Revolutionary Communist Party: The Programme of the Communist Party of Germany: A Criticism and an Alternative

[Workers International News, Vol. 6. No. 6, April-May 1946, p 185-192]

Editorial Note: – The following article was issued recently in the German language by the British RCP. it has been distributed in Germany amongst members of the German Communist Party as a discussion document and an appeal to join forces with the Fourth International.

Socialist and Communist workers of Germany! It is time for the advanced elements, who must lead the German people out of their nightmare of the last three decades, to understand the problems with which they are faced. What is responsible for the horrors that the workers of Germany and the world have experienced in the last period: world war I, the inflation, slump, the rise of fascism, the second imperialist war and the present crisis in Germany?

The leaders of the Communist Party and the Social-democracy, in defiance of the teachings of Marx and Lenin, want to lay the responsibility for the war and the bestial crimes of German fascism on to the shoulders of the whole German people. This is a miserable lie invented by the craven slaves, agents and apologists of capitalist imperialism. The first and second world wars, as foretold by Lenin, as foreseen by Liebknecht and Luxemburg, were the inevitable result of the contradiction between the development of the productive forces and the private ownership of the means of production and the national state. Finding no other way out of the contradictions of capitalism, the imperialists attempted a redivision of the world at each other’s expense. It is capitalism, imperialism, which is responsible for the war.

Not alone the Hitler gangsters but all the imperialists were responsible not only for the war, but also for the bestial crimes of the Nazis! British, French and American imperialism helped Hitler to take power. They armed Hitler. They financed him for the purpose of crushing the German working class. They viewed Hitler and his crimes against the working class with delight, regarding him as bulwark against the socialist revolution, Britain allowed Hitler to rearm, handed him Austria and Czechoslovakia for the purpose of strengthening him against the Soviet Union. Only when Hitler threatened their interests did the imperialists fight. And then not against fascism as an ideology, but only the threat to their possessions from German imperialism which Hitler personified. As Trotsky has phrased it: Hitler, Goering and Co. are just the first criminals in the dock. Together with them should go the British, French and American imperialists and also the Stalinist bureaucrats who signed the Stalin-Hitler pact and thus unleashed the world war.

The Nazis have committed unheard of crimes against other peoples. So also did they commit them against the German people. But the imperialists covered up the crimes of Hitler so long as they were directed against the German working class and peasantry because they thought they was a means of staving off the revolution. Thus they are just as responsible for these crimes as the Nazis. British imperialism allowed five million Indians to starve to death during the imperialist war, their crimes are as numberless as those of the Nazis. Are the British workers, then, responsible for the atrocities and crimes of their imperialist masters? If that was so why does not the Communist Party leadership and the Social-democratic Party leadership in Britain advocate the occupation of Britain and the payment of reparations to the Indian and colonial peoples? All the imperialists are guilty. Neither the German, nor the British nor any other workers can be held in any way responsible for the crimes of capitalism and imperialism, either in its democratic or fascist garb.

Lenin denounced the Peace of Versailles as the most monstrous peace treaty in history. How he would have scorned and condemned the shameful super-Versailles which is being imposed on Germany to-day. By their support of the bloody peace of vengeance, of a cruel and humiliating peace of national slavery, the Social-democratic and Stalinist leaders prepare the way for the rise of a new reactionary nationalist movement in Germany.

In its programme for Germany the Communist Party says: “The United Nations, with the Soviet Union, England and America in the forefront, stand for the principles of justice, freedom and progress. The sacrifices of the armies of the United Nations have saved humanity from Hitler barbarism. With the destruction of the Hitler army and the Hitler state, they have brought peace to the German people and liberated them from the chains of Hitler slavery.” This is a foul and cynical deception of the people of Germany and of the whole world. Britain and America are oppressing hundreds of millions of the peoples of the colonies to whom they deny the elementary rights of national freedom and democracy. America foully oppresses under almost a Hitler degree of racialism, the Negroes of the South. The Stalinist bureaucracy plays an infamous role in Eastern Europe and the rest of the world. Lenin denounced the Versailles Treaty as one which reduced Germany to the level of a semi-colony of the Allies, The so-called “United Nations” have not brought peace to Germany but a new slavery. One even worse than that of Versailles. They have replaced the domination of Europe by German imperialism with the domination of Europe (and above all of Germany) by Anglo-American imperialism and the Stalinist bureaucracy. They have shamefully dismembered Germany, and plundered her with the same rapacity and greed and with the same viciousness employed by Hitler in his treatment of the countries conquered by Germany. If they have allowed elements of working class organisations and democratic rights in Germany, this is not due to any inherent love of democracy, but because they have been forced to do so. The mood of the working class in Britain and America, the impossibility of maintaining British, American and Russian troops indefinitely to hold down the German people by means of military dictatorship, the need for some kind of base within Germany: these are the factors which have forced the democratic concessions, In addition, the Social-democratic and Stalinist leaderships were prepared to do the dirty work of Allied imperialism and Stalinism by pretending that the German people must accept the monstrous dismemberment, reparations, plunder and limitations of productivity on the grounds that they were responsible for Hitler.

Who really was responsible for Hitler? First and foremost capitalist imperialism in an attempt to save its rotten system. The German working class never supported Hitler. The workers, organised in the Communist and Social-democratic parties, in the trade unions, in the Red Front Fighters’ League and in the Reichsbanner were eager and willing to fight the Nazis. It was the Social-democratic and Stalinist party leaderships that split the workers, paralysed their will to resist the Nazis and betrayed the German workers (eight million of whom were socialists and six million communists) to Hitler without firing a shot. Shame on these traitors who now want to make the German workers responsible for their own crimes! When Trotsky warned in his many books and pamphlets written during the period 1930-33 of the consequences of a victory for Hitler, the Stalinists split the workers and joined with the Nazis in the notorious “Red” Referendum of 1931. The Social-democrats supported Hindenburg and the Iron Front and so paved the way for Hitler.

Stalin, with his policy of “social-fascism” and the refusal of the united front with the Social-democrats, and the Social-democratic leaders, with their “theory” of the “lesser evil,” were jointly responsible for the catastrophe. Not content with playing the role of Judas to the proletariat they now want to hamstring their victim even further so that they shall expiate their crimes and those of imperialism.

Lenin castigated the crimes of the Social-democrats because in saving capitalism in the revolution of 1918-19 they prepared the way for the victory of reaction. The leadership of the CP. in 1923 failed to take the power. Thus the failure of the proletariat to solve the problems posed by the decay of capitalism prepared the way for the frenzy of the middle class who sought a way out in the demagogy of the Nazis.

The Communist Party programme says: “To-day, on the termination of the Third Reich, the Social-democratic workers will agree that the fascist pest could only spread in Germany because the war criminals were not punished in 1918; because there never was a struggle for real democracy. Therefore we demand: no repetition of the mistakes of 1918.” But Lenin said that the great mistake of 1918, the great crime of 1918, was the failure of the working class to overthrow capitalism and take power into its own hands. That was what Liebknecht and Luxemburg fought for, what the German Communist Party was to carry through. Yet, in the name of Lenin and Luxemburg, you are carrying through the same fatal policy as the Social-democrats did in 1918. Shame on those who

besmirch and distort, in the name of Lenin and Liebknecht, the doctrines for which they stood! Shame on those who in their name perpetrate the crime of carrying through the very teachings and policy of class-collaboration and cringing to the victors against which Lenin and Liebknecht fought so implacably!

The internationalist policy of Lenin, Liebknecht and Trotsky has been changed for a policy of support for the victors whose cynical policy is “woe to the vanquished.”

The French and British Stalinists and Social-democrats denounce the German people in the most chauvinistic and shameful manner. But only yesterday the British Labour leaders tried to justify the shameful capitulation of the German Social-democrat and trade union leaders to Hitler without a civil war. In the early period of the war the Stalinists, including the German C.P., attacked only Anglo-French imperialism. They wanted peace on Hitler’s terms prior to the attack on the Soviet Union. Thus, faithfully and obediently, the Social-democrats act as agents of the bourgeoisie while the Stalinists act as agents of the foreign policy of the Soviet bureaucracy. Today they neither wish to pursue an independent class policy. They collaborate with the capitalists who put Hitler in power and act as agents of the foreign conquerors and oppressors. Listen to this toadying:

We must learn from the past and commence a new way. Every German must be aware that in view of the fact of repeated imperialist crimes tolerated by the people, the United Nations have to take measures to prevent a repetition of German catastrophic policies. In that lies the meaning of the Potsdam Conference, to enable the German people to prove that through its own ability it will grow into a peace-loving democratic nation, Only when every German becomes conscious that he must: honestly turn a new leaf and continue the democratisation of Germany which began in 1918only then can the German people win the confidence of other nations. Only then will it again achieve honour and freedomonly then will a German government represent a real democratic Germany and will be able to participate at a Peace Conference.

Why the Germans? Because they have been defeated? Are not the workers of other countries, who, for many reasons – especially the treachery of their leaders – were unable to overthrow capitalism in time, also responsible? If the Germans are guilty then the Russian, French, American, British and other peoples are no more or no less guilty. The Potsdam Conference was a gathering of the robbers to divide the loot. It had nothing to do with socialism or democracy. It was merely

the development of power politics to the extreme. Are you to make the German people responsible for the first world war also? Then you must overthrow the teachings of Lenin and Liebknecht, admit openly that you have nothing to do with the teachings of Marxism.

Lenin pointed out that not the German people, or even German imperialism alone was responsible for the first world war, but the criminal capitalist imperialists of all the great powers. Not a single one could absolve themselves from this crime against humanity. Not only that but Lenin predicted that if the workers did not overthrow capitalism then there would inevitably be a second, a third, even a tenth imperialist war.

The road to peace lies not in the German people ceasing to “tolerate” aggressive German imperialism, but in the overthrow of capitalism in Europe and throughout the world. All other ways, Lenin taught, were perfidious deception of the masses. No “United Nations” mumbo-jumbo can prevent war if the cause of war, capitalist imperialism, is allowed to remain. No sooner has the defeat of Germany and Japan been accomplished than the victors are quarreling among themselves. Britain with America, Russia with America and Britain, and so on. Inevitably the seeds are being sown for world war III with even greater destruction and slaughter for the peoples of the world.

There is one way, only one way to peace, freedom and plenty for the peoples of Germany and Europe. That way is the overthrow of capitalism and the organisation of a Socialist United States of Europe. That was the lesson of 1918, of 1923, of Hitler and of world war II. Yet it is precisely this lesson that the Communist Party leadership pretends not to understand. They draw the amazing conclusion, apparently, that the Soviet system does not correspond with the present development in Germany. Why? In their own words: “We are of the option that it would be false to force on to Germany a soviet system because it does not correspond with the present development in Germany. On the contrary, we are of the opinion that the main interests of the German people in the present position of Germany demand a different perspective, namely the formation of an anti-fascist, democratic regime, a parliamentary democratic republic with all democratic rights and liberties for the people.

This is a repetition of the mistake and crime of the Social-democracy in 1918. It was precisely the bankruptcy of capitalism in a democratic form – because that is what the parliamentary republic means – which laid the seed for the rise of fascism arid the victory of Hitler. “Democracy,” bourgeois democracy, could not flourish in a Germany ruined by Versailles, faced with the contradiction of her enormous industrial potential and the impossibility of its full exploitation because of the restrictions imposed by capitalism. The democratic republic could not even give bread to the people. It ruined not only the working class but the middle class as well. As Lenin pointed out, it could only be the rule of monopoly, finance-capital. Democracy must have a class content. Bourgeois democracy must mean the rule of the trusts and the banks and those very elements responsible for Hitler. Yet the German C.P. quite openly and unashamedly now stands on a programme which despite their covert support for it, the Social democracy did not dare openly advance in 1918. In the words of C.P. programme: “Unhindered development of free trade and the initiative of private enterprise on the basis of private property.” .

Even though it were true that it was not possible immediately to set up a soviet system in Germany, it would still be the duty of a party carrying on a Leninist policy to explain to the working class and to the broad masses that only thus could they find a solution to their problems. This would be the aim to which all the propaganda work of the revolutionary party would be directed. No lies would be told to the people, no illusions would be spread that a new democratic Germany (and the Stalinists avoid the question of its class basis) could lead to peace, bread and freedom. You lie, gentlemen ! Like that of the Social-democrats of 1918, your policy is preparing new horrors end misery for the, peoples, new wars, new fascist scourges.

That makes the sugary phrases of the C.P. policy, for example, “protection of the workers from excessive exploitation,” so much nonsense. On a capitalist basis the German people would have to toil for decades to build up Germany and pay the reparations which you suggest. “Recognition of the duty to make reparations to countries damaged by the Hitler regime. Fair distributions of the burdens arising out of these reparations on the basis that the rich carry the heaviest burdens.” As if the rich do not always load the burdens on to the poor and the oppressed. As if it would be possible to build up industry on a capitalist basis without the capital coming from the blood and sweat of the workers. Such a way would lead to catastrophe for the German workers and the German people. But not only that, it would be a catastrophe for all Europe.

No matter in what disguised form, the Social-democrats, and above all the leadership of the C.P., stand for the dismemberment of Germany, for the ruin and enslavement of the German people in the interests of the Allied oppressors. Yet this way provides no benefit, not only for the German people, but for the working class of France, Britain, Russia and America, It helps only the capitalists of these countries and the Stalinist bureaucracy in Russia. But the expropriation of the German capitalists and the running of industry and the country under the control of the working class with the support and assistance of the petty bourgeoisie in a socialist, soviet Germany would prepare the way for the socialist united states of Europe. All the wonderful productive resources of Germany could be utilised to rebuild, as Lenin had dreamed, the whole of Europe on entirely new foundations. That is the road that should have been sketched for the working class of Germany and Europe. Yet these traitors and vandals justify the destruction of a great part of German heavy industry, and the limitation of her productive capacity, by a pretence that this will curb her war-making propensities. Like the British Luddites, who destroyed the machines, these people wish to blame the machines, not the class in control of the machines. At least the Luddites were only poor ignorant workers who did not know any better, and who learned very quickly. But what excuse can be offered for those who claim to be the enlightened leaders of the working class? The problem of Germany can only be solved by the conquest of power by the working class of Germany and of Europe.

This is the fundamental programme of Marxism and Leninism. Even if the argument is accepted that it is not possible at the present time – and this is only true because of the policies of Stalinism and Social-democracy internationally – then transitional demands will have to be developed, not as ends in themselves, but as a step towards the socialist revolution. Democratic demands will figure on the programme of the revolutionary party. But not the demand for “law and order,” always the rallying cry of counter-revolution. It was under the cry of “law and order” that the bloodhounds of Noske and Scheidemann smashed the German workers who were led by Liebknecht and Luxemburg. Liebknecht and Luxemburg were themselves murdered in the name of “law and order.” Hitler, too, committed his thuggery in the name of “law and order.” Galliffet slaughtered the Communards likewise in the name of “law and order.” Now we know where the leaders of Stalinism stand. They stand under the sinister bourgeois cry of “law and order.”

With this sinister programme it is not surprising that they wish to carry through the fatal social-democratic policy of a bloc with the bourgeois parties. Nowhere in the literature of Lenin can justification be found for collaboration with the class enemy.

Communist workers! Socialist workers! – Demand that this quisling policy cease. Fight for a socialist programme. Fight for a programme of economic and political emancipation of the working and middle classes, not a programme of slavery and degradation. It is utopian to imagine that a new world can be created on the basis of capitalism, especially capitalism based on the ruins of Europe. In an endeavour to win the mass of the population for the socialist revolution a positive programme of transitional demands must be developed. The problems of Germany can only be solved on a European scale. The fate of the German workers is linked with that of the French, British and Russian workers. Therefore an internationalist policy must be developed by the German working class.

In the name of struggle for socialism the Stalinists declared the Social-democrats the main enemy and prepared the victory of Hitler. Now they wish to use the shout of unity … not only with the Social-democrats but with the capitalist parties as well in order to safeguard capitalism. We are for the unity of the working class. We will unite with the Communist Party and a Social-democratic Party in the struggle for any demand, no matter how small, which is in the interests of the working class. Unity yes, but what for? That is what the workers must ask. The only unity of the lion and the lamb is in the stomach of the lion. The only unity between capitalists and workers is in the interests of capitalism. We are against unity with the capitalists of all countries. We are for a relentless struggle against them. Our programme and our programme alone we believe offers the way out for the working class. But while the workers retain confidence in the Social-democratic and Communist Parties we are prepared to have a united front with them on any question of struggle against capitalism, not of collaboration with it.

(1) Against a new and worse Versailles planned by the imperialist powers and the Stalinist bureaucracy; against the dismemberment and plunder of Germany and its reduction to a colony or semi-colony of Allied imperialism; against the oppression of all people, including the German people.

(2) The way out for Germany can only lie in the expropriation without compensation of the big capitalists who are responsible for capitalism and the war. No repetition of 1918.

(3) For the expropriation of the Junkers, without compensation, and the sharing of the land among the peasants. For cheap credits for the small shopkeepers and middle class. For an alliance with the petty bourgeoisie against big capital.

(4) For the withdrawal of all the armies of occupation and the democratic right of self-determination of the German people.

(5) No reparations or dismemberment of Germany.

(6) For free elections and unfettered choice of the German people.

(7) For the right of the working class to organise in unions and in the factories; for the right of free speech, free press, free voting, etc.

(8) For the punishment and expropriation of all Nazi supporters (i.e., the big capitalists) and S.S, volunteers. No action to be taken against the dupes of the Nazis, the rank and file, who did not benefit.

(9) For workers’ control of production.

(10) For the equal distribution of all food, clothing, fuel, etc., under the control of committees of workers, housewives, small shopkeepers and peasants.

(11) For the unconditional return of the prisoners of war.

(12) For an eight-hour day and overtime pay for all time worked in excess of eight hours.

(13) For a minimum standard of living with a sliding scale of wages. Make the capitalists pay the cost of reconstruction.

(14) For a Socialist Germany and a Socialist United States of Europe.

This is the programme of the Party of Marx and Lenin. This is the real programme of Communism which alone can lead the workers of Germany and the world out of the hell of capitalism into a new world.

How can it be explained that the C.P should have strayed from the teachings of Lenin in this monstrous fashion? It is because they do not represent the workers of Germany or Russia or any other country, but of the Soviet bureaucracy which has usurped control out of the hands of the workers of Russia. Only this can explain the criminal policy of Stalinism in 1930-33 which led to the victory of Hitler, and the even more criminal policy which they are pursuing to-day. These are but the reflection of the foreign policy of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Of the conquests of the October Revolution nothing remains but the State ownership of the means of production. All the other conquests have been swept away by Stalin and the traitor bureaucrats. Lenin laid down four laws for the rule of the working class:

The election of Soviets and the right of recall of all representatives by the masses whom they represent.

The abolition of the standing army and its replacement by the armed people.

No official to receive higher payment than the average worker.

No permanent officialdom.

To use Lenin’s phrase, “Every cook should be able to become prime minister, when everyone is a bureaucrat no one is a bureaucrat.”

Not a single one of these conditions exists in Russia to-day. The destruction of the conditions Lenin demanded for the rule of the working class has laid the basis for an enormous privileged caste of bureaucrats to take control in Russia and to manipulate the Communist Parties all over the world, not in the interests of the world revolution, but for the day-to-day needs of the bureaucracy.

Our Party fights for the restoration of these conditions in Russia and for the overthrow of capitalism and the institution of these conditions in other countries.

We stand for soviets and the freedom of soviet parties, i.e. all parties who are ready to accept the soviet system as a basis shall have the right to press, paper, radio, and all other means of moulding public opinion to the ideas of any grouping of workers accepting the above conditions. The German workers have had a horrible experience of totalitarianism. They will fight for a genuine socialist democracy on the basis of the rule of the working class. They must not be trapped into support for bourgeois democracy.

In all parts of the world there are internationalists – members of the Fourth International – who are with you in your darkest hour. They alone stand for the great programme of international socialism and the destruction of capitalism nationally and internationally. It is to you that they look with hope for the future of Germany. In France, Belgium, Holland, Italy and other parts of Europe our comrades have issued internationalist manifestoes of solidarity with the German working class. They alone refused to allow themselves to support their own rulers in the imperialist bloodbath; they stood for the traditions and programme of international communism. Not for them the policy of terrorist assassination of individual German soldiers in the occupied countries – a policy which flowed from the chauvinist policy of Stalinism – but the policy of class fraternisation with the German workers in uniform.

In Britain it was our Party, the Revolutionary Communist Party, which kept the banner of internationalism alive through the class struggle. It was our Party that was hounded by the reactionary coalition of the miserable Social-democrats and Stalinists with the bourgeoisie.

At this moment of our first contact we stretch out our hands to you in comradeship and fraternity. May this contact lead in the shortest possible period of time to the strongest bonds of unity and help to destroy the policies that the quisling leaders of the German Social-democracy and Stalinism are trying to foist on the German working class. May it lead to the unity of the German militants with the militants of our international movement. For without such unity not only will the German working class remain nationally oppressed but we in Britain also will never be free. We repeat, the working class of Britain, America, of Europe and of Russia, will never be freed while Germany is occupied and oppressed.

For the United Socialist States of Europe, of America and of the World!


Kommentare

Schreibe einen Kommentar

Deine E-Mail-Adresse wird nicht veröffentlicht. Erforderliche Felder sind mit * markiert