"Progressives should not make the same mistake that Ernst ThƤlmann made in 1932. The leader of the German Communist Party, ThƤlmann saw mainstream liberals as his enemies, and so the center and left never joined forces against the Nazis. ThƤlmann famously said that āsome Nazi trees must not be allowed to overshadow a forestā of social democrats, whom he sneeringly called āsocial fascists.ā
After Adolf Hitler gained power in 1933, ThƤlmann was arrested. He was shot on Hitlerās orders in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944."
This is ridiculous, the Communists opposed the Weimar Republic, but they absolutely supported democracy. In their view, in fact, they supported a much more authentic form of democracy by extricating private interests from the process.
We keep glossing over this āliberals siding with Nazisā thing
I really think the word youāre looking for here is āliberalā
Youāre making significant assumptions, such as any of the liberals actually being willing to work the with the Communists, which would be a hell of a change for the SPD after that business with the Freikorps. Otherwise, the argument is just ājoin the SPDā and assume that they can bring their voters with them while completely abandoning their revolutionary project and putting themselves under the discipline of a liberal party. I feel that this is something of a muddy issue that youāre interpreting in a convenient way.
āArenāt you as well?ā Fair question, and thereās a lot about this situation that I canāt speak to, but what I said before I am completely sure holds, which is that Hitler gained power, on the most proximate level, because of liberal collaborators.
The SPD initially prefered to work with further left forces. They worked together on the Reich Congress of Workersā and Soldiersā Councils however the SPD wanted a parliamentary democracy and the USPD wanted a council republic, so when they realized the most of the councils were not in fact communist and actually supported the SPD, that caused uprisings against the interim SPD lead government, which the USPD left. The USPD was also unwilling to work with the SPD in the national assembly, which was the parliament they set up and they were sitting in. Intresstingly the Weimar constituion has a few points which could have been easily turned to accomadate workers councils. Hence the more centrist forces worked with them and the consitution was born.
No it is democratic, which the KPD at this point was no longer. They were working on setting up a Stalinist dictatorship and no longer a council democracy.
I am looking at what we might want to learn from what happened back for the US election and other struggles against the far right. So pointing out that this was an option is imho extremely important. Obviously they did not do it, but that does not mean it is impossible to do it at least partly today, with different left wing groups considering different centrist groups not radical enough.
I was going to let it go, but this really bugs me. What are you even talking about here?
This is what I am talking about, especially the second half of the article:
https://jacobin.com/2016/08/ernst-thalmann-east-germany-stalin-nazis