After the Austrian Defeat

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Comrade Reese’s pamphlet speaks more horn direct political and personal experience than from general theoretical-historical considerations — and this is its strong point. In it, every thinking worker will live through the great events in Germany and taste the political consequences they entailed. This is necessary even for the German workers, but this pamphlet will be especially useful for the workers of those countries where fascism is just preparing to transform state power into a murderous bludgeon for use against the proletariat. It will be possible to put a stop to the activities of the fascists only when the vanguard of the international proletariat has lived through, thought through, and thoroughly understood the causes of the terrible defeat of the German proletariat.

Comrade Reese’s pamphlet is an indictment of both apparatuses that played a role in the sabotage of the proletarian revolution: the German sections of the Second and the Third Internationals. Although their motivations and methods were indeed different, the results they brought about were equally fatal. The proletarian party proves its mettle in a revolutionary situation the way an army does in a war. The mere fact that the contradictions of bourgeois democracy had grown to the point that they could no longer be resolved by democratic methods spelled political death for the Social Democratic Party. The fact that the Communist Party faced this unprecedented deepening of contradictions helpless, confused and without a plan is irrefutable proof that its previous theoretical and political positions and education were inadequate and false.

The behavior of the Austrian Social Democracy after the German experience proved that even the “left” parties of the Second International are completely ossified, bogged down, and incapable of learning the revolutionary lessons of the terrible experience of the German proletariat. The courageous struggles of the Austrian workers only prove that the proletariat can be bold and ready to struggle even under the most unfavorable conditions and with the worst leadership. The fact that a few Social Democratic leaders took part in the battles is at best only testimony to their personal valor. But the working class demands political insight and revolutionary courage from its leadership. Personal virtues — and moreover those that are induced by the pressure of events — cannot substitute for a lack of these qualities. Even the narrow-minded petty bourgeois is at times capable of doing his talking with a gun if he is threatened with being deprived of his comforts and forced out of his usual mode of existence. What is necessary, however, is systematic revolutionary education of the vanguard and winning the trust of the majority of the proletariat in the practical intelligence and daring of the proletarian general staff. Without this precondition, victory is completely impossible. For years, the Austrian Social Democracy threatened to answer with force, when their democratic rights were impinged upon. It turned revolutionary action into a legalistic-literary threat that it did not take seriously itself. Only a leadership that recognizes in advance that the revolution is unavoidable, that makes this the fundamental principle guiding its actions, and draws all the practical conclusions flowing from this can measure up to the situation at the critical hour. Thus despite the heroic actions of the Austrian proletariat and to a certain extent because of these actions — the bankruptcy of the Second International in Austria is no less plain and certain than was the case in Germany.

Let us turn our attention to the example of little Norway. There too we find a Social Democratic Party “powerful” in numbers only. This party, led by Tranmæl, although thus far prevented by adverse circumstances from officially affiliating with the Second International, is steering the exact same course as the Austro-Marxists, making its “victorious advance” and as a result striving with all its might to clear the way for Norwegian fascism.

But the situation is no better in the Third International. People who only read the confirmation of the so-called prognosis of the Comintern leadership in the German and Austrian events represent nothing but bureaucratic stupidity in its purest form. If they have learned nothing from the German Communist Party’s passive, demoralizing failure to act and the Austrian Communist Party’s complete abstention in the fateful hour, what in the world could possibly teach them anything? Meanwhile we observe that once again the theory of “social fascism” is in full bloom in the French, English, and every other section of the ill-starred Comintern. The Communist bureaucrats stuff their mouths with slogans like “October Revolution,” “Soviets everywhere,” etc. But they don’t understand the first letter in the alphabet of the proletarian revolution. Soviets develop out of the organizational forms of the united front of the working class in struggle. From defensive actions, street demonstrations, large strikes, etc., arises the organizational unification of the worker-masses, which forces even the conservative organizations to join in, even if only with the intention of destroying the organization in the long run (the Mensheviks in 1917, the German and Austrian Social Democrats in 1918-19). The Stalinist parties, which foreswear, sabotage, and destroy all forms of the united front, block the road to the formation of soviets in practice. And the sage wisdom of “social fascism” was and is the theoretical crowning of this sabotage of the revolution.

One can draw no other lesson from events than the conclusion that a new revolutionary selection is necessary. The proletarian vanguard must be gathered under a new banner, i.e., new parties and a new International must be formed. Maria Reese’s pamphlet ends with this call. And therein lies its political merit.