Jacob Herzog, leader of the ‘Old Guard’ and founder of the Swiss Communist Party, on the process by which it was formed.

‘On the Development of a Communist Party’ by Jacob Herzog from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 2 No. 66. August 8, 1922.

In every country the Communist movement has to contend in its development with enormous difficulties and powerful obstacles. It is true that the daily increasing want beats with painful blows into the heads of the proletariat of Europe and America the noxiousness of the capitalistic economic system; that they feel daily upon their backs the slaver’s whip of reaction and experience the bitter betrayal of many of their once idealized leaders. These facts open the eyes of many workers and push them into our ranks. But in spite of all this, our movement progresses very slowly, and does not seem to advance beyond the stage of the growth crises. The Communist Party of Switzerland offers us an excellent example.

The field of action of our Party is extremely favorable to growth. The majority of the Swiss people are composed of the industrial, commercial, and agrarian proletariat who are long acquainted with Socialist ideas, and spring from a people with a thoroughly revolutionary tradition. In the most important industrial cities, the Communist Party, which is conducting its work openly, can rely on the support of a large number of trade unions. The Central Committee of many industrial unions are composed of revolutionary and communistically inclined comrades. An economic crisis rages with elemental fury in the country and condemns a hundred thousand workers to starvation. The employing class takes brutal advantage of the crisis to lower wages, prolong working hours, rob the workers of their political rights. Our Social Democracy is ruled by a leaden inertia. They betray the working-class in order not to impair capitalistic reconstruction, and attack all the more viciously the Communists. They confuse the proletariat with pacifistic phrases, with false anti-Bolshevistic news, and apparent political combats. In spite of all these conditions, so favorable to the development of a Communist movement, the Communist Party of Switzerland is undergoing one crisis after another, and is developing but slowly to a real Communist Party.

Its propaganda among the industrial proletarians is still very weak; among the rural proletariat and the small peasantry it is practically nihil. As yet, the Party forms no inner, compact whole, and is only slowly recovering from the centrist sickness. The reason is easily grasped. Although at the time of the split our Party stood very far to the left, there were admitted, together with the 5000 workers who joined us, a number of vacillating, half, and even wholly centrist leaders. A basic transformation of the old party functionaries, such as is most necessary today in the interest of the Communist movement, was not to be expected. On the other hand, the old Communist Party of Switzerland had not brought sufficient forces into the new United Communist Party to influence decisively its tactics. Add to this the influence of a strong anti-centralistic, federalistic movement, called here the Kantonli Spirit. This movement is strongest in Zurich where it has often engendered rebellions against the Party Executive which has its seat in Basel.

The Central Committee in power before the last Pentecost Convention, which consisted of representatives from the most important sections of the movement, gave itself all possible pains to form the United Communist Party into a compact and strongly centralized organization. But in all their attempts they met with the open or concealed resistance of a part of the membership, especially from Zurich.

The prime requirement of a unified party was a strongly centralized press. Zurich, however, opposed the will of the Central Committee in the matter, solved the question to its own satisfaction, and even came into conflict with the Communist International. A still worse form of separatism appeared in the question of trade union tactics. The clear, unequivocal statement of the Second Congress of the Comintern and the Unification Congress of our Party which required the membership to conduct their work in the unions as Communist fractions, was openly, sabotaged by many comrades, especially among the union functionaries who declared publicly that these Communist fractions would lead to a break in the unions. As a result of their efforts, several trade unions adopted resolutions which forbade fractional activities.

Nothing was left undone from that side to confuse the membership of the Party and to undermine the authority of the Central Executive.

When the Central Committee of the Party sounded the slogans of the proletarian United Front against the Reaction and entered into negotiation with the Social Democratic Party and the trade unions to carry out that policy, Fritz Schneider, as leader of a group of union officials in Basel, claimed the Party did not take its declaration seriously; that it wished only to repeat the “criminal” March action of the German Communist Party and to arouse the masses to another bloody putch. Schneider’s position and his open rejection of fractional tactics led to a sharp conflict in the Basel section of the Communist Party, which resulted in his quitting the Party, together with a good dozen other comrades.

In Zurich the opponents of the Communist trade union tactics were much stronger. Zurich is the seat of a number of train union executives which are led by members of the Communist Party of Switzerland and by left Social Democrats. The resistance came from these leaders. They did not want to disturb the peace in the trade unions by sharp conflicts between Communists and Social Democrats. At first, these Central Federations obeyed the call of the Communist Party Executive to form a united front against the reaction, and united with the party in Trimbach to form a Committee of Common Action which was to force the calling of a Swiss Trade Union Congress. But when the reformists refused to agree to our proposition and took up the fight against the Communists instead, not even afraid to break up the trade unions in their action, the radical Central Committee took fear. To the call of the Central Executive of the Communist Party for united action against the reaction, and for the union of the revolutionary trade unions in an organization of combat, the representatives of the unions answered with the liquidation of the Trimbach Committee. In fact, they changed their course so far as to fraternize openly with the reformists at the May Congress of the Swiss Federation of Labor, voting, and speaking for their resolutions and against the Communist resolution of the Basel section. And when the Party Executive in accordance with its statuary right sent a comrade to take over the edition of the Zurich Party organ as a sanitation measure, these right wing comrades supported by the vacillating centrist group of the Zurich Party, rebelled against the Party Executive, and named as editor a comrade acceptable to the right wing.

Such was the situation in the Party before the Pentecost Congress of 1922. In two and a half days all these conflicts were to be solved. The question of trade union tactics was naturally the most important one. Zurich presented resolutions, condemning the tactics of the Executive, and tried to remove from the Party program all those resolutions which demanded fractional activity within the trade unions. In the discussion which followed, the majority of the Zurich representatives withdrew their removal demands and voted with a great majority for the theses of the Executive. In general the tactics of the Central Executive, in the question of the united front as well as in its measures towards the Zurich comrades, were approved by a great majority.

Two months have passed since the last Party Congress without any important change taking place within the Party. A few outspoken centrists left the Party, a few more will follow. Zurich declared it would submit to the decisions of the Party Congress. We cannot tell how far this movement towards betterment will proceed. One thing must be clearly stated: As long as the Party does not rid itself of the Kantönli spirit and its inherited centristic disease, no great progress will be possible nor will it gain an important position in the workers’ movement. The Party will not be able to put through its program by compromising with the Social Democrats. It is the task of the Communist Party of Switzerland to form rapidly a united and disciplined organization. The sooner this process will be accomplished, the sooner will the Communist Party of Switzerland be capable of assuming its historical role in the fight for liberation of the Swiss proletariat.

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. Inprecorr is an invaluable English-language source on the history of the Communist International and its sections.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1922/v02n066-aug-08-1922-Inprecor.pdf