A turning point in German and European workers’ history was 1923’s failed ‘German October’ and its aftermath. A divided Communist Party before October remained divided after. In the run-up to the 9th Congress of the K.P.D. held in secrecy during April, 1924 at Frankfort three broad tendencies put forward their positions. The ‘Left Wing’ led by Maslow, Thalmann, and Fischer, position below, would assume power, at least temporarily, with the former leadership (the ‘Right’) around Brandler and Thalheimer deposed. A third, ‘Center’, tendency associated with Ernest Meyer was also active, their position below.

‘The Discussions in the C.P. of Germany: Propositions of the Centre Group’ from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 4 No. 25. April 17, 1924.

Propositions of the Centre Group of the C.P. of Germany for the drawing up of the Tactical Resolution and Program of Action at the Party Conference.

1. In making an estimate of the errors of the past, of the reformist remissness and danger in the CP. of Germany, and of the mistakes of the October retreat, the two left fractions have been enabled to attain unity on all essential questions by means of the Moscow agreements. The differences existing with reference to individual questions, such as for instance, the possibility of a victory in October, are not decisive for the present political discussion and the working out of a common line of tactics.

The Centre Group is above all in full agreement with what has up to now been the left opposition in believing that the October defeat was mainly due to serious opportunist deviations, which found disastrous expression in various ways since the Ruhr crisis, and especially in some of the most important formulas of the Leipzig Party conference. The united front tactics were no longer applied by the Party solely as a revolutionary method of winning over and mobilising the masses, but under the delusion that it would be possible in Germany to form a fighting alliance with at least the left German socialist party and to effectuate a transition stage between bourgeois democracy and proletarian dictatorship. This delusion showed itself with striking clearness in the politically wrong attitude s adopted by the Zeigner government after the Leipzig blood. bath, in the position taken up by the Party in the question of participation in the Saxon government, and at the Chemnitz conference, where the Party permitted its actions to be made dependent on the decisions of Social Democratic functionaries. The result was that the fight was not taken up, and the retreat followed without a struggle.

These opportunist dangers are caused by the temporary retardation in the speed of international revolutionary development, and by the fact that the Party still finds it difficult, in actual daily practice, to emancipate itself completely from the residue of Social Democratic ideology. A zone of special danger is formed by the necessity of communist detail work in the trade unions, the revolutionary utilization of the state and municipal parliaments, the work in the factory councils’ movement, the agitation among the hesitant strata of officials, intelligenzia, small holders, and small tradesmen and craftsmen. The Labour Party government in England, the temporary successes gained by the left bloc in France, and the attendant attempts at consolidation made by the Socialist Party in Germany, have proved that even during the present objectively extremely revolutionary period, it is still possible for temporary pacifist-democratic relapses to take place among the masses. This renders doubly necessary the revolutionary watchfulness of the German CP. Thus the chief danger at the present time is formed by the opportunist deviations, especially in view of the opportunist tendencies existing in our brother Parties.

The most important common task incumbent on the Centre Group and on the comrades of the Left is the relentless combatting of tendencies, groups and persons with a trend to the right, in the German Party and in the Communist International alike. Unless this is done, there is no possibility of real activity on the part of the Party, or of winning over the majority of the proletariat for the revolutionary struggle.

2. The attempts being made by the left opposition to combine a justifiable criticism of the manner in which the united. front tactics have been applied with a uniting of the whole of the tactical lines hitherto pursued by the Party and the Communist International, and thus actually to lead the Party and the Communist International back to the propagandist period, form today the most essential point of disagreement between the two fractions. Here the Centre Group points out that the left did not openly decline the united front tactics the most important tactics possessed by the CI. during the present period until after the October defeat. The Centre Group, now as ever, holds to the decisions of the Enlarged Executive and of the IV. World Congress, which designate the united front tactics as the most important method for mass agitation and mobilisation at the present time. These methods of agitation, of mobilisation and organisation of the broadest masses for the proletarian revolution under the leadership of the Communists, methods which the left are not able to substitute by better ones, must be further employed in the most various forms in most sections of the CI., despite the grave errors which have been committed, and although in Germany the united front can only begin from below. The great dangers attendant on the united front tactics must be continually remembered and pointed out.

3. The first pre-requisite for a correct application of the united front tactics, everywhere and at all times, is that the Party retains its full freedom of agitation and propaganda, that it stands unequivocally and straightforwardly before the masses as the representative of communist aims and principles, that it warns the masses in every situation against the reformists, and that it separates itself from the reformists, with its own slogan of action, the moment reformist betrayal comes apparent in an attempt to retard the forward movement of the masses. If these premises are observed, such forms of united front tactics as the following are possible: application to leaders, agitative support of reforms in themselves inadequate, but appearing attainable to the masses, co-operation with even reformist leaders in common committees, issue of own slogans popularizing communist aims (the so-called transitional slogans, as labour government, etc.). Such forms of the united front tactics may even be absolutely necessary during certain phases, for the purpose of awakening broad proletarian mass movements despite a numerically weak group of communists, and in spite of the powerful influence of the socialists among the masses. But in no case can it be permitted that the united front tactics lead to the abandonment of self-initiative and action on the part of the Party, or to making the action of the Party dependent on any temporary connection with the heads of reformist unions and parties. The most important work of the united front tactics, one which must be performed whatever the form taken by the tactics, is the formation of proletarian united front organs from below, out of the masses.

4. The Centre Group declares, in full agreement with what has hitherto been the left opposition, that today, after the revolutionary October crisis, only the united front tactics from below are possible in Germany. But this does not mean that we are to confine ourselves solely to mass agitation, and to occupying ourselves with the daily needs and daily demands of the masses. Like the whole united front tactics, the united front from below signifies a method of mobilising the masses, of awakening mass struggles, and of creating proletarian mass organs. In view of the growing German nationalist Fascism and in view of attempts at consolidation made by the SP. of Germany, the Party must regard it as its leading task to gather together the proletarian masses who are still followers of the German SP., of the Fascisti and of the Christian and other trade unions, to unite these in action with the communist workers, to free them from their reformist or petty bourgeois leaders and organizations, and to bring them under communist leadership. The growing masses of the unorganized confront the Party with the important task of saving these primitive broad strata of the proletariat from Fascist Nationalist demagogy, of shaking them out of their indifference, of uniting them with the Party and with the active section of the proletariat by means of the united front organs. For this purpose the Party must draw up a concrete program of action and must awaken the masses to fight for this emergency program by means of further development of the factory councils’ movement, of the control committees, and of the factory defence units, (hundertschafts), as also by the formation of tariff committees and committees of action in the factories and among the unemployed. The CP. of Germany has to gain the leadership of all the proletarian class organs arising out of the commencing defensive struggle of the proletariat against the capitalist offensive. Where these organs are still influenced by reformist or Fascist Nationalist functionaries, the CP. must issue warnings at once against these, and do its utmost to ensure their expulsion. The Party must use the first fresh act of treachery on the part of the reformist or yellow functionaries as an opportunity for putting forward the ultimative demand for their removal. At the factory councils elections the Party has to submit clear and revolutionary lists, which may contain, besides the names of communists, those of Social Democratic or non-party workers tried and tested in actual fighting, and recognizing the program of action of the Communists. Social Democratic functionaries must be called upon to leave the SP. of Germany. Besides this, the Party has to form organizations on the limes of the factory and unemployed councils movements for the purpose of uniting the unorganized workers with those organized in the trade unions, the unemployed with the employed.

State and municipal parliaments are no suitable ground for the united front tactics, but merely provide opportunity of disintegrating and unmasking bourgeois democracy and petty bourgeois (Fascist Nationalist and Social Democratic) parties. The chatter about “proletarian majorities” arises out of the delusion that such “majorities” are utilisable for the benefit of the workers, which delusion must be combatted with the utmost energy, for it is the expression of a trend which ends in an alliance with Social Democracy. Even on the smallest municipal council, Social Democracy and Nationalist Fascism alike must be openly treated as counter-revolutionary parties.

5. The open action of the reformist trade union leaders as willing agents and henchmen of the heavy industrialist dictatorship, and the profound depression prevailing among the masses in consequence of the economic crisis and the treachery of their former leaders, has brought about an acute crisis in the trade unions. Great masses have turned their backs on the trade unions. In the opinion of the CP. of Germany, neither abandoning the trade unions nor hastily founding new unions is the right way to overcome the yellow trade union bureaucracy or to create a broad revolutionary trade union movement. Such modes of procedure only have the effect of aiding the yellow trade union bureaucrats in their purpose of converting the trade unions into blackleg organizations in the service of capital. In spite of the treachery of their leaders, the trade unions still contain great masses who would be delivered over defenceless into the hands of the yellow bureaucrats if the communists left the unions. Therefore the communists must organize from below the resistance against the mass expulsion of the whole opposition on the broadest basis in the trade unions, in order to prevent the transformation of the trade unions into yellow blackleg organizations. Without dallying for a moment with the idea of an offensive trade union split, they must none the less determinedly face the danger of a split on the part of the agents of capital, so that in cases where the yellow trade unions contrive to bring about the split, the broad masses of the members are already on the side of the communists. At the same time the communist factory nuclei and fractions must carry on systematic work among the masses of the unorganized, in order that these may be gathered together by the factory councils, unemployed councils, action or tariff committees, enlisted in the ranks of the proletarian fighting front, and won for the Party and for the economic fighting organizations of the proletariat.

6. Other essential errors which have been committed by the whole Party are to be found in the defective organizatory and technical preparation of the Party for the struggle with the white dictatorship and for the final struggle. These errors led to a number of further mistakes in October. The CP. of Germany must always be equipped for illegality, even in times of legality and semi-legality, and must maintain schooled apparatus. In no case must it permit the delusion to spread that the bourgeoisie is going to look calmly on at the preparations for the final struggle. These preparations must be carried on as if the fight were going to begin tomorrow, and the idea that revolutionary struggles are not likely within any calculable time must not be allowed to arise. The Party must grasp the fact that the crisis in capitalism, despite occasional and apparent improvement, is likely to be the cause of revolutionary complications and surprising turns of events, and that the momentary passivity of the proletariat may tomorrow be transformed into intensified activity. The CP. of Germany must not only be prepared for such eventualities at any moment, but must seek to accelerate them. The CP. of Germany must hammer the idea of the coming revolution into the masses.

7. The Party cannot fulfil these tasks unless it is organizatorily connected with the masses in the workshops. Its organization must thus be based upon the factory nuclei. The objections raised by many comrades to this reorganization of the Party, and the attempts to retard it, signify increased difficulty and delay for revolutionary preparation. It goes without saying that this organizatory re-formation of the Party must not be carried out mechanically, but during the process of work, and during the readaptation of the whole Party to its revolutionary tasks. The members must be ideologically prepared and must be taught by their own work the necessity of the reorganization, so that they themselves will wish for it. But all these preparations must not lead to a delay in accomplishing our task.

8. Up to now the Party has shown itself exceedingly weak with regard to demonstrations against the White terror, with regard to the awakening and intensification of actions of economic self-defence, and in the combination of economic action with political demands and actions. Here, too, a dangerous passivity is to be observed. Many comrades of the left have raised the most untenable objections to the demonstrations against the White terror, and derided them as playing at revolution, instead of preparing for them with the utmost energy in the factories and among the unemployed, and of combining them with economic demands. Demonstrations are a valuable accessory during a period of acute economic crisis, of capitalist offensive and of White terror. and aid the Party and the most active section of the proletariat to overcome the depression in the masses, and to reawaken them to fresh activity.

The Party must by no means permit the avoidance of collisions with home or foreign state power even armed power to become a leading motive of its tactics (no tactics of “Don’t let yourselves be provoked!”), especially during the present, objectively, extremely revolutionary period, and beneath the regime of White terror. There is no possibility of “Bolshevising the Party” without its activity among the broad masses. The customary phrase of “all or nothing” is an opportunism of a specially dangerous type, for it can be used to cloak deficient preparation for the taking up of the necessary revolutionary struggle, with all forces strained to the utmost, when the moment comes. The Bolshevist core can only develop amid the daily agitation, organization and action of the Party, and it is this core which, heading the decisive section of the proletariat, that is majority in the decisive districts and industrial groups will fix the term at which the final struggle takes place.

9. In order to accomplish these tasks: The overcoming of the opportunist danger and the formation of a really Communist Party in Germany, a sincere and close cooperation between the former left opposition and the Centre Group is a vital necessity. As the tactical crisis in the CP. of Germany is inevitably accompanied, not only by an opportunist wing, but by tendencies to Fascism and Communist Labour Party deviations, a common struggle of the centre group and the group hitherto belonging to the left opposition is an urgent necessity for the effective combatting of these tendencies. Without making any ideological concessions to these trends of ideas, it is nevertheless necessary to make a careful study of the psychology of these confused, but generally sincere revolutionary workers. If these two fractions are to co-operate in the future, and eventually to amalgamate, it is necessary that both the fractions as they exist today clearly recognize that they are dependent upon one another, and that the leadership of the Party by one fraction alone, the other being excluded, is bound to be highly detrimental to the capacity for action, the unity and the political influence of the Party. We are thus opposed to any suppression of minorities, and to political expulsions. The Party leaders, in the districts and in the central alike, must be selected from both fractions, the majority of course taking the lead in each individual case. The fact that the Party has up to now not been able to overcome the passivity and depression in the ranks of its own members, and that it has been impossible for it to play a decisive active role among the proletariat, is greatly due to the purely fractional struggles, which place the striving for clarity of aim in the background in favour of a struggle for the majority in the Party.

10. The CP. of Germany must lend more determined support than ever before to the Executive, as the leader of the centralized Communist world Party, in its efforts to maintain discipline, in its struggle against all reformist errors, and in its endeavours towards the formation of a system of tactics capable of adaptation to concrete conditions, but none the less completely revolutionary, and having for its goal the winning over of the majority of the proletariat for the struggle for the proletarian dictatorship. In this struggle for the Bolshevisation of the European parties, the CP. of Germany must not limit itself to an alliance with small groups, frequently ones with an expressly left deviation, in the Comintern. It must rather seek to support, in collaboration with the Executive, the whole of the anti-reformist sections of the CI., the groups striving for revolutionary tactics, and to further the ideological enlightenment of these groups. Only in this way is it possible to exterminate the reformist residue in the CI. without sacrificing the character of the proletarian mass parties, and without the necessity of renouncing the pursuance of an active communist policy calculated to rouse the masses into striving for the revolutionary conquest of power.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecor” 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. Inprecor’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 Inprecor, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

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