Germany’s Communist Workers Party (Kommunistische Arbeiter Partei) makes its appeal to the I.W.W.

‘The K.A.P.D. and the I.W.W.’ from One Big Union. Vol. 2 No. 6. July, 1920.

White Guard Atrocities Against the German Workers (Translated from the German by Wm. Weyh)

The General Workingmen’s Union (Allegemeine Arbeiter Union) is a part of the international revolutionary working class movement which is trying by all means to bring about the overthrow of the capitalist system and to secure for the proletariat political and economic control in order that it may use the soviet power against the counter-revolutionaries.

As an economic revolutionary organization, we are in goal and in fighting spirit most like the I.W.W. of America. (Here follow extracts from “The Revolutionary I.W.W.” by Grover Perry, with which we are all familiar, and then the article continues.)

A literal translation of this shows plainly the international and revolutionary character of the I.W.W. and that its goal is the same as ours.

Before all else, the I.W.W. has to vanquish the guild-crazy, nationalistic and race-prejudiced Gompers unions. Not the craft, but the industry, is the foundation of the I.W.W. The different branches belonging to one industry unite in that given industry. In accord with American conditions, where the power of the trusts and other organizations of exploiters is more far-reaching than in Germany, the structure of the revolutionary I.W.W. must also be different from ours. We concentrate first on the trade organization, then on the industries and districts and still further, organize these into a big national union (One Big Union).

In contrast to this, the I.W.W. concentrates on the industrial organization, as in America an industry rules whole districts and even wide areas of land. But in tactics and aims the A.A.U. is fully in accord with the I.W.W. in America.”

The following articles, dealing with the movement of the German working class, require a brief foreword to English readers.

“The “Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands” is the remnant of the Spartacan movement founded by Liebknecht, Luxemburg, etc. But today it is only an organization in decay, dominated by a few politicians like Levi and Duwell. Recently those who were expelled from the K.P.D. formed the Kommunistische Arbeiter Partei. (They have as many splits and names and parties as we here!) The most important revolutionary class organization is the Allgemeine Arbeiter Union (General Workingmen’s Union) besides Die Freie Arbeiterunion (the Syndicalist organization of Germany. Ed.) It is an organization which is in full accord with the spirit and principles of the I.W.W. and works along the same lines. That union already embraces over a million class-conscious workers, and therefore in the near future will be a power with which the reactionary socialists, the militarists and the capitalists will have to reckon. They will not again be able to crush its members as in the recent bloody White Terror. The slogan of this union is Organization on the Job, and in the next battle it will be seen that the workers will be victorious through their organization power. It is expected that in the near future the Kommunistische Arbeiter Partei and the Allegemeine Arbeiter Union will amalgamate.

The Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei, originally called Spartakus Bund), founded by Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring and others, became bankrupt morally and politically after the death of those pioneers of the international proletariat. A clique of ambitious and corrupt leaders, eager to control the organization for their own egotistical interests, succeeded in sabotaging every thought and aim of the Proletarian Revolution. They succeeded in steering the Spartakus Bund into reformistic lines, although the great majority of the membership were emphatically opposed to the reform methods. The executives (Zentrale) succeeded in ousting all the districts which were actively opposed to the “Counter-revolutionary institution known as Parliament,” to the craft unions and to the “lawfully” organized worker’s councils (a la Legien) without giving those districts an opportunity to bring the matter before the party, although they were the largest districts in the organization. The “Zentrale” thereby proved that they deliberately attempted to bring about a split, because the revolutionary activities of the rank and file were out of harmony with their counter-revolutionary tendencies.

The revolutionary opposition, determined to bring the German Revolution to a successful conclusion, is known as the Communist Workingmen’s Party (Kommunistische Arbeiter Partei). That organization is not a “Party” in the exact sense of the word. It is no party of leaders. Its chief aim is to help the German proletariat with all its power to get rid of the last vestiges of leadership. To free the workers of the traitorous counter-revolutionary leader politicians is the quickest way of uniting the proletariat. The K.A.P.D. is nevertheless conscious of the fact that the union of the workers, the unity of those elements striving for the soviet idea, shall be the aim of the Revolution.

Workers! The K.A.P.D. is the pioneer of the revolutionary proletariat. Help us put our party on an efficient basis, which will insure a successful conclusion of the struggle.

Signed:

Long live the World Revolution!

COMMUNIST WORKINGMEN’S PARTY. OF GERMANY

One Big Union Monthly was a magazine published in Chicago by the General Executive Board of the Industrial Workers of the World from 1919 until 1938, with a break from February, 1921 until September, 1926 when Industrial Pioneer was produced. OBU was a large format, magazine publication with heavy use of images, cartoons and photos. OBU carried news, analysis, poetry, and art as well as I.W.W. local and national reports. OBU was also Mary E. Marcy’s writing platform after the suppression of International Socialist Review, she had joined the I.W.W. in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/one-big-union-monthly/v02n08-aug-1920_One%20Big%20Union.pdf