The Revolutionary Party

The current state of the workers' movement—its confusion and organizational fragmentation—seems completely incomprehensible to most workers. The deeper causes of this crisis remain hidden from the eye of the superficial observer. The broad masses of organized workers believe they are getting closer to their goal—the overcoming of capitalism—without taking into account the changed national and international social conditions. Only a portion of them recognize the altered conditions on the battlefield of class struggle, attempt to make these new insights the common property of the proletariat, and advocate for a change in tactics—one that takes these transformed circumstances into account. However, these new realizations and experiences, which take shape in the minds of the proletariat as thoughts and become a living force, push towards action and find their organizational expression. The organizational splits, reunifications, and renewed divisions—while stubbornly avoiding and successfully combating the capitalist crisis and its effects—leave many workers in confusion and despair, often leading to reactionary obstinacy and open hostility towards those comrades who have recognized the bankruptcy of reformism in this final, fatal crisis of capitalism and drawn the necessary conclusions from this class insight. The large mass of emotionally driven workers sees in this revolutionary forward march the cause of their own impotence; in the “party struggles,” they perceive a malicious “destruction of the united front” and thus a reason—or at least a contributing factor—to the bleakness of the current situation. That the leaders of the old organizations do everything in their power to channel the resulting anger—born out of helplessness—against the progressive and advancing organizations and their members is self-evident. It is their only means of concealing their own bankruptcy and betrayal. Thus, today's workers' movement presents a tangled knot, a picture where the question of socialism or communism is practically pushed off the agenda in workers' assemblies in favor of struggles against their own class comrades. And there is a grain of truth in the statement: If timely, salutary, and sober self-criticism regarding the cause itself does not replace bourgeois-authoritarian leader-worship and blind rage, then the proletariat—the giant historically destined to be capitalism’s gravedigger—will dig its own grave.

We want to bring a few key questions to the forefront of our examination—questions whose exhaustive treatment we will forgo here, but which will serve to free many workers from the fog of empty phrases. These questions will also put them to the test: whether, out of weakness and cowardice, they will continue to deceive themselves and their class comrades with illusions, betraying the cause in the process, or whether they will find the strength to answer for themselves, breaking free from the grip of reformist counterrevolution in their search for revolutionary truth.

First, to the workers of the KPD: Your party bombards you with countless resolutions, theses, and decisions, claiming that the proletariat in Russia wields revolutionary power and that the Russian government embodies the proletarian dictatorship. Have you never considered the absurdity of this claim? If the victorious working class were truly dictating, would it still allow itself to be exploited as a wage proletariat by capital? You yourselves know that in Russia, the proletariat is exploited as wage laborers just as they are everywhere else in the world! You must also recognize that the economically dominant class is always the politically dominant class, and that a compromise government—whatever it may call itself—is nothing but a fig leaf for the rule of the economically dominant class. Its policies and actions inevitably serve the interests of the ruling classes and must therefore be directed against the proletariat. The Third International and its sections, along with the Russian government, are bound to uphold this reality—and you go along with it! For the past four years, you have been asleep, failing to see that the Russian proletariat was defeated precisely because of the thoughtlessness of the German and international proletariat. You wonder at the contradictions in your party’s slogans but fail to grasp that they are the product of a policy designed to bind the proletariat and turn it into a support base for capitalist foreign policy. To achieve this, you are kept in the illusion that today’s Russia is still the revolutionary Russia of 1917. Through a cultivated "revolutionary patriotism," your thoughtlessness is maintained. You are tied—whether by left, right, or other leaderships—to Russia, to the trade unions, to the parliamentary apparatus, and to the global counterrevolution, rendering you powerless. This ensures that you do not become conscious as a class, that you do not recognize yourselves as part of the international working class standing against the world counterrevolution, and that you do not reclaim your own class interests.

The workers of the SPD: We are well aware that the portion of the proletariat still remaining in the party of open counterrevolution does so because, to their "left," they see only their parliamentary twin brother. A party courts them, one they know would only lead them from the frying pan into the fire. The contradictory nonsense represented as "left," daily dressed in new slogan-costumes, keeps them in a party that has done everything possible to leave no doubt about its open hostility to workers. But the historical development of the years during and after the World War, proceeding along its predetermined course with iron necessity, will compel the entire proletariat not only to take a stand against its parliamentary twin but also to take a stand on its position as a class in confrontation with the world capital, which writhes in its death throes, seeking to destroy everything in its path. It will prove that all attempts to save the proletariat as a class using the old methods will fail, and that world capital can only be confronted and overcome through a clear understanding of class conditions and the clarity of methods and tactics born from this understanding. Only this clarity will prevent the proletariat from sinking from reformism into the pacifist swamp, resigning itself—much to the amusement of the bourgeoisie—to the role of the disgruntled petty bourgeois.

The Communist Workers' Party is fully aware of the gravity of its task: it has set itself no less a goal than to lift the proletariat out of its powerlessness by making a complete break with old organizational methods and reformist traditions. The KAPD has examined the deeper meaning behind the outcry over "leader betrayal" and counters this impotent, reactionary outrage with a fundamental truth: as long as the proletariat, as a class, encompasses different social strata both organizationally and ideologically, the class interests emerging from these strata will always stand in opposition to one another. And inevitably, the tendency that is intellectually superior to the other will prevail. This intellectually dominant stratum is also always the one that controls the organization. During the era of reformism—when capitalism was in its period of flourishing—these contradictions did not always appear openly, or they remained purely theoretical. However, in the epoch of capitalism’s decline, when class antagonisms are sharpened to their extreme, maintaining organizational unity with the leadership caste that emerged during the reformist period means maintaining unity with a class (parliamentarians, state officials, union bureaucrats, cooperative administrators, etc.) whose very existence is tied to that of the capitalist order. These elements are not affected by the mass dying-off of the working class. Their own survival is only at stake when the proletariat, faced with chaos, finally moves to overthrow the capitalist system from its very foundations. From this unforgiving historical dialectic, the KAPD has drawn the necessary and inevitable conclusions and tells the proletariat: a revolutionary fighting unit only makes sense if it is a unit of aligned class interests. Today, the suffering and crisis-ridden working class has a pressing need to break with all elements that, through false pretenses, attempt to bind the proletariat to the capitalist state. The interests of wage workers today demand a struggle against reformism, regardless of whether it appears in its old form or under a new "revolutionary" disguise. These interests demand, in a positive sense, the practical initiation and execution of the struggle for the fundamental principles of communism. The revolutionary program must be the content of the organization, and the will to realize it must be its driving force. The organization must be a tool in the hands of the workers themselves, based on the council system. The council system will assign key functions to the most capable and intelligent workers; any change in leadership will preserve the strength of the working class, as the careerist path to capitalist state privileges will be blocked. Thus, the KAPD has torn the elementary principle—"The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself"—from the realm of empty slogans and given it a concrete, historically necessary, and practical meaning. If communism is to become flesh and blood, then it is first and foremost these slogans that must form its foundation. The KAPD fights for these principles, has already embarked on this path in practice, and presents to the entire international proletariat a program built upon experience. It is certain that the proletariat can only achieve victory by following this path. May it soon learn from its struggles!

In accordance with its revolutionary Marxist principles, the KAPD declared at its founding congress—now more than six years past—the thesis: Leave the trade unions! Organize as a class in the workplaces! Prepare to take over production! It propagated and defended the workplace councils as organs of the Allgemeine Arbeiter-Union (AAU) and, through relentless clarification and self-criticism, eradicated the remnants of petty-bourgeois elements both within the party and the union. At the time, petty-bourgeois fanatics reacted in shock and hysteria, accusing the KAPD of attempting to "split the movement." However, a revolutionary analysis made it clear that this supposed "splitting" was in fact the inevitable consequence of the bankruptcy of reformism itself. It was necessary to anticipate this collapse and develop a revolutionary class struggle program in preparation for the final phase of the class conflict. To these critics, however, such an understanding remained an impenetrable mystery. Today, paid political operatives may attempt, by all means, to block the movement toward new horizons (as seen in the crisis of the KPD), but in the long run, their efforts will fail. The KAPD knows that the path of the working class along the road of revolution is not a straight one: the proletariat will, more than once, seek to evade the ruthless hardships of struggle, both before and during the seizure of political power. From this well-established truth, the KAPD draws the conclusion that, alongside the class organization, the party is essential during the decisive struggle for final victory. The party must serve as the brain, the compass, the driving force, the unrelenting critic and guide of the working class. It must resist all attempts to dissolve or neutralize it. The proletariat can only triumph with and through the revolutionary party. The KAPD remains true to itself—and thus, true to the revolution.

The KAPD is fully aware that the proletarian revolution must be the task of the international proletariat—otherwise, it will be smothered in its infancy, as in Russia. However, the proletariat in Germany must also understand that the idea of international class solidarity has nothing to do with national reconstruction attempts for capitalism—such illusions are impossible. There is only revolution or reconstruction, one or the other. Class struggle or social peace. As the global crisis intensifies, pulling more and more countries into its vortex, the battlefield of the international working class in its struggle against world capital becomes increasingly clear. Towering above all parliamentary, petty-bourgeois, nationalist, and reformist noise must stand the principle and unshakable will of true international workers' solidarity: To raise the banner of world revolution in one’s own country. To deal the decisive blow to one’s own bourgeoisie. The more unyielding the German proletariat is in its struggle for liberation—the more ruthlessly it crushes capital in Germany and its parliamentary and trade union lackeys—the sooner international aid will arrive. But such aid can only materialize when the revolutionary actions of German workers enable their class comrades beyond the borders to make their own decisive move. This very action must shake the foundations of the international capitalist system so profoundly that there can be no turning back. It must ignite in the masses the realization that they have nothing left to lose—a realization that will grant them the strength to overcome their mortal enemy.

The KAPD has remained steadfast in the conviction that revolution is the only way forward and that it can only succeed under its own slogans. Even in the darkest depths of counterrevolution, this awareness has given it the strength to hold its banner high and defy a world of enemies. However, the KAPD knows that its victory is only possible if the proletariat finally rallies behind its banner. If the party were to fall, it would signify that the working class has failed to find the revolutionary path—and would instead descend into barbarism. Let every worker take heed in time: the KAPD will either triumph with the struggling proletariat—or perish alongside it.

Arise, you wretched of the earth!