The Revolution That Almost Happened
One-and-a-half years after the Third Congress of the Comintern the conflicts within the German Communist Party (KPD) were not really resolved. After the occupation of the Ruhr by the French army, the conflict between the leadership majority and the left opposition erupted once again in full force. Differences emerged over the support given by the KPD to a left-wing Social Democratic Party (SPD) government in Saxony and the course to be adopted in the occupied Ruhr.
The party was now led by Heinrich Brandler, a founding member of the Spartakusbund. While many former lefts had turned sharply to the right, a new left-wing faction had formed under Ruth Fischer, Arkadi Maslow and—to a lesser extent—Ernst Thälmann. Fischer and Maslow were both young intellectuals who had joined the movement after the war. They had the majority of the important Berlin organisation behind them. Thälmann was a worker who joined the KPD through the Independent SPD (USPD). He was the leader of the KPD in Hamburg.
On January 10, the SPD government in Saxony fell and the KPD conducted a campaign for a united front and a workers’ government. While the majority of the SPD favoured a coalition with bourgeois parties, a left minority was for an alliance with the KPD. The KPD developed a vigorous agitation and published a “workers’ program,” which included among its demands: confiscation of the property of the former royal family; arming the workers; a purge of the judiciary, the police and the administration; calling of a congress of factory councils and control of prices by elected committees.
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In Germany, the extreme right had previously been limited to remnants of the imperial army and small anti-Semitic parties. But in 1923 it started to grow and win a social base, even though it was much smaller than Hitler’s social base in the 1930s. Agitation against the “November criminals,” Jews and foreigners found a hearing amongst declassed petty-bourgeois elements and some impoverished workers affected by the impact of inflation. In the Ruhr, members of the extreme right presented themselves as heroic fighters against the French occupation.
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In the following days and weeks there were numerous discussions and continuous correspondence with the leaders of the KPD, who frequently travelled to Moscow. Financial, logistical and military support was organised to arm the Proletarian Hundreds, which had been set up over the previous months. In October, Radek, Pyatakov and Sokolnikov were sent to Germany to assist the uprising.
Fascinating account of a part of history we don’t hear much about. Germany had several abortive Communist and Socialist uprisings, in 1918 and throughout the 20s and 30s.