A Political Trial Without a Political Axis

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The Reichstag fire trial is nearing its climax. What sort of decision will be dictated to the judges from above? The government is in a predicament. If one looked for historical precedents, one would most naturally pause on the Dreyfus case in France and the Beilis trial in czarist Russia. Captain Dreyfus was successfully condemned to Devil's Island despite the lack of evidence, thanks to the fact that the court-martial proceeded behind closed doors. In the Beilis trial, which was open to the public and in which the press actively participated, the rulers proved powerless to force through the Conviction of a Jewish shop clerk for the murder of a Christian boy. But the court did bring in a verdict to the effect that the murder could have been committed for ritualistic purposes.

Will Hitler, perhaps, be compelled to seek inspiration in the classic decision of Kiev justice? Because it is impossible to sustain in any way whatever the charge against the Communists who were fortuitously seized, the Leipzig court may decree that the crime was committed by the Communist Party through criminals unknown. Goering, of course, would like very much to hang Dimitrov. But it is of utmost importance to the government that roasted its chestnuts in the flames of the Reichstag to establish that this fire was perpetrated, if not by these, then by some other Communists. That is the political task. However, it is precisely in its political aspect that the Leipzig trial is weakest Not only is the indictment false juridically but it is absurd politically.

With what end in mind did the Communist Party supposedly set fire to the Reichstag? The official answer reads: it was intended as a signal for insurrection. Through continued use, this formula appears to have acquired a semblance of content But it is really hollow. A signal is a signal only if its meaning is clear to those for whom it is intended. For example, during the October insurrection in Petrograd, the leaders had arranged beforehand that a blank shot would be fired by the cruiser Aurora when a red lantern appeared on the spire of the Peter and Paul fortress. Should the Winter Palace fail to surrender in response to the blank shot, then a bombardment would be begun by the artillery in the Peter and Paul fortress. The red lantern was a signal to the artillerymen of the Aurora; the blank shot of the Aurora was a signal to the artillerymen in the fortress. In this case the signal had a specific technical meaning comprehensible to those for whom it was intended.

From the nature of the matter, it is obvious that the method of signaling must be as simple as possible and easy to achieve technically. The instruments for the signal must be directly within the reach of the leaders. Lighting a red lantern is a very different thing from setting fire to the Reichstag. Is it conceivable that anyone could count upon the possibility that the Reichstag could be set on fire at whatever moment might be required and that the flames would not be extinguished immediately, but would succeed in spreading? An undertaking of this sort is bound up with too great a quantity of unknowns to make possible its selection as an ordinary "signal."

Let us, however, admit — for reasons that do not occur to us and that up to now no one has even thought of explaining — that the Communist commanders did decide to announce the hour of attack by means of a gigantic conflagration in the heart of the capital. To gain its ends, in any case, the central staff must have issued instructions to the regional staffs that they take possession of the streets with arms in hand just as soon as the dome of the Reichstag burst into flames. Very many people must have been initiated beforehand into the secret of the fire. In general, such a colossal signal as a parliamentary building in flames could have been intended not for a handful — a telephone would have sufficed for them — but for thousands, if not tens and hundreds of thousands.

Why, then, is this most important aspect of the case completely submerged in the court shadows? Since the time of the fire, tens of thousands have managed to desert from the ranks of the Communist Party to the Nazis in order to escape the terror. Such turncoats have figured in the trial as chief witnesses for the prosecution. In several concentration camps, the majority of the prisoners voted for Hitler. If from among these "repenters" there have not been found witnesses — not hundreds or thousands but even isolated individuals — to disclose in court the secret of the signal, then this is irrefutable evidence that there was no such secret The conclusion is clear: a signal concerning which no one knows anything is no signal. The flaming dome of the Reichstag proclaimed nothing and issued a call for nothing.

But perhaps the matter involves not a technical but, so to speak, a "spiritual" signal? The task of the incendiaries, the prosecutor will say, was to deal a bold offensive blow that would uplift the mood of the masses and impel them to the road of insurrection. In other words, the fire was not a signal in the real meaning of the word but an act of revolutionary terrorism. However, this version cannot withstand the breath of criticism either. If at least a Nazi headquarters or, say, a police prefecture, were involved, then setting fire to the building might have had a semblance of political meaning — provided, of course, the act had been accompanied by other aggressive actions prepared in advance. But the burning of a "neutral" building like the Reichstag, open to all parties, could say absolutely nothing to the masses. In fact, a fire might well have originated accidentally. How and why should a red glare over the dome of the Reichstag invoke in the masses an arbitrary association with the idea of immediate^insurrection?

In planning any action, a terrorist party, such as, for example, the Russian Social Revolutionaries in the era of czarism, is mainly concerned with making its blow as clear and attractive to the national masses as possible. Even prior to the terrorist act, the party would issue manifestos by means of which it would seek to center the hatred of the populace upon a given person or institution. The act itself would be accompanied by the publication of proclamations explaining its revolutionary meaning. We do not find a single one of these necessary conditions of political terrorism in Berlin toward the end of February. During those days the Communists were busy agitating in favor of elections to the Reichstag, and not at all in favor of burning it. Neither on the night of the fire nor subsequently did there appear in Germany a single proclamation explaining to the masses the meaning of this mysterious event Small wonder that with the exception of Goering and his agents no one has interpreted the fire as a signal for insurrection.

Ignoring the very nature of political terrorism, the prosecutor asserts that the Communist Party, like all criminals in general, naturally seeks to hide its participation in the crime. One could maintain with equal success that Herostratus, intending to immortalize himself by burning the temple at Ephesus, sought at the same time to hide his name in order to escape the responsibility for arson. Since no organization openly assumes the responsibility for the work of destruction, explains its meaning and calls the masses to action, there remains only the charred hall of sessions — but the political act disappears. In its irrational zeal, the prosecution tears a political trial out of its political axis. An insurrectionary staff could no more give the national masses an anonymous signal for insurrection than a government could declare war anonymously. A revolutionary party prepared to go out on the streets for the armed overthrow of the existing system would not shy away from assuming the responsibility for a few burned desks and rugs, should these be necessary in the course of insurrection.

Here we naturally come to consider the persons held as "incendiaries." They are five: an unemployed Dutchman, the chairman of the Communist fraction in the Reichstag, and three Bulgarian Communists. The first question that arises is: why was the signal for the uprising of German workers given by four foreigners? A witness for the prosecution sought to provide an explanation to this enigma by stating that the Communist Party wished to "draw attention away from itself" by putting foreigners to the front Once again we meet with the same absurdity: a party that, for the aims of insurrection, should have concentrated the attention of the masses upon itself was busy "drawing attention away from itself." But if the aim was to hide participation, after perpetrating a politically anonymous and therefore aimless fire, then how and why did the chairman of the Communist fraction, Le., the most outstanding and responsible representative of the party within the walls of the Reichstag, come to be involved in it, and, moreover, not as one of the political leaders of an act of terrorism but as a direct incendiary?

Still more astounding, if that is possible, is Dimitrov's alleged participation in the fire — Dimitrov who is an old revolutionist and who was the general secretary of the Bulgarian trade unions as early as 1910, when the author of these lines first met him in Sofia. According to his testimony in court, Dimitrov settled in Berlin in order to devote himself with greater convenience to Bulgarian matters; and precisely because of this, he avoided any kind of connection with the activities of the German Communist Party. Even his enemies have no reason to doubt his word. It is not difficult to understand that a responsible politician, directing from Berlin the work of his party in Bulgaria, would not incur the risk of arrest and exile for the sake of a second-rate participation in German affairs. For Bulgaria, Dimitrov was unique; for Germany, he could only be one among many. But even if this irrefutable consideration were left aside, the question would still remain why the German Communist Party could find no assistant for van der Lubbe other than a member of the presidium of the Communist International. Moreover, Dimitrov's participation might perhaps have been explicable if the aim had been not to "draw attention away from the party," but, on the contrary, to show that the fire was the work of the Communist International as a whole. Since Dimitrov, together with the other two Bulgarians, had arrived in Germany from Moscow, their participation in the Reichstag fire would, at the same time, have served to reveal the hand of the Soviets to the whole world. Even assuming that someone required such a demonstration, it could not have been, in any case, either the German Communists or Moscow. Why then did the choice fall upon Dimitrov? And whose choosing was it? From the standpoint of the political ends of the trial, it must be conceded that this was the worst possible choice.

In the hands of the organizers of this trial, there were exceptional methods of staging — an unlimited supply of witnesses for the prosecution ready to testify to anything ordered; panic among the potential witnesses for the defense;) the complete absence of criticism on the part of the press; and a complete subservience to the orders of the rulers by the police, the prosecutors, the judges and even the attorneys for the defense. It might appear that the success of any indictment would be assured beforehand under such conditions. Nevertheless, the trial has entered its third "political" phase as a cause lost by Hitler. The key to the riddle is simple: the Communist Party of Germany did not take to the road of insurrection. It was not wrecked in battle, like the Paris Commune in 1871 or the Russian proletariat in 1905; it turned out to be incapable of struggle. Discounting its purely symbolic call for a "general strike!' — a printed scrap of paper to which not a single man responded — the Communist Party was and remained a passive object throughout the tragic events that changed the face of Germany. Let him who still doubts this read the letter of Maria Reese, the popular Communist deputy in the Reichstag who broke with her party precisely because it was revealed to be powerless not only to assume the offensive but even to wage a defensive struggle; because it could not foresee anything, was unable to prepare for anything, and had neither the resources nor reasons for giving revolutionary signals to die masses.

If in its place there had been another party capable of assuming the defensive, it would have had a choice of different ways and methods of struggle, but none of them would have led to the burning of the Reichstag. And if, contrary to all sound political sense, a revolutionary party did decide to set fire to the Reichstag, it would not have chosen for this work a mysterious, unemployed Dutchman who could only understand one with difficulty and upon whom no dependence could be placed; nor the chairman of a parliamentary fraction always in die public eye; nor a member of the presidium of the Communist International personifying Moscow; nor two young Bulgarians unable to speak German. Finally, if a Communist Party had set fire to the Reichstag through the medium of such a fantastic group of incendiaries, it would at least have explained to the workers the political meaning of this arson. No testimony of witnesses, no "clues," no curses by Goering, are capable of sustaining the internal political insufficiency of this accusation. Let the prosecutor assert with the brazenness that distinguishes him in this brazen trial: it was so. The impregnable logic of politics replies in refutation: it could not have been!