Communist Party Opposition (Switzerland)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Communist Party-Opposition (Switzerland) (KPO-Schweiz, also Communist Party of Switzerland-Opposition , KPS-O) was a communist party in Switzerland from 1930 to 1935.

history

The KPO-Schweiz came into being in 1930, when members of the Communist Party of Switzerland who were critical or even hostile to the Comintern 's policy of social fascism and RGO and who were in favor of a united front policy with social democracy were excluded from or resigned from it. This involved the almost complete party organization in the canton of Schaffhausen around Walther Bringolf , Hermann Erb and Hermann Huber (which had arisen in the early 1920s when the entire Schaffhausen social democracy changed over) along with the daily Arbeiter-Zeitung as well as smaller groups Moritz Mandel and Ernst Illi in Zurich , around Paul Thalmann in Basel and in several other places in German-speaking Switzerland.

In Schaffhausen, the KPO-Schweiz was the determining political force within the labor movement , Bringolf was re-elected in 1931 as one of two representatives of the canton in the National Council and in 1932 as Mayor of Schaffhausen ; the party also dominated the local SGB . At the international level, the Swiss KPO was affiliated with the IVKO and initially maintained close contacts with the German Communist Party opposition around Heinrich Brandler and August Thalheimer and supported their resistance activities after the Nazi party came to power in 1933.

At the same time, the shock of National Socialist rule in the neighboring country to the north encouraged tendencies within the party to work towards restoring unity with the two large workers' parties. Negotiations with the KPS were unsuccessful, talks with the SP led to a gradual transfer to it, which was completed in 1935. A small Trotskyist- oriented minority of the members around Paul Thalmann had already left the party to work entristically in the SP.

literature