The Right-Wing Bloc, the Crowning Glory of Democracy

The political consolidation of the German capital groups, which has been proceeding step by step since the adoption of the Dawes Report under the pressure of iron economic necessities, has made new progress in the last government crisis. The six-week battle between the leading parliamentary factions for the Reich ministerial portfolios has ended as could have been predicted with a high degree of certainty given the overall situation. The new government coalition from the Center to the German Nationals, although still the torso of a united bourgeois bloc, is the visible expression of how far the process of welding the capitalist classes together into a strong political unit has already progressed.

Under the present circumstances, the protracted act of birth of the right-wing bloc, accompanied by strong contractions, had to end with a positive result for the German capitalist class; it simply could not be forcibly interrupted in its course by parliamentary means. For the differences that used to divide the current governing parties now exist only on paper. Particularly with regard to Germany's foreign policy, the Social Democratic bodyguards of the bourgeois republic are really shooting at sparrows with cannons when they take up arms against the party of Hergt-Westarp-Schiele. The truth of the matter is that the German nationalists have long since abandoned their aggressive stance on foreign policy issues. Now that political agreement with the Western powers has proved to be an absolute necessity for German capitalism in order to carry out its economic tasks, all fundamental reservations among the German nationalist faction about the West's orientation have also fallen away and all hatred of Stresemann has been extinguished. The arch-nationalist hatchet has been buried and Germany's membership of the League of Nations has been accepted as the only available opportunity for foreign policy activity today. Certainly there are still differences of opinion between the German nationalists and their people's party-centered government partners about the general value of Germany's League of Nations policy. The German Nationals are far more dissatisfied with the results of the conferences of understanding to date than their coalition colleagues and also have a different view of the period in which the German bourgeoisie can regain complete freedom of action in power politics. But it is foolish to assume that the German National Party will make these differences of no fundamental importance the starting point for a general attack against the system of foreign policy that has prevailed up to now. Such a step is doomed to failure from the outset, because the economic dependence of bourgeois Germany on world capitalism categorically forbids even the right-wing bloc government to break with the Locarno and Thoiry policies. The German nationalists should also know this and therefore do nothing against the continuity and uninterrupted continuation of the previous foreign policy of the German capitalist class.

Domestically, the practical work of the new coalition government will undoubtedly lead to an intensification of social antagonisms. The impossibility of eliminating the state of economic crisis by capitalist means is forcing the bourgeoisie, in order to increase its competitiveness on the world market, to carry out the offensive to reduce production costs with all ruthlessness and to limit the unproductive expenditure for the proletarian victims of this rationalization to a minimum. As a result, mass misery increases, class antagonisms come to a head and the government is faced with the task of implementing new political gag laws and austerity plans for the unemployed in the interests of capital: Laws, some of which are known to have been in the pipeline for a long time.

The intensified social-reactionary course that the right-wing bloc must take against the proletariat under the iron compulsion of the capitalist crisis does not, of course, simply mean the re-establishment of the monarchy, as the SPD signals as an imminent danger. The bourgeois republic has been so consolidated by the Social Democratic executioner's work in defeating the fighting revolutionary workers and by Germany's relationship with the rest of the capitalist world that it is not threatened by any serious danger from German capital groups today. With the shattering of their monarchist illusion in November 1923, the Völkisch have fragmented, they have in part exchanged the putsch ballot for the ballot paper and, apart from the hotheads, are true citizens of the state who, despite their nationalist opposition, do not represent a power factor against the Republic as a whole. And the German Nationals now represented in the Reichsleitung, the former conservative pillars of throne and altar? They are certainly not friends of the republican form of government in principle, they would certainly prefer to restore the pre-november conditions, but the pressure of the present circumstances is stronger than their longing for monarchist restoration. German capital will immediately be forced into deadly isolation by today's world powers, whose economic assistance it vitally needs, if it plunges into monarchist adventures. The internal struggles that would erupt with a monarchist overthrow alone would make it completely impossible for the German bourgeoisie to fulfill Dawes and thus plunge its already shattered profit economy into complete chaos. The German National Party is well aware of this and has resigned itself to the existence of the Republic for reasons of foreign policy. Under the pressure of the post-war world political situation, the German Nationals have placed themselves on the ground of the facts created in November 1918 in order to be able to pursue capitalist realpolitik. They have now won the positions of state power to which they are entitled on the basis of their parliamentary strength and which no party standing on the platform of bourgeois democracy can dispute. And if the Social Democrats cry foul over the reactionary course of the right-wing bloc, the German Nationals can justifiably claim that their state policy cannot be more reactionary at worst than the Noske course, under which thousands of revolutionary proletarians had to be bloodily crushed in the interests of capitalism.

It was the irony of history that the centrist leader [Wilhelm] Marx, of all people, became the first chancellor of the right-wing bloc. This is striking proof that the proletariat has no reliable allies on the left wing of the bourgeoisie either, and that the bourgeoisie is indeed a reactionary mass against the working class. A proletarian party may well fill a gap in the bourgeois class front in capitalist democracy and thus create the illusion of a “people's community” for the oppressed masses, but it is building on sand, because the ground immediately disappears from under its feet when the rift in the front of the bourgeoisie closes. Since the unification of the capitalist interest groups can never be prevented by parliamentary means, a workers' policy that pins its hopes on the differences in the bourgeois camp must fail as miserably as that of the SPD. The Social Democratic Party overthrew Marx's government, it wanted an open coalition with the centrist parties instead of a silent one and lost the battle it opened despite its parliamentary strength and clever strategy. The Center, with the assurance of stronger support for its confessional interests, swung to the right and thus smashed the black-red-yellow “people's bloc”. With its parliamentary advance, the SPD has only triggered a further consolidation of the capitalist class front and now finds itself in an unsought and therefore uncomfortable opposition position. Through its eight-year policy of saving capitalism from the revolutionary tide, it has carpentered the coalition bed for the German Nationals inch by inch and is now standing at the door as a night watchman. It must watch impotently as the democracy it so praised is crowned and completed by the right-wing bloc; it must continue to mislead the proletariat with reformist illusions, for the capitalist republic is, despite all this, an untouchable sanctuary for social democracy.

The bourgeois bloc government of the Reichsbanner protector Marx has in part been received abroad in a way that in at least one case should come as a tremendous surprise to the masses of the German proletariat. In Paris, of course, there is unease on all sides; all papers of all party tendencies unanimously report the news of the formation of Marx's cabinet under the headline: “The most reactionary cabinet that has ever existed in Germany!” The opinion in Moscow, however, is considerably different. According to a WTB telegram, Karl Radek wrote in “Izvestia”, among other things: German Realpolitik represents a systematic advance to the West and East and pursues the sole purpose of gradually destroying the Versailles Peace Treaty step by step by gathering forces and exploiting any contradictions. The participation of the German Nationals in the government will strengthen and promote the independence of German politics.” That is an undisguised compliment to the right-wing bloc! So while the KPD calls on the working class to demonstrate against the Citizens' Bloc government, the German Nationals find a sympathetic press in Moscow! The Russian NEP bourgeoisie hopes to be able to make even better deals with the current government than before, hence Radek's diplomatic friendliness towards the right-wing bloc cabinet.

May the German working class therefore recognize in time: the revolutionary struggle against the capitalist class and its right-wing bloc can be led neither by the bourgeois-infested SPD nor by the KPD, which is in the service of Russian NEP capitalism. Only under the leadership of the KAP and AAU will the proletarian class front arise, or the working masses will continue to be powerless against the bourgeoisie.