Page:The Lessons of the German Events (1924).djvu/25



What do the October events prove? They prove that a Workers' Government can be formed only if the revolutionary forces are so disposed that at the very next moment the Workers' Government gives place to the fight for the dictatorship.

(From the Left: The Leipsic Congress!)

Comrades, I say emphatically that this applies particularly to Germany. What the situation is in other countries I cannot judge. Perhaps under certain circumstances things might be quite different from Germany. But in the conditions existing in Germany there can be no question of a Workers' Government except at the moment of direct transition to the fight for power.

Comrades, the resolution of the Fourth Congress envisages other possibilities. It is an international decision. But I believe that in the problem we are now considering it must be definitely stated that if a similar combination of circumstances again occurs in Saxony, the experiment must only be attempted if the necessary conditions making the fight possible have been created; then only can it be undertaken.

These are the experiences we have learned from the October events.

I will now consider the problems arising out of the events which occurred in Germany. One of the most important was the problem of the relation of forces. Let me briefly describe the situation as it existed at that time. In January, when the fight in the Ruhr began, the International quite rightly foresaw that the fight in the Ruhr would produce similar results—if not on quite the same scale, nevertheless quite similar political results—in Germany, as the war has produced. Let me remind you here of the decisions which were taken in Essen in January and in Frankfort in March. In these resolutions it was already clearly recognised that the fight in the Ruhr must lead to an extraordinarily difficult economic and political crisis in Germany, and that it will lead us into quite serious fights. This view was very. soon confirmed. The fight in the Ruhr produced exactly similar situations in Germany as existed after or towards the end of the war—acts of desperation, great uprisings. There were not only large strikes, as has been repeatedly pointed out, but throughout large areas of Germany a chaotic state of affairs existed, in which locally and provincially the organisations of the workers to some extent had power in their hands. I must point out that very often in large strike areas, political power was in the hands of the workers, and the various State Governments were not able to carry out a policy of preventing the uprising of the workers. In other words, the movement has reached the pitch which we would very much have desired at the moment when the state of siege was decreed in the Reich.