The Critical Point
BY THIS TIME, power was practically in the hands of the workers', soldiers' and sailors'
councils; if not all over the Reich, at least in Wilhelmshaven, Bremen and Brunswick.
The revolutionary proletariat pressed for a clear decision. Street and barricade
fighting in towns and villages was the order of the day. Shock columns of revolutionary
sailors were sent to all parts of Germany. For the purpose of ensuring permanent
communications with Kronstadt, several hundred fully armed sailors were sent by the
Revolutionary Committee to occupy the wireless station at Nauen, near Berlin, at that
time still in the hands of the Ebert Government.
[Kronstadt was the nearest radio station to Wilhelmshaven in the hands of the Soviet
government, so they obviously hoped to open up direct communication with Soviet Russia,
rather than have to rely on couriers, aircraft or other overland means of communication. This was over a distance of 1000 miles or so. Had this direct link up been possible
it would at a stroke, have transformed relations between Russia and Germany, temporarily
'stabilised' in favour of German capitalism by the Treaty of Brest Litovsk of May 1918 - Publishers Note]
They never returned. After fruitless attempts to capture the station, many of them
went on to Berlin, and formed, under the leadership of an Imperial army officer,
the revolutionary socialist, Lieutenant Dorrenbach - a friend of Karl Liebknecht
- the Peoples' Marine Division, [Volks-Marine Division]. Our own attempts to get in touch with
revolutionaries in Kronstadt from the Wilhelmshaven wireless station were unsuccessful,
our messages were jammed, first by a station somewhere in Finland, and later by Nauen. In this situation - by now it was November 18 - the leaders of the trade unions
joined the big industrialists in the Arbeitsgemeinschaft.
Regarding this, Hugo Stinnes writes in his memoirs; [I quote from memory]. 'We were
completely beaten. In this hopeless situation there came the great man Legien, Chairman
of the General Committee of Trade Unions in Germany, as our saviour. He did, in fact, save us; and this shall not be forgotten.'
Stinnes did not forget. A millionaire industrialist, and one of the biggest shipowners
in Germany, he named one of his biggest ships Karl Legien. If ever a working class
in any country in the world was treacherously betrayed, it was the German working
class. Were not the workers 'ripe' for social revolution? In Lunen, in the Ruhr district,
the miners took possession of the coal mines and kept them running for more than
five months; the administrative work being done by their wives and daughters. During
that time, the output was greater than ever before. Similarly with the farm workers on
an estate at Golnow in Pomerania, who took it over and worked it for more than a
year as an armed community. Every member of the community kept arms in his house,
but no case of violence, or even rudeness, occurred. They had their Workers' Council and lived
and worked their estate in peace until Noske's troops forced them back to wage slavery
again. These are only two examples out of the many that could be quoted.
Let us lift the curtain! It was K. Radek - the [1919] then Russian plenipotentiary
in Germany - who declared openly 'a victorious workers' revolution in Germany now,
means a lost revolution in Russia.'
Stalin, discussing the situation in Germany [1923], urged, 'In my estimation, the
German workers must be restrained, not spurred on.'
Indeed, as time has shown, the Comintern has not only bloodily liquidated the genuine
revolutionaries in Kronstadt and in the Ukraine, but also has purposely prevented
the Workers' Revolution in Germany.
The seamen supporting the Revolutionary Committee felt that it was their duty to carry
forward their activities and assist their class comrades at all costs. To do so,
they were determined even to make use, in case of necessity, of the units of the
battle fleet, which though bound by the Clauses of the Armistice, were still armed and fit
for use.
But there were other difficulties to be faced. Hundreds of thousands of workers were
still held in the bonds of obsolete systems of organisation, dominated by conservative
leaders. This was glaringly illustrated on the occasion of the first All Workers'
and Soldiers' Council Convention in Berlin, December 1918. It sounds unbelievable, but
out of this 'revolutionary' Parliament it was found necessary to form a revolutionary
group! And when Karl Liebknecht, as the chief speaker, very rightly pointed out:
'The counter-revolution is in the midst of us', some of the delegates raised their rifles
against him.
The very same day, a counter-revolutionary attempt was made to capture the battleship
Baden. Some blood was spilled, but the attempt was dealt with effectively, and the
confidential man of the Baden was enthusiastically cheered by his victorious comrades
on returning from the Convention in Berlin. A few days later, a motor lorry packed
with seamen from the Thousand Man Barracks, smashed a counter-revolutionary rising
led by landlords of East Friesland and helped their fellow workers on the farms to
set up an effective Farm Workers Council. When the detachment returned to the Barracks, it
left behind a revolutionary community.
At about the same time, the so called 'People's Government' [of Ebert, Scheidemann,
Noske etc.] in Berlin sent a delegate to Wilhelmshaven in an endeavour to induce
the Sailors' and Workers' Councils to obey its orders. He was received by some of
the members of the Council of Five, but was unsuccessful, and everything went on as before.
In January 1919, when the Berlin Government sent one of its ministers to Wilhelmshaven
on the same mission, he was arrested by a detachment of the 15th Torpedo Half-Flotilla.
In the meantime, the Berlin Government had printed large posters which were plastered
on the walls and buildings of towns throughout the Reich - though not in Wilhelmshaven,
Brunswick and other places where the revolutionaries were in control - with the inscriptions in large letters: 'Socialism all over Germany', 'Socialism is marching
on', etc. What in fact marched on, however, were the old reactionary forces led by
the people 'emancipating Social Democracy'. Their chief newspaper, Vorw rts - twice
captured and run by the revolutionary workers in Berlin - but later recaptured by the Social
Democrats - published at a time when hundreds of workers were being killed in street
fighting in Berlin, the following incitement:
Karl und Rosa, Viel Hundert Tote in einer Reih' Rosa und Karl
Sind nicht dabei.'
[Many hundreds of dead in a row, but Rosa and Karl are not amongst them.] - Rosa
and Karl, were, of course, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.]
To the Social Democratic propaganda in favour of a National Convention the revolutionary
communists replied with: 'No National Convention! Arm the workers in the factories!
Establish revolutionary tribunals to try the war criminals and counter-revolutionaries!'
At this time, the civil war was far from its climax. The decisive battles came later.
New formations of the industrial workers were just marching up to the front line.
They fought their battles, not as party men or trade unionists, but as independent
revolutionary factory units. In this very critical atmosphere, December 28, 1918, a party
was born, which after long and vehement discussion was called the Kommunistische
Partei Deutschlands' [Spartakus Bund], [Communist Party of Germany- Spartacus League].
It included only parts of the revolutionary groups mentioned in the previous chapters.
Groups such as the International Communists in Bremen, Wilhelmshaven, Brunswick,
etc., never joined it officially. It is important to note that the Communist Party
of Germany* [Spartacus League] was strongly anti-Parliamentarian when it started out. In
so far as the trade unions were concerned, the slogan at first was 'Destroy the Trade
Unions'; this was later changed to 'Capture the Trade Unions.'
[* In 1923, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD.) pursued a 'united front' policy
with the German nationalists. The Nazi Graf von Reventlow wrote articles in the communist
central organ 'Rote Fahne'. At the same time Clara Zetkin, Communist deputy, declared in the Reichstag, that 'a collaboration is quite impossible between the Reichswehr
and the Red Army.']
Meanwhile, a new independent industrial union movement, known as the Allgemeine Arbeiter
Union, Revolutionare Betriebsorganisation [General Workers' Union Revolutionary
Workshop Organisation], sprang up and spread all over Germany, its membership reaching in a comparatively short time several hundred thousand. This movement bitterly fought
the Reichswehr in Central Germany, at the Leuna Works for instance, and seized, as
fighting units of the working class, shipyards and factories in Northern Germany.
In January 1919, I was commissioned by the Conference of the International Communists
of North-West Germany to negotiate with Karl Radek - the then general Bolshevik
plenipotentiary in Berlin - and discuss with him ways and means for establishing
wireless communications between Wilhelmshaven and Kronstadt.
I rushed by a special loco-engine to Berlin to conduct my mission immediately. Searching
for Radek in vain throughout that day, I accidentally met Karl Liebknecht at midnight
who told me that Radek was hiding in the suburbs in a certain flat of the Workers Co-operative Society.
Mass strikes raged in the City and its surrounding districts. No buses or street-cars
were running. When I, after a strenuous journey, arrived at Radek's 'secret' flat,
the latter was occupied with some exciting lady visitors.
At last, a political debate took place and it became clear to me, that the Bolshevik
party dictatorship did not concern itself with the task of developing the world revolution.
Part 7
This page hosted by
Get your own Free Home Page