Page:The Lessons of the German Events (1924).djvu/32

 elements. And the result was that the poison was not driven out of the German Communist Party, nor, I fear, out of the Communist International.

The tactic of the united front was a consistent deduction from the slogan "To the Masses." This tactic had with us a very remarkable history, which I beg all foreign comrades to study carefully, for it is an illustration of how the attempt is made to transform the correct idea of the united front as a method of agitation into revisionism. Out of the open letter on the Rathenau campaign, out of the meeting of the Executives of the three Internationals, out of the thousand details develops the attempt to fuse the German Communist Party and the German Socialist Party organisationally. When, for instance, in the last few years our German comrades discovered that the finest thing about the Russian Revolution is the New Economic Policy, that it is the true meaning of Socialism, when they go further and declare that the New Economic Policy must come before the conquest of power, and that it is the one thing needful—this is a symptom of an attempt to carry the policy to the end.

The October situation began to evince itself with the beginning of the occupation of the Ruhr. But it now appears to be unanimously agreed that the course of the German revolution was rather interrupted by the occupation of the Ruhr, that the German bourgeoisie were disturbed in their attempts at consolidation and subjection to foreign capitalism and that an internal political crisis arose. But it is not by chance that the Leipsic Party Congress by a fractional vote refused to hear a report and speech on the Ruhr occupation. We all value Comrade Zetkin extremely, but a mere report by Comrade Zetkin and the adoption of a manifesto cannot be regarded as an examination of the Ruhr question.

It is most important to remember that regarding the theses of the Leipsic Party Congress, which were emphatically disavowed by the Executive, the Executive representative more than once declared that he had read through the majority theses, pencil in hand, and had not found the least trace of a false formulation. This is a part of the policy of a common platform which he, in competition with Brandler, to-day developed.

Comrades, the Leipsic Congress came very near to a split, and no purpose is served by concealing the fact. The factional warfare and mutual hatred of the two groups was so acute that it was only by the intervention of the Executive at the last minute that a split was prevented. We made practically no preparations for the Leipsic Congress. We were in the situation of people who have not even the right to oppose the old party leaders. Nevertheless, we obtained the votes of a quite considerable number of workers from the most important industrial areas, although the situation was far from being clear and definite.

Every single action which the party conducted in the period from the Leipsic Congress to October, had a double aspect. The