Role and Tasks of the KAPD in the Social Revolution

I.

The precondition for the victory of the proletarian revolution is the clear realization and firm consciousness among the revolutionary workers of the opposition, its role and tasks. This communist organization, we call it a party, has and must have nothing in common with the forms, structure and content of the parliamentary parties and trade unions of the working class that have grown with capitalism and move on its soil and within its laws, for these organizations, including the SPD, KPD and trade unions, cannot go beyond the framework of their own selves. Confronted with the alternative of being for or against the capitalist profit order, they must always decide in favor of the latter, since it is the mother soil of their existence. However, in the present epoch of social revolution, determined by the continuing state of crisis in the capitalist world, the workers' class struggle can no longer take place as a struggle for reforms within the framework of capitalism, but must be focused solely on the destruction and elimination of the capitalist system and the struggle for communism as the only possible solution to the capitalist crisis. This struggle also determines the role and tasks of the party, which shows the proletariat the way to this struggle and places the weapons of victory in its hands.

In the six years of the German revolution, the proletariat had to make bloody sacrifices in order to consolidate the realization and gain experience that it cannot win without an iron and purposefully working revolutionary party. Its mass organizations, parliamentary parties (SPD, USPD, KPD) and trade unions proved to be organizations against the working class in the moment of struggle and upheavals of capitalist society. In the case of the SPD and the trade unions, this no longer needs to be particularly demonstrated. The progressive disintegration of bourgeois society, as in the Barmat state bank scandal, Magdeburg trial, arbitration awards, etc., brings to light facts that are in themselves the strongest evidence for the role of the SPD and trade unions. The “Communist” Party of Germany, section of the 3rd International, stands in theory on the ground of the struggle for the proletarian dictatorship and the elimination of capitalist society through the armed struggle of the working class, but in practice, as a parliamentary and trade union party, it moves on the ground of the social-democratic reform struggle. It represents the most left wing of social reformism, which, under the mask of communism, makes the working class willing to engage in capitalist interest politics. Today it regards the most important revolutionary task as being to bring about unification with the social-democratic executioners in the trade unions and to make the masses believe that the proletarian dictatorship could be fought for through the victorious trade union wage struggle. But one thing excludes the other. The workers who are educated and trained in the old trade union ideology, in whose minds the workers' struggle for communism is presented as a social-reformist struggle to gain piecemeal advantages and achieve milestones on the road to the proletarian dictatorship, will never have the ideology and realization of the struggle as a class for social power through the inevitable civil war with all its consequences. The October defeat of the German working class in 1923 was the result of this false ideological attitude of the working class. If, therefore, the KPD today stands in theory on the ground of the struggle for the proletarian dictatorship and in its practical policy focuses the workers on the historically outdated social-reformist wage struggle, fragments them into trade union occupational groups instead of forming them as a class, and thereby inhibits them in their development of self- consciousness through their parliamentary activity, then it is committing the crime of making the workers ideologically incapable of the struggle to achieve communism, of preparing in advance for certain defeat in future struggles. The effects of its practical policy must therefore be subjectively the same as those of social democracy. And that is why it is ruled out as a revolutionary party that helps to win the victory of the working class.

The struggle of the working class in today's epoch of the death crisis of capital can, as already mentioned above, only be the struggle for the transformation of the capitalist profit order into communism. This fundamental insight, drawn from the experience of the struggles and developments of recent years, retains its value even when the revolutionary development appears to have come to a standstill due to the holding back of the revolutionary tide. The advance of the revolution does not move upwards in a straight line to the final victory, just as the death crisis of capital is not a straight descent into the abyss, on which the certain end comes after a certain point in time. Both processes, which are so closely connected, must not be understood as a purely mechanical act. Both are a chain of interrelated links in the forward and backward flow of the revolution and the lurching of capitalism from one stage of crisis to another.

This rise and fall of the revolutionary movement does not leave the revolutionary party untouched. It grows with its rise and declines with its ebb. It forges and refines it, eliminates foreign bodies, elements that came to it only emotionally, and, through the bitter revolutionary struggle, theoretically clarifies all the fundamental questions of the proletarian revolution, which are indispensable spiritual tools for the liberation of the proletariat.

The Communist Workers' Party, as a genuine child of the revolution, has passed through this stage of development. It separated from the Spartacus League in 1919 in the correct realization that it would be the death of the revolutionary movement to join the front of social democracy by adopting parliamentary and trade-union methods of struggle, first ideologically and then with unrelenting consistency in practice. Armed with revolutionary boldness, Marxist insight and imbued with revolutionary fener, it created its program of proletarian revolution. The program of anti-legal, anti-union and anti-parliamentary uncompromising class struggle. With this program it stood and had to stand against the entire traditional workers' movement. The development of the capitalist economy and the struggles and defeats of the German proletariat proved a hundredfold the fundamental correctness of this path and program of the KAPD. The vast majority of the proletariat, however, had not yet heard the battle cry of revolution. Some sections of the working class did take up this program here and there and tried to bring it to a breakthrough through difficult struggles and sacrifices.

Revolutionary workplace organizations emerged as the organizational form and expression of this programme. In the armed struggles of the revolution, in revolutionary mass strikes in the Ruhr area and Central Germany, the workers entered the struggle as a class from the workplaces. Revolutionary action committees grew out of the revolutionary will of the masses, giving shape to the idea of revolutionary councils and expanding the BO by leaps and bounds.

However, despite all the heroic efforts of the revolutionary vanguard, it was not possible to help the revolution to victory in the struggles. The proletariat heeded the call of the social reformists and suffered defeat. Betrayed and sold out by its leaders, beaten, tormented and crushed by the bourgeoisie, this is how the German proletariat stands today, the revolution thrown back to its starting point. The only gain: the ideological and organizational anchoring of the programme and the spiritual weapons of the revolution by the Communist Workers' Party of Germany.

II.

We have no reason to despair or rejoice over this result of the German revolution. The programme alone is of no use if it does not take hold of the masses of workers, penetrate them and is realized by them in struggle. It can and will only live through us, through the revolutionary work of the party among the workers.

The KAPD, as the union of the most class-conscious, most self-sacrificing and most determined revolutionary workers, must know how to make this realization the standard for the revolutionary work of each of its members. Without a revolutionary party there can be no clear revolutionary program. Without the active work of the party there can be no realization of this program. The revolutionary knowledge, which the party has struggled and fought for over many years, does not come to the workers by itself when struggles break out, but must be transmitted to them by the party. For this reason, the existence and work of the KAPD in the most decisive focal points of the class struggle, in the industrial areas, is a necessary precondition for the victory of the revolution.

The successful work of the KAPD has a clear revolutionary perspective as a precondition. We must recognize that in Germany we find ourselves between two waves of revolution. The first stormy wave, after bloody struggles and defeats, has receded to a lower point than that from which it started.

The second is heralded by the progressive crisis of the capitalist economy, the increase in unemployment, the pressure of the bourgeoisie against the workers and the developing tensions and struggles in mining, the metal industry, etc.

In the low period between the two waves of revolution, the KAPD, with its program forged in the fire of revolution, must go to work with increased activity. It is precisely at this time that the ideological and organizational preconditions for the victory of the revolution must be created in the proletariat, so that the second wave of the revolution does not find the same untrained and clumsy proletariat as the first.

It is necessary to clearly define what is meant by the ideological and organizational prerequisites for the victory of the revolution, so that on the basis of these definitions the entire party can work in a clear, systematic and active manner.

Creating the ideological preconditions for the victory of the revolution means strengthening the consciousness of the broad masses of workers of the inevitability and necessity of revolution and communism and at the same time making them understand that this is only possible in the most bitter class struggle through civil war and by means of the proletarian soviet dictatorship. To create this consciousness in the minds of the workers through the work of the party means at the same time to take up the struggle against the present counter-revolutionary, parliamentary and trade unionist social-reformist ideology of the working class and to destroy it. We can only do this by repeatedly and clearly and consciously defending our program in all workers' movements, struggles, strikes and actions. Naturally, we will then find ourselves “swimming against the tide” in all these workers' movements as long as they remain within the framework of the old counter-revolutionary, social reformist ideology. But this must not be a reason for us to deviate from our clear line for even a moment or to slacken in our active work. We must always be aware that we cannot convince the vast majority of workers in capitalist society to become class-conscious communists and that even those workers who take up the struggle for communism cannot all be theoretically trained and filled with clear Marxist knowledge. Rosa Luxemburg already wrote about this: “Thousands of proletarians are good and best fighters for the goals of socialism without knowing anything about these theoretical problems, on the basis of the general fundamental knowledge of the class struggle and on the basis of an incorruptible class instinct, as well as revolutionary traditions of the movement.”

These revolutionary-minded masses of workers will enter the struggle under the leadership of the Party, which represents the gathering of the clearest, most conscious and most educated revolutionary workers. However, in order to create this consciousness for the struggle, it is not enough just to rigidly and dogmatically defend our program, but the party must know how to explain this program to the workers on the basis of daily events in economic and political life and make it enter their minds and blood. There must be no event, no incident that the party does not use for its fundamental propaganda, no workers' meeting where we do not repeatedly appear as tireless admonishers and urgers of the revolution. It does not matter whether the workers enthusiastically agree with our views, whether they support us or shout us down. The decisive factor is that our propaganda has a clear and determined effect among them. They may shout us down 99 times and take the old disastrous path to defeat. They will reflect on our advocated program for the 100th time and then follow us and win. Only then will our work be successful.

In this sense, the party must work tirelessly to prepare the masses ideologically for the revolution. This work is only possible through a firm and iron organization of the Party. The party must be able to withstand all the attacks of its opponents, the terror of the bourgeoisie, and also be able to adapt itself to changing situations. It need not be large, but it must be present in the most decisive focal points of the revolution, must work among the masses, and must be so strong that it is able to penetrate the masses with its idea through its propaganda. Not a long sword made of cardboard, but a sword short and hard as steel, which can smash the strongest threads of the counter-revolutionary net. Thus adjusted, the numerical strength of the party will never be able to degrade it to a sect, but it will only be so if it merely sets itself up as the guardian of its program instead of carrying it to the broad masses of the workers.

But not only for propaganda agitation and ideological preparation of the masses for the revolution is a firm organization of the party necessary, but in the course of revolutionary development and situations moments will arise which will force the party as an organization to go beyond the framework of agitation and proganda to actions which are necessary for the advancement of the revolutionary movement, for its initiation or intensification. Actions which, in their consistency, force the masses of workers on the move, perhaps in part to abandon the path of social-reformist methods of struggle and push them onto the path of uncompromising open struggle. This includes terror, sabotage and military hostilities.

This is not to say that the party should lead the struggle alone and detached from the masses. It will and can only lead it in the closest connection and connection with them, as a vanguard leading the common march to the struggle for communism. But precisely because the party, as the union of the most conscious and determined workers, marches ahead as a vanguard and consequently possesses deeper revolutionary knowledge than the masses following it for the most part out of revolutionary impulse and economic compulsion, it is obliged to take the revolutionary actions indicated above, which result from the revolutionary situation.

From this point of view, it is therefore the task of the KAPD comrades not only to actively propagandize their programme, but also to use all their forces for the organizational development and expansion of the party. This is the organizational prerequisite for the victory of the revolution. As little as the revolution can be organized, the existence of a firm and conscious party, the KAPD, is necessary for the victory of the revolution.

From this realization, let us approach our burning tasks in the present epoch!