The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-12-10
GERMAN SOCIAL
Democracy IN
A new CRISIS
Choose Between Masses
and Hindenburg

BERLIN, Dec. 8.-The German Soc
ial-democracy faces crisis, in which
there seems to be no compromise door
thru which to flee to political safety.
Unemployment is growing rapidly
with the increasing depression of &C.
onomic life. Bankruptcies and soup
kitchens testify to the failure of the
Versailles treaty to save Germany, the
failure of the Dawes plan to save the
Versailles treaty, and the failure of
Locarno pacts to save the Dawes plan
or make it work.
In this situation, so perplexing to
the social democrats, who deliberately
turned over the reich to Hindenburg
the agent of big capital, in exchange
for the presidency only of the Prus-
sian landtag, two pressures, like the
upper and neither millstones, are
weighing upon the gentlemen of the
Barmat international.
Unite Against the Workers.
First, Hindenburg is forcing sue
cessfully all right and center parties
to consider a big coalition, to include
everybody from the social democrats
to Stresemann's peoples party. And
against whom is this coalition to be
directed? What peril faces German
capitalism to cause it?
What else but the possibility of a
new wave of proletarian revolution
in a situation ripened by economic de-
preston, unemployment and starva-
ton while-to the east there lies the
example of Soviet Russia, from which
labor delegations are coming with
tales of security and food under the
regime of the Bolsheviks.
Communists Offer Fighting Alliance.
Second, there is the sudden and I'M
comfortable pressure being put upon
the social democrats by the Commun-
list Party of Germany, taught by ex-
perience and the leadership of the
Communist International that work
among the masses in the trade unions
is not phrase for inner party discus
sion but a profound prerequisite for
revolutionary action. The Communist
a. ~ VI 0CA many 10 " TIE
social democrats and their followers
in the trade unions, a new alliance
ito fight hunger and unemployment"
The social-democratic leaders are
meeting today in caucus to determine
their course. They would undoubted-
ly like to lick the spurred boot of Hin
denburg and enter Weimar coali-
ton as he requires.
A Dilemma for Socialists.
But they know that if they do, the
workers in the trade unions and the
whole impoverished mass of work
ers and small bankrupt bourgeois,
will turn to the Communists to flight
hunger and unemployment" with Boil
shevik weapons.
What are the distracted leaders Of
the German social-democracy going
to do? A coalition with the capital
list parties is part of their nature.
Yet the danger is that they will be I'M
able to take the social democratic
workers along with them, and if these
masses desert the social-democracy
and go to the Communist Party for
leadership the road to revolution is
| cleared of great obstacle.
Trade Principles for Jobs.
Indications are that they will take
the risk of losing the masses to the
Communists and enter the Weimar
coalition if they get few political
jobs and if the peoples party promis-
es not to place said jobs in jeopardy
by kicking over the coalition soor
after it is set up. The motto of til
German socialists in all crises vii
be followed: when in doubt, be
tray the workers"