Written: 23 March 1933.
Source: The Militant, Vol. VI No. 24, 29 April 1933, p. 4.
Transcription/HTML Markup: Einde O’Callaghan for the Trotsky Internet Archive.
Copyleft: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) 2015. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0.
By their seemingly dreadful but in reality pathetic chorus of “if we are attacked”, the Austro-Marxists reveal their genuine suffering, they still hope that they will be left in peace, that things, God help us, will not go beyond mutual threats and waving of fists. What this means is that they are chloroforming the proletariat to facilitate
fascist surgery. A genuine proletarian politician on the contrary would be duty bound to explain to the Austrian workers that their class enemy, himself, has been caught between the paws of history; that no other way out remains for him except to destroy proletarian organizations; that in this instance there is no escaping the mortal struggle; and that this struggle must be prepared for in accordance with all the rules of revolutionary strategy and tactic.
Otto Bauer has been hinting that in the event of a direct attack on the part of the enemy, the workers will resort to a general strike. But this too is an empty threat. We have heard it more than once in Germany. The general strike cannot be produced out of one’s vest pocket. The workers may be led to a general strike, but to do so one must fight and not play hide and seek with reality; a call to battle must be issued, one must organize for the struggle, arm for the struggle, widen and deepen the channel of struggle, not confining oneself to the legal forms of struggle, i.e., the framework dictated by the armed enemy. And first of all, the party itself must be permeated through and through with the idea that unless it engages in a decisive battle, it is lost.
It is quite possible that the Central Committee will actually issue a call for a general strike, after the “open”, (that is to say, the decisive) blow had been dealt. But this would mean that after leaving the stage, one calls upon the masses to a naked protest, or manifestation of impotence. Just so did the liberal opposition call upon the people not to pay their taxes after the monarch had told it to go to bell. As a rule, nothing ever came of it. In all probability, the workers will not respond at all to the belated and hopeless appeal of a party already smashed.
But let us allow that the Fascists will give the social democracy time enough to call for a general strike at the last minute, and that the workers will respond solidly to the call. What then? What is the goal of the general strike? What must it achieve? In what forms must it develop? How should it defend itself against military and police repressions, and against the Fascist pogrom? Wiseacres will reply that it is impossible to answer such questions beforehand. That is the usual subterfuge of people who have nothing to say, who hope in their hearts to get along without fighting, and who consequently shy away in cowardice and superstition from questions of military resources and methods.
The general strike is only the mobilization of revolutionary forces but still not war. To utilize the general strike successfully as a demonstration or a threat, i.e., to confine oneself only to the mobilization of forces, without engaging in battle – that is possible only within strictly defined historical conditions; whenever matters touch an important, but still a partial, task; when the enemy wavers and waits only for a push in order to retreat; when the possessing classes are still left with a wide field for retreat and maneuver. None of this obtains at present, at the time when all the contradictions have reached their highest intensity and when every serious conflict puts on the agenda the question of power and the perspective of civil war.
The general strike could prove to be a sufficient means for repelling the counter-revolutionary overturn only in the event that the enemy is unprepared and lacks sufficient forces and experience (the Kapp Putch). But even in the latter case, after having repelled the adventuristic onset the general strike only restored fundamentally that situation which obtained on the eve of the conflict, and consequently gave the enemy opportunity to utilize the experience of his own defeat and to prepare better for a new attack. But the general strike turns out to be completely insufficient even for defensive purposes in the event that the enemy is powerful and experienced, all the more so it he leans upon the state apparatus, or even has at his disposal its benevolent “neutrality”. No matter what the basic reason for the conflict may be, under the present conditions the general strike will close the ranks of bourgeois parties, the state apparatus and the Fascist bands, and in this united front of the bourgeoisie the preponderance will fall inevitably into the hands of the most extreme and determined elements, i.e., the Fascists. When face to face with the general strike, the counter-revolution will be compelled to stake all its forces on one card in order to break the ominous danger with a single blow. In so far as the general strike remains only a strike it inevitably under these conditions dooms itself to defeat. In order to snatch victory the strategy of the strike must grow into the strategy of the revolution, it must elevate itself to the level of resolute actions, replying with a double blow to every blow. In other words, under the present conditions the general strike cannot serve as a self-sufficient means for the defense of an impotent democracy but only as one of the weapons in the combined struggle of two camps. The strike must be accompanied with and supplemented by the arming of the workers, the disarming of Fascist bands, the removal of Bonapartists from power, and the seizure of the material apparatus of the state.
Once again we repeat if the establishment of a Soviet regime cannot be realized without the seizure of power by the Communist Party – and we admit that this is altogether excluded by the unfavorable correlation of forces in the immediate future – then the restoration of democracy, even temporarily, is already unthinkable in Austria without the previous seizure of power by the social democracy. If the leading worker’s party is not prepared to bring the struggle to its conclusion then the general strike by sharpening the situation can only hasten the crushing of the proletariat.
The Austro-philistine will catch up these words in order to immediately deduce reasons in favor of “moderation” and “cautiousness”. For, is it permissible for a party to take upon itself the grandiose “risk” involved in the revolutionary methods of struggle? As if the Austrian proletariat has the freedom of choice! As if millions of workers can depart for their villas in Switzerland like Otto Braun! As if a class can duck mortal danger without incurring any danger! As if the victims of Fascisized Europe, with its perspectives of new imperialist wars, will not surpass one hundredfold the sacrifices of all revolutions, past and future!
Otto Bauer welcomed with ecstatic amazement the fact that the German workers gave seven million votes to the social democracy in the election, despite the closing down of the newspapers, etc., etc. These people opine that the emotions and the thoughts of the proletariat are created by their piddling articles. They have conned Marx and the history of Europe but they have not the slightest inkling of what inexhaustible reservoirs of power, enthusiasm, perseverance and creativeness the proletariat is capable of unfolding whenever it is assured of a leadership which to any degree corresponds to the historical background. Isn’t it obvious right now that had there obtained a far-seeing revolutionary policy from above, the German workers would have long since overthrown all the barriers blocking their road to hegemony, and moreover that they could have done so with immeasurably and incomparably less sacrifices then the inevitable sacrifices of the Fascist regime? The same must also be said about the Austrian proletariat.
Of course, the policy of the united front is obligatory at present also for Austria. But the united front is no panacea; the crux of the matter lies in the context of the policies, in the slogans and in the methods of mass actions. With the reservation of preserving complete freedom of mutual criticism – and this reservation is unalterable – the Communists must be prepared to make an alliance with social democracy for the sake of the most modest mass activities. But in so doing the Communists must give themselves a clear accounting of the tasks that are posed by the march of developments in order to disclose at every stage the incongruity between the political goal and the reformist methods.
The united front cannot merely signify a summation of social democratic and Communist workers for beyond the confines of the two parties and outside of the trade unions there still remain Catholic workers and unorganized masses. Not a single one of the old forms of organization which are laden down with conservatism, inertia, and the heritage of old antagonisms can suffice for the present tasks of the united front. A real mobilization of the masses is unthinkable without the creation of elected organs which directly represent the trade, industrial and transport enterprises, corporations and factories, the unemployed and the contiguous layers of the population which gravitate toward the proletariat, in other words, the situation in Austria calls for workers’ Soviets, not so much in name as in their nature. The duty of the Communists is to persistently bring forward this slogan in the process of struggle.
The circumstance that Austria is separated governmentally from Germany and lags behind the latter in its internal evolution could play a decisive role in the salvation of Germany and of all Europe – under a bold and virile policy of the proletarian vanguard. Proletarian Austria would immediately become Piedmont for the entire German proletariat. The victory of the Austrian workers would provide the German workers with what they lack at present, with a material drill ground, a comprehensible plan of action and hope for victory. Once set in motion the German proletariat would immediately prove itself to be immeasurably more powerful than all its enemies taken together. Upon the parliamentary democratic plane, Hitler with his 44 percent of human dust appears much more imposing than he would on the plane of the actual correlation of forces. The Austrian social democracy has behind it approximately the same percentage of votes. But whereas the Nazis lean upon the social by-products which play in the life of the country a secondary and to a major degree a parasitic role, there is behind the Austrian social democracy the flower or the nation. The actual relative weight of the Austrian social democracy exceeds over ten times the relative weight of all the German Fascists. This can be completely revealed only in action. The initiative for revolutionary action can come at present only from the Austrian proletariat. What is there necessary for it? Courage, courage, and once again, courage! The Austrian workers have nothing to lose but their chains. And by their initiative they can conquer Europe and the whole world!
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Prinkipo, March 23, 1933 |
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Last updated on: 3 September 2015