David James: Fusion in Germany

[Socialist Appeal, [vol. VII] No. 22, Mid-March 1946]

Since Hitler’s fall, German party politics have largely borne an unreal character. With economic life disrupted and the struggle for life dominant there have been very little genuine working class politics. The parties have generally reflected the struggles between the occupying Powers and the manoeuvres of sections of the German population for a favourable position with these Powers.

At a recent conference of the Berlin Social-Democrats, the following exchange occurred:

“Do you really believe”, asked the speaker, “that Germany could now exist without the occupying powers?”

“Yes, we can do without them,” was the loud and angry reply of hundreds of delegates.”

(“Observer”, 3. 3. 46)

In the present conditions of national oppression, a stand for Germany’s national independence – though rejecting all forms of chauvinism – must be the foundation of any genuine socialist politics. The delegates‘ angry cry is therefore a welcome indication of reviving political life.

Unquestionably the most important political question at present is the Communist Party’s proposal for fusion with the Socialists.

Social Democratic and Communist Parties

At present, the leaderships of the two working class parties show little sign of having learned anything from the experience of the Nazi victory and dictatorship. But the leaders who at present determine policy are the product of 12 years of degeneration of Stalinism and Social-Democracy in the outside world.

The Social Democracy (S.P.D.) is strongest in the British and US zones. It has a small Stalinist wing in the Russian zone, but the overwhelming majority of the leadership is slavishly dependent on Anglo-American imperialism. Its programme appears to consist of begging the Allies to grant Germany a measure of capitalist democracy, which is the be-all and end-all of its policy.

Conversely, the Communist Party (K.P.D.) is purely an agency of the Russian occupation. Its ranks include many devoted fighters in illegality against Hitler, who may well at a later stage demand revolutionary politics. But the leadership imposed from exile in Moscow is entirely conservative. Thus, last June, Walter Ulbricht definitively stated that a fight for socialism was at present out of the question; and that is the line of the whole K.P.D. It demands a unified Reich, including the Ruhr, but this is purely a demagogic point used by Stalin to embarrass his ‘allies’. When it comes to the question of the pillage and economic stifling of Germany by Russia, and the seizure of German territory by Poland, the K.P.D. is silent.

Neither party shows any sign of realising that their failure to present bold revolutionary policies led to the demoralisation of the German working class and the victory of fascism. They are on the contrary more prostrate before capitalism than ever.

The Fusion Proposal

There is one startling difference from 1933, in the Stalinist campaign for fusion with the Social Democrats, whom they were then denouncing as ‘social fascists’.

The K.P.D. makes out that this is a lesson they have learned from the tragic split in the years before Hitler’s victory. No doubt many genuine K.P.D. militants support it sincerely for that reason. But the leaders have quite other motives. They do not submit their criminal ultra-left politics of those years to critical examination – since that would expose their own responsibility for the Nazi victory. Worse, they do violence to the whole communist tradition. For example, the Frankfurt-on-Main Communist Party, answering the Social Democrats‘ refusal to unite, stated that “the split in the German working class movement since 1918 (!) has exclusively aided German imperialism and harmed the German people and the peace of the world.” Here denunciation of the bitter split from 1918-23 is made an excuse for obliterate all trace of the tradition of Liebknecht and Luxemburg in fighting reformism and founding of the Communist Party.

The Social-Democratic leaders claim that the Stalinist fusion campaign is part of their plan to crush all opposition, and institute a monopolistic dictatorship under Russian control. The Social Democrats have their own reasons for opposing the fusion, which we shall deal with later, but the accusation is unquestionably true. The terror of the GPU in the Russian zone has forced the Social Democrats to accept the fusion. The communiqué of a joint meeting of representatives of the two parties in Berlin on 21 December, where the fusion was unanimously agreed, carried the signatures of two members of the Russian occupation forces who were present at the discussion!

William Forrest of the “News Chronicle” (2/3/46) relates “instances of extreme pressure being brought to bear on Socialists to make them amenable to unity. According to these reports, the N.K.V.D. (better known as the O.G.P.U.) is one of the chief instruments of this pressure. In the middle of the night, the N.K.V.D. man call at the home of local socialist leaders and take them to their headquarters.”

The “Manchester Guardian” (26. 2. 46) states: –

“Of the more prominent members (of the S.P.D.) who have spoken against fusion, Mr. Bryll of the Thuringian executive has been arrested; Mrs Lisa Peter, wife of Magdeburg’s former burgermeister Kors [??] Peter, who had to leave [to] Westphalia, was taken into custody in Magdeburg” etc. etc.

The Workers‘ Attitude

Under these conditions fusion is intended to strengthen the hold of the Russian occupation force in their region and use the united party as an instrument to convert Germany into a satellite of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Of course, not in order to overthrow capitalism, but merely to serve the interests of the rapacious bureaucracy.

At the present time, in spite of the C.P. traditions and of its identification with the land reform, there is a decline in C.P. influence. Nor is this only in the Russian zone. The workers give their vote to the Social Democrats since in words at any rate they stand for democracy.

Thus in Saxony, on 16 January elections of delegates to a Trade Union Congress gave 286 to the Social Democrats, and 52 to the K.P.D..

The recent shop-stewards‘ elections in Berlin factories gave the S.P.D. 111, the K.P.D. (CP) 50, the Christian Democrats 2 and the non-politicals 37.

The local elections in Bavaria (US zone) gave the S.P.D. 500,000 votes to the K.P.D.’s 140,000.

The rank and file Social Democrats oppose the fusion. In the recent Conference of the Berlin Party, Grotewohl and other protagonists of fusion were repeatedly interrupted and shouted down with cries of “puppet” and “dictatorship”. The delegates voted down a resolution for immediate fusion and adopted a resolution making fusion conditional on a secret ballot of all Social Democrats in Berlin and the Russian zone! So only in the Russian zone are the Social Democrats in favour of fusion.

Against the Fusion

The opposition of the Social-Democrat leaders, especially from the Western zones to the fusion, is determined mainly by their being agents of the Western Allies who wish to oppose all acts whereby Stalinist influence is consolidated. They do not raise principled arguments from a Socialist point of view. They are in reality no superior to the Stalinists. There is thus no reason to oppose the fusion on the grounds of programme; under other circumstances (as in this country) we should support it, in order that all reformists and traitors should get together and remove any source of confusion for the working class.

But under the concrete circumstances, revolutionaries should oppose the fusion. Because of its “democratic” ideology, the S.P.D. possibly offers a channel for independent working class activity – which is bound immediately to come into opposition to the reformist Qusiling leadership. Fusion with the K.P.D. would mean a totalitarian, GPU-dominated regime, where the workers would be stifled.

But under no circumstances must the Social-Democrats and Stalinists be allowed to discredit the entirely correct idea of working-class unity – for specific aims in the struggle against capitalism. It is a crime to be laid at the Stalinists‘ door, that the good opportunities of teaching the lessons of the tragic defeat of 1933 are being flung away. What an irony that the workers should once more flock to the social democrats, whom history has discredited once and for all for their abject capitulation before fascism, because the “Communists” are today the greater evil! And that the idea of a United Workers‘ Front, for lack of it Fascism conquered power with ease, is discredited by these same “communists”!

The Revolutionary Road

But we can be sure that these lessons are not unlearned by the advanced workers of Germany. We learn that widespread discussions are taking place in the ranks of the German C.P. on the betrayal of their leadership in failing to lead a fight against Hitler, and that the rank and file recognise the correctness of Trotsky’s position in demanding a workers‘ united front in the face of the fascist danger. What they need and do not find is a party with a revolutionary programme of struggle against capitalism; untainted by collaboration with the imperialist and Stalinist oppressors; for a free and independent Germany in a United Socialist States of Europe. Without such a programme, all talk of “unity” is meaningless. Only when the Fourth International strikes its roots in Germany will the German working class, with all its traditions of struggle and its priceless heritage of experience, find a way out of the blind alley of Stalinist and Social-Democratic manoeuvring on to the road to freedom.


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