The German ‘October’ was not realised, not because of the lack of resolve of the masses, which showed no limits, but because of the betrayals and blunders at the top of both the reformist and Communist parties. It was these defeats, which eventually drove the frenzied ruined middle classes into the arms of the fascists and prepared the way for the victory of Hitler. But even then, Hitler could have been stopped in his tracks if it hadn’t been for the criminal role of the workers’ leaders. Despite having weapons and armaments, as well as their own military formations, they allowed the fascists to come to power without a fight. The German workers were led like lambs to the slaughter. The leaders of the Social Democrats refused to fight as, according to them, resistance would have led to civil war and bloodshed. Bloodshed! It was the very failure to act decisively that made bloodshed inevitable. Millions of workers would perish as a result of fascist barbarism.
The leaders of the Communist Party, who had embraced Stalinism during the 1920s, ignored the calls of Leon Trotsky for a united front of workers’ organisations against fascism, but instead continued to denounce the socialists as ‘social fascists’, and as the main enemy. Trotsky made a forceful appeal to the Communist workers:
Worker-Communists, you are hundreds of thousands, millions; you cannot leave for any place; there are not enough passports for you. Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank. Your salvation lies in merciless struggle. And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring victory. Make haste, worker-Communists, you have very little time left! (L. Trotsky, ‘Germany: The Key to the International Situation’, 8 December 1931.)
But his appeal for a united front was dismissed by the Stalinist leaders as ‘counter-revolutionary’ propaganda.
The accession to power by Hitler in January 1933 – “without breaking a window pane,” to use his own words – constituted the most humiliating capitulation in history, even worse than the betrayal of 4 August 1914. Even then, after everything that had happened, the Stalinists dismissed the fascist victory with the astonishing words, “After Hitler, our turn!” This betrayal destroyed any possibility of a German revolution.
By 1935, fearing a possible war with Germany, Stalin looked for an alliance with the so-called ‘western democracies’. To demonstrate his friendship towards the imperialist countries, he was prepared to sacrifice the Spanish Revolution. This change entailed another zig-zag in policy, as ‘social fascism’ was dropped in favour of the Popular Front. Stalin moved very quickly from denouncing Trotsky for having called for unity of the German communists with the Social Democrats in a united front of the workers’ organisations against the Nazis, to the broadest possible alliance, the Popular Front of communist and socialist organisations with ‘progressive’ bourgeois politicians, Liberals, and Church leaders against fascism. Such a policy prepared the defeat in Spain – and elsewhere – and prepared the way for the Second World War and 80 million dead.