The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-06-11
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A TRUE revolutionary Of Thael-
n mann's type felt the historic
treason of sOcial-demOcracy dur
ing that tragic period like a blow.
He was caught in the machinery
Of mobilization in January 1915,
and was sent to the western front.
He was there during all of the
most tragic and murderOus mil
itary operations. Under these
dreadful conditions he conducted
propaganda. At once his heart
and his mind were in union with
the heart and mind Of Karl Lieb-
knecht. He worked for the reVOlu-
tiOnary elimination of the war.
He distributed forbidden news
papers and Illegal pamphlets. He
maintained connections with the
organization at Hamburg and with
its secret fraction. He made use
of his first furlOugA (which was
finally granted to him after two
and a half years at the 'front.' to
consolidate these bonds with the
revolutionary movement behind
the lines. He was court
and sentenced TO prison.
After the war, Thaelmann was
a charter member of the Indepen-
dent Socialist Party of Germany.
In this party Thaelmann fought
against half -meaSures, against
petty bourgeois anti-Marxiau pa
ci1sm, against the OppOrtunism Of
Bernstein, Kautsky, and Hilferd-
ing. His aim was to push 1t toward
Spartacus and the Communist
Party. When, after the Congress
of 1920, more than 80 per cent Of
the members of the Independent
Socialist Party of Hamburg Joined
with the Communist Party, it was
a personal triumph for Thael-
mann. At that period it was said
of him that he worked day and
night for the unity of the working
class"
Since 1919, he had been elected
as city deputy in Hamburg. We
come to the year 1923. 1t is a not
able year in the annals of the
German labor movement. The
most conscious and determined
section of the working masses was
pressing for action. There were
uprisings and struggles. In October
1923, the struggle reached its
height.
THE German revolutionary
4 forces, first stif1ed by the Allies
(Noske's machine guns), then
checked by the vacillating action
and the latest confOrmism of So
cial-democracy, were defeated this
time once again. The prOIetariat
was not defeated on the Hamburg
front but, isolated in its advance,
it had to give up the battle.
Thaelmann took part in the
Third Congress of the Communist
International and all those which
followed, always defending the
Bolshevik line.
He was prosecuted under the
law Thy government which was
nOminally democratic and even
socialisD. A number of charges of
high treason were brought against
him.
Reaction and Cowardice
WHEN the fascist Storm Troops
W came into existence, they
made up battle song with the
refrain that ThaeImann must be
hanged. In 1922, an attempt was
made to assassinate him. The
swastika thugs threw two bombs
through the windows of his home,
which was partly destroyed. This
attempt was perpetrated at the
same time as chain Of attacks
by the Nazis against the Party
headquarters, the revolutionary
newspapers, and the Communist
reading-roOms. The authors of
these attacks were discovered.
After a long time they were final
ly arrested and at long last tried.
They were sentenced to hard la
Dor. But the Hamburg Senate
committed the sentence to simple
imprisonment and these bandits
were finally set free.
Nevertheless, the days of 1928
showed that the Central Commit
tee of the Communist Party of
Germany did not measure up to
its task, and that, by its hesitancy
and Opportunistic policy, it was
largely responsible for the defeat
of the labor movement. 1t was
removed, changed, and Thael-
mann was named the leader of
the Party.
Brother and Guide
III was at this post that he fought
increasingly since 1923. During
ten years he organized thousands
of meetings, often several in a