Between 1921 and 1924 Edwin Hoernle was a member of the national Communist Party leadership team. He attended the Fourth World Congress of the Communist International ("Comintern"), which took place in Moscow during November/December 1922, and was elected as a second German member (alongside Clara Zetkin) of the Comintern Executive Committee. He remained in Moscow for most of 1923. His previously published poetry he now identified as "by-products of Communist Party Work" ("Nebenprodukte kommunistischer Parteiarbeit"). Meanwhile, the failure (from the Communist viewpoint) of the Hamburg Uprising in October 1923 triggered a wave of recrimination within the party and a fragmenting of party unity among the leadership. Hoernle initially aligned with the "right-wingers" around Heinrich Brandler and August Thalheimer, but these two were blamed by comrades for the failure of the Hamburg uprising and summoned to Moscow to explain matters. Hoernle then aligned himself with the party "pragmatists" such as Ernst Meyer, but Meyer was also falling out of favour with the extremists who were in the ascendancy and during 1924 Edwin Hoernle ceased to be a member of the national Communist Party leadership team. There were also personal troubles. In 1923 Helene Hoernle left her husband and went to live with their friend and party comrade Heinrich Rau.