"Progressives should not make the same mistake that Ernst Thälmann made in 1932. The leader of the German Communist Party, Thälmann saw mainstream liberals as his enemies, and so the center and left never joined forces against the Nazis. Thälmann famously said that ‘some Nazi trees must not be allowed to overshadow a forest’ of social democrats, whom he sneeringly called ‘social fascists.’
After Adolf Hitler gained power in 1933, Thälmann was arrested. He was shot on Hitler’s orders in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944."
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I’m pretty sure if all Nazi voters instead voted SDP, Hitler wouldn’t have risen to power. The only reason the Nazi Party had any appeal whatsoever is because fractured voting meant chaotic governments, weak and ineffective chancellors, and leaving the president with no choice but to issue emergency decrees just to keep the state apparatus in semi-functional condition.
The one way, the only way, given the composition of the Reichstag, that the Nazis could have been kept out of power is if the Communists were willing to swallow their pride and work with the Centre Party, moderate right-wing parties, and SPD to keep Hitler out of the Chancery. Instead, look what happened. Hitler was appointed Chancellor and purged the Reichstag of opposition. The Enabling Act wasn’t passed because everyone wanted Hitler to have those powers. It was because you either voted with the chancellor or the SS would gun you down on the way back home.
That’s the problem with today’s so-called socialists. An absolutely myopic stance that what isn’t perfect might as well be the worst thing on the planet.
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Then let it be. A liberal or conservative society is nonetheless better than fascism. What you have described is merely a situation where socialist and social-democratic politics have been electorally defeated by conservative ones.
The KPD chose to pout and fight to the bitter end rather than recognising that because they lacked the necessary amount of influence in the Reichstag to control the government, they could not get what they wanted, nor anything near it, and could only, at best, get an extremely watered-down version of the policies they want, or even settle for the status quo to prevent regressive policies from being enacted. Or even accept a mildly regressive policy to prevent a fascist one from being enacted. This is what democracy is meant to do. You give a little, and they give a little, and hopefully, we can both get a little bit of what we want or at least reduce the amount of the stuff we hate. If all of your positions are rigidly uncompromisable, you will find that a well-designed democratic system will keep you out of government and relegated to the sidelines unless you actually hold the popular mandate.
If the choice is to saw off your left foot or saw off your head, you must choose the lesser of the two. Refusing to choose does nothing to help you, and the KPD refused to choose.
Rather than accepting this reality, the. KPD decided it wouldn’t go down without a fight. Ultimately, they failed, and wouldn’t get the chance to govern (or even exist in public) for another two decades. Only after finding external help in the form of the Soviet Union and its Red Army did the KPD finally get what it wanted, subjugating the SPD. The new SED was ushered into government, will of the electorate be damned.
In the end, both the KPD and the Nazi Party wanted to destroy the Weimar Republic because they knew they could not get what they wanted by playing by its rules. The key historical difference is that the Nazis succeeded.
I don’t fault the KPD’s leaders for what they did. After all, we here in 2024 have the power of hindsight that was not available to them. But in the end, we must recognise that the KPD’s stubbornness certainly didn’t help with the collapse of the Weimar Republic and accelerated Hitler’s rise to power.
It is an uncomfortable position to be in when you are forced to criticise the decisions of those whose values you respect and agree with. But it must be done if the goal is to learn from history and not merely flaunt it.
I mean, we’re seeing the same thing (sans the communist orgs) play out in real time across Europe now. In Britain, labor purges Jeremy corbyn and his ilk, then gets elected with a solid mandate, then promises to gut the NHS and promotes transphobic policies (for no material benefit) in the name of coalition building anyway.
What distinguishes these “bipartisan” labourists and their american equivalents from the Tories except different colored hats? Would you also blame corbyn for running against these people?
No, I would not. In an ideal world, Corbyn would still be the leader of the Labour Party while Starmer would head a moderate centre-left or centrist liberal party, and after the 2024 election, it would be Corbyn and Starmer governing together in coalition, resulting in a government that is slightly more to the left than what it is now.
But the UK’s system of elections is flawed and definitely not perfect, which prevents this.
I was trying to draw a comparison to how the KPD formed in the first place. they were a group within the spd who were horrified at their colleagues voting in support of a brutal imperialist war and left (or rather were kicked out) of the party. Imo there has to be a moral line somewhere after which you refuse to vote for or even be in government with people who do monstrous things.
And it is not just the uk’s system of elections, as I mentioned this pattern happens across all of Europe and the United States, which leads me to also believe it’s an inherent feature of “liberal” bourgeois democracy and the kpd were right to roll the dice and try to fight it through non electoral means.
Frankly, most communist parties around the world that try to fight the government and take over violently get brutally crushed.
You cannot launch a violent revolution without popular support, and the reality is that absent extreme circumstances, the population as a whole at any given time will view the policies proposed by most communist parties as extreme. That is why it is so exceedingly rare for communist parties to be able to win power democratically, because the truth of the matter is that communist policies are usually deeply unpopular.
I do not care whatever your intentions may be; if you try to impose your ideology on the population against their will by violence, I equate you to the fascists. And indeed, many of the so-called socialist regimes that have popped up after these “worker’s revolutions” have been tinpot dictatorships with the socialist decorations, while extinguishing personal liberties and badly mismanaging the state economy. And the promise of equality is totally betrayed as the party leadership becomes the new bourgeoisie, living in luxury off others’ labour while the workers’ living standards remain much lower.
Simply put, just because a hammer and sickle was installed atop the state buildings, the flag drenched in red, and the Evil Bourgeoise Government renamed to the People’s Evil Bourgeoise Government doesn’t make it any better.
I am a socialist and also Chinese, and I believe fellow socialist George Orwell’s Animal Farm is shockingly illustrative of the situation.
Well i’m Russian and also a socialist, believe me I love that book too! in fact there was a character named Molly in it that voiced similar sentiments about animalism being unpopular ;)
In fact the war itself was also popular in 1914, everyone was raring to go and show those dam frenchmen what for. But surely it’s obvious the German people at large were wrong not to believe the communists!
And it’s a tragedy that it took direct experience of the devastation and millions of casualties for them to change their minds about it and stage a revolution in 1918.
What happened in Germany after the communist revolution is a whole other story of course.