Social fascism thesis

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The term social fascism was created in 1924 by Grigory Zinoviev and propagated by the Communist International until 1935. The social fascism (less often social fascism theory ) alleging that put social democracy the "left wing of fascism is" and was therefore to fight a priority. It prevented an early, unified counter-movement against the National Socialists, the united front that the Comintern actually propagated. In 1935, the Comintern rejected the social fascism thesis and instead sought a united front from below against fascism.

Emergence

The thesis was first propagated by Zinoviev in the course of a left swing of the Communist International (Comintern) at the beginning of 1924, Josef Stalin followed him in September 1924 and described social democracy and fascism as "twin brothers":

“Fascism is a fighting organization of the bourgeoisie , which relies on the active support of social democracy. Objectively, social democracy is the moderate wing of fascism. […] These organizations are not mutually exclusive, but complement one another. These are not antipodes, but twin brothers. "

However, when the “ united front from below and above” was proclaimed around a year later, in autumn 1925, these words of Zinoviev and Stalin were initially obsolete again. In 1928, both the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the Comintern were radicalized again, which led to the reactivation of the social fascism theory. The background to the panning of the CPSU was the collectivization and deculakization in the Soviet Union . “Right” opposition to this policy should be brushed aside, both in the USSR and internationally. The Comintern was the transmission belt for this policy. Your leading representative Otto Wille Kuusinen provided central pieces of the social fascism theory:

"The fascists are nationalists, imperialists, warmongers, enemies of socialism, enemies of democracy, stranglers of the independent labor movement, workers murderers, etc. [...] The social fascists usually act like the fascists, but they do not do their fascist work with an open visor, but work behind a fog, like one used in war. That is part of the essence of social fascism: imperialist politics in the name of internationalism, capitalist politics in the name of socialism, dismantling of the democratic rights of the working people in the name of democracy, dismantling of reforms in the name of reformism, workers 'killer party in the name of workers' policy, etc. [...] The goals of the fascists and social fascists are the same, the difference is in the slogans and partly in the methods. "

Representatives of the CPSU and the Comintern claimed in 1929 that the phase of “relative stability” of capitalism that followed the revolutionary post-war years had ended. The coming phase is one of sharp class struggles and imperialist wars, above all a war against the Soviet Union and the establishment of fascist dictatorships threatens. But at the same time this promises the chance of a revolutionary radicalization of discontented masses.

Formally confirmed by the 10th plenary session of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (EKKI) in July 1929, social democracy was accordingly inadmissible as a mere variant of fascism and any united front between the communist parties and the social democratic parties. At its 12th party congress (June 9-16, 1929), the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) endorsed this thesis. The events of the so-called Blutmais (1929) served the party leader Ernst Thälmann as striking evidence of the “transformation of social democracy to social fascism”. Thälmann also made such a change in the British Labor Party - it ruled from mid-1929, led by Ramsay MacDonald . The historian Hermann Weber sees a “Stalinization of the KPD” as concluded with this party congress.

Impact and End

In Germany, the policy of the KPD, oriented towards the social fascism thesis, which saw declared enemies in all functionaries of the free trade unions and the SPD, contributed significantly to the division and weakening of the workers' movement , which prevented an early and united front against the National Socialists. Margarete Buber-Neumann , then a member of the KPD, reported in her memoirs that the catchphrase had been "even adopted by the more moderate elements" from mid-1929. Between 1929 and 1934 the concept of social fascism was the ideological constant of the KPD.

The priority of the communists in the fight against the SPD, vilified as "social-fascist", led in 1931 to the referendum initiated by the anti- republic steel helmet, Bund der Frontsoldaten , to dissolve the Prussian state parliament against the social democratic government of Prussia led by Otto Braun alongside the right-wing parties and the NSDAP was also supported by the KPD. Even after the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship, the Comintern, which declared “the political line and the organizational policy” of the KPD “with Comrade Thälmann at the top” to be “completely correct”, stuck to this thesis. In May 1933 the KPD declared:

"The complete elimination of the social fascists from the state apparatus, the brutal suppression of the social democratic organization and its press do nothing to change the fact that they are still the main social pillar of the capital dictatorship."

At the end of 1933, the KPD politician Fritz Heckert demanded that the fight against the "fascist bourgeoisie" must be waged "not together with the Social Democratic Party, but against it".

In France , the Parti communiste français (PCF) charged the Social Fascism against the Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière until the riots of February 6, 1934 , perceived by the left as a fascist attempted coup , initiated cooperation between the two parties . After the elections of May 1936, the PCF tolerated the Popular Front government under the socialist Léon Blum .

At the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in 1935 , the “social fascism theory” was rejected and the popular front (united front) against fascism was propagated. There defined Georgi Dimitrov to fascism as "the open terrorist dictatorship of the most imperialist circles of finance capital " - a model that should bring own problems and the Soviet Union on the signing of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact held in 1939th

The social fascism thesis was sharply criticized by opposition communists. Trotsky's struggle against the “social fascism” line of the KPD and his advocacy of a united front of the workers' movement against National Socialism seemed to his biographer Isaac Deutscher his “greatest political act in exile”.

Further allegations of fascism

Even the Social Democrats did not see the Communists as possible allies against fascism, but rather as other enemies besides the National Socialists. Both political directions were often referred to as relatives, for example by Kurt Schumacher , who called the Communists in 1930 a "red-painted double edition of the National Socialists".

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Ulla Plener : »Social Democratism« - Instrument of the SED leadership in the Cold War against sections of the labor movement (1948–1953) ( online ; PDF; 72 kB)
  2. ^ Arnulf Scriba: The Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Living Museum Online, September 8, 2014, accessed July 9, 2020 .
  3. ^ JV Stalin. Works. Volume 6, Berlin 1952, p. 147. See Heinrich August Winkler, Der Schein der Normalität , p. 679.
  4. ^ Stalin: On the international situation ; Works, Volume 6; Pp. 251-269, here p. 253.
  5. ^ Kuusinen at the 10th plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (July 3-19, 1929 in Moscow), quoted from Heinrich August Winkler, Der Schein der Normalität , p. 689.
  6. ↑ On this, Klaus Schönhoven , Reformismus und Radikalismus , p. 133 f.
  7. Quoted from Heinrich August Winkler, Der Schein der Normalität , p. 681.
  8. Heinrich August Winkler, Der Schein der Normalität , p. 681.
  9. Heinrich August Winkler, Der Schein der Normalität , p. 685.
  10. ↑ On this Heinrich August Winkler, Der Schein der Normalität , p. 682 f.
  11. ^ Margarete Buber-Neumann: From Potsdam to Moscow. Stations of an Errweges , Stuttgart 1957 (2nd edition 1958), p. 153.
  12. See Klaus Schönhoven, Reformismus und Radikalismus , p. 134.
  13. ^ Heinrich August Winkler : Disputes of German history: Essays on the 19th and 20th centuries , CH Beck, Munich 1997, p. 110, ISBN 3406427847 , ISBN 9783406427848 .
  14. a b Quoted from Hermann Weber, Der "Antifaschismus" -Mythos der SED. Communist resistance against National Socialism: achievement, problem, instrumentalization . ( Memento of the original from August 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bwv-bayern.org
  15. Andreas Wirsching: From World War to Civil War? Political extremism in Germany and France 1918–1933 / 39. Berlin and Paris in comparison . Oldenbourg, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-486-56357-2 , p. 548 f. and 557-561. (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  16. Isaac Deutscher: Trotsky , Vol. 3, The cast out prophet. 1929–1940 , Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.], 1963 p. 129.
  17. Quoted from Heinrich Potthoff, Kurt Schumacher - Social Democrats and Communists . Further examples of such equations can be found in Josef Schleifstein , The “Social Fascism” thesis - On their historical background , Frankfurt 1980 ( online excerpt ).