Seeckt's Red Reichswehr

I.

It was not so long ago that the revelations about the Black Reichswehr made in the femicide trials stirred the German press. A storm of indignation arose in the camp of the black-red-yellow parties, those parliamentary trough servants of the capitalist class dictatorship, who in previous years had always been delighted and in complete agreement when the illegal fascist gangs appeared on the scene for the bloody suppression of proletarian rebellions. -

In the parliamentary feud against those responsible for the existence of the Black Reichswehr in terms of state policy, the KPD naturally came first. It alone lays claim to the glory of having “waged the fiercest principled struggle against the entire Gefßler-Seeckt system”. However, this self-praise of the German Leninist leaders has a very, very bad smell, because the chapter on the whole “Geßler-Seeckt system” is just as little closed as the files on the Black Reichswehr.

II.

Today it is a public secret that the dismissed Colonel General v. Seeckt was one of the most loving protectors of the white feme hordes. But Seeckt had not only recruited Blacks to strengthen the military power permitted by the peace treaty, but also the Red Reichswehr! The Black Reichswehr was recruited from the hypernational elements of the monarchist camp, and the Red Reichswehr was created in alliance with Russia, the “first workers' state in the world”! The government of “Soviet Russia” has - according to the latest revelations of the “Manchester Guardian” - allowed the military trustees of the German bourgeoisie to relocate a number of their war industrial plants to the “land of socialist construction”. And no denial has so far denied that the German Reichswehr has purchased ammunition and combat aircraft from Russia and that no new orders have been placed since the conclusion of the Locarno Treaty! The war material produced in “Soviet Russia” for the military power apparatus of German capitalism - that is the Red Reichswehr of Seeckt, the adopted general of the German counter-revolution!

The Red Reichswehr was founded as early as 1921 through planned German-Russian military cooperation. When the Entente's military pressure on Germany became ever stronger with the London ultimatum, authoritative circles of the German bourgeoisie saw their salvation in an orientation towards the East. Russia, which at that time had just embarked on the path of the “new economic policy”, i.e. the path of truce with the capitalist world, was all the more willing to join the outstretched German hand, as its own national interests coincided with the then still Western-hostile policy of German capital. As a tangible result of these “political friendly relations between the Soviet government” and the eastern-oriented groups of the German bourgeoisie, the “Russian-German military industry” was established five years ago with the express purpose of supplying both countries with weapons. It is clear that this German-Russian military alliance celebrated its greatest triumphs in the Ruhr War of 1923, where it had to prove itself in practice in the resistance of German capital against the invasion of French imperialism.

But after the German bourgeoisie was driven onto the path of western orientation [?] by the collapse of all attempts at resistance, it also had to abandon the last remaining positions of eastern orientation. Since Locarno, the German-Russian alliance has been superfluous and the revelations (obviously from German sources) about the Red Reichswehr of the deposed General Seeckt are intended to help ensure that this policy of an outdated European situation is finally completely liquidated.

III.

The publications of the “Manchester Guardian” are all the more valuable because they illuminate the true role of “Soviet Russia” and its Leninist sections as never before. The counter-revolutionary policy of NEP-Russia, which its Leninist satellites know so well how to clothe in revolutionary phrases, is laid bare to its very core by the reports on the German-Russian brotherhood in arms. Exposed to its very essence. What yesterday appeared to the proletarian masses as a front against capitalism, today they must recognize as a united front with the incarnate counter-revolution, when they consider that all German and Russian denials of the English paper's statements wisely miss the point. Even the KPD leaders, who are now brazenly calling everything a “dizzying exaggeration and slanderous distortion of the content” of the Junker memorandum, which has been available for three quarters of a year, only have to draw the attention of the working masses to trivial matters with their “exoneration offensive”. The “Rote Fahne” is careful not to publish the Junkers memorandum - and thus confirms that the reports of the “Manchester Guardian” are in fact true!

It cannot be denied that “Soviet Russia” supplied the German Reichswehr with ammunition, because such a course of action by the “first workers' state” is not at all contrary to the political principles of the Moscow International. After all, Bukharin presented the following theory to the 4th World Congress of the Comintern in 1923, which corresponded to the (then already existing) German-Russian military alliance: “May the proletarian states form military blocs with the bourgeois states on the basis of the expediencies of the strategy of the proletariat as a whole?” There is no difference in principle here between a loan and a military alliance. And I maintain that we have already grown to such an extent that we can form a military alliance with another bourgeoisie in order to crush another bourgeoisie by means of this bourgeois state. In this form of national defense of the military alliance with bourgeois states, it is the duty of the comrades of such a country to help this bloc to victory.” This “revolutionary” directive of the 3rd International forced the KPD to form a united front with the nationalist Vendee during the Ruhr War in 1923 and to sabotage from the outset any move by the proletariat towards independent class politics. At that time, the German Leninist section had to “keep quiet” about many things; it was not allowed to compromise the Red Reichswehr of Citizen General Seeckt, because the aim was to “help the Russian-German military bloc to victory”.

Today it must be clear to even the most gullible KPD proletarian why Clara Zetkin said the following in the Reichstag on November 27, 1925, to strong applause from the Völkisch and German nationalists: Therefore I say: whoever wants peace must seek alliance with the Soviet Union, as the first and strongest peace power in the world. I even believe, in contrast to Mr. Wels, that it is not as hopeless as he imagines, that under certain circumstances cooperation between the Reichswehr and the Red Army could take place.... Germany's future rests on a close community of interests in economic, political and, if necessary, military terms with the Soviet Union.” Clara Zetkin was only able to utter these words, which carried a lot of weight, because she, like the other KPD leaders, was well informed about German-Russian military cooperation. The program of the 3rd International obliges its sections to form an alliance with the executioners of the revolutionary proletariat if such a bloc is in the national interest of NEP-Russia.

Just as the Black Reichswehr can only be defeated in class struggle against its capitalist backers, so the Red Reichswehr of the German counter-revolution can only be rendered harmless in ruthless struggle against its political supporters. This means that the proletariat must no longer, for the sake of its own life, follow a policy that chains it to its own mortal enemy. The working class has no reason to seek a truce with any Russia-friendly groups of the capitalist class at the behest of the Leninist soldiers of Russian NEP capitalism and thus commit political suicide. The revelations about Seeckt's Red Reichswehr prove countless times that the path of NEP-Russia and its Leninist sections is leading the proletariat ever deeper into the counter-revolutionary swamp.

But the path to the proletarian revolution, to communism — that is the path of the KAPD alone.