Abstract
Fischer’s and Maslow’s path to party leadership was finalized at the party conference in April 1924 at Frankfurt-Main. Fischer, Maslow, and Werner Scholem (brother of the great Jewish scholar Gershom Scholem) constituted the new Political Bureau with Maslow being appointed political secretary of the party, i.e., the party’s de facto leader. On May 24, 1924 Maslow was arrested and brought to court. Accused of high treason, sentenced to four years in prison, he was only released in May 1926. Ruth Fischer then became Political Secretary of the KPD as, successively, she and her supporters took over its regional and local branches, dismissing those functionaries who had expressed sympathy for a more moderate line and joint actions with Social Democrats.
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Notes
- 1.
Karl Radek to Grigory Zinoviev, letter of October 23, 1923, as quoted in: Ya. S. Drabkin (ed.), Komintern i ideia mirovoi revoliutsii: Dokumenty [The Comintern and the Idea of World Revolution: Documents] (Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences, 1998), p. 432.
- 2.
This was probably related to the undated communication of a “Josef” to Clara Zetkin in Moscow. He informed her that a letter from Ruth Fischer to the “political bungler” Zinoviev was confiscated in Rosenthaler Street in Berlin (where the KPD headquarter was located). Fischer’s and Maslow’s “mouth-wracking” would be dangerous but, if necessary, “Josef” would publish Maslow’s “1a Protocol” and also take up the fight with Zinoviev. “1a” meant the department of the Political Police. The ECCI should “put a stop to Fischer’s and Maslow’s activities,” otherwise “we [would] help ourselves.” RGASPI, Fund 528, Inventory 1, File 2359, no pagination. I thank Dr. Ralf Hoffrogge for the reference to this document.
- 3.
See SAPMO-BArch, RY 5/I 6/3/128, Bl. 87: German Section at the ECCI, Werner Scholem to Grigory Zinoviev, letter of October 30, 1923.
- 4.
Fischer, Stalin and German Communism, p. 363.
- 5.
See “Beschluss des Politbüros der KPR(B) zur Rehabilitierung Maslows,” Bernhard H. Bayerlein and Hermann Weber (eds.), Deutscher Oktober 1923: Ein Revolutionsplan und sein Scheitern (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 2003), pp. 427–428. See also Fischer, Stalin and German Communism, pp. 359–364; Edward Hallett Carr, The Interregnum, 1923–1924 (London: Macmillan, 1954), pp. 231–232.
- 6.
Mike Jones, “The Decline, Disorientation and Decomposition of a Leadership—The German Communist Party: From Revolutionary Marxism to Centrism,” Revolutionary History, Vol. 2 (1989), No. 3, p. 9.
- 7.
For details see Klaus Kinner, Der deutsche Kommunismus: Selbstverständnis und Realität, Vol. 1: Die Weimarer Zeit (Berlin: Karl Dietz, 1999), pp. 67–71.
- 8.
For details see Jens Becker, Theodor Bergmann, and Alexander Vatlin (eds.), Das erste Tribunal: Das Moskauer Parteiverfahren gegen Brandler, Thalheimer und Radek (Mainz: Decaton, 1993). See also Jean François Fayet, Karl Radek (1885–1939): Biographie politique (Bern: Peter Lang, 2004), pp. 524–529.
- 9.
Zinoviev’s undated letter (written in November or December 1923) is quoted from: Jane Degras (ed.), The Communist International, 1919–1943: Documents, Part II (London, New York, and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1960), p. 65.
- 10.
Pierre Broué, The German Revolution 1917–1923. Translated by John Archer, with a New Introduction by Eric D. Weitz (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006), p. 828.
- 11.
See Die Lehren der deutschen Ereignisse: Das Präsidium des Exekutivkomitees der Kommunistischen Internationale zur deutschen Frage, Januar 1924 (Hamburg: Carl Hoym, 1924), pp. 38, 47, and passim.
- 12.
See ibid., pp. 48–57.
- 13.
SAPMO-BArch, RY 1/I 2/2/16, p. 37: Meeting of the Zentrale, February 8, 1924. At the previous ECCI presidium conference on January 11, 1924, Zinoviev declared that the idea of the workers’ government defended by Brandler and Thalheimer is “nothing but a pseudonym for dictatorship or social democratic opposition.” RGASPI, Fund 495, Inventory 2, File 23, as quoted from: Kinner, Der deutsche Kommunismus, p. 71.
- 14.
See his pamphlet: Die neue Ära des Pazifismus (Berlin: Vereinigung Internationaler Verlagsanstalten, 1924).
- 15.
Fischer’s and Maslow’s strongholds were the party districts of Berlin, Hamburg-Wassserkante, Frankfurt-Main, and the Ruhr Region. See in detail Marcel Bois, Kommunisten gegen Hitler und Stalin: Die Linke Opposition der KPD in der Weimarer Republik. Eine Gesamtdarstellung (Essen: Klartext, 2014), l, pp. 436–447. See also Hermann Weber, Die Wandlung des deutschen Kommunismus: Die Stalinisierung der KPD, Vol. 1 (Frankfurt-Main: E.V.A., 1969), esp. Vol. 1, pp. 60–62.
- 16.
Zinoviev’s letter to the KPD Zentrale, February 26, 1924, in: SAPMO-BArch, RY 16/10/5, p. 87. See also Mario Kessler and Yvonne Thron, “Entscheidung für den Stalinismus? Die Bolschewisierung in KPD und Komintern,” Theodor Bergmann and Mario Kessler (eds.), Aufstieg und Zerfall der Komintern: Studien zur Geschichte ihrer Transformation (1919–1943) (Mainz: Podium Progressiv, 1992), p. 92.
- 17.
For this shift to the left at regional and local levels see Weber, Wandlung, pp. 54–62.
- 18.
Internationale Pressekorrespondenz, No. 22, February 18, 1924, p. 242, as quoted in: Ben Fowkes, Communism in Germany Under the Weimar Republic (London: Macmillan, 1984), p. 114.
- 19.
See the report in: RF, March 25, 1924.
- 20.
See Weber, Wandlung, Vol. 1, p. 61.
- 21.
The report is mentioned in: Eric D. Weitz, Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 273.
- 22.
Zinoviev’s letter is published in: Hermann Weber, “Zu den Beziehungen zwischen der KPD und der Kommunistischen Internationale,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Vol. (1968), No. 2, pp. 177–208, Document 4, ibid., pp. 190–191 (original emphasis). My translation differs slightly from that of Ben Fowkes in: Ben Fowkes (ed.), The German Left and the Weimar Republic: A Selection of Documents (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 188–189. One cause for the good personal relationship between Zinoviev and Maslow was probably the fact that both were born in Yelisavetgrad. Werner T. Angress, Stillborn Revolution: The Communist Bid for Power in Germany, 1921–1923 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 462, dates the end of 1923 as the beginning of friendly relations between Zinoviev and Maslow, but this had been the case earlier.
- 23.
Referentenmaterial für die Berichterstattung über den 9. Parteitag der KPD [n.p., n.d.], p. 4, as quoted in: Weber, Wandlung, Vol. 1, p. 65.
- 24.
Mathilde Montagnon, Ruth Fischer 1895–1961: Itinéraire d’une communiste oppositionnelle (Grenoble: Université Pierre Mendès-France, Institut d’Etudes Politiques, 1998), p. 79.
- 25.
Bericht über die Verhandlungen des IX. Parteitages der Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands (Sektion der Kommunistischen Internationale), abgehalten in Frankfurt-Main vom 7. bis 10. April 1924 (Berlin: V.I.V.A., 1924), p. 370.
- 26.
Ibid., p. 334.
- 27.
Ibid., p. 85.
- 28.
Ibid., p. 381.
- 29.
Ibid., p. 387. The ‘Program of Action’ is reprinted in: Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, Vol. 4 ([East] Berlin: Dietz, 1966), pp. 399–401.
- 30.
See Bericht über die Verhandlungen des IX. Parteitages, p. 102. See also Die Beschlüsse des Frankfurter Parteitags (Berlin: V.I.V.A., n.d.), pp. 5–6.
- 31.
„Das Sekretariat führt Max.“ [“The secretariat is directed by Max.”] SAPMO-BArch, RY 1/I/2/2/16, p. 67: Protocol, Zentrale Session, April 10, 1924.
- 32.
On Scholem see Hoffrogge, A Jewish Communist in Weimar Germany; and Miriam Zadoff, Werner Scholem: A German Life, translated by Dona Geyer (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018).
- 33.
On Thälmann see Russel Lemmons, Hitler’s Rival: Ernst Thälmann in Myth and Memory (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2013), with emphasis on memory culture. The official East German standard biography, Günter Hortzschansky et al., Ernst Thälmann: Eine Biographie, 2 Vols. ([East] Berlin: Dietz, 1979) is filled with hagiographic elements and lacks any critical assessment. Also unreliable is the pro-Stalinist presentation by Eberhard Czichon and Heinz Marohn, Thälmann: Ein Report, 2 Vols. (Berlin: Heinen, 2010). Armin Fuhrer, Ernst Thälmann: Soldat des Proletariats (Munich, Olzog, 2011) is superficial without a proper understanding of party history. Norman LaPorte is currently writing the first biography of Thälmann in English. See for now LaPorte’s essay “The Rise of Ernst Thälmann and the Hamburg Left, 1921–1923” Ralf Hoffrogge and Norman LaPorte (eds.), Weimar Communism as a Mass Movement 1918–1933 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 2017), pp. 129–149.
- 34.
No full-scale biography of Korsch exists as yet. For his political philosophy see Patrick Goode, Karl Korsch: A Study in Western Marxism (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), a reprint of the 1979 edition. For the literature on Korsch see Mario Kessler “Zwischen Arbeitsrecht und Arbeiterbewegung,” Idem, Grenzgänger des Kommunismus: Zwölf Porträts aus dem Jahrhundert der Katastrophen (Berlin: Karl Dietz, 2015), pp. 15–34.
- 35.
Another point, the demand for establishment of KPD factory cells, can only be briefly mentioned here. See Bericht über die Verhandlungen des IX. Parteitages […], pp. 334–335; and Ruth Fischer, “Keine Ausreden und Erzählungen…,” Der Parteiarbeiter: Mitteilungsblatt für Funktionäre, Vol. 2 (1924), No. 19/20, pp. 200–201. The topic is a desideratum of research. See Peterson, German Communism, pp. 347–348. See also Erika Kücklich and Stefan Weber, “Die Rolle der Betriebszellen der KPD in den Jahren der Weimarer Republik,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung, Vol. 22 (1980), No. 1, pp. 117–130.
- 36.
SAPMO-BArch, RY 1/I 2/1/21, p. 33: Protocol, Zentralausschuss Session, May 11, 1924. “Maslow did not shy away from insults and insinuations.” Florian Wilde, Revolution als Realpolitik: Ernst Meyer (1887–1930)—Biographie eines KPD-Vorsitzenden (Constance and Munich: UVK-Verlagsgesellschaft, 2018), p. 241.
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Kessler, M. (2020). Maslow and Fischer: Toward the Party Leadership. In: A Political Biography of Arkadij Maslow, 1891-1941. Critical Political Theory and Radical Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43257-7_8
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