The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-07-21
Dunno and Zetkin Address 9Th Communist Congress

must be made good by moral factors;
political insight, militant courage,
self sacrifice, etc. The military and
technical preparations will partly be
effected in the actual course of the
struggle.
Necessity for Armed Fight.
The most essential postulate for the
start of the fight is for everyone to be
convinced that the fight must be
fought, and that he must take part in
1t. This conviction begets the desire
to find ones own weapons, and it is
quite possible that this desire will
render every stick in the house, every
hammer in the factory, and even every
bare fist, mighty weapon wherewith
to fight the enemy The party has
done little or nothing to Undue the
large masses with the desire and con-
seriousness Of the necessity of the
armed fight. BY it's policies and polit-
ical activities it failed to get into in
nermost touch with the masses that
are to be engaged in the fight, neither
in the whole of Germany nor even in
Saxony, where the fight was to flare
up.
Huge Mistake.
Under these circumstances the com
mon workers government" of Com
munists and social-democrats was in
deed huge mistake The only sense
in a workers government was if it
would be formed as the browning
effect of a tremendous mass movement,
backed by the political organs of pro-
letarian power outside of parliament,
by the workers councils and by their
congress, and above all, by an armed
working class. The very reverse was
done. The workers government was
to be the starting point of a mass
movement, and of the arming of the
proletariat. Under these circum-
stances it was inevitable that some
mistakes should be committed in the
application of the tactics of the United
Front. And so it happened. The fever
ish hunt for arms had the effect of
frustrating the very revolutionary po-
icy which was to arouse and to rally
the masses, and to get them to use the
weapons in the fight. The net result
was: no weapons and no men.
Masses Not Prepared.
Brandler had to admit subsequently
at the Chemnitz Conference that the
Communist Party was fighting while
the masses were not ready to fight.
And it was this sad state of affairs
that urged him to refrain from ap-
pealing for a fight. It was asserted
here that the retreat did not express
the revolutionary sentiment which
existed among the masses. Nothing of
the kind. Of course, the party, the
leadership as well as the membership,
Twas inspired by a strong and honest
desire to fight. Nevertheless, the bare
fact was that the masses were not pre-
pared to fight, because the party failed
to make proper use of the spontaneous
revolutionary outburst of the masses;
it was allowed to flicker out uselessly.
The cuno Strike.
The same thing happened at the
time of the Cuno strike. The Cuno
strike was certainly an abortive at
tempt to lend political color to the
movement Of the masses, but it re-
vealed also the great lack of political
maturity for the revolt, for the cap
ture of power Not otherwise was it
possible, for the masses allowed them
selves to be lulled by the social-demo-
cratic bourgeois hotch-potch of the
Stresemann-Solmann Hilferding gov
eminent? Then came the Emergency
Powers Act, the dispatching of Reichs-
wehr troops to Saxony, the persecu-
ton Of the Communist Party, and the
fascist dictatorship. Yet the masses
remained dumb. No message came
from the masses to indicate their revo-
lutionary readiness and willingness to
fight.
The Hamburg Battle.
But you will tell me, comrades:
What about Hamburg? Well, Hamburg
is a very strong argument in support
of my view. All the sincere admira-
ton which l felt for the couple OF
hundred brave souls who fought like
lions at Hamburg could not make me
obvious Of the notifying fact that
these fights we're not accompanied by
any action Of solidarity either from
the ranks Of our party or from the
ranks Of the proletariat at Hamburg
A few hundred we're allowed to fight
unaided. (Thalmann: Because they
had no arms.") am aware Of that,
Comrade Thalmann, but what the
devil become of the resolve to requisi-
ton arms by force? Under those
circumstances not only the party mem
bers but the whole of the Hamburg
proletariat should have been inspired
by the call to arms that was once
made by Herve: