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July 1, 1929 THE MILITANT Page Putschism and May Day in Berlin was arIn 1910, Herr von Jaegow, the Berlin police presiBy Max Shachtman 100 down to 20 workers. decision was reached to cal dent, atempted to prohibit demonstrations on workers a general strike for the next day.
May Day, and threatened to proceed against the deby gatherings throughout the districts of the city. In in this tense and pregnant situation in Berlin, where monstrants with arms if necessary. He was answered when hundreds of thousands of workers poured into those districts with little working class population like according to the manifesto of the Party the overthe streets of Berlin as a challenge to the Junkers. Von Schoeneberg. Wilmersdorf and Charlottenburg, the whelming majrity of the workers stands behind the that which even the minions of the Kaiser did not dare people appeared, aumbering less than the Party mem 25, 000 workers responded to the call for a genera to do, was left to be accomplished by the German so bership in the district, a handful were arrested and strike. Another 25, 000 went on strike in the rest o cial democracy, in the person of von Jaegow success the Schupo (police) had an easy time of it. In the pro Germany, a total of 50, 000 workers who followed thi or in the post of Berlin police president, Zoergiebel. letarian districts like Wedding, Schoenhauser Quarter. urgent call of the Communist Party to protest agains Osten, Neukoelln, and Kreuzberg there was a greater the Berlin butchery!
der prohibiting public demonstrations or meetings of attendance, but still weak in relation to the population, ing esisted only in the imagination of the bourgeois any group in Berlin on May Day. The order was aimed The Attack by the Police.
press and the police. Shots were fired and stone directly at the Communists, and the answer of the Long before the appointed time for the meetings. ed themselves against the Schupo provocations. There thrown at the police by outraged workers who defend Communist Party was a call to the workers of Berlin to fill the streets May Day.
Schupo appeared armed with clubs and revolvers. The organized barricade action by the Party o The prohibition had the unreserved support of the smaller meetings were immediately dispersed. In Wed the Red Front Fighters. The phrase mongers had talk whole social democratic bureacracy, both in its party workers homes at 10. 30 Elsewhere, parades the impending revolution, about the general test fo dingstrasse, they began to shoot into the windows of ed tall for weeks in the Party Press. They talked abou and in the free trade unions. The task apparently cut were held for a few hundred yards and then dispersed the coming civil war. without making the slightes out for the Communists was to mobilize the rank and file in the trade unions and the social democracy, as well as the workers sympathizing directly with the the first time with water pipes and hose to connect preparations for action, without mobilizing the masses.
of the workers, without making clear to the workers with hydrants for the purpose of spraying the demon or even the Party members. the intentions of the Communist Party, to demonstrate on May Day and strants.
break down Zoergiebel edict under their crushing Party. When some workers and Party members acted weight. In this task the present leadership of the Ger anderplatz. At Potsdamer Platz there were less pre The Party leaders had committed the crime against From noon onward, workers began to arrive at Alex. spontaneously, the Party was nowhere to be found.
man Party failed niserably, and with terrible conse sent than on that unforgettable day in 1916 when Karl which Lenin warned in his maxim: Never play witi.
quences.
Liebknecht spoke to the Berlin workers under a state insurrection.
of siege! For two hours the leaderless, unorganized, Into a Putschist Swamp.
After the pitiful collapse of the general strike, th unprepared mass was jostled about by the Schupo who Party began to agitate for a one day strike in Berlin Ensnared by the ultra left course that the Party attacked those present with indiscriminate clubbings. to honor the victims of the slaughter, then for a two has pursued in recent months, self deluded by the so Around Alexanderplatz, at Buelowplatz, Hackeschen hour strike; then for a 30 minute strike. But at th called victories in the factory councils elections gained at the expense of the most important positions the result that were killed and many more wounded. mentioning. At the burial a maximum of 2, 000 people of the Party had in the trade unions, intoxicated with The Schupo proceeded most brutally in Wedding. In exaggerated beliefs in its own strength and influence Koesliner Strasse, after beating demonstrants and appeared.
in the working class, and driven under the lash of the passers by with clubs, they began a fire that lasted for The Defeat in Saxony.
factional needs of Stalin in the Russian Party fight, hours. number of infuriated workers replied with the Thaelmann Central Committee was able to lead rude barricades. The Schupo advanced with an Payment for the putsch policy of the Party leader the party into what must be condemned as a putschist mored car and machine guns. In some places the wored the May Day events. In the face of the growing ra was again received in the Saxony elections that follow swamp. The enormity of the errors. not to say kers replied spontaneously by throwing stones at the dicalization of the German workers, exaggerate crimes committed on May Day in Berlin in the police or shooting back with old service pistols. But though it is by the Party, in face of the shamefu name of the third period and the new line can there was no organized resistance to Zoergiebel po course pursued only a few days before by the socia only be indicated here by a few facts.
lice. The latter continued to fire upon men and wo democrats, the Communists not only failed to mak Throughout the city, preparations had been made men, in the streets and through the windows of their gains, but they even lost ground. The vote stood, ac by the trade unions for mass meetings in halls to cer homes, for three or four days, until 27 workers had compared with the vote in the 1928 Reichstag elec lebrate May Day. It was the duty of the Party to send been murdered. 75 seriously wounded and 200 others tions, as follows: its members to these meetings, to take the floor, to injured in the name of socialism and the Fatherland.
1929 1928 call upon the workers to demonstrate in the streets in Not a single policeman had been killed. Even some of Social Democrats mass and thereby destroy the ukase of Zoergiebel. The the bourgeois papers called for an end to this ghastly Communist Party 922, 117 999, 421 345. 817 381, 56 overwhelming majority workers of Berlin were slaughter engineered by the defenders of the republic, An even less favorable showing is evident by a com sure to be at those meetings, and as it appeared later, the social democrats.
parison of the 1929 vote with the Saxony Landtage such was the case. It was essential to draw these broad lections of 1926. Between these two elections, it is masses of non party and social democratic workers in The Party Continues With Self Delusions true, the Party gained 3, 435 votes, but in the same pe.
to this struggle so that it would not degenerate into The penalty of the Party for its ultra left policies. ried the social democrats won 164, 112 votes. An ever: a purely vanguard action.
however, were not yet paid in full. After the May Day more ominous sign is the fact that the fascists, almost With customary light heartedness, the Party issued events, the Communist Party declared in an appeal: quadrupled their previous vote.
the slogan of boycotting these mass meetings under Why just in Berlin the bloody police terror of the These are heavy penalties to pay but they are alall circumstances. At the meeting of the Greater Ber bourgeoisie and Zoergiebel? Because in Berlin the ways the burden of false policy. The burden is doubły lin Central May Day Committee, the reporter who Communists stand at the head of the workers move heavy when it is brought on hy adventurism and put spoke for the Party, Kaspar, declared: Can a revolu ment, because in Berlin the factory councils elections sehism. It will not become the lighter for the failure tionary worker go where one of these traitors, a Seve showed that the overwhelming majority of the wor of the Party to estimate soberly and critically it: ring, or a Hermann Mueller, is speaking? No! We kers stards behind the Communist Party of Germany, course of action. Up to now there has been no real crimust keep the workers from going there, we must get because in Berlin the advance of the in the ticism in the ranks of the Party: there has only been them to come to us. And further. May first will be coming municipal elections will bring the liquidation bluíf and false front, justification of what cannot a general test for the coming civil war, both for the of the social democracy and our overwhelming victory and must not be justified.
proletariat and for the police. If we do not succeed in as the strongest Berlin party.
getting hundred of thousands into the streets, a fascist The theses of the Central Committee of the Party terror regime will shortly break out in Germany that said: The Berlin barricade fighters demonstrate that The Left Zig Zag of Centrism, will be much worse than in Bulgaria and Italy. At we are approaching an immediately revolutionary si left path, towards adventurism, sectarianism an The Party is driving headlong on a reckless ultrathis conference were present 60 delegates represent tuation with whose development the question of the isolation. The Berlin putsch is Stalin peculiar way o ing chiefly small and medium factories, the Party and armed insurrection will inevitably appear on the or correcting the opportunist course along which he its auxiliary organizations. When a delegate from the der of the day. The Berlin May Day events signify a led the Comintern in the past few years. It is his meLeninbund (Left Communists) spoke for participation turning pont in the political development of Germa thod of adjusting the actions of the Communist Partia in the trade union meetings with the aim of using ny.
to the needs of his factional game against Bucharir: them as starting points to mobilize the workers for deHow much of the above is true and how much of it and company. It is the left zig zag of Centrism, the monstrations in the streets, he was howled dwn.
is rattle brained fantasy can be judged from the fol. rudderles ship that is beaten alternately by waves or lowing facts: the left and the right.
Inta Zoergiebel Trap.
The workers unfortunately did not follow the leader We repeat that the German Party is heading towards It is with the fabulous idiocy of this. May first in ship or line of the Party on May Day or afterward: opportunist isolation. It yielded to the dastardly pro Berlin being a general test for the coming civil war they attended the meetings organized by the trade vocations of the social democratic police president o of turning the backs of the Communists upon the cen unions. With a very few exceptions, as in Treptow Berlin. The words of the social democrats themselves ters where the masses were to gather, that the Ger Oberschoeneweide the Party meetings were miserably show the better than anything else. In the Prussiar.
man Stalinists prepared to mobilize the workers attended, they were headless, poorly organized and ill Landtag, on May 13, the social democratic ministero against the prohibition of May Day. It is thus that prepared. The Party leaders. like Neumann, Dah. the interior, Grzesinsky, said: Had the prohibition o they fell into the trap prepared for them by the pro em, Remmele and Gerber were in evidence only as the demonstration been withdrawn before May 1st, vocation of Zoergiebel. They freed him of any fear observers of the events, standing aside like good gen would have come to great clashes in Berlin between so that the reactionary police might have to club or shoot erals.
cial democrats and Communists. That was the plan o social democratic or non party workers. Rarely have The workers followed the orders of the social demo the Communists, for then the police would have sho the social democratic murderers had such an oppor cratic party and the trade union fakers. Where they indiscriminately upon social democrats too, These tunity of singing out and isolating Communist wors were told to down tools on May Day, they did so. backguards have little compunction about shooting sc kers alone in the class struggle for butchery.
Where they were told to continue at work they con cial democratic workers. and then they woul: In its May Day number, the Rote Fahne, official or tinued. The eutstanding example of this was the case have accused the minister of the interior as murde: gan of the party, wrote: of the traction workers, where the Party recently er of his own Party. That is why the police presider The Communist Party, which has defeated reform achieved its great victory in the factory councils acted quite correctly and quite wisely in not permit ism in the most important positions and will defeat it elections by putting through its slate. Upon orders of ing the demonstration on May 1st.
ever more decisively in its further advance, is growing the trade union bureaucrats the traction workers re This is confirmed by the words of Severing, the sc with the broadest proletarian masses towards an in mained at their posts on May Day and traffic ran ac cial democratic national minister of the Interior, dissoluble, invincible proletarian unity. In the trough cording to schedule with practically no interruption. the Reichstag committee on May 7th: it is the tas between two waves of the revolution, in the ebb that On May 2nd, with the slaughter of the workers still of the State to isolate the Communists.
followed the first stormy years of struggle of the post going on, the employers were able to discharge the two The social democrats needed the provocation to a: war period, there follows a new revolutionary tide. chairmen of the subway employees council both of sure the bourgeoisie that a coalition with them wa The first signals already annaunce the rumbling thun them communists elected at the recent vote. with safe. They needed it for the reparations conference is der of the future proletarian hurricane.
out a voice being raised for them, not to speak of a Paris as proof of their readiness to crush the militanc With such revolutionary phrase mongering, the protest strike.
of the German proletariat. They needed it to deepe stage was all set for the May Day events; set by the The Collapse of the Protest Strike.
the chasm between the Communists and the social de experienced hand of Heinz Neumann, the personal Not a single large factory in Berlin followed the Par mocratie workers. The false tactics of the Communis agent of Stalin in Europe, the diseased creature who ty call to demonstrate on May Day. On Thursday, Party played complete into their hands.
organized the putsch in Canton in 1927 from the safe May 2, a delegated conference was held under Party The revolutionary movement in Germany has no distance of Hong Kong.
leadership to consider a general protest strike in Ber been advanced by the May Day events. it has bee The meetings called by the trade unions were every lin. Only 45 delegates were present, representing only set back. The lost ground will be recovered only where more than filled by workers. But the Commu small and medium factories. Hoping for greater suc there is a serious attempt to purge the Party of its or nists had surrendered these workers to the bureaucrats. cess, it reconvened the next noon, with only 300 in portunist leftism. The evident intention of the Comir.
without a struggle. The Party had called for open de attendance It was again postponed until Friday even tern to repeat the Berlin putsch on August 1st wi: monstrations at the two most frequented centers. ing, when 600 attended. The largest nly retard this inevitable cleansing of the movemen Alexanderplatz and Potsdamer Platz, to be prereded ted employed 600 workers,