Eugen Leviné on Participation in Elections at the Founding Party Congress of the KPD

Comrades! I would like to begin with the words of the previous speaker. The question of participation in the elections to the National Assembly is not a matter of principle. But it is an important question. The fact is that some opponents of voter participation are putting forward arguments that are not valid and can therefore easily be refuted by those who favor voter participation, who consider participation in the elections to be a necessity. Our comrades who support voter participation are accused of wanting to participate in parliamentary activities again. Of course, there is no question of that, and I would like to exclude this argument and cite others that speak against participation.

Parliamentarism is understood as participation in parliament, which excludes action outside of parliament, shifting the focus of the political struggle to parliament. Of course, the comrades who advocate voter participation did not have this intention; they did not want to paralyze the masses outside the National Assembly. If we reject this objection, we are left with no less weighty objections to voter participation.

To make a decision, we must ask ourselves: What tasks do we face in the immediate future, and is participation in the National Assembly compatible with them? It's not a question of sending a speaker to a hostile debate meeting; we haven't been polemicizing against Comrade Levi for that reason. We didn't want to waste our energy. The question is: Are the tasks of the immediate future compatible with participation in the elections? We know that in both cases, whether we participate or not, a small minority of the working masses will stand behind us. If we participate, it will be only a few, and even our headquarters has sensed this, declaring that we are not interested in changing the majority. We only want to bring in a few seasoned comrades. But I also believe that in the case of a boycott, only a few will follow us. What is the connection? It's not because the Spartacus League didn't have the strength to recruit enough followers, or to postpone its organization so long. It's because the revolution is so early, which doesn't yet allow the masses to join us.

It is self-evident that all the thousands of women and girls who are voting for the first time now will not cast their votes for us. It is self-evident that they will not heed our call for a boycott either. But it is our task to influence the situation so that the time between this and the next period, when we have the majority, is as short as possible. We must show through propaganda, agitation, and political experience that there is no other way out of the complete anarchy of the current situation than struggles for immediate socialization. This is our strength in the fight against the dependent and the independent: that we stand on the foundation of immediate socialization. And the more unemployment grows, the more we can point to this means. But this is the experience we gained through the Russian Revolution: that political principles cannot be acquired and acquired through decrees and declarations; they require practical instruction. In political life, too, there is the system of work schools, where one learns through participation. These are the councils. We have no other way out now in the political and economic situation than to use all our power for the councils. We are told that the councils are dying. Those branches are dying that were cut from foreign trees and poorly grafted on: those officer and coalition councils, born of agreements between the leaders of the dependents and independents. These are foreign hothouse plants. But those other councils stand strong, and no storm will uproot them. Our task is to build the organization from below, to train the works councils, precisely because the local councils now lead a shadowy existence, having allowed themselves to be pushed into a corner by the Ebert-Haase government. We must focus our attention on preparing the works councils for the economic struggle, on enlisting every worker to participate. Any participation in an election is incompatible with this consolidation of mass organization from below. If the masses were as sophisticated as many of the comrades wish, they would try to be active in the factory councils instead of taking a short stroll to cast their ballot. It is precisely the comrades at the headquarters who say that the masses are not yet sufficiently enlightened, which speaks against voter turnout. We could perhaps explain to the comrades here how one can be against the National Assembly and for participation in the elections. But these comrades will no longer be able to teach their colleagues in the factories the same thing. It is quite true that the masses think primitively, and to the extent that they are not politically enlightened, they may have a train of thought that is not strictly logical.that it is absolutely not necessary to be against the National Assembly and therefore against the elections.

But the masses think this way. The moment they are told to participate in the elections, their strict opposition to the National Assembly is blurred, and the focus shifts from the task of expanding the works councils to the hope of being able to achieve something in the National Assembly. It is therefore a great danger to use this slogan. Much has been said about the fact that all the agitational response we thought we would find through our participation in the elections is now disappearing. From one side, we are shown the Russian example, from the other side, we are told...1 What is the situation then? The Bolshevik Party has never harbored illusions about the National Assembly. But it says that the Russian population had to go through with participation. Why? Because for decades, the other socialist parties had propagated the National Assembly as a kind of sanctuary among the Russian population, which had actually triggered the belief among the broadest sections of the population that the National Assembly could do something. Therefore, they were bound to be disappointed. But what is the situation here? Here, the National Assembly is just as alien to the feelings of most sections of the population as the council system. However, the elites of the proletariat have experienced the idea of ​​the National Assembly. For them, the council system does not mean a break with cherished ideas.

The situation is this, whether we like it or not: The masses will go to the National Assembly, the masses will elect our opponents, the bourgeois, the dependents, and the independents. How can we, through our position toward the National Assembly, ensure that the masses will later return to us? We are now facing the possibility of an Ebert-Scheidemann dictatorship in the near future. The most difficult struggles lie ahead of us. It depends on whether these struggles are successful or whether we will have to return to illegal work. In any case, we must try to oppose the National Assembly, the coalition of the bourgeoisie with the majority socialists, with real power. This real power is the expansion of the council system. Do you think the real power of the bourgeoisie will be broken if you unleash machine guns against it? It won't be broken if you put a few comrades in it either, but only through the struggle from outside, through the struggle in the workplace and on the streets. We must organize these struggles. If we succeed, then the problem will not become relevant at all; then the National Assembly will disappear. But if we fail, and are defeated first, something else will happen: The masses will experience disappointment, and they will say: The Spartacist people and the Communists were right when they told us: Don't go into the National Assembly! Build your councils! Organize all your power outside, prepare for battle!

Comrade Duncker tells us that we are like children who ripen buds prematurely. I believe it is the force of events that, like a drizzle in spring, causes the buds to suddenly open. But if one wants to compare someone to children, it is those who, instead of now setting about nurturing and caring for the blossom of the revolution, the council system, and making it grow, are chasing colorful butterflies, the elections to the National Assembly. Or, I would say more accurately, the council system, the revolution, is not just a blossom; it is actually as if one had to walk in a jungle, and our comrades put down their axes and want to chase their butterflies. So I say to them, leave your colorful butterflies and lay your axe to the edifice of the capitalist economic order.

• 1This sentence is incomplete in the manuscript.