Stalinism and “Social Fascism”

The Stalinists completely lost any sense of proportion and declared the election a massive victory for communism. A prominent party leader, Hermann Remmele, stated: “The only victor in the September elections is the Communist Party.”

Trotsky and the International Left Opposition, alarmed by the deteriorating situation, immediately issued an appeal to the leaders and ranks of the KPD to organize a united front with the social democrats to stop the fascists. The Nazis represented not only a grisly threat to the proletariat of Germany, but that of Europe and Russia as well. A fascist victory would inevitably mean war with the USSR. The Stalinists replied in the following terms:

“In his pamphlet on the question, How Will National Socialism be Defeated?, Trotsky gives always but one reply: ‘The German Communist Party must make a block with the social democracy…’ In framing this block, Trotsky sees the only way for completely saving the German working class against fascism. Either the CP will make a block with the social democracy or the German working class is lost for 10-20 years. This is the theory of a completely ruined fascist and counter revolutionary. This theory is the worst theory, the most dangerous theory and the most criminal that Trotsky has constructed in the last years of his counter revolutionary propaganda.” (Ernst Thälmann, September 1932)

The main enemy for the Stalinists was not Hitler but the Social Democrats! In fact the party, through Heinz Neumann, proclaimed that: “Fascist dictatorship is no longer merely a threat, it is already here.” The KPD issued orders for “social fascist” meetings to be broken up. Thälmann even coined the slogans: “Drive the social fascists from their jobs in the factories and the trade unions!”, “Chase them away from the factories, labour exchanges and professional schools.”

Jan Valtin vividly describes the breaking up of a Social Democratic transport workers’ union conference in 1931:

“The Communist Party sent a courier to the headquarters of the Nazi Party with a request for cooperation in the blasting of a Trade Union Conference. Hitlerites agreed, as they always did in such cases…As soon as the conference of Social Democrats was well under way, I got up and launched a harangue from the gallery…We refused to budge. As soon as the first trade union delegate touched one of us, our followers rose and bedlam started. The furniture was smashed, the participants beaten, the hall turned into a shambles.” (Out of the Night)

This crazy position was backed up by the Stalinist Comintern:

We shall not be able to strike and destroy the class enemy of the workers, the bourgeoisie, unless our main attack is directed against Social Democracy, the chief prop of the bourgeoisie.