Ruth Fischer: Source: R. Fischer; Stalin and German communism Bd. II
 
 

On the sample, after which the German party was to be reshuffled, on two Muscovites conferences, those was decided in March 1925 and February 1926 for the handling of special organization questions held wurden.(1) among the users was Paul Merker, Maurice Thorez for France, Viola Briacco for Italy and representative from Muscovite operations. The new form of communist organization was described in all details. The effect for example, which could exercise a cell of thirty-five communists on a factory with two or three thousand workers, was measured exactly. Samples for operational report refunding after Russian model were manufactured. A correspondence between the Putilow factories in Leningrad and the cell of the Krupp factories was initiated.

The German main figure on these two conferences was walter Ulbricht. Ulbricht, whose party name was cell, had a career of the cell organizing behind itself. 1923 it had been an inconspicuous party official from Thuringia, member of the central's group, the " Zentristen ". It studied the organisational structure of the party from the criterion, how one could contribute at the most effective to the dissolution of the left organizations, and the helper for this work, suitable of Stalin as, was very early already selected. He perated among GPU people in the Komintern and developed gradually a technique to split organizations up into cells which can be handled easily. At present the two Muscovites conferences already a specialist geworden.(2) was " like that as the industrial industrieproletariat the basis of the communist movement is, " wrote he, " like that is the cell the elementary basis of our Parteiorganisation."(3) " the system Pieck " is also the system Ulbricht from it. The two men, who concerned together under GPU instruction, smashed the German party organization and transformed them into stalinistische cadres. Only by this smashing and new composition the German communist party could be bolschewisiert.

The communist party had organically come out from the civil war period. Almost 95 per cent of their members were workers. The German left intelligence (in particular the Jewish intelligence), which under the emperor the official career was locked, preferred generally the democratic or social-democratic party, which gave their rather acces to positions in the administration. The communist worker had broken to a process during a painful process of clarifying vital questions with the organization and the strong tradition of the social-democracy, from which he had come out with a deep distrust against each party bureaucracy. The Nazi in its " combat time " analysed this verachtung of the Buerokraten, which had at all developed among German communists up to the extreme and in smaller degrees among German workers, to their campaign against the " Bonzen ".

At that time the communists were awake jealous over their " democratic Urrechte ". Such a right was the general district meeting, on which all political and organizational questions were discussed and decided on basis of the equivalence of all voices without consideration for rank or position in the party. This organization after populated areas had brought a strong personal co-operation out, which was based to same residential area, daily contact on common past, outside of the actual party work. The hundreds of communist, who covered them, knew each other for years, the dangers of the civil war had divided and their first political experiences together in the old social-democratic and unionized organization had made. The unpaid functionaries of these organizations had been selected according to the probation principle, a selection of those, which had proven as the ablest ones, caused; and not only the local leaders, also the members were fibers of the same democratic organization. These men had gone in the passed jerky ten years together through luck and misfortune of the German workers' movement. It connected it the solidarity, which came from freer and freiwilliger agreement, from their substantially same political experience and knowledge. In their fight against unfavorable circumstances they developed those best human qualities: Independence of concerning and subordination of the personal interest under the interest of group, solidarity with the group and personal character firmness, the readiness, to take difficult functions and responsibility on itself. Nobody will forget these men, which lived ever with them.

These individual proletarians, who had together-been from own resolution and had confessed to each other in established community, carried along the inheritance of complicated sektiererischer abstractions over German policy. Even ones in that period were these versatile connected personalities, a differentiated collective to overcome in the term, their ideological inhibitions and to develop an appropriate German policy. They fought for a democratic party structure, by which the central committee would be the executive of the different local bodies, and only this. The local bodies should decide the party politics, execute the central committee them, and not differently. The trailers of the Russian worker opposition, which visited Germany, were fascinated of the German party organization, because them represented the party type, which they had hoped to carry out in Russia. Stalin did not react fewer unique, because this organization type, in which the resolutions for the policy which can be hit are made from down, was the anti-thesis to the stalinistischen party. The increasing tendency to intensified local initiative, which was expressed on a realm scale by the freely selected delegated ones to the Party Congresses, was broken. Stalins agents organized with konspirativen methods of the point downward and divided the local bodies into units which can be handled easily.

Report and minority report on the floating problems would have given anti- stalinistischen linking in the whole country a strong
majority in these local bodies. After the experiences of the yearly 1923, which were to all members still freshly in the memory, the distrust was enormous against the Russian state apparatus. For these revolutionary workers, who abhorred Prussian militarism, social-democratic leaders and those Weimar police, the Russian Staatsbuerokraten was thes subject of the same passionate dislike. Stalin and Manyilskij were right, if they detected a fertile soil for persistent resistance against the policy of the Kremlin in the general Bezirksversammungen.

The Muscovite apparatus announced these local party meetings open war. Under the password, " concentration of the party work in the operations " was liquidated the old breakdown of the party in district meetings, that were grouped after seniority in the context of the district both after populated area and. The system Pieck was introduced; Sessions of units more largely than an individual cellcell cell were formally forbidden, and even larger cellcell cells were not split up into smaller units of any more than ten to fifteen members. The party was atomisiert; each connected group of activists was resolved. Party Congress-delegated were doubly and three-way sieved: first small groups of cells representatives selected; these representatives selected delegated to a district Party Congress; and only this district Party Congress had finally the right, delegated to the realm Party Congress to select.

A further democratic Urrecht was the selection of paid and unpaid party officials. It was a holy and eagerly guarded tradition of the German workers' movement the fact that nobody could get a position in a worker organization to which not by the membership had been set up and had not been selected after detailed discussion. From now to appointed the central committee paid functionaries after previous approval by the Muscovites control officials. Federal state parliament and realm tag candidates, which had been appointed so far by the members, were likewise acknowledged from the central committee to approval by the Muscovite apparatus " suggested " and then by the delegated ones of a Party Congress.

There were hundreds of German party members, who became paid employees of the different Soviet-Russian agencies in Germany. Such an employment was a port looked up eagerly by many German communists. The salaries were substantially more highly than in appropriate German operations, the work time were shorter, and one had also otherwise advantages. Employees of the Russian commercial representation in Berlin could spend cheap holidays for example of motorcycles, fur jackets and similar luxury with considerable discount buy and could with its families into Russia or go into Russian sanatoriums. Prestige gain and social reputation accompanied these material advantages. Many revolutionaries, by their communist activity careers were locked which in the Weimar Republic and which senseless such victims considered now in one period to " relative stabilization ", found in the service of the Russian state a back-up. These careers modified fundamentally the material and psychological conditions of their existence.

In these years the German party had 125000 to 135 000Mitglieder.(4) the party machinery however was strong; its composition was as follows:

Cent ral Committee with its secretaries, wordprocessor and technical employee 850
     New PAPER and print ringEN include lich the advertisement department 1,800
     Bookshops with the associated Agit prop. groups of 200
     Union official (head ae chlich in Stuttgart, Berlin, hall, Th ue struggle and Chemnitz) 200
     Health insurance companies 150
     International worker assistance also to it-go oe rigen newspapers 50
     Ss lich the children's home in Th ue 50 struggles red assistance einschlie
     German employees in Soviet-Russian institutions (Soviet message, commercial representation in Berlin, Leipzig and Hamburg,       East bank, different GermanRussian societies) 1,000

     Altogether 4,300

All these employees were ngig from the sympathetic consideration Muscovites of the apparatus abh ae. A word against the party line or also blo ss e omission of their defense also towards ue towards that reproduction was sufficient, in order on the place dismisses to become,and wu ss ten they. One gave them freiz ue gig vacation f ue r " party work " and divided her as a " responsible person party worker " per one that  reorganized cellcell cells too. This as a check determined Ma ss nahme the party members with hocht oe nenden  and schmeichlerischen argument tastily made, there ss by the close and t ae handling the worker of that resembled  Turning lathe the Soviet employees B ue rokratisierung and verb ue rgerlichung to be protected should.

Outer ss erdem mu ss one use the invisible secret agents with at least the same digit. Thus a Zw was almost oe
lftel the party member shank directly of Ru ss country pays, and they were the most active items of the party, those, which one
each type of the party work to assign could, which could not refuse, even at the most insignificant cell sessionsession cell session  to participate. Ue berall are B ue rokraten the St ue of the tzen political apparatus; the special course of these Russian cadres  within the German workers' movement however its secret coordination, army was ae hnliche check by secret agents,
its direct Abh ae ngigkeit from the Muscovite center. This network of stalinistischer agents became so closely, there ss it schlie ss lich those  Tradition of the German workers' movement in the German communist party suffocated and all anti- stalinistischen Kr ae fte  by the elimination of each potential Antistalinisten strangled.

The conversion to cellcell cells brought the better contact between the party and the broad masses of the proletariats
Main argument, with which one had not ngt it the party aufgedr ae. In this time gro ss e were operations almost
perfectly of communist workers ges ae ubert. Many were on the black list and could even in a time relative improvement of the economic situation only with M ue he work in Gro ss claimant get; some under those, it  had managed to keep as communists were discovered and dismiss their work. The communist worker became  more and more into the edge industries of the main stream of the German economy abgedr ae ngt. Ulbrichts utterance, there ss " ten Worker in a Gro ss operated is more important than ten hairdressers " was truthtruth truth, ae nderte however nothing at the acts ae chlichen Verh ae ltnissen.

The German operations had been ubert by communist six - sieve, -, eight times ges ae. The party was ae rksten to st into that
Industrial areas, but even here gro ss e factories with hundreds of workers had probably only one handful Communist.

The Ue briggebliebenen met in its new cellcell cells into gedr ue of ckter tendency. Into the Gro ss industrial centres, in Berlin
and Hamburg and in particular in the Ruhr district and Rhine country, were far the residential areas from the factories. The old
Intimit ae t of the organization after residential areas was zerst oe blanks and nothing Ae of hnliches stepped ever to its place. The " responsible persons  Party workers " set ue ge and motorbuses with its political combinations the Fahrpl ae the ne different Vorortsz  sent in calculation, the times of the changing shift and the nde caused Erm ue dung ae by this Umst. Time towards oe  ssische report of a left communist ue more ber a cell meeting is an appropriate description of this situation:

" one imagines now so an average cell meeting. There is perhaps 7 to 8 real workers available and 3 to 4  assigned party employees. The adviser h ae lt an enormous insult speech against the opposition. Opposition speaker is not to  Place, because the cell line either it forgotten or sabotaged to send to it the invitation.

In the discussion the party employees talk and erkl ae ren each f ue r one > Antibolschewisten (and one) enemy of the
Communism, which does not tune f ue r the head office. Now a worker says, there ss to him all this would not perhaps please and there ss those  Bonzen itself nevertheless stood should, then st ue rzt itself the whole gang on the poor chap, in order to teach to him, there ss it still none  Bolschewist is " (5)

The resistance against imposing this system was particularly hartn ae ckig in the citizens of Berlin organization. One the citizen of
Berlin  Subdistricts tuned several times against all RH ae of the central committee as secretion suggested candidate. As it that
Central committee by k had succeeded ue nstlich designed meetings of delegated ones, to step f ue r step a majority f ue r
Moscow to achieve, won the opposition immediately after it the check in as important districts as Neuk oe lln and
Halle gate, where the party meetings ran out in Schl ae gereien " without the reorganization h ae tten we the citizens of Berlin
Communists never f ue r us win k oe nnen. " (6) rte Philipp Dengel(7), correspondent ae on the elften Party Congress 1927 erkl  f ue R-S central committee:

" many months long mu ss we ten three quarters or four F ue nftel our work on it concentrate, such items such as Katz and
Korsch to isolate Ruth Fischer and Scholem in order to extract one gro ss from e number of workers in the party their Einflu ss. It was  a hero work " (8)

In all this Ue bergangsjahren revolted the German communist workers against the stalinistischen course. It was,
with the help of the conversion to the zellensystem and the secret agents, not simply, built into the party, the opposition too
unterdr ue cken. In the years 1926-1927 a state of siege in the party prevailed. Under the Ma ss, by those those took
Opposition was gradually suffocated, was characteristic the following:

   1.Erkl ae rungen of the opposition were not ffentlicht no more in the communist press oe, zun ae chst head ae chlich
     such, which referred to the Russian crisis. For example the Erkl became ae rung Fritz of angel, the delegated one of
     Wedding at the plenary session of the executive committee in February 1926, those the Solidarit ae t of the citizens of Berlin link communists      with the Lenin graders opposition to the printout brought, neither in the Prawda nor in the red flag printed.
   2.Nach of a short period became minority reports no longer certified. On the elften Party Congress such Erkl became ae
     to rungen of the opposition, which had been distributed, seized " this scandal oe sen, go ae ssigen, heimt ue ckischen
     Documents of the dishonor ", erkl ae rte William Pieck, " k oe nnen on special desire in the Parteib ue ro to be seen.
     "
   3.Als even the cell sessions of the atomisierten party became uncomfortable, which in some areas through a long time that
     Case was, took one to the members the right to meet. Instead of a cell session one organized a session       the " responsible persons of party worker; hei ss the t, the party employees and were correct f ue r the Unterst ue accumulated     tzung their employer.
   4.Privatbriefe were stolen verd ae chtigen comrades and in the German organization as political extortion means
     used or to Moscow transmitted.
   5.Der secret apparatus mixed in party discussions. N-people ue berfielen opposition meetings, changed over also
     if groups armed meeting restaurants, the T closed ue ren and searched the meeting users after
     oppositionals literature or loading letters.
   6.Derselbe n-service made berf ae lle on private dwellings for Ue and organized regul ae RH house searches. Comrades became       to headquarters carried forward and there verh oe blanks, not of regul the ae ren party organization, but of people of the      Intelligence service.
   7.Der intelligence service organized special slandering campaigns against certain persons, those as Personifizierung
     all B oe sen were represented. In Moscow produced material became by the party and on every other way
     spread.
   8.Es gave different party-met. Abtr ue nnige were allowed one year long no party posts to hold and not on
     Meetings of the members participate - and (an f ue r German Verh ae ltnisse h oe chst strange Muscovites invention) them
     ue more ber political questions were allowed to talk nor write neither, neither in the general nor in the party press, ue more ber which       Topic also always. They were banished to Moscow, in the Russian hinterland, in asiatic or s ue damerikanische L ae   more nder, particularly gladly to China. W ae hrend such banishing were not allowed it for example German material
     read.
   9.Ausgew ae hlte oppositionals, groups of oppositions, whole local's groups were excluded as " konterrevolution ae r ";
     for example small industrial localities in the Ruhr district, Ickern and H ue ckeswagen. M ue nchen Gladbach in the Rhine Valley, impulse       and Suhl in Th ue struggle and many different were summarily excluded, after six conferences without that
     Come off a majority f ue r the central committee had taken place.

Party members mu ss all relations ten with excluding toilet; they were NOT even allowed to converse with them or
their Gru ss to the Stra ss e to who. In this way  thousands of party members f ue became  r none gr oe ss eres crime
excluded, as there ss it pers oe nlichen contact with comrades, who met it in operation or on the office for unemployed person,
" Ausschlu maintained ss because of connections " zun ae chst heren layers of the party oe in the h were applied. Korsch
because of its connection to Katz, Ruth Fischer was excluded because of their connection to Korsch; Sinowjew and Trotzkij
ae had to deliver a Erkl rung, since ss they did not have a connection to Fischer. In some F ae llen, above all if it itself over one
the members of the secret service concerned, communists were excluded, because it traffic with its against revolution ae
ren Eheh ae lften maintained. In hall a young comrade was excluded named Springstubbe, because he allegedly under  had written an alias in a left communist magazine. In Dresden a member became that rights, Erich  Melcher, impossible, because one had seen it in the community center in the Gespr ae CH with a Social Democrat. In M ue  Nchen Gladbach were excluded three members of the red Frontk ae of mpfer federation, because them to a RFB meeting in  a " party-hostile auto, property of the impossible M ue nchen Gladbacher party organization, driven waren.(9)