After the German Elections Where Is Thaelmann Leading the German Party?
BERLINBy KURT LANDAU proletarian criticism under the iron heel On September 14 1930. the German of the aparatus. This political and innerWe working class suffered a serious defeat, To this must be added about a million ginning of the collapse of Fascism. Party regime is now getting drunk on the whose lessons must be soberly drawn. votes they took away from the bourgeois came out against the naive idea that Frick election success. The intoxication is briet. splinter parties. then the 1, 250, 000 proAt the elections in May 1928, 9, 150, 000 participation in the Thuringlan government the awakening inevitable. It will soon be letarian votes gained, and the 800, 000 which would by itself rapidly expose Fascism. seen how far the power of action of the were given to the Socialists and voties the Fascists got in 1928. These are the Such hopes and illusions are unworthy of Party exists in the coming strike struggles.
3, 263, 000 to the Communists out of a total factors that make up. according to an Communist.
in the struggle for the jobless in the strugvote of 30, 000, 000; altogether 12. 413. 000 votes approximate and schematic survey. the The general crisis of capitalism is be gle against Fascism.
were given for Communism and reformiam.
election figure of the Fascists (6, 401, 210. ing accentuated in Germany by Young To call a halt to the stormy Fascist It is clear that the millions of workers The Fascists became the strongest bourPlan. It was the most ruinous mistake of tide, to repulse it, requires: Swiftest conwho follow reformism do not do it because geols party as we foresaw it. Besides of Noske and Scheldemann, but in spite our Party leadership that it did not under Bolidation of the ideological foundation of them, there is only one other bourgeois stand in the summer of 1929 to develop the Party, which is being destroyed by naof them, for they have not yet grasped the party the Center (Catholics) that remained tional Bolshevik phrases and theories on bourgeois character of the the a genuine revolutionary mass movement stable and with a gain of 500, 000 votes and reactionary character of reformism against the Young Plan. In our appeal to social fascism. The Party must adjust mandates retained its share of the inthe Saxony elections, we wrote (June its internationalist, class front, every Party Altogether, the and creased electoral figure.
1930. member must recognize that we must win received 40. percent of the voters in the elections.
In East Prussia (235, 463. the Fascists the social democratic worker in tenacious The Party leadership does not recogstruggle in order to erect together with On September 14, 1980, the num of became the strongest party in the election nize that the central aim of the clase him the class front.
votes cast rose from 30, 700. 000 to 34, 942, 854.
districts of Breslau, Liegnitz, Magdeburg, struggle in Germany is the organization of All 1llusions must be given up, thing The got 4, 587, 807 votes, the Merseburg, Thuringia, Schleswig Holstein.
mass resistance to the Young Plan; to the Weser Ems, only 8, 572, 000; together, it is about 13, East Hanover, Brunswick, must be seen as they are in all their serextent that the masses of Germany enter jousness.
Hessen Naussau, Cologne, Aachen. CoblenzIt is not yet too late. The 150, 000 votes out of the total of 35, 000, 000, this struggle, they overcome their illusion social democratic workers are beginning to which is only 37. percent. that is, a decline Trier, Palatinate, Dresden, Bautzen, Chem and recognize from their own experiences nitz Zwickau, Baden. Hessen Darstadt, think. The threatening Fascist danger is of percent. or expressed in numbers, that there is no other way of eliminating about one million votes! The question as Hamburg and Mecklenburg, that is, in far strengthening the urge to unity in the this intolerable slave pact than the revomore than half the election districts, they working class. correct Leninist policy to who benefitted by this decline is the lutionary way: the overthrow of capitalism decisive question we pose, for it signalizes became the second strongest party.
must lead to united revolutionary AlghtThey Itsell.
ing, front between the and the most serious dangers, it shows Just outstripped the 135, 210) in HamThis failure of the Party permitted Fagthe thing that the leadership as burg with 144, 584 votes, the same in Chemworkers. correct policy, that is, one that cism to organize a mass movement against nitz Zwickau, etc.
understands precisely now how to buret well as the conceals: Thnt Fas.
the Young Plan as a counter revolutionary, the contradiction, by means of the united clsm succeeded to penetrate into the proIt is the grentest self deception to be. chauvinistic action, with the aim of leadfront tactic. between the social democratic letariat.
llevo that the 4, 500, 000 Communist votes ing the masses in this way for an active workers who want to fight and the countOur Party gained about 1, 300, 000 votes. are already won the revolutionary class imperialstic war policy for the new Gerer revolutionary leaders.
Since the electorate wag larger. and the struggle. To educate them to this there man imperialism. When the Party leaderThe election victory will enormously total number of votes rose about 15 per lies one of the principal tasks of our Party. ship after Fascism had already begun its increase the impact of Fascism. In the cent, then about 500, 000 votes must be Today a large part of our electorate is victorious march through Germany recogfactories, on the streets, its hordes will adtaken off the 1, 300, 000 which are to be composed of the despairing and discon nized this ruinous negligence. it leaped to vance against the proletarian maga organtreckoned to the increased participation in tented and there are doubtlessly hundreds the opposite extreme, as its nationalistie zations. The more it shows itself to be the election. The actual increase of the of thousands among them who, gained in programmatic declaration shows: tt enincapable of fighting for work or bread Party then amounts to 800, 000 votes. a purely parliamentary election campaign, tangled itself in nationalistic phrases and for the deceived masses, the more it will The compared to 1928, lost expect an immediate improvement of their high sounding promises.
drive them forward against the class con600, 000 votes, that is about the same amount condition from the simple electoral suc The struggle against the Young Plan scious workers. In the blood of the proas the increase of the Did our Party Cosa of the and in the final analysis against Versailles, letarian vanguard it seeks to benumb the then collect the loss of the That The suffered a heavy reversa. can only be conducted by the collaboration hunger of the backward sections of the is just what is not the case in large mea Put it would be wrong to speak of its of the International proletariat. The Thaelproletarist: Sure. annihilating defeat (see Rote Fahne) or manns, who in 1929 forgot to fight against The most decisive weapon in the strugOut of the 30, 7000, 000 votes in 1928, the to contend that it is the beginning of the the Young Plan, and now roar hysterically gle of the working class is the revolutionS. got 9, 100. 000. To remain relatively end of the Brandler Arbeiter and nationalistically against it when they ary party. The mistakes of our leadership as strong, it would have had to get about politik. see the growth of Fascism as a result of will be paid for by the working class with 15 percent more votes in view of the in In many places, the showed this forgetting. are no less guilty than just as many victims as the betrayal of the creased electorate of 8, 500, 000 or, in round Itselt to be relatively able to offer resist the Stalins, Molotovs, and Manuilskye, who reformists.
numbers 1, 400, 000. Its total loss therefore ance, as in Saxony. where it gained 120. have shown themselves incompetent to see The responsibility that lies upon us is amounts to 2, 000, 000 votes, it having de000 votes in comparison to the Landtag the problems of the international class growing Our struggle has not become clined from 29. percent of the total to elections in June, in South Germany, etc. struggle at all, and to organize the joint Lighter, but heavier. We exerted our efforts 24. percent. Out of these 000. 000, the The foundations of the were nou struggle of the German, French, English to assist the Party to success. The cadres got only 800, 000. Sixty percent, that shattered by the heavy reversal.
and Polish Communists, of the whole Com of the Left Opposition who worked in every is 1, 200, 000, tell to Fasciem! This may be Just as wrong is the hope that Fascism intern, against the Young Plan.
part of Germany side by side with the drastically demonstrated in a series of inwill break up of Itself, of its internal con Our Party has strengthened its influ Party comrades, have every reason to be stances. In Berlin, for instance, the tradictions. When the Rote Fahne writes ence in the working class in spite of the joyous at the success attained by our Party.
lost 38, 100 votes in the Friedrichshafn, on September 15: Yesterday was Herr destructive mistakes of the leadership. The But they renounce hymns of victory, they Kreuzberg, Tiergarten, Schoenberg districts Hitler greatest day, but the 80 called elemental discontentment of the workers see the threatening dangers, and they will despite the increased eleetorate and the election victory of the National Socialists with the brutal dictatorship regime, the have to increase their efforts tenfold in G, gained 29. 250 votes in the same is the beginning of their end, then this general capitalist process of dissolution order to help the Party, which has not yet districts About 10. 000 votes. and new is an all too cheap consolation which is which is taking place before our very eyes, grasped the whole import of the situation, voters at that, were lost to the Fasciste.
only exceeded by the sagacious prophecy the hatred against the treasonable policy to fulfill its duty, to organize the proletarIn the country as a whole, this Inroad of on September 16: September 14 was the of reformism, brought us new masses. But ian revolution in Germany.
the Fascists into the workers camp comes high point of the National Socialist move that Fascism succeeded to grow at an to light even more plainly. In the Brestau ment in Germany. What comes after can Incomparably swifter tempo and not least election district, for example, the only be decline and ebb.
of all among the proletarian youth must lost more than 50, 000 votes compared with Whether that is how things will turn be an alarm signal for our Party.
1928, the galned 40. 000; 10, 000 votes, out, or Fascism will succeed in taking over Only when the Party executes a genplus the increased voting, that is, about the political power in the state. will not ruinely serious turn, will it be in a position JUST RECEIVED FROM POLAND 50, 000 votes, went to Fascism, which swung depend upon the prophecies of the Rote to repel the Fascist wave, to lead the from 9, 262 to 259. 225 and became the se Fahne, but upon the policy that our Party masses forward in bitter mass actions, to cond largest party. In the proletarian sec adopts in the class struggle. The hopes put the proletarian, revolutionary, solution tion of Merseburg, the held fairly pinced upon the self disintegration of Fas. of the crisis on the order of the day, to its 1928 position. The won more cism is as deceptive as it is reformistic, for Thaelmann that is not a person, but than 40, 000 votes through the increased By LEON TROTSKY it overlooks the decisive factor in political personification of the political regime in vtoing, but the Fascists rose from 40, 693 development: the polley of the revolutionIn Two Volumes of 700 Pages to 243, 896, and pulled to themselves the our Party: vacillating, reeling from illusion Ary party.
to Illusion, fulminating phrases for the Fire Dollars for Both Volumes share of the in the increased voting We warned against illusions when the that is, proletarian votes.
masses, impotent in the struggle against In the North Party leadership declared the splitting Order from the capitalist offensive and Fascism, powWestphalian election district, the Fascists THE MILITANT away of the petty bourgeois group of ide erful and self conscious within the Party rose from 12, 118 to 161, 723. The lost ologlets around Otto Srasser to be the be25 Third Avenue. New York, when it is necessary to trample serious about 30, 000 votes as against 1928, which the absorbed. The increase in votes came to the good of the Fascists exclualvely.
THE LATEST PAMPHLET RY COMRADE LEON TROTSKY An exact analysis of the election reSults confirms the fact that Fascism won keen analysis of the latest turn in policy far more than 1, 000, 000 proletarian votes of the present leadership of the Communist which it cornered for itself and did not take International in connection with an examfrom the reservoir of the bourgeois parties.
ination of the results of the recent elecThat the Fascists have become the tions in Grmany. Comrade Trotsky reheirs to the bourgeois parties requires no veals the relationship of forces between special evidence that is demonstrable inthe proletariat, the big and small bourmediately by the figures themselves. The geoisie, and their political parties, and preGerman National Party, which split up sents the perspectives for the great dilfew months ago, lost about one million emna in Germany: Communism of Fascism, votes, after counting of what was taken 10 cents a copy cents in bondles.
by the People Conservatives Christian Order Now From Nationals, etc. The German People Party THE MILITANT lest more than a million as against 19.
JUST WRITTEN. JUST PUBLISHED 25 Third Avenue New York, These 2, 000, 000, plus the 15 percent increase in votes, which corresponds to almost another million, fell to the Fascistis.
JN JEWISH My Life The Turn in the Communist International and the German Situation