordinating the trade unions also to imperialist policy. The latest elections to the Federal Parliament (September 1961) proved that the SPD has long ceased to be a party standing for reforms but is a bourgeois labour party with an imperialist programme, imperialist practice and a bourgeois leadership. Under the conditions of the third phase of the general crisis of the capitalist system and in view of the successful development in the G.D.R. towards socialism, imperialist reaction in West Germany is in need of such Social Democratic leaders as will fully subject their followers to the policy of atomic war. The undisguised support for the imperialist policy and psychological warfare of the Adenauer clique has been made the principle of the so-called new policy of the SPD leaders. This open surrender is the result of the official Social Democratic policy pursued since 1945, the result of anti-communism and agitation against the G.D.R., and a heavy blow against the interests of the working class and all other peace-loving forces in West Germany. It its regrettable that the citizens of West Germany, subjected to the pressure brought to bear on them by the U.S.A., have tolerated this development, the resurgence of militarism, the revival of nazism and the policy of direct war preparations against the G . D . R . and the socialist camp. The ruling circles of the American and West German bourgeoisie have succeeded, by their heavy economic influence and favoured by the lengthy extension of the post-war boom, in corrupting economically certain sections of the West German working class, of the petty bourgeoisie and large numbers of the intellectuals and the middle classes, and in developing a large labour aristrocracy. Thanks to the economic situation in West Germany important sections of the working class and other strata of the population in West Germany have fallen a prey to delusions on the character of the social order prevailing there. In keeping with this development the reactionary forces in West Germany, helped by the SPD and D G B leaders who toe the line, have increased their ideological pressure on the working class and the other working people. Thus many workers and the large majority of the rest of the West German citizens have remained unaware of the dangerous character of the Bonn policy and the aggressive aims of the German militarists and NATO. Substantial sections of the West German population have succumbed to the heavy anti-communist and chauvinist propaganda of the Adenauer U

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clique and the right-wing leaders of the SPD, have been deceived by the NATO church leadership, and still believe the lies of the so-called menace of the Soviet Union and the so-called defence of the right of self-determination of the German nation by the imperialist state - lies which had been used already by Hitler for his war preparations. Thus for the present yet the Adenauer government has succeeded in subjecting large sections of the West German people to their policy, applying revenge-mongering and communist-baiting, political terror and economic pressure, and in maintaining the split in the working class in West Germany and the separation of the G. D. R. workers from those in West Germany. The lack of unity of action of the working class in West Germany is the biggest obstacle in the fight against the war policy of West German imperialism and militarism. All this enabled the Adenauer clique to turn West Germany into the chief European NATO base and to begin their determined war preparations and the organisation of civil war against the G.D.R. Bolstered by U. S. imperialism they have turned down all proposals aimed at a peaceful settlement of the German problem and the normalisation of the West Berlin situation. Their War Minister, Strauss, has forged ahead with the nuclear armament of the West German Bundeswehr and hastened armament and preparations for attacking the G. D. R. West Berlin continues to be built up as an espionage and intelligence centre against the G.D.R. and the socialist countries. Enticement of G. D. R. citizens, trade in human flesh, spying and diversion have been on the increase. This provocative policy has caused considerable difficulties for the workers' and peasants' state, above all in the economic sphere. This development led to a new situation in Germany and in Central Europe. Because the danger of heightening tension and serious conflicts, resulting from the preparations for an atomic war, revengemongering and neo-fascism in West Germany, has been on a steady increase month by month, the conclusion of a peace treaty with the two German states and thus the liquidation of the remnants of the Second World War in West Germany and the transformation of West Berlin into a de-militarised free city have become issues of imperative necessity. The peace treaty would prevent the aggressive forces of West Germany from one day sparking off the third world war. The conclusion of a German peace treaty would be the first step to the safeguarding of peace and to national rebirth. In 1959 the Soviet Union presented the draft of such a peace treaty. It expressed respect for the national interests, and the right of the German people to self-determination, and their endeavours to guarantee lasting peace in Europe. 162

The struggle for a peace treaty imposes a high responsibility on the whole German working class. In drawing up the "People's Plan for Germany", the Central Committee of the SED presented a constructive plan for the peaceful road to the solution of the German question and how it can be travelled by the workers and all other supporters of the peace movement in Germany if they come to an understanding on the basis of a great national compromise, a confederation between the two German states. The People's Plan for Germany, the concrete project to solve the vital issue of our nation, consists of realistic suggestions, on the basis of which the workers and their organisations in the G.D.R. and in West Germany could come to an understanding and unification. Only in this way can the German working class fulfill its national mission to rally all forces including also the patriotic and peaceminded circles of the middle classe, to bring about by public pressure the peace treaty, to prevent war and remove militarism and imperialism in West Germany. At the same time the G.D.R., acting in the interests of the whole German people, reinforced the military measures for its defence and for the safeguarding of peace in Germany. To increase its preparedness for defence the National Defence Council of the German Democratic Republic was set up in February, 1960. In the mind of the working class and the whole people of the G. D. R. the realisation has grown tnat every citizen is in honour bound to protect the G. D. R. against imperialist aggression. At the delegate conference of 1960 the KPD drew the lessons from 15 years of German post-war history and declared it was the most important task of the working class and the West German people as a whole to prevent a third world war, an atomic war, from being launched from German territory. The conference of the party delegates resolved on a programme of action embracing as its main items the struggle against nuclear armament, the containing of German militarism, for a peace treaty and a rapprochement between the two German states, against clerico-militarist rule, for conditions of truly parliamentarian democracy in the Federal Republic and the restraining of the power of the monopolies, for the social rights of the working people, for the rallying of all supporters of peace to force a political change in West Germany. The conference stressed that systematic co-operation with our Social Democratic class brothers is the foremost duty of every Communist. The Conference stressed, as the especially important task, the clearing-up of basic ideological questions on Party policy, above all with regard to the relation of the West German working class to the first German workers' and peasants' state, the G. D. R. 11»

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In November, 1960, Moscow again saw discussions among the representatives of the Communist and Workers' Parties. Eighty-one delegations discussed topical problems of the struggle for peace, national independence, democracy and socialism. The discussions acquired decisive importance for the strategy and tactics of the individual Communist and Workers' Parties by analysing the trends in the world precisely, in the Marxist-Leninist way, and by imaginatively setting forth the vital issues of our time. It demonstrated the unity of thought of the communist world movement. The platform declaration of the conference played a prominent part in the development of the socialist states and the fight of the Communist and Workers' parties, the international working class and the broad masses for peace, democracy and socialism. After the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the U. S . S . R . , N . S. Khrushchov, had sent his memorandum of June, 1961, to the U. S. President on the conclusion of a peace treaty with Germany and the settlement of the West Berlin issue, the People's Chamber of the G. D . R., as the true representative of the German people and aware of its national responsibility resolved on the German Peace Plan. In it they submitted, to all Germans of goodwill in the two German states, workable proposals to realise the principles of peaceful co-existence between the two German states and to create a military neutral Germany, guaranteeing peace in the heart of Europe, by way of a peace treaty, disarmament and the establishing of a confederation. Although the majority of West German Social Democrats and trade unionists and also wide circles of the peasantry, the middle classes and the intelligentsia would prefer such a Germany to life under the conditions of the arms drive and the policy of atomic war, it has not so far been possible to restrain the war-mongers in West Germany. The western imperialists, the Adenauer clique and the Willy Brandt gang in the SPD answered the proposals for the conclusion of a peace treaty by hotting-up agitation for war and revenge. The attitude taken by the West German Federal Parliament on June 30th, 1961, and the declaration by the CDU/CSU of its principles, in July, 1961, stating that the leading party of West Germany monopoly is striving to get the whole of Germany into N A T O , are precisely the conclusions one might draw from the policy of the restoration of German militarism pursued so far. With these declarations the aggressive anti-national policy of West German imperialism entered a new stage. The aggressive programme of the Adenauer government sums up that reactionary development which has been going on in the western zones as a result of the preservation of the power of monopoly capital and the renewal of militarism. 164

Since the end of the Second World War, German monopoly capitalists - selling the interests of the nation - have worked to regain their positions of power and expand anew their domain. Their conception was to restore the former relations of power by splitting off the territory left to them from a united Germany and by creating a West German separatist state as well as by gearing themselves to American imperialism. From this basis they want to expand the rule of imperialism again to the whole German territory and thus create a launching base for imperialist aggression against their neighbours in the east. This conception has been an integral part of the anti-communist aggressive programme of world imperialism. This is especially true of U.S. imperialism, whose plans envisage a resurrected German imperialism and militarism playing an important part as the European spearhead against the socialist camp. The sell-out of the national interests and the policy of splitting had already begun with the sabotage of the Potsdam Agreements. In the western zones the monopolists, militarists and Junkers had not been rendered powerless and no démocratisation had been carried through. Thus the chief tasks that faced the German nation then have remained unsolved. The political power of the old reactionary forces has been maintained or gradually - up to the foundation of the Bonn separatist state - restored. Together with it, above all with the help of U.S. Marshall Plan policy, the economic power of German imperialism had grown and West Germany has been shaped to become a satellite of U.S. imperialism. After German imperialism had restored its political and economic power it began to resurrect its military positions. From the position of strength and bringing economic, political and military pressure to bear upon the G.D.R. and the Soviet Union, it was intended to force them to forgo the achievements of the workers' and peasants' power in Germany ; the G. D. R. was to be included in the range of imperialist rule. The conclusion of the General Treaty in 1952 had served this conception, by making Germany's reunification expressly dependent upon the expansion of the reactionary Bonn regime to the G . D . R . and including the whole of Germany in the military blocs, with the U. S. A. predominating. The policy of re-militarisation has deepened the gulf in Germany and threatened the peaceful future of the German nation. Re-militarisation was largely completed with the conclusion of the Paris Treaties ("1954^ and the inclusion of West Germany in N A T O (1955V These were further important steps in the betrayal of the national interests of the German people. The creation, by the forces of reaction in West Germany, of a clerico-militarist state and the chaining of it to the 165

imperialist system of war pacts, the possibility existing up to then of re-unification by the conclusion of a German peace treaty and the holding of all-German elections had been frustrated. West German imperialism had again laid bare its anti-national role by becoming the chief advocate of the so-called European Idea and the sell-out of national unity and sovereignty. German imperialism now began openly preparing aggression in order to push through its anti-national conception by means of a war. Connected with it was the nuclear armament of the Bonn army, begun in 1957 and officially resolved on by the Federal Parliament in March 1958. This meant a threat to peace in Germany and the physical existence of the German nation. The safeguarding of peace became the central issue in the German question. The imperialist programme of the Adenauer CDU/CSU of July, 1961, was the summation and continuance of the anti-national conception of West German monopoly capital. This programme aims at the expansion of German monopoly capital and militarism as far as the rivers Oder and Neisse in order to get a foothold for further aggression directed towards the east. The Bonn government renounced all endeavours towards a national state in Germany and proclaimed the formation of an Atlantic Community. German monopoly capital, having become the chief economic and political force among the capitalist powers of Western Europe, aimed at bolstering up its leading role in Western Europe and at carrying through its imperialist policy of expansion in alliance with the U. S. A. The Adenauer government stepped up atomic armament of the West German army and demanded co-decision on the use of nuclear weapons. As a consequence of this aggressive imperialist policy the Adenauer government went over to active diversional activities, enticement of G . D . R . citizens to leave their state and attempts at disruption of the economy of the G . D . R . The danger was looming large that in connection with these provocations actual armed conflict might break out. It became necessary, therefore, to erect an anti-fascist defence wall on the borders of the German Democratic Republic and on the borders to the Western sectors of Berlin in order to guarantee peace for the German nation and socialist construction in the German Democratic Republic and the whole socialist camp, and to secure the state borders of the G . D . R . On August 13th, 1961, the German imperialists and militarists, and the war-mongers of the Willy Brandt gang suffered a defeat, their biggest rout since the foundation of the G . D . R . On that day the real relation of forces in Germany became manifest. On August 13th, 1961, the German Democratic Republic made a contribution to the peace of 166

Europe and the world, which was threatened by the West German militarists and the revenge-seeking politicians. The 13th of August, 1961, corroborated the German nation's historical experiences since the turn of the century, that the vital issues of the German nation can be solved only by fighting German imperialism and militarism. On German territory, on which the legitimate German state, the workers' and peasants' state, the German Democratic Republik, is facing militarist and imperialist West Germany, on which the struggle between the two social orders is being waged within one country, the national problem can be solved and the division of the country can be overcome only if the bane of our nation, monopoly capitalism and militarism, are removed in West Germany also and the right to self-determination is guaranteed by West Germany withdrawing from NATO. In the German Democratic Republic the objective laws of socialism hold way. They are the determining factor in the development of the whole German nation, they decide on the prospects for the whole of Germany. The downfall of imperialist rule in West Germany is inevitable. In the epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism on a world scale, socialism will not by-pass West Germany. Only socialism will bring the final solution of the national question of the German people. Socialism opens up the vista of a peaceful, happy and harmonious development to the whole German nation. The interests of the whole German working class and of all our people at the present time demand the all-round strengthening of the German Democratic Republic by the completion of socialist reconstruction, by the unfolding of the creative energies of the people, fred from exploitation and suppression. The Produktionsaufgebot (production drive) shows that the working class and the other working people in the G. D. R. are aware of these tasks. The 13th of August, 1961, meant for the western zones are-thinking; the process included even sections of the middle class. After the aggressive schemes of the imperialists against the G.D. R. had failed and in view of the sun's setting over the "economic miracle", the Bonn imperialists are making bids to shift the burden of their political failure onto the shoulders of the working class. While the leadership of the SPD and the right-wing trade union leaders have even added to their policy of subjection to the monopolies, the growth of political and social reasons for conflict have led to a growth of the fighting actions of the working people. This became evident in the wave of strikes that set in towards the end of 1961, in the animation of the struggle against atomic armament and in the movement against the emergency laws and 167

the emergency service laws. Class-consciousness in the West German workers is growing. The 22nd Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, held from October, 17th to 31st, 1961, in Moscow, resolved on the programme for the setting-up of the communist order of society; it initiated thereby a new epoch in the history of the international workers' movement and in the history of mankind. The Party Congress rebuked the Molotov-Kaganovitch-Malenkov faction, which had acted as enemies of the Party, opposed the general Leninist line decided upon by the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and stood out against the overcoming of the Stalin personality cult. The Congress condemned the Albanian leaders, who are jettisoning the principles of socialist internationalism and undermining the unity of the socialist camp. By generalising all the experiences made in the construction of socialism, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union pointed out, to all the nations of the earth, the only road to the triumph of socialist and communist society. The materials of the 22nd Party Congress amount to a text book for the Party, the working class and the whole population of the G.D.R. At the meetings held after this Congress the Central Committee of the SED drew the necessary conclusions from what had won recognition at that Congress and applied them to the conditions of the struggle in Germany. The new situation that had arisen from the security measures adopted on August 13th, 1961, demanded a realistic assessment of the situation and the laying-down of new tasks and the line to be followed. After a discussion among the people that went on for weeks the National Congress of the National Front of Democratic Germany, in June, 1962, resolved on the National Document, submitted by the Central Committee of the SED to the people in the two German states, after deliberations with the representatives of the parties of the democratic bloc; its title is "The Historic Mission of the German Democratic Republic and the Future of Germany". The National Document strikes the balance of German history and above all of the development in Germany since the end of the Second World War. Adducing historical experience it proves that the German bourgeoisie has forfeited any claim to leadership in Germany. It gives the reasons why only the German working class, jointly with all democratic forces, is in a position to lead the German nation to a happy and peaceful future. The National Congress, declaring the National Document the foundation of the political activities of all G.D.R. citizens, stated that the safeguarding of peace on German territory, in alliance with the supporters of the peace move168

ment in West Germany, was the historic mission of the German Democratic Republic. After August 13th, 1961, and after the 22nd Party Congress of the C . P . S . U . the S E D , the State Council, the Government of the G . D . R . and the National Front of Democratic Germany have redoubled their efforts to achieve a peaceful settlement of the German question, the peaceful neighbourly existence and economic competition of the two German states. All attempts by the Bonn diehards to trigger off armed provocations, exploiting the occupation regime still in force in West Berlin, have been wrecked by the consistent peace policy of the G . D . R . , the vigilance of their armed forces and the policy of the Government of the U . S . S . R . The heightened aggressive activities of the clerico-militarist forces of the Bonn regime emphasize the urgency of concluding a peace treaty and of bringing the West Berlin problem to a peaceful settlement. With the setting-up of guarded state borders the German Democratic Republic has entered a new phase of its development. What matters now is to reshape the economic pattern of the G. D . R. within the framework of the emergent socialist world system, to increase by the further development of socialist democracy the activity of all citizens of the G . D . R . and their readiness to shoulder responsibilities, and to bring the objective laws of socialism fully to bear in all spheres of life. Being an integral part of the socialist camp the G . D. R. makes an active contribution to the development of the socialist world system and helps the emergent national states in the construction of a national economy that is independent of imperialism. Fraternally allied with the Soviet Union and all other socialist states the G . D . R . is marching towards new successes. Thus the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the Marxist-Leninist party of the German working class, marching at the head of the masses, is fulfilling its historic mission in the whole of Germany and will carry on to final victory the fight of the noblest minds of the German working class and our people against exploitation and suppression, for a peaceful and happy life for all working people, a struggle that has lasted now for more than a century.

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