The new leadership of the KPD, egged on by the Comintern representatives, looked increasingly for a showdown with German capitalism. Their blind impatience became the framework of the new theory of the so-called “offensive”. The whole essence of this theory was that the advance guard – the KPD – could by its own actions “electrify” the passive proletariat into taking revolutionary action.
The situation in Germany was extremely tense after French troops had occupied Düsseldorf because of the government’s failure to pay reparations in full. The party’s central organ Rote Fahne stated: “The workers of central Germany are not taken in by the ‘anti-putschist’ rumors alleging that a spirit of cowardice and apathy has arisen in the German working class.”
On 27 March a decision was taken by the German leaders to launch the revolutionary offensive in support of the miners of central Germany, whose Mansfeld coalfield had been occupied by the security police to prevent “sabotage and attacks on managers”. This provocative occupation was conducted under the orders of the SPD President of Saxony, Otto Hörsing, who attempted to pacify the area and purge it of Communist influence. The miners conducted armed resistance under the leadership of Max Hoelz, an heroic revolutionary figure, who had earlier been expelled from the KPD. The KPD called on the working class throughout Germany to arm itself in solidarity with the miners. They had completely misjudged the mood and the action remained mainly isolated to the central German area.
Out of desperation the Party attempted to provoke the workers into action. A KPD leader, Hugo Eberlein, was sent “to provoke an uprising in mid-Germany”, and, according to many sources, even went so far as to advocate the sham kidnapping of local KPD leaders, dynamiting a munitions depot, blowing up a workers’ co-operative in Halle, and blaming it on the police in order to fuel the anger of the workers. Fortunately, little came of these crazy plans. Groups of communist workers occupied the Leuna Works and called for support, but were driven out after a bitter confrontation. The Communist Party organized the occupation of the docks in Hamburg in support of a partial strike, but again it was soon dispersed. The workers remained passive, leaving the KPD members to fight it out alone with the police.
This infamous “March Action” resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands being imprisoned for their involvement. The ultraleft actions of many good communists widened the split between them and the reformist rank and file. Within a short time over 200,000 members had deserted the KPD in disgust.
A few days after the debacle, Paul Levi issued a bitter attack on the Party’s action, which was broadly correct. However, he wrongly published these criticisms outside the party’s ranks, and as a result was disciplined and subsequently expelled from the KPD.
Lenin was alarmed at the putschist actions of the KPD and strongly condemned those responsible:
The theses of Thaelheimer and Béla Kun are radically false…That a representative of the Executive proposed a lunatic ultraleft tactic of immediate action ‘to help the Russians’ I can believe without difficulty: this representative (Béla Kun) is often too far to the left.