Page:The Lessons of the German Events (1924).djvu/72

 provide itself with a line of retreat and defence in case of failure, and a reserve line of attack.

As a result of all these errors and defects of the Party, and of the weakness of the working class, there was a shrinking from the decisive fight for power at the last moment. While in Bulgaria, where the Part y had formerly not participated in armed struggles, the defeat can still form the basis for future victories, in Germany, after the defeats of 1919 and of March, 1921, the Communists are in such a position that they must in the fight understand how to lead the masses to victory.

In any case, it was a great mistake of the Party not to have immediately changed its front and proceeded at once to partial struggles, and that in spite of the fact that some partial preparations had been made it retreated without a fight immediately upon the entry of the Reichswehr, the pronouncement of a state of siege throughout the Reich and the suppression of the Party.

The aggravation of the class antagonisms in Germany, the sharpening of the economic crisis, the concentration of the Party upon the decisive struggle, induced the Executive Committee of the Communist International and of the German Communist Party to undertake the experiment of allowing the Communists to enter the Saxon Government.

The idea of the participation in the Saxon Government was, in the opinion of the Executive, a special military and political task, which was defined in an instruction as follows:

"Since, as we estimate the situation, the decisive moment will take place not later than four, five or six weeks hence, we consider it necessary that every position that can be directly useful should be immediately occupied. In view of the prevailing situation, the question of entering the Saxon Government must be treated as a practical one. On the condition that Zeigner and his people will be prepared sincerely to defend Saxony against Bavaria and the Fascisti, we must enter the government, immediately arm from fifty to sixty thousand men in an effective manner, and ignore General Muller. The same in Thuringia."

Under these originally assumed premisses, the participation in the Government conformed to the resolutions of the Fourth Congress. The promotion of revolutionary struggles, the welding of the working masses should have been the pre-conditions for the entry into the Saxon Government: this entry should have been based upon mass movements. Although the direct military task had to be put off in view of the slowing down of the revolutionary process, nevertheless, the Communists could and ought to have carried on a real revolutionary activity. In this however, they showed themselves gravely below expectations.

It was their duty first of all to advance ruthlessly the question