German political turmoil continues with the second federal parliamentary elections of 1924 called by the minority coalition led by the Centre Party’s Wilhelm Marx who’s support of the Dawe’s Plan lost it support from the right. In the May, 1924 elections the Communists had just emerged from illegality with the former leadership around Brandler removed in the aftermath of the failed ‘German October’ and the left, of which Arthur Rosenberg was a leader, under Ruth Fischer and Arkadi Maslow assuming leadership. In the May the C.P. received 12.5%, 3.7 million votes, while the Social Democrat were the largest party at 22%, 6 million votes. In the elections campaigned for in the article that December, the C.P. vote fell to 9% (2.7 million) while the Social Democrats continued to be the largest party, 26% (7.9 million). However, the Centre party with a new unsteady coalition including liberals and the far right under ‘technocrat’ Hans Luther were able to retain power.

‘How the Communist Party of Germany is Conducting the Election Campaign’ by Arthur Rosenberg from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 4 No. 78. November 12, 1924.

The Communist Party of Germany is preparing for the elections of Dec. 7th, the penitentiary elections, as the popular saying rightly expresses it, under the most difficult conditions. The situation recalls the Duma elections under Czarism, or the elections which have taken place in recent times in the domain of the Polish “Democracy”, in Finland, Jugoslavia or Mussolini’s Italy. The fact that there were 62 Communist members of the Reichstag in Germany and that on the 4th of May 3,700,000 votes were cast for the Communist Party, did not at all fit into the system of the Dawes Plan. In the experts’ plan the German Government has been explicitly charged with the task of creating, in mutual agreement with the creditor countries, such conditions as would make Germany appear a trustworthy debtor in the eyes of other countries. Four million Communists in Germany constitute however a factor which most seriously injures the credit of the German bourgeoisie. Every million less of Communist votes implies a cheapening by 2% of the credit for the German State and private loans abroad. The weakening of Communism is a vital part of the policy of fulfilment of the German bourgeoisie and German Social Democracy.

As a matter of fact these tactics are exceedingly stupid. A revolutionary movement is not destroyed by excluding it from or reducing its strength in Parliament, since revolutions are. as is well-known, not made in Parliament. All great revolutions of modern times have been made by groups which were either not represented in Parliament or were in the minority. Think of the Bolsheviki, the Jacobins, Cromwell’s party. Even in Germany, legal parliamentary elections in Oct. or Nov. 1918 would never have produced a majority for the Republic, for the overthrow of the Hohenzollerns, the Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Councils. Thus the German bourgeoisie will sleep no more quietly even if they succeed in forming a better Reichstag.

In many respects the Germany of 1923 resembled the Russian Empire of 1905. Just as the defeat of the revolution of 1905 in Russia gave rise to a period of wildest reaction, so the German bourgeoisie would like to take revenge for the fright suffered in 1923 by a Stolipin period. The German miniature Stolipin has already been found in the person of Jarres, Minister of the Interior who, every few weeks states in his circulars that penal servitude has a very good effect on the Communists. This little Stolipin has unfortunately not the faintest idea of what is actually going on among the German population. Were he to observe a country in which the perse- cutions are especially violent, for instance Würtemberg, he would find that the Würtemberg proletariat has at no time stood more firmly by the C.P. of Germany than at the present moment, has never been more ready to fight nor more willing to sacrifice itself than today–in spite of the innumerable arrests and arbitrary acts of the Bazille-Bolz Government, that faithful disciple of Herr Jarres.

Jarres works hand in hand with Ebert, with the Chancellor Marx, with the internationally notorious examining magistrate Vogt and, let us not forget with the Social Democratic police authorities, Severing and Richter. These Social Democrats are using every possible means in the election campaign to weaken the Communists and strengthen the Social Democratic Party. In Berlin they are not contenting themselves with persecuting the Communist members of the Reichstag, but the lesser functionaries also are being arrested in masses. The Press bureaus of the police president Richter and the Minister of the Interior Severing publish every few days tales of horror about Communist bombs, the disintegration of the C.P.G. etc.

The C.P.G. is carrying on this electoral campaign in a situation in which the well-known and effective speakers of the Party cannot appear in public at all, and every other kind of election work is seriously paralysed by police interference. At the same time a concentrated attack of all parties, from the German Nationalists to the Social Democratic Party, is being organized against us. Under these extremely difficult conditions the election campaign will be a veritable ordeal for the C.P.G. It will have a significance which far exceeds that of other election contests.

Last winter, when the Party was prohibited, the pressure against it in diet elections, as in Thüringia, or in municipal elections as in Saxony, was nevertheless nothing like so severe as now. If the Party succeeds, in spite of this unexampled unfavourable situation, in obtaining millions of workers’ votes on Dec. 7th, it will prove that it is impossible to defeat the C.P.G. in present day Germany.

The civic elections in Hamburg on Oct. 26th were a good prelude to the Reichstag elections. In spite of the extreme terror exercised against the C.P.G., they did not succeed in overthrowing us. In Hamburg especially many hundreds of Communist functionaries are detained in prison or are refugees. Nevertheless, in spite of extensive abstention from voting, due to the lack of interest on the part of the masses in the parliamentary farce, the C.P.G. in Hamburg obtained 81,000 votes. The Social Democrats did not succeed in gaining any increased vote in Hamburg. That which was demonstrated in Hamburg on Oct. 26th, will be seen again in the whole of Germany on Dec. 7th.

The Party is carrying on this election campaign absolutely on principle. It is evident that in the present period of increased terror on the part of the bourgeoisie, there is not much likelihood of democratic illusions existing among the working class. The idea of opposing a Communist Social Democratic Labour block to the bourgeois block, i.e. an alliance with Severing against Jarres would indeed be stark madness. But in the election, the Party naturally upholds the principle of a united front of all workers against the bourgeoisie and it extends from the workers to the employees, the officials, and particularly to the radical small peasants’ organization. The C.P.G. is using the election campaign as a means of rousing the whole Party and the whole of the working class. The questions which are being put in the foreground are those of the everyday life of the proletariat: wages, hours of work, increased cost of living, and especially the amnesty. The 7th of December must demonstrate that the working masses of Germany will have nothing to do with the Dawes Plan, that they refuse starvation wages and a 10 hours’ day and that they demand the liberation of the political prisoners. Besides this the Communist vote on the 7th December must be a demonstration for the taking over of power by the workers as against the rule of capital. The Communist vote on Dec. 7th will be a demonstration against the League of Nations fraud and in favour of an alliance between a proletarian Germany and Soviet Russia.

The chief enemy we have to deal with in this election is perhaps not the bourgeoisie, not the Social Democrats, not the police, not the law, but the indifference and lack of interest of large circles of the working people to parliamentarism. The radically inclined German workman is so convinced of the futility of parliamentary procedure, that it becomes more and more difficult to drag him to the poll. The C.P.G. is devoting special attention to the agitation for convincing these sections of the workers that every vote which is not recorded on Dec. 7th is a vote for the reduction of wages and against the amnesty. A defeat of the Communists on Dec. 7th would only increase the arrogance and the brutality of the bourgeoisie and thus worsen the situation of the proletariat.

In spite of persecution and hindrances, the C.P.G. is carrying on the election campaign with all its force and with confidence, under the firm conviction that on Dec. 7th the Party will succeed in uniting millions of German proletarians upon the fundamental Communistic standpoint and on the lines of the V. World Congress of the Comintern.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1924/v04n78-nov-12-1924-Inprecor-loc.pdf