The Baden Revolt

Two years ago in Nuremberg, when 66 delegates from southern Germany issued a declaration that they did not consider themselves bound by the resolution passed, it was easy to believe that this was simply a retreat. It has now been shown that that declaration was in fact intended as a guide to practice. And it would appear that the parliamentarians in Baden deliberately chose the time for their initiative and deliberately drove the party into a serious crisis.

Of course, this is more than just moral indignation at this breach of discipline. And when people here and there start talking about the evildoers who have tested the party's patience long enough, who should be given a proper lesson and whose party-damaging activities should finally be punished, reality takes too much of a back seat to the emotional moment. It is not ethics and passion, but only the sober consideration of opposing interests that can determine the actions of the party. The formal violation of a party decision can never be a reason for the harshest action, for exclusion. Circumstances may arise in which it is impossible to uphold a previously passed resolution and more important interests demand that it be overridden. However, this is not an accidental exception. [Wilhelm] Kolb and his friends declare quite definitely: we cannot abide by the Nuremberg decision without coming into conflict with our innermost convictions. Either it must be repealed, or we will fall for our convictions.

The situation has thus become completely clear. The party has declared that we consider it absolutely necessary for our members to reject the budget. Kolb now says we cannot, so we ask that the decision be rescinded. There are only two options open to the party.

Either, after re-examination, it comes to the conclusion that adherence to the Nuremberg decision is an absolute necessity for socialist tactics, and it therefore declares: we as a party adhere to it: whoever wants to belong to us must act accordingly. Those who cannot, whose convictions contradict this, can be good people and honest politicians, but they do not belong to us. – Or they can give in and subscribe to the view that the budget approval is not a violation of our principles, and that the new tactic of allying with liberalism is the best way to make the party powerful and bring about socialism quickly – that the Nuremberg decision was wrong and should be repealed. But since all this, as much as has been said, flatly contradicts the views of the great majority of the party, such a position of the party seems out of the question.

According to the statements of several party papers, however, there is a third possibility: simply confirming the Nuremberg decision. But this is nothing other than the first of the above-mentioned possibilities, unless one explicitly adds, or implicitly adds, that this decision need not be adhered to and that everyone is free to obey or transgress it. But what applies to this party decision must then apply to all. That would simply mean the end of the party: if its resolutions can be obeyed or disobeyed by everyone at will, all uniformity of action, which is the essence of a party and of tactics, is left to chance.

But even in the other case, with the strict confirmation of the Nuremberg decision, party unity is shattered. For when the Baden parliamentarians draw the consequences and walk out, they do not walk alone. The fact that many revisionist spokesmen will go with them need not be taken too tragically; people who, like [Ludwig] Quessel recently, regard the propaganda of the socialist final goal as a danger to the party, have distanced themselves too far from the thinking of the socialist workers to belong with them permanently. What is worse is that the mass of Baden comrades have never learned anything about socialism, class struggle and class politics from their revisionist papers (there is a total lack of others in Baden) and will go out with their parliamentarians. They can, of course, be gradually won back through clear socialist propaganda; but in the long term, such a separation means a weakening of the proletarian movement in Germany.

This is also the reason for the outrage within the party at the actions of the Baden parliamentary group. Whatever else the party may decide, in either case the strength and unity of our army will be broken. A party split in Germany, especially at a time when the whole capitalist world is concentrating more and more against us, seems so monstrous that one keeps asking oneself whether it could nevertheless be avoided. A fierce struggle has been raging between capitalism and reformism for more than a decade; nevertheless, it did not need to jeopardize unity as long as action was unanimous and disciplined. Freedom of opinion in our party is almost unlimited, everyone has the right to try to win over his comrades to his views; but the political stance of our representatives is determined by the party and, conversely, everyone has the whole force of the party behind him. This is what makes the party a mass that acts like a solid body and can defeat the enemy with power. If this cohesion disappears and everyone acts at their own discretion, the party is no more than a loose group of people who exert no force because everyone wants something else and their opposing aspirations cancel each other out. The formal party association is nothing more than a rag, a common name for different things, a mere appearance.

From the moment that revisionism sees fit to pass from theory to practice and consciously opposes the party majority not only with its views but also with its deeds, party unity has basically become impossible and has actually been abolished. Whether formal party unity can be preserved or must be abandoned is a matter of expediency to be decided by the party congress. In the one case, a makeshift appearance is maintained, which will have the worst consequences for the future. In the other case, the party apparently suffers a serious crisis, from which it will rise all the stronger in time. The damage done can no longer be repaired in any way; it will be up to the party conference to keep it to a minimum.

If one asks why the people of Baden chose this particular moment for their revolt, the reasons are obvious. On the one hand, they were hoping that the party would not do anything against them in order not to jeopardize the expected great victory in the Reichstag elections. As short-sighted politicians they do not know, and do not trust the party with the science, that such a victory corresponds to deeper circumstances than the exploitation of a favorable parliamentary situation, and is the fruit of a whole past principled struggle. But there is also the fact that since the break-up of the Bülow bloc the liberal parties have been in opposition, albeit involuntary, hoping that their old sins from the bloc period will be forgotten. This situation gives rise to the desire in leading circles of the party to direct the main attack in the elections not only against the Junkers but above all against the Center. If the revisionists now consider the moment favorable to push the party into a bloc brotherhood with liberalism, they may find themselves in the belief that they are only drawing bold conclusions from what others timidly want. As far as the parliamentary way of thinking prevails, which seeks the strength of our party in the tactical maneuvering between the bourgeois parties, they may have calculated correctly. But the mass of comrades do not see this, but rather the class struggle against the entire capitalist world as the basis of all our politics and thus also of the coming Reichstag elections. This clear socialist insight on the part of the workers will prevent the cleverly conceived attempt to push the party onto the wrong track.