Spartacist leaflet from the end of April, 1917 reflecting the growing anti-war sentiment and calling for an immediate peace.

‘Proclamation of the Spartacus League: The Lessons of the Great Mass Strike’ (1917) from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 7 No. 28. May 5, 1927.

Spartacus in Favour of an Immediate Peace.

Workers! Comrades!

The mass strike of the Berlin workers is over—the misery of the masses, the wholesale deprivation of rights, the condition of siege and the slaughter of the peoples continues. Famine also continues!

The Government, it is true, has promised to make up for the deficiency in bread by a liberal distribution of meat and potatoes. The people are not to be worse off than they were before the bread ration was cut down. That is all right, but was our food anything like sufficient before?! Did we not have to endure the greatest lack of indispensable foodstuffs? Have we not had to look on while our women and children gradually faded away, while our power of work–our only means of sustenance gradually dwindled away?

This is how we have let the Government put us off by promising us the old misery!

The chief thing, however, is that the Government is quite incapable of keeping its promises except under conditions which fill us with fear and horror of the approaching future. The fact is that there are neither potatoes nor cattle to guarantee us the additional food promised for any length of time. If it were now possible to provide the workers, more liberally, it would have been an unpardonable crime to let them starve until now. As a matter of fact however, the instigators of the war conceal the truth from the people.

The additional rations can only be distributed if we consume the seed potatoes and a considerable part of the cattle for breeding.

If the Government in order to save itself from the wrath of the people and from a revolution such as has taken place in Russia enters on this path, millions of German men and women will be faced next winter by naked hunger and starvation.

The only rescue from the abyss into which the Government has driven the country, is an immediate peace.

The Government is out to rob other countries, it does not desire any peace which would be acceptable to the so-called “enemy” States. Even if it could draw up and conclude a peace according to its own heart, it would always–as we all know only too well–be in the interest of militarism and imperialism, of the Junkers and capitalists, and opposed to the vital interests of the German proletariat. It is therefore the most urgent task of the German workers to enforce peace–just as our Russian brothers are now doing and to see that it takes a form which corresponds with the interest of the international proletariat, so that we have our peace and not the peace of the imperialists.

It was therefore up to us to turn the mass strike into a cry for peace from millions of voices which would have worked like an igniting spark in the barracks and trenches; it was up to Berlin to hold out unflinchingly in the fight until the proletariat in the whole country had rallied round the German workers; it was up to us to create a new mass organisation and fighting organisation which would bring about peace and freedom in the fight itself; above all, it was up to us to subordinate the food question completely to the peace campaign, as the former is indissolubly bound up with the latter and cannot be solved independently. Instead of that, the fighting masses allowed themselves to be deluded. Instead of raising the great political question of peace in its full significance, they allowed themselves to be lured into the narrow field of negotiations about additional rations of potatoes and meat. In order to add to the hundreds of official and civic “Commissions”, which have been doctoring at the undernourishment of the people for almost three years without success, they added a new “permanent Commission”, consisting of workers with Messrs. Cohen, Körsten and Siering at its head, to which the Government graciously gave the right of, in case of need, “lodging a complaint or a petition” before the highest authorities and “getting an insight” into the economic situation under the supervision of the supreme authorities. As though complaints without permanent fighting organisations and without the masses being ready to fight could lead to anything, as though the Labour Commission would have had the possibility of testing the data of the privy councillors of the food office!

Workers! Comrades! The fight which has just been ended is only the beginning of a number of severe fights which await us. It is therefore imperative that we should admit the mistakes we have made with all frankness and ruthlessness and ever keep them before our eyes. What is the reason why the movement did not arrive at its aim from the first start?

Above all undoubtedly the lack of clearness in large sections of the broad masses as to the aim itself and as to the means for arriving at it. Secondly because we were not able to differentiate the political mass strike directed against the Government and against the situation created by the war from the traditional trade union fights in which the trade union authorities act as the recognised and competent leaders of the workers. It was for this reason alone that individuals such as Siering, Körsten and Cohen, the only too well known and notorious President of the Metal Workers’ Union could dare to seize the reins of the movement.

For, as a matter of fact, what had the official trade union authorities, the Cohens and company to do with the mass revolt of the workers that they were allowed to raise their voice when the decisive word was spoken?

Do the trade unions pay any compensation for strike days? Was it the trade union leaders who called on the masses to down tools? Or are these three gentlemen enthusiastic partisans of a political mass strike? Not in the least! The contrary of all this is the case. The trade union authorities tried to oppose the movement with all means in their power. For a long time they have been raging furiously in meetings, in the Press and in pamphlets against the “apostles of the strike” and “agitators”, threatening the workers with the trenches, calumniating the adherents of mass action as “agents of the alien governments”, and themselves acting as voluntary agents of the Berlin police authorities.

And, in spite of all this, the strikers suffered the three “diehards”, these supporters of civil peace and sworn enemies of mass strikes, to negotiate with the authorities and to be given a seat and a voice in the “standing commission” as representatives of the workers!

Workers! Comrades! We have set a wolf to mind the sheep!

The three Judases have placed themselves at the head of the movement with the sole intention of breaking the back of the strike, of leading it on to wrong tracks so that the whole movement peters out to nothing. The Government need not have brought either machine guns or its troops of police into action. The three undertook the dirty job of overcoming the workers in their fight by despicable cunning and treachery.

Things must not be allowed to remain as they are! The mistakes which have been committed must be made good.

Firstly, the three “die-hards” must be removed from the “standing commission”. The latter is not by the grace of God but was elected by the meeting of functionaries, and this meeting can appoint a new commission in which not only the metal industry but workers from other branches should be represented.

Secondly, independently of this commission which has but little significance in the future fight, it is our urgent duty to call into being a special mass organisation of the Berlin workers to fight for peace. The workers in every factory who are in favour of this, would then elect their delegates. The delegates would then appoint a committee which would be entrusted with the direction of the mass fight and the mass action.

Workers! Comrades! The only way which leads to our end is through fights, through mass strikes to victory! And for this, we need above all a fighting organisation.

In spite of the mistakes which have been committed, the mass strike of April 16th and 17th is and remains a glorious record and a landmark in the history of the German socialist proletariat. Without a condition of siege indeed, in spite of it without coercive laws and military discipline, a proletarian mass of more than 300,000 workers of both sexes which corresponds to ten army corps has mobilised itself in wonderful unanimity and order. The lying reports in the bourgeois Press, the trembling anxiety of the Government, the mendacious message from Hindenburg, the idol of the imperialists, are the best evidence of the dread with which the enemies of the workers regard the new weapon. The principle of independent mass action, which is hated and interdicted by the authorities in the official Labour movement, has broken through all along the line and has conquered; new, vast prospects are opening before the Labour movement in Germany.

This was the first great mass assault of the class-conscious German workers. The second assault will follow on the 1st of May.

Workers! Prepare for the first of May! On that day, work shall cease altogether in workshops and factories! Up, and join in the fight for peace, freedom and bread!

Wake, man of work! Recognise your power! All wheels stand still, when your strong arm commands!

Down with the war!

Down with the Government!

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.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1927/v07n28-may-05-1927-inprecor-op.pdf