Germany: The Only Road¶
Core Argument¶
In September 1932, Trotsky dissected the terminal convulsions of German capitalism, the most modern and dynamic in Europe, yet trapped within a divided world. He dismissed the three proposed cures—liberalism, planned economy, and autarky—as reactionary utopias; what required salvation was Germany from its own capitalism. The German bourgeoisie, far from learning caution, inclined toward economic adventurism and militarism. The German Communist Party, under Stalinist leadership, had repelled workers through a decade of disastrous zigzags: capitulation in 1923, ultra-leftism in 1924-25, opportunism in 1926-28, adventurism in 1928-30, and the catastrophic ‘social fascism’ line of 1930-32. The Brüning government had been pre-Bonapartist; the Papen-Schleicher government was perfected Bonapartism, resting on Hitler’s right elbow and the police fist on the left. The Social Democrats were duped, but the Communist Party was also taken by surprise, having falsely claimed fascism had already triumphed.
The big bourgeoisie, a tiny minority, must secure petty-bourgeois support to rule. In capitalism’s decline, the bourgeoisie abandons parliamentary democracy for fascism as a plebeian method of civil war against the proletariat—a reactionary caricature of Jacobinism. The bourgeoisie fears fascism even as it uses it. The petty bourgeoisie, incapable of independent policy, will follow the proletariat only if the revolutionary party demonstrates strength and a credible path. The Social Democracy, by teaching workers to be lackeys, drives the petty bourgeoisie into fascism’s arms. The Stalinist bureaucracy bears direct responsibility for fascism’s growth by weakening the proletarian vanguard. The German big bourgeoisie is split between the fascist path and a Bonapartist military dictatorship. Hitler needs not the Social Democracy’s toleration but its abolition. The Social Democracy will oppose fascism not to defend the bourgeoisie but to defend its own party apparatus, which fascism directly threatens.
Trotsky refuted Thälmann’s pamphlet point by point. Thälmann called the Papen government both a fascist cabinet and one aiming to establish fascist dictatorship, disregarding the distinction between Bonapartism and fascism. He claimed the Anti-fascist Action was non-partisan, cited Marx on smashing the bourgeois state, and rejected negotiations with SPD leadership while offering readiness to fight with lower organisations—without defining where the line falls. On the RGO, Thälmann claimed it was a unity organisation, not a split, and advised workers to stay in existing trade unions—a reply that mocked social-democratic workers concerned with trade-union unity. He affirmed democracy in the KPD but immediately added the need for vigilance against spies, a doctrine used to justify strangling democracy. He made historical errors: the Bolshevik-Menshevik split occurred in 1912, not 1903; the Constituent Assembly was dispersed in early 1918, not 1917. He denied Bolshevik agreements with Mensheviks and SRs against Kornilov, but the facts—the Committees for the Defence of the People—refuted him. The Stalinist bureaucracy, when danger approaches, abandons its ultraleftist phrases for opportunist parliamentary combinations, as shown by the Prussian Landtag proposal for an agreement with the SPD and Centre. The Central Committee’s 20 July proposal for a general strike with the SPD, ADGB and AfA-Bund overturned its entire preceding policy, exposing its inconsistency and panic.
The united front policy is harder to implement nationally than locally, but the immediate danger of destruction facing all workers’ organisations makes a fighting agreement possible. The Social Democracy will fight to defend its own organisations, even if not the USSR. Such an agreement must be practical and conditional: if reformists sabotage the movement, communists must be ready to tear it up. An agreement with a hangman like Grzesinski is permissible if it serves a concrete fighting purpose against fascism; the refusal to advocate this openly allowed Grzesinski to blame the Communist Party for his own capitulation. The united front is merely one method of class struggle, not a substitute for it. Internationally, the Comintern’s refusal to negotiate openly with the Second International produced a masquerade