An internal report from the Left Opposition one year into the Nazi regime, and appeal for aid to continue underground work. Most German Trotskyist were arrested or in exile by 1936, with the entire domestic leadership not surviving fascism.

‘The German Left Opposition After Hitler’s Seizure Of Power’ from the International Communist League Internal Bulletin. No. 2. September, 1934.

The story of the German Opposition is well known, it is filled with difficulties and crises. The German Opposition grew from the little kernel formed within and without the Leninbund, through the literature of the Russian Opposition.

Before it could make its first steps, it had, in 1930, to separate itself from the Leninbund, which represented an extraordinary mixture of ultra-leftist and opportunist ideas. For years its work was made still harder by the miserable hysterical tradition of the German Lefts, a la Maslow, Fischer, Urbalius. Up to the spring of 1931, another year passed in sterile discussions with Landau, before the German Opposition could really get into action. There were hardly two years left prior to Hitler’s seizure of power, and the Opposition used these two years in intensive propaganda and educational work. Despite all material difficulties, despite the fact that the German Opposition was faced not only by the most powerful Socialist and Communist parties, but also by strong opposition groups, upheld by a certain tradition, such as the Brandlerites and the S.A.P., who had not acquired such strength in any other country: despite all this, the German Left Opposition at the time of its first national conference which took place under the Hitler illegality, in March 1933, managed to create an organization which spread into important centers all over Germany, and which had attracted a large number of veteran experienced Communists, but which and actually impregnated a cadre of young workers with the spirit of Communism and the ideas of the Left Opposition. We must also attribute to this education the fact that the capitulation of certain leading elements to Stalin on the eve of Hitler’s seizure of power, created no stir in the organization and even produced a certain relief and homogeneity. The increased the political capitulation cleansed the organization of several elements who in any case under illegality would be shown up as so much refuse.

Politically Hitler’s seizure of power was not unexpected by the Opposition, all of whose work was devoted to averting the catastrophe. It was not, like the S.P. or the C.P., confronted with ideological bankrupter, but only needed to draw conclusions from the events.

Consequently the organization did not hesitate on the question of short or long perspectives.

The March national conference had already abandoned the idea of the reform of the C.P. Propaganda for the new party struck certain snags, but this was overcome by a serious and thorough discussion. New processes in the S.P.G., the development of the S.A.P., caused the German Left Opposition to be the first to broach the question of the New International. In the general chaos of the German labor movement after Hitler’s seizure of power, the wreckage of different organizations found themselves grouped once more not so much around a political banner as in behalf of traditional affiliations, and it is actually only now that that situation is giving way to a genuine new political grouping, constantly renewed by the actions of the state secret police. And it is in this chaos that the Left Opposition will try to create the nuclei for the new party, by forming cadres consisting of former members of the C.P., the S.P. and from the unions, who are to take up especially the question of the defeat.

Two political questions especially were brought up for discussion, less because of the events themselves than because of the inventive gifts of certain theoreticians. Thus the question of the formation of “illegal unions” was thought up at the writing table of August Thalheimer, and. Hitler’s “state capitalism” issued from the typewriter of Hugo Utbahus. The first discovery, which corresponds to the German actuality as the fist corresponds to the eye, was repulsed by us as energetically us it seized upon by the bureaucracy of the C.P. as a plaything. It was necessary to fight the second theory, in spite of the insignificance of the Leninbund, because it played a role among a certain stratum of intellectuals, as a pretext for capitulating to Fascism.

Today, in the German L.O., besides discussion on the subject of the tactics of January 30. discussions with the S.A.P. are extremely important. The subject of this discussion is in the first place international in its nature and is made accessible to other sections of the I.C.L.A. The S.A,P., an organization centrist in its origin, has evolved so fast toward communism, that at the Paris Conference they arrived at the Declaration of Four and there was hope for a rapid fusion with the German Left Opposition. The fusion could be an important step on the road toward the new party. But a more profound discussion revealed the existence in the S.A.P. of resides, still very powerful, of rightist ideas and especially of new tendencies, arising since the depression after the defeat, according to which it was necessary to “improve” communist organization principles. But it is indubitable, as the future of the S.A.P. will show, that only a Bolshevik party, ideologically homogeneous, can surmount the difficulties of illegality and achieve victory.

The question of the nature of Fascism and the perspectives in Germany is so clear that anyone who speaks seriously cannot put the question otherwise than as we do. Only the bankrupt bureaucrats of Moscow can chatter about “revolution on the order of the day”. But the essential question has become that of organization, just as it was in the analogous situations in Russia in 1902 and 1900. It is here that all the divergent political, tactical, and strategic differences are reflected. If we observe the two old parties in bankruptcy, reconstituting themselves into two large “groups of conciliators” who leave out all bitter critics, but who will not break with the past and who thus can only form bases for transition either to the right or to the left. There we see those liquidationist tendencies in the very heart of the Communist movement, and here the L.O. (now called the International Communist League of Germany) most energetically and most clearly defends the principles of Bolshevism and thus constitutes the ideologic center of the renaissance of the German proletariat.

From the point of view of organization, the German L.O. showed itself particularly resistant, especially at the inception of illegality. It had no experience of the scattering and dissolution which so injured the big organizations. It was only in outlying districts, where the leading comrades were particularly well known, that we had great losses, at the beginning. Considering the relatively inconsiderable losses, turnover in the cadres of functionaries was equally inconsiderable. Having a paper printed outside of the country and yet appearing in Germany in sufficient numbers, and the publication of numerous local hectographed sheets, gave a considerable authority to the German section, aside from the fact that our political analysis had been confirmed by experience. The L.O. acquired an increasing power of attraction, not only among relatively restrained critics from the remains of the C.P.G.. but especially among the completely stirred up cadres of the social democracy, who were equally determined to break with the past and to have nothing to do with the Stalinists.

Growing in efficiency, however, Goering’s state police succeeded, finally from July on, in causing considerable losses to our organization. Some comrades were arrested, others deported. The great lack of funds played a tragic role in preventing the set()ity and extension of our organization. Now in many places new forces coming from the C.P. and the S.P. have replaced the old. But our documents are still circulating in the country, showing that this has not in any way caused a lowering of the level. For the most exact data on the life of the I.C.L. (as far as it is possible to publish this) we send out reports published in the bi-monthly paper Unser Wort appearing in Paris, and in the “Service d’Information” (LF.D., supplement of Unser Wort and appearing every two weeks). Before going underground the L.O. together with a number of isolated groups, numbered seven federations. In six of these systematic work is still being carried on. The losses are for the most part compensated for by the acquisition of good new elements. Maria Reese’s coming over and other symptoms showed that even the Stalinists cannot continue to gloss over the historic defeat by resolutions according to Heckert and reconciliations according to Brandler, without the better elements of the C.P. together with the L.O., setting themselves to create a new party.

The German emigres have obviously been on the job. In addition to work for supporting the German movement, for which purpose centers have been set up in seven countries, they take part actively and. unsuccessfully in work of the Bolshevik-Leninists in other countries. In certain countries, through the work of our emigres, new bases of support for the I.C.L. have even been created by the work of our emigres. Unser Wort exercises an important influence, not only on the emigres, but also  in the German-language revolutionary groups, which, in the light of the German experience, hope to avoid a similar fate.

The German L.O. Is deprived of its material base. Enormous tasks and remarkable opportunities are offered to us in our struggle for a new Communist Party in Germany, in our struggle against the most powerful and the most dangerous Fascism in world. Our successes, so far insignificant, can become more important if we enjoy greater moral and material support from our foreign comrades. The German L.O. (I.K.D.) is convinced that the appeal to international solidarity is not made in vain.

The U.S. Trotskyist movement began official, semi-regular internal bulletins to host political debate and discussion as the Communist League of America in 1930. In 1931, an International Bulletin was also produced running through 1934 to separate out the international debates. After the formation of Workers Party of the United States bulletins continued. With the entry of the Workers Party into the Socialist Party in the ‘French Turn’ internal bulletins were discontinued. In a reflection of the different size and resources of the CP, the CLA-WP-SWP bulletins were largely mimeographed rather than printed. A new set of Bulletins for internal discussion of the newly formed SWP in January of 1938 were produced, as well as another International Bulletin for discussion of the founding of the Fourth International. As a whole, these bulletins, unlike the internal bulletin of the CP, focus on long-form debate and internal discussion of Party resolutions and policy with the movement’s top leaders and thinkers contributing. Often, before congresses or plenums, special bulletins would be printed to host the relevant debate. The International Bulletins contain many of Trotsky’s and other international voices’ first English-language translations. Often those voice used pseudonyms, Crux is Trotsky. An invaluable resource for students of US Communism, Trotskyism, and the larger US workers’ movement.

PDF of issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/swp-us/idb/cla-iib/b2-new-series-1934-sep-international.pdf