Page:The Lessons of the German Events (1924).djvu/49

 point is the same. The controversy is precisely over the question as to whether we shall be a good agitation party; the question as to whether we are a Communist or a Centrist agitation party. It is no use raising the sect bogey here. We know it too well. We in Russia are a mass party. The defect of our parties is that they do not understand how to conduct Communist agitation. Take the British, the French, the Czecho-Slovak, and the German Parties, they do not understand yet how to conduct Communist popular agitation. They do not yet regard themselves as tribune of the people. Why has the speeches of one of our best men, Heckert, annoyed us so? We all like Heckert as a good fellow, we know that he is loyal to the Communist International and would die with it. All the more reason therefore why we were annoyed that he did not look upon himself as a popular tribune.

(: Have you read his speeches?)

I have read all that was possible, and I think not less than Walcher. We have not made this judgment in a narrow-minded spirit. When we drew up the letter we were all unanimous, and we read a dozen reports.

(: Everybody said it was a good Communist speech.)

Perhaps in normal times it would have been a good speech. But it did not give the impression that it was a speech of one whom the revolutionary wave had carried to the head of the masses of the workers. No, it could not be, when the attitude was: I am responsible to the Landtag, I stand on the Constitution.

(: There was no wave.)

It is true there was no wave in Leipsic at that moment, but the wave was there in Germany in October. Remmele has related how the masses remained in the streets the whole night, how they confiscated luxurious automobiles, and what the temper of the women was. Comrades, this, for us, was far more important than the volumes of the theses we wrote. We must have this mass sense. The picture that Remmele described, that Koenig has given, and Thälmann has often drawn, that was the most important thing in Germany. On October 25 it was not in Leipsic, but it was in Germany. Were you the megaphone of this mood?

The masses were acting spontaneously, but Members of the Central Committee, like Heckert, were not acting spontaneously. If he is a leader, he must be able to sense what is in the masses. We saw nothing in these Ministers of what was reflected by Thälmann, Remmele, and Koenig, and this was the most terrifying symptom. I will not come forward here like a Shylock and say why did you not have the arms within five days? That could not be done. That is not the charge brought against you. But why did not you become the passionate tribune of the masses? This is what we do not understand—and it is a bad symptom.