Page:The Lessons of the German Events (1924).djvu/22

 how we saw the situation in a false light. The enemy was able by means of petty-bourgeois Fascism in Bavaria to draw off attention from their open and secret preparations for the seizure of power through Fascism in its heavy industrial and agrarian capitalist form—in the form of Seeckt. As in 1914, 1918, and in the Kapp Putsch, so here too, the victory of Fascism without a fight was possible only because it was covered by the Social-Democrats; Fascism, like the Noske military dictatorship and the November Republic in 1918, acted so to speak from behind the backs of the Social-Democrats. The preparations for the victory of Fascism were concealed by the Coalition Government, by the empowering laws, and by the consent of the Social-Democrats. The belief arose among the masses, not in the Communist Party, but among the elements influenced by the Social-Democrats, in the trade unions, and among the unorganised working-class masses, that the enemy was in Bavaria, and that all these preparations for the seizure of power by Fascism was not intended for a fight against the proletariat, as they really were, but for a fight against the petty-bourgeois Fascist clique, Hitler, Ludendorff, &c.

Comrades, if after the many years of war policy of the German Social-Democrats, if after five years of their post-war policy, it was possible for them to deceive and influence wide sections of the workers by such obvious manœuvres, and for the united front to be shattered by the facts which I have been unable to describe as well as I wished, then we were faced by a situation in which we as Communists had in spite of a shattered united front, either to take up the fight or reject it. That is the situation we were faced with. And I assert that had we, in October, after the manœuvres of the bourgeoisie with the aid of the Social-Democrats succeeded, taken up the fight we should have been forced on from a position of defence against the Reich Executive immediately to the decisive struggle for the proletarian dictatorship. The March action then would have been mere child's play, a poor jest in comparison with the defeat which we would have suffered in that situation. The Central Committee of the German Communist Party, but also the Executive, in drawing their fighting plans, considered only the Party and the proletariat. We overlooked the possibilities and chances and the capacity for manœuvring of the bourgeoisie. It is true that we one-sidedly concentrated our attention only upon Central Germany—the Executive was acquainted with our point of view and did not correct it. I assert that a decisive fight for power was in October and November possible only in Central Germany, and then only under favourable circumstances. These favourable circumstances did not present themselves, partly because of the errors of the Party committed during the decisive weeks, while we were in Moscow. The Party failed to undertake a rousing political campaign. Not sufficient use was made of the empowering law and the temporary prohibitions. But the plan was