Page:The Lessons of the German Events (1924).djvu/6

 What did the delegation find? The complete collapse of the plan of war as passed by the Executive. The plan of attack of the Party as was decided on here in September and October was based on the following: the proletariat was to march in Saxony in order to defend the workers' government which we were to join: in Saxony an attempt was to be made to utilise political power in order to arm, and in this limited proletarian district, in Central Germany to build a barrier between the counter-revolution of the South, Bavaria and the Fascism of the North. Simultaneously, the Party was to carry out a national mobilisation of the masses.

This plan failed for the following reasons. In the first place, when our comrades entered the government, they were not in a position to bring about the arming of the proletariat. We were informed that the Party in Saxony possessed 800 guns. At the Chemnitz conference the second part of the plan, namely, the joint advance of the social-democratic and communist masses of the workers was found to have collapsed. The proposal to proclaim a general strike and armed revolt was never made in Chemnitz in view of the opposition of the Left Social-democrats. Our Party retreated, and covered its retreat by the formula of the establishment of a committee of action which was to decide what was to be done. The Central Committee decided to avoid a battle on the ground that in this battle the proletarian united front could not be established, and in view of divided forces and the insufficient technical preparation, a revolt was impossible.

I have to take up a position on this situation. In my conversation with the comrades, I agreed that as they were unable to establish a united front with the Social-democratic workers, they had to abandon this plan for a revolt in Saxony. Nevertheless, I demanded of the comrades that they proclaim the strike. I argued that if we were not strong enough as a Communist Party alone to organise the revolt against the Fascists, nevertheless, we were strong enough to resist, and at least not to give up the position without a fight. All the comrades present at that time repudiated this point of view.

After the first practical decision, fresh discussions commenced every day. Always the question was raised, what is to be done next? In order to bring about a momentary pause in the discussion on the Central Committee, the delegation on the 26th proposed to the Seventh Commission the following resolution:—

The Seventh Commission resolves:—

(1) Social and political antagonisms are becoming more acute every day. Any day may bring great and decisive battles between revolution and counter-revolution.

(2) The vanguard of the working class (the Communists and a section of the Social-democratic workers) are eager to take up the fight, but the mass of the workers, in spite of their extreme feeling of bitterness and poverty, are not prepared to fight.