Section 1: Towards the March Action Catastrophe and Its Consequences (1920-1921)
Ernest Mandel - The German Revolution (1918-1923)
The Mass Unification of October 1920
The secession of the Independent Socialist Party at the Halle Congress of October 1920 brought an enormous mass of workers evolving to the left, revolutionary or semi-revolutionary, into the Unified Communist Party of Germany, which, with this unification, became a mass party of very great scope. Officially, it declared half a million members. The reality was undoubtedly a bit lower, but that matters little.
And almost immediately a small catastrophe occurred. You see, this was the second or third in the story that would deal a very hard blow to this party, that would throw it very far back and that would make it lose an enormous number of members.
The March Action of 1921: Ultra-Left Adventurism
This was the famous March Action of 1921. Fundamentally, as we already highlighted yesterday, the mass of workers who moved first from the Social Democratic Party to the Independent Social Democratic Party, then to the Communist Party, was a mass of activist workers radicalized by the war and the revolutionary crisis and who wanted to fight on a large scale against the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois state, and who had grown weary of the hesitations, the procrastinations, [and] the vacillations of the central leadership. And who exerted very heavy pressure on the Communist Party leadership to move to action.
And this coincided with a manifestly false estimation by the leadership of the Communist International, [believing] that it was time to return to the offensive on a European scale. This was [based on] the advance of the Red Army, Tukhachevsky's offensive of the Red Army on Warsaw. They believed they were on the eve of the collapse of capitalism in Central Europe and they thus elaborated this theory of the offensive which is an extremely dangerous theory, ultra-leftist if you will, which, notably, believes that the initiative of the revolutionary party is indispensable to increase the combativity of the masses.
We will see later that the initiative of the revolutionary party is truly indispensable in quite a few respects and for quite a few phases of the class struggle, but not for this one.
The Military Provocation and Communist Response
The formal occasion for the action was a military operation, let us say, of restoration of order led by the Prussian Social Democratic minister, thus from [the state of] Anhalt, of the province of Prussia, in central Germany, in the region of Merseburg, where there were some of the fortresses of the German Communist Party.
The fact remains that there were army operations, of the army, not only of the police, of the army in central Germany to disarm groups of workers, disarm groups of citizens, operations which were always accompanied by murders, assassinations, [and] exactions.
And the German Communist Party launched an appeal for military resistance, that is to say in reality for military offensive against the army which thus occupied a series of towns. There was a very, very important communist workers' implantation in central [Germany].
And these were the two great factories of the nitrogen industry which had been created just before and during the First World War for the munitions industry, notably the famous Leuna factory, which is still today one of the largest factories in the GDR, [with] several tens of thousands of workers. It was these factories that were chosen by the Communist Party as the center of military action, that is to say which were transformed into fortresses and which had to be taken by assault by the Reichswehr, by the army in an operation which lasted several days and in which there were many dead.
The Political Isolation and Defeat
The German Communist Party, contrary to what had happened in January 1919, assumed the action. Die Rote Fahne and the central organ of the Party called workers to arms throughout Germany and no one reacted. The action remained limited to these few fortresses of central Germany where there was direct confrontation with the police and the army.
It was a very important political defeat, very serious for a party that counted hundreds of thousands of members, that called for general war, that called for insurrection and that was not followed at all. There was no response except by small groups of the party. Even the military apparatus of the party at that time was very badly prepared, it was only the first phase of preparation, and the reactions were minimal except in this region.
The Catastrophic Consequences
And there was a whole series of very serious effects that resulted from this. A mass of members left the party [and] the unified party lost half the forces it had gained from the Independent Socialist Party, that is to say it lost them in the space of a few weeks.
This was obviously an extraordinary catastrophe. The workers' vanguard, the more educated elements, the workers' leaders, notably almost all the militants of the factory councils movement, thus the revolutionary shop stewards—the elite, if you will, of the German working class, who had joined the party in October 1920, this was lost.
For them, a leadership that makes an operation that goes so wrong, that calls for general strike and insurrection, when 90% of the proletariat does not follow, this is an absolutely incapable leadership, that has failed, that [discredited] itself in their eyes, that has no more authority.
The Decapitation of Leadership and Factional Warfare
The leadership was decapitated. This action divided very deeply the militants, the cadres, [and] the militants who remained, and from that moment on, the party would remain for years, that is to say practically until complete Stalinization, that is to say until around 1929, divided for 8 years into two factions that hate each other to death, that wage war with knives, and that hardly speak to each other anymore.
Historical Note: This catastrophic March Action of 1921 represents one of the most devastating examples of ultra-left adventurism in the history of the German working class movement. Mandel's analysis reveals how the "theory of the offensive" - the belief that revolutionary initiative could artificially stimulate mass combativity - led to a political disaster that would cripple the German Communist Party for years. The loss of the revolutionary shop stewards and factory council militants was particularly tragic, as these were precisely the organic leaders who could have provided the crucial link between the party and the mass of German workers in the revolutionary crisis that would emerge in 1923.
Section 2: The Third Congress Intervention and Brandler's Recovery (1921-1922)
Ernest Mandel - The German Revolution (1918-1923)
The Communist International's Harsh Intervention
The Communist International intervened, now quite harshly. This was the Third Congress of the Communist International, where as you know, Lenin [and] Trotsky said firmly that they placed themselves to the right of the Congress, some even say wickedly to the extreme right of the Congress, [and] led the battle against Béla Kun, Bukharin, Zinoviev, that is to say those responsible for the offensive policy and the March Action.
They criticized the March Action very harshly, made the turn toward what they called the United Front policy, the policy of conquest of the masses, and practically imposed a change of leadership on the German Communist Party. The leadership passed to Heinrich Brandler, who effectively launched himself into the conquest of the masses.
The Absolutely Unforeseen Miracle
And then, this was the miracle, I cannot call it otherwise, this was the absolutely unforeseen miracle. In the space of a year, the Communist Party not only regained all the ground lost by the March Action, but it resurfaced, with a force, an influence and a capacity for action much greater than on the eve of or during the March Action.
It effectively launched itself into the conquest of the masses with an absolutely spectacular result. Let us say that the number of members probably returned to between 400,000 and 500,000. There were something like 50 daily newspapers.
The Conquest of the Trade Unions
Fractions were built in practically all the trade unions. The Social Democrats themselves evaluated on the eve of the decisive days of October 1923 the weight of the Communist Party in the trade unions as fluctuating between 35 and 40%. And with a whole series of trade unions that were manifestly dominated by the Communist Party [and] entirely directed by the communist fractions - the great period of communist trade union work was never repeated on this scale.
That is to say that the Communist Party repeated, fundamentally, the operation that the Independent Socialist Party had done in 1919-1920. It obtained not only hegemonic influence in the working class, it obtained organizational positions, one after another, in all the mass organizations of the [working class].
The Spectacular Success of United Front Policy
And this was a spectacular success of the United Front policy, that is to say the United Front was imposed, not only on the Independent Socialist Party, but even on the Social Democratic Party, on a whole series of occasions and in a whole series of cases, in a whole series of trade union actions, notably the famous railway workers' strike, which was practically jointly directed by a Social Democratic trade union leadership, bureaucratic [leadership] and by the Communist Party. The Communist Party being the only one that brought total aid throughout the country to the strike in a completely spectacular manner.
The Rathenau Assassination and Anti-Fascist United Front
The same thing occurred during an attack against Rathenau, the Foreign Affairs minister, who had made the famous Rapallo accord with the Soviet Union, who was assassinated by a pre-fascist, let's say an extreme-rightist who was in [one of] these shock groups that would become the future S.A. shock groups of Hitler.
The reaction to this was the vote of a law on the defense of the Republic which would remain on paper, but it was the constitution of working-class self-defense groups and anti-fascist self-defense [groups] in which the Communist Party participated alongside the Social Democratic Party, alongside the Independent Socialist Party and alongside the trade unions and imposed itself, that is to say despite all the visceral anti-communism and everything that had happened during the previous years.
This time, the unitary pressure was such and the policy of the Communist Party sufficiently correct, that the Social Democratic Party could not escape the official United Fronts at the summit.
The Theoretical Framework: Two Aspects of United Front Policy
After all these experiences, it was clear for all the revolutionary leaders who had a minimum of maturity - and to Brandler one could not obviously deny this maturity, and I repeat, Trotsky, [and] the whole Communist International including Zinoviev shared this opinion - that a conquest of power in Germany by the proletariat was inconceivable without an articulation of United Front policy and mass armament of the proletariat.
[That] after all these experiences [to] believe that a minority could launch itself into the conquest of power was inconceivable. It was first necessary to conquer hegemony within the working class and this was impossible [to achieve without] a United Front policy, and it was necessary to conceive a policy of broad armament of the working class, not of small armed detachments.
The Dialectical Application of United Front Tactics
A first approach to the problem of the United Front is the approach that Trotsky made especially in the years 1930-33. It is thus the United Front as objective necessity to defend the working class against attacks that it undergoes, either attacks on the economic level or threats against its freedoms and its organizations. In this case, it is obviously the fascist threat that is the most serious. The United Front is an objective necessity in this case because the response to these attacks is impossible in dispersed order without the unification of workers' forces.
[The other] aspect of United Front policy is the United Front as instrument for conquest of the majority of workers by a revolutionary party. Given the pace of German evolution, given the revolutionary crisis so rich in episodes and in combats of diverse nature, there was for the Communist Party, starting from 1920, the necessity of applying United Front policy while passing sometimes with vertiginous speed from one aspect to the other.
I already gave you an example earlier. During the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch, it was necessary to place the accent on unity of action against the common enemy, as priority. The leadership of the Communist Party did not know how to go about it.
This provides the excuses that I already gave you. This came in the aftermath of massacres organized by the Social Democratic leaders, of all these actions of disarming workers, of this ignoble attack on the great mass demonstration in Berlin. One understands that they were embarrassed. They should however have understood the objective necessity of doing it and seen that this corresponded to the desire, to the aspirations and even to the orientation of millions of workers.
Brandler's Masterful Application
I believe that the other aspect, the aspect thus of United Front policy to win the majority of the working class, was applied in an admirable manner by the Brandler leadership. Starting from the end of 1921 and during the entire year of 1922, they did this very well, not in an excessively sectarian manner either, not with insults or [foam] at the mouth, but in a reasonable manner, taking [support] on the immediate demands of workers, taking [support] on economic strikes and gradually raising the question to the political domain.
Historical Note: This section reveals Mandel's profound appreciation for Brandler's tactical genius. The "absolutely unforeseen miracle" was not accidental - it demonstrated how correct United Front tactics, intelligently applied, could transform a devastated party into a genuine mass force capable of leading the working class. The dialectical ability to shift rapidly between defensive unity (against fascist attacks) and offensive unity (for conquest of the masses) proved essential. Brandler's success vindicated Lenin and Trotsky's intervention at the Third Congress and provided the foundation for the revolutionary opportunities that would emerge in 1923.
Section 3: The Workers' Governments and Revolutionary Crisis of 1923
Ernest Mandel - The German Revolution (1918-1923)
The Spectacular Culmination: Workers' Governments
And this succession of successes then found its extremely spectacular culmination at the beginning of 1923, when in two provinces, thus two Länder of Germany which were those where the weight [of the working class was the] greatest - we had already spoken of the "red kingdom" before the First World War for Saxony, because at that time, all the constituencies except one in Saxony had a socialist deputy. In 1912, this was thus the best organized base of the working class in all of Germany, and there thus, there was a spectacular reversal.
The Social Democratic Party gave itself a left leadership and the left leadership of the Social Democratic Party accepted a united front, let's say, institutionalized with the Communist Party which led to the constitution of the famous workers' government, where the Communists participated together with the Socialists in these two Länder.
The Revolutionary Situation Crystallizes
The Communist Party was thus conquering the masses, and it was conquering the masses in a revolutionary situation which was now precipitating, which was becoming precise, which was arriving at its culminating point, and no one was mistaken about this - all the signs coincided.
There were two triggers, there were two detonators.
The First Detonator: Galloping Hyperinflation
One was galloping inflation. Galloping inflation, that means prices that were no longer increasing by one, two, three, four percent per month, but which increased by one hundred, two hundred, five hundred, one thousand percent, first per month, then per week, then per day.
You know, finally you have undoubtedly read about this, this is famous, the workers receiving their pay who had to rush to the store to buy bread, because between the moment when they received their pay and the moment when they bought the bread, there was already a price increase, they already lost part of their purchasing power, if they did not immediately convert the money into goods.
That means in reality, the money loses all purchasing power, this is a period of famine... [The transcript becomes garbled here with repeated syllables, indicating the catastrophic nature of the situation]. It is clear that in such a climate, with a very well organized and very combative working class, this obviously brings the revolutionary crisis to the limit of generalized explosion.
The Second Detonator: The Franco-Belgian Occupation of the Ruhr
The second detonator was an action by French imperialism, or more exactly Franco-Belgian [imperialism], since I must not forget the exploits of my compatriots, who, at the end of the First World War through the Treaty of Versailles, had obtained very important multiple war reparations from Germany.
This was an extremely stupid economic calculation on the part of the victorious imperialism, because Germany began by paying, but it paid in a completely particular manner, by pushing exports, by snatching markets from the Western imperialists and with the return of foreign currency from these exports paying the reparations - which fucked things up, if you will, which caused economic difficulties everywhere.
But from a certain moment, there was a counter-offensive, thus one could not continue to export German products and merchandise that were always cheaper, that is to say by losing substance, by not even reconstituting capital. In Germany from a certain moment, this export offensive thus experienced failures and Germany could no longer pay its reparations.
And then, [Raymond] Poincaré, the aggressive chief, if you will, of French imperialism at that time, decided to counter-attack and occupy the Ruhr, thus to send in French troops with a small Belgian contingent into the Ruhr.
German Bourgeois Response and the Authority Crisis
The German bourgeoisie did not fall into the trap, did not trigger war - moreover, it did not have the means to do so, it barely had [forces] sufficient to maintain order in Germany. It thus did not oppose [them] militarily, but it decreed passive resistance, which moreover provoked still another deterioration of the economic situation and still accentuated the inflation.
And in this climate, manifestly, the German government and the German bourgeoisie lost all authority in the country.
The Reactivation of Workers' Councils
And the workers then seized spontaneously and naturally these organs that they had created in 1918 and with which they identified to make them the natural organs of revolutionary organisms for preparation of the seizure of power. And everywhere in Germany, the German Communist Party, this time under Brandler's leadership, which was particularly more intelligent and closer to the masses than the leadership of 1919, launched itself into the conquest of the factory councils, [where] there were workers' councils, as the independents had done in 1919, without entering into sectarian considerations about whether these were Soviets, whether this could be Soviets, whether one had to fight immediately for them to be Soviets.
[Brandler] understood that this was the organ of workers' self-organization, that one had to first win inside there, if one wanted to win the masses. He launched into the conquest with extraordinary success - perhaps more than half the factory councils were conquered by the Communists in Germany, especially in heavy industry and especially in metallurgy.
The Vindication of the Independent Socialist Strategy
This confirmed all the correctness of the orientation of the Independent Socialist left and the sectarian and erroneous character of the line of the German Communist Party of 1919, because in 1923, despite the defeat suffered at the parliamentary level, despite the fact that the workers' councils were transformed into factory councils à la française, [despite the fact that they] lost their de facto power of workers' control in enterprises, [despite the fact] that the Social Democrats tried to institutionalize them and integrate them into a policy of class collaboration, as soon as the revolutionary upsurge of 1923 became precise, the prediction of the worker leaders of 1919 also became precise.
Historical Analysis: This section captures the moment when all of Brandler's patient United Front work came to fruition. The formation of workers' governments in Saxony and Thuringia represented the highest point of Communist influence - an "institutionalized united front" that provided a legal framework for revolutionary preparation. The dual crisis of hyperinflation and imperialist occupation created objective conditions for revolution, while the spontaneous reactivation of factory councils proved the Independent Socialists' strategy from 1919 had been correct all along. Mandel shows how revolutionary leadership must be able to recognize and seize upon the organic forms of workers' self-organization, rather than imposing abstract revolutionary schemas from above.
Section 4: Historical Flashback - The 1919 Councils Debate and Social Democratic Counter-Revolution
Ernest Mandel - The German Revolution (1918-1923)
The Context: Workers' Councils Under the Impact of the Russian Revolution
I told you that in 1918-1919, the workers' councils were elected under the pressure of the revolutionary vanguard and under the impact of the Russian Revolution, in a more or less universal manner, in forms and proportions a little different, according to circumstances, but finally, they became institutionalized, they were there.
The Social Democratic Counter-Revolutionary Operation
The great counter-revolutionary operation of the reformists of the Social Democrats consists in neutralizing the workers' councils as organs [stripped] of political power. And these counter-revolutionaries, very lucid, not short-sighted, understood from the start that at the historical level, the battle was being fought for or against the councils and for or against the soviets. They had only one obsession which even made them surpass what I said yesterday, that is to say tactical wisdom and the capacity for tactical maneuvering. They were so obsessed by their hostility toward the councils that they wanted to liquidate them totally.
After having jumped on the moving train on November 9, they wanted to liquidate the affair as soon as they obtained victory at the congress of councils at the end of December, they wanted to liquidate.
Then the Weimar Constituent [Assembly] was convoked, the Constituent Assembly was convoked and [the Social Democrats] proposed in reality propositions, [they] put forward propositions for liquidation of the councils, and there they ran into a snag. They had underestimated the manner in which the German working class, still confused with a non-Leninist, non-Marxist revolutionary consciousness, identified with the councils and wanted to maintain them.
The Independent Socialists' Strategic Response
Then the Independent Socialists and especially the left wing of the Independent Socialists, [Georg] Däumig, [Georg] Gäller, Richard Müller, the leaders of the revolutionary shop stewards, engaged in an extremely valuable rearguard action that the leaders of the Communist Party did not understand and even partly sabotaged with little tactical art, which did them terrible harm in 1919 and which pushed the entire historical current [away] from them in 1919, not through the Social Democratic Party at the time.
The reasoning that the comrades of the independent left held, the left of the Independent Socialist Party [was]: "The councils must absolutely be preserved. The revolution has suffered a defeat, but it is not yet the [final] defeat. New battles will come. If we preserve the organizational form, [since] this is the form, the only form in which a revolutionary working class can organize itself, no matter what function the councils have momentarily, they will find again the function of an organ of power when they coincide again with a revolutionary crisis.
It is therefore necessary to save the councils, whatever their immediate function, because this will be a vehicle, this will be a valid form of revolutionary organization at the moment of the approach." I believe that they were absolutely right.
The Communist Party's "Deaf Dialogue"
And then there was a deaf dialogue, this is bad, I believe, on the part of the Communist Party throughout 1919 against this attempt. The Communist Party, making jokes, saying, "the independents believe they can conquer power factory by factory, in each factory, they believe one can conquer economic power without having political power," and this was largely a debate beside the point.
The Success of the Independent Socialist Strategy (1919-1920)
Throughout 1919 and a good part of 1920, the battle was waged with considerable success. The attempts by the coalition government led by the Social Democrats to liquidate the factory councils, the workers' councils failed. They lost the majority in the trade unions. They wanted to oppose the trade unions to the workers' councils, [but] the opposite occurred. The Independent Socialist current, relying on the factory councils, conquered the majority in the trade unions.
Theoretical Insight: The Concept of Embryonic Soviets
One must not have soviet fetishism, one must understand what is the function of self-organization of the working class - moreover I believe that it is useless to explain to [our] movement, our movement has understood this thoroughly - and one must understand that every form of self-organization of the working class, even a form much more modest than the soviet form, can be an embryonic Soviet.
One must therefore not be maximalist in this matter. One must not say either Soviets or nothing at all, but one must say we try to maintain and to generalize every form of self-organization of the working class at the level of enterprises and at the local level, because if one preserves something on this subject, as soon as the situation changes, the restart of the pure soviet form, this has a [much] easier [beginning] starting from such a council than starting from zero.
The 1923 Vindication of the Independent Socialist Line
And then in 1923, all the correctness of the orientation of the Independent Socialist left and the sectarian and erroneous character of the line of the German Communist Party of 1919 was confirmed, because in 1923, despite the defeat suffered at the parliamentary level, despite the fact that the workers' councils were transformed into factory councils à la française, [despite the fact that they] lost their de facto power of workers' control in enterprises, [despite the fact] that the Social Democrats tried to institutionalize them and integrate them into a policy of class collaboration, as soon as the revolutionary upsurge of 1923 became precise, the prediction of the worker leaders of 1919 also became precise.
And the workers then seized spontaneously and naturally these organs that they had created in 1918 and with which they identified to make them the natural organs of revolutionary organisms for preparation of the seizure of power. And everywhere in Germany, the German Communist Party, this time under Brandler's leadership, which was particularly more intelligent and closer to the masses than the leadership of 1919, launched itself into the conquest of the factory councils, [where] there were workers' councils, as the independents had done in 1919, without entering into sectarian considerations about whether these were Soviets, whether this could be Soviets, whether one had to fight immediately for them to be Soviets.
[Brandler] understood that this was the organ of workers' self-organization, that one had to first win inside there, if one wanted to win the masses. He launched into the conquest with extraordinary success - perhaps more than half the factory councils were conquered by the Communists in Germany, especially in heavy industry and especially in metallurgy.
Historical Analysis: This section reveals the profound strategic wisdom of the Independent Socialist left in 1919 and the tragic sectarianism of the early Communist Party. While the Social Democrats pursued a lucid counter-revolutionary strategy to liquidate the councils, and the Communists engaged in a "deaf dialogue" ridiculing the Independents' approach, figures like Richard Müller and Georg Däumig understood that preserving any form of workers' self-organization was essential for future revolutionary opportunities. Their vindication came in 1923 when workers spontaneously reactivated these very organs for revolutionary preparation. This demonstrates the crucial importance of non-sectarian work within existing forms of workers' organization, even when they fall short of full soviet power.
Section 5: The Armed Question and Mass Revolutionary Parties
Ernest Mandel - The German Revolution (1918-1923)
The Armed Character of the Workers' Councils
These organs, these workers' councils federated locally, generally have an armed wing. There are in most cities where these workers' councils subsist, armed detachments either stemming from the decomposition of the army and thus from parts of the garrison that went over to the side of the people in November 1918 and who maintained their arms and who are in the process of demobilization, but who resist their demobilization a bit because they consider themselves as the armed wing of the workers' councils and who have seen what happened in Berlin, who have seen the Berlin massacre [and ask] who will defend them. The councils [understand] the possibility of such a massacre, [these armed detachments are] either composed of armed workers who armed themselves during the November revolution and who do not want to give up their arms.
The Law of Disarmament and Resistance
Then there was repeated in a whole series of parts of Germany and in a whole series of German cities the classic scenario that we already saw in January 1919 in Berlin and that we saw in the Paris Commune, that is to say the decisive test for the counter-revolution is the disarmament of workers, it is the disarmament of the revolution, and the revolution does not easily let itself be disarmed - this is the law of every revolution.
Once workers have arms in [their] hands, to snatch them away is not easy and it provokes 99 times out of 100 suspicion or resistance. The resistance may be ineffective, especially during a retreat, and in 1919, we are in conjunctural retreat concerning relations between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, but there is resistance.
And so throughout 1919, there will be armed skirmishes in practically all the large cities of Germany, each time with the same scenario: ultimatum from the central government to local authorities to disarm the workers, refusal by local authorities because they are [controlled by] artisans or controlled by the left. Then no, the Minister of National Defense sends the Reichswehr toward the city to disarm the workers, the Reichswehr enters, it is practically instantaneous fighting and fighting that ends with many dead.
The Communist Party's Painful Learning Process
The Communist Party learned the lesson of January. It warned workers against armed resistance, it told them not to resist, it told them that there were provocations - moreover, there was constantly the use of informers and provocations by [agents] who, when there were [incidents], made an individual in the crowd shoot at the army and the army shoots at the crowd - there are 30, 40, 50 [dead], it's constant, absolutely constant. The Communist Party did everything it could to learn the lesson of January and avoid this useless bleeding, but it did not succeed.
I repeat, getting armed workers to surrender their arms is extremely difficult and all the history of [revolution] that the Germans prove, this, without fail, provokes each time troubles, each time. The most intelligent thing for workers is to hide their arms, to bury them, to hide them, but to surrender them, they will not do it.
The Two Key Aspects of 1923: United Front and Proletarian Armament
It is therefore necessary to take into account everything I have just recounted to explain two key aspects of 1923: the aspect of the United Front and the aspect of the armament of the proletariat.
After these experiences, it was clear for all revolutionary leaders who had a minimum of maturity - and one could not obviously deny this maturity to Brandler, and I repeat, Trotsky, the entire Communist International including Lenin and [Zinoviev] shared this opinion - that a conquest of power in Germany by the proletariat was inconceivable without an articulation of United Front policy and mass armament of the proletariat.
[That] after all these experiences [to] believe that a minority could launch itself into the conquest of power was inconceivable. It was first necessary to conquer hegemony within the working class and this was impossible [to achieve without] a United Front policy, and it was necessary to conceive a policy of broad armament of the working class, not of small armed detachments.
The Theoretical Question: Mass Revolutionary Parties
One can ask the question: is a legal mass revolutionary party conceivable? Is it conceivable that there be in an imperialist country, hundreds of thousands of revolutionaries, not only in thought, in intentions, but in daily practice and that the bourgeoisie lets it happen?
Is a large revolutionary party not by its very nature, by its very existence, condemned to clandestinity? I believe that history has already answered this question, that is to say German history which on this level, also Spanish history in part, we will speak of it tomorrow, German history is much more eloquent.
The Reality of Mass Revolutionary Parties in Action
The answer is yes, a mass revolutionary party is possible, it is obviously possible only in a revolutionary period, this is clear. How can one not have a revolutionary period when you have hundreds of thousands of true revolutionaries in a country and who already have a very broad influence in the working class? Otherwise, this would be a contradiction in itself. Revolutionaries who do not behave like revolutionaries in daily life are not revolutionaries. So if you have hundreds of thousands of people who behave like revolutionaries in daily life, this obviously changes the entire objective situation, it is no longer only a factor.
It is an element of the daily reality, economic, social and political of the country. It suffices to see what happened in Germany, in 1922 and especially in 1923 to realize this. That is to say that you have in enterprises practically daily strikes, strikes not only on wage demands, but on attempts to realize workers' control, the total paralysis of the bosses, the paralysis of the bourgeois state administration in entire sectors of social life, attempts at arming workers constantly, constant skirmishes between worker sectors and sectors of the state apparatus.
All this proves that these militants are truly revolutionary militants, even impatient, even undisciplined. But it is useless to be able to maintain iron discipline among 500,000 revolutionaries. This is quite impossible, even the Bolsheviks did not succeed in this. In Russia, you had the same phenomena in the weeks and months that preceded the October Revolution.
That is to say this which reveals the existence of a revolutionary situation. One approaches reality from several sides, but one always falls back on the same totality. That is to say that it is possible to have a mass revolutionary party, but, but, all the same, but I add immediately, not for a very long period, this is obvious, because such a situation inevitably pushes toward a test of strength, which one can win or which one can lose.
Historical Analysis: This section addresses the crucial practical and theoretical questions about armed struggle and mass revolutionary organization. Mandel demonstrates how the "law of disarmament" created constant conflicts throughout 1919, forcing revolutionaries to understand that workers will hide rather than surrender weapons. The theoretical analysis of mass revolutionary parties shows they are possible but only in revolutionary periods, and their very existence transforms the objective situation from a "factor" to an "element of daily reality." The German experience proves that such parties inevitably push toward decisive confrontations with bourgeois power.
Section 6: The Bourgeois Stabilization and Return to Ultra-Leftism (1924)
Ernest Mandel - The German Revolution (1918-1923)
Hamburg's Intelligent Withdrawal
They reduced the damage to a minimum. It was not too tragic, it could have been a terrible massacre, they withdrew immediately. This time, it was not a contemptible defeat. This time, it was the decisive turning point.
International Bourgeois Class Consciousness
The bourgeoisie stabilized the situation this time. The international bourgeoisie understood the great danger it had run. It repeated on a smaller scale what it would do later with the Marshall Plan, that is to say it gave very considerable credits to German capitalism, to the German economy to stabilize the situation from an economic point of view.
There was a monetary reform, a new mark founded on gold was launched, the economy was stabilized, exports were relaunched, politically and economically the situation was stabilized.
The Electoral Reckoning of 1924
In 1924, there were elections which ended in a very heavy defeat for the Social Democratic Party [and for] the Communist Party compared to the influence it had gained in 1920-21, but obviously in considerable retreat compared to the positions it would have had in 1923. There, the Communist Party still won, I don't know, 15 or 20% of the votes, which was enormous compared to the small positions it had had in 1921, electorally, but which was in considerable reflux - if there had been elections at the end of 1923, it would have had, I don't know, 30% of the votes, something like that, let's say a percentage equivalent to that of the Bolsheviks in the Constituent Assembly elections [in Russia].
The Tragic Irony: Ultra-Left Reaction to Defeat
There is moreover a small anecdote [that] ended this sad affair, which is that in the meantime, as a reaction to the defeat of the German October, there was a change of guard in the German Communist Party. The right lost power, the left, that is to say the ultra-left, that is to say the sectarians [who had opposed] the German October [came to power].
The Zinovievist [faction] of Ruth Fischer takes over when it becomes the leadership of the Party, it is they who conduct the campaign [for the elections], it is they who have the elected [members] in Parliament in majority, which moreover means that afterwards in the unified left opposition, there will be quite a few deputies and ex-deputies to the Reichstag participating in the left or the extreme left, and they behave in Parliament in an extraordinary manner, that is to say like ultra-leftists, to discredit parliamentary life.
They show up in overalls with trumpets, they disorganize the meetings, finally it is a spectacle like had never been seen in Europe, which moreover does harm - one must not underestimate the effects of this affair - which actually objectively prepares the Nazi campaign of using parliamentary democracy for the benefit of the extreme right, not for the benefit of the left.
The Incomprehension of the Historical Turn
This expresses an incomprehension of the turn that had taken place in Germany. To do this on the eve of the conquest of power by the Proletariat, one could still reflect [on it], I believe it is even contraindicated at that moment, well at least at that moment, it forms part of a reasonable, thought-out strategic project, whereas the fact [of doing it] after the defeat, after the decisive turn, this signifies in reality no longer understanding that the conquest of power is not in front of oneself, one must prepare for a long struggle that extends over years and to do this outside of any strategic project.
Trotsky's Immediate Understanding vs. International Communist Incomprehension
This is moreover a terrible weakness of the Communist International, contrary to Trotsky who understood immediately, and who speaks of a defeat of the German October and who makes the parallel with Russia and who [calls for] fresh analysis, this is basically one of the two acts of birth of the Trotskyist movement, one being the [New] Course, the other being the famous "Lessons of October" where he criticizes the leadership of the Russian Communist Party and of the German Communist Party.
Trotsky understands that this is a decisive turning point now, this is the beginning of the reflux.
Section 7: The Dialectical Complexity of United Front Policy - Theoretical Synthesis
Ernest Mandel - The German Revolution (1918-1923)
The Essential Prerequisites: United Front and Mass Armament
And you remember in the account, in the chronology from earlier, how [Brandler] conceived the articulation between the United Front and the armament of the masses in 1923. What was valid in this articulation, I insist on it now. What was false, we must also understand.
Two Approaches to the United Front Problem
A first approach to the problem of the United Front is the approach that Trotsky made especially in the years 1930-33. It is thus the United Front as objective necessity to defend the working class against attacks that it undergoes, either attacks on the economic level or threats against its freedoms and its organizations. In this case, it is obviously the fascist threat that is the most serious. The United Front is an objective necessity in this case because the response to these attacks is impossible in dispersed order without the unification of workers' forces.
[The other] aspect of United Front policy is the United Front as instrument for conquest of the majority of workers by a revolutionary party.
The Dialectical Application: Vertiginous Speed Between Aspects
Given the pace of German evolution, given the revolutionary crisis so rich in episodes and in combats of diverse nature, there was for the Communist Party, starting from 1920, the necessity of applying United Front policy while passing sometimes with vertiginous speed from one aspect to the other.
I already gave you an example earlier. During the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch, it was necessary to place the accent on unity of action against the common enemy, as priority. The leadership of the Communist Party did not know how to go about it.
This provides the excuses that I already gave you. This came in the aftermath of massacres organized by the Social Democratic leaders, of all these actions of disarming workers, of this ignoble attack on the great mass demonstration in Berlin. One understands that they were embarrassed. They should however have understood the objective necessity of doing it and seen that this corresponded to the desire, to the aspirations and even to the orientation of millions of workers.
Brandler's Masterful Application of Offensive United Front
I believe that the other aspect, the aspect thus of United Front policy to win the majority of the working class, was applied in an admirable manner by the Brandler leadership. Starting from the end of 1921 and during the entire year of 1922, they did this very well, not in an excessively sectarian manner either, not with insults or [foam] at the mouth, but in a reasonable manner, taking [support] on the immediate demands of workers, taking [support] on economic strikes and gradually raising the question to the political domain.
The Problem of Factional Struggle and Revolutionary Leadership
Then the experience of the KPD, of the German party, and notably the historical model on this subject: starting from the March Action, the party was divided into two factions that were practically identical in strength among the militants, one of which placed the accent on the necessity of initiative, of action by the party - which is true, the revolutionary party must have initiative and must lead action - and the other placed the accent on the necessary conquest of the masses and the necessary tactics to conquer the masses.
Obviously, for us, it is almost a truism, also an evidence that a revolutionary leadership must be able to be characterized by both, by both qualities. It must be capable of doing both. I would not say exactly at the same time simultaneously because these are tasks which, while overlapping, nonetheless combine in different proportions, at different moments, but not [with] permanent initiative in action.
We are also not for the permanent tactic of the United Front and of conquest of the masses. There are different moments where an accent must be placed sometimes on one aspect, sometimes on the other, but clearly, the worst thing is that there be in a party specialists of conquest of the masses and specialists of revolutionary initiative on the other [side] who substitute for each other in the leadership and who are characterized by an extremely one-sided approach to revolutionary politics, the ones accusing the others of only doing this.
Like one of the two aspects of politics and the others responding, obviously, it is inevitable for the first to not be capable of understanding mass work, of understanding the work of revolutionary initiative.
The Dialectical Nature of Internal Party Life
The dialectic of internal debate must be a dialectic of overcoming partial positions and in general, the struggle of polarized fractions does exactly the opposite and tends to maintain two pieces of a party on partial positions.
We are partisans of the right of tendency. We are partisans of the possibility of creating fractions. We are so, because history has demonstrated to us, contrary to the idea of Trotsky and Lenin in 1921, that the remedy is worse than the disease. That is to say that if one forbids fractions, if one forbids tendencies, one stifles internal debate and one contributes to bureaucratization and degeneration. It remains true that the words I have used have a completely precise sense.
The remedy is worse than the disease, but fractions are a disease, they are not a good thing. And a party divided into more or less permanent organized fractions is a sick party, not only because the existence of fractions reveals the sickness - this is a bit tautological, but because, to take up the idea that I developed a few minutes ago, this slows down or prevents the dialectic of internal debate.
