NOT YET DEAD

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 104, 30 October 1933, Page 4

NOT YET DEAD

GERMAN OPPOSITION

ADVERSARIES OF HITLER

THEIR DIFFICULT TASK

There is no effective opposition in Germany, uothiug that cau, as yet, hold up the Jvazis iv tbeir advance or prevent thorn from consolidating their victory. Nevertheless . the German labour movement is uot dead. It has begun a new life under conditions of pdverty, danger, and hardship wholly different from those .of the past. One day, perhaps, it will be strong enough to shake the Dictatorship, but it is far from being so as yet. All it can hope to do for the time being is to elude the enemy and gather organised strength underground for the struggle that will surely come- some day, says the "Manchester Guardian." The German Labour movement is now made up of fragments of former working-class organisations—the Communists (K.P.D.), the Communist Opposition (K.P.0.), the Socialist Labour Party (S.A.P.), the Social Democrats (S.P.D.), and the Socialist Labour Youth (S.A.J.). .The German trade unions have ceased to exist, and there is no sign and no likelihood of their revival. Nor ia there any kind of liberal opposition. The Communists have just suffered a smashing defeat at the hands of the gestapo (the "Geheime Staatsrpolizei" or the German "Cheka"). They were able to maintain a skeleton organisation in most industrial towns, despite the Terror. The "Eote Ifahne" reappeared illegally Boon after the Dictatorship was established. Innumerable printed or hectographed leaflets were circulated in the factories or sold surreptitiously in the streets. Great heroism was shown and ■ hundreds of Communists suffered arrest, imprisonment, torture, or death. COMMUNIST WEAKNESSES. But the chronic weaknesses of the German Communist Party" have reasserted themselves, and more disastrously than ever. The party has always been sectarian rather than political, and therefore incapable of change. An entirely new situation has arisen, and yet the whole Communist propaganda in Germany today isihardly distinguishable from that of a y«ar ago, or, for that matter, of ten yea^s ago. But Communist courage and the% mere fact that the Communists were ahead of all the other oppostion in doing something may have won over many workmen from the ranks of the Socialists and perhaps of the Nazis. But their propaganda in itself has little or no appeal—it belongs to a dead past. Tho German Communists are soaked in the so-called "idco.logy" that prevails in Moscow. Tho Kussians—as their commentaries on the German situation show —have fanciful notions of what is happening in Hitler's "Third Realm." The Russian Revolution, as conceived by. Russian Communists (most of whom now belong to the post-revolutionary era),, has become a. legend that is but a distant and distorted simulacrum of the truth. Moreover, that Bevolution occurred in conditions very different' from those that exist in. a modern and highly industrialised country and would, even if realistically apprehended, be no model at all for a future German revolution. Thus there is a permanent drag on the Communists that, despite their physical audacity, holds them back in a world of "'dead ' sectarian:"; illusion.;, - :". MORE-UNBEMABLEv - They have also suffered disaster because they have far more unreliable persons in their midst than any other working-class .party! For years Communists passed over to the Nazis and Nazis to the. Communists in continual ;cbb and floiw;: In the ranks of the Communists there, are' innumerable semi-Nazis, arid in the ranks' of the Nazis there arc innumerable- semiCommunists. . A multitude of Communists went over to the Nazis when the Dictatorship was established, and many former members of the "Bed Fighting Front" wear the brown uniform of the Storm Troops. The Communists have never been free from an abnormally high proportion of members with low ethical standards. Thus they suffer from continual betrayals, and whenever a few Communists come together there is always a danger, far greater* than in any other party, that there are. informers amongst them. , They have had a start over the, Socialists in so far as they are not new to illegal, work.'. .They formed their "Groups of Five."- long ago, on the assumption that there must be at least five men of indubitable loyalty in every district. ', But :this device ,has only had partial success—again and again it has been found that one of the five has been an informer. Thus the Communists have suffered frightful losses —they-' havo been and aro still being arrested in multitudes, and the Gestapo has of late broken right into .their innermost organisation. LONCHNO FOR UNITY. It is true that their courage has exposed them to great risks, but the main reason for their enormous casualties is that they are riddled with informers. Thcro is a great longing for labour unity amongst the German workmen, but the other oppositional groups who have tried to co-operate with the Communists have thereby opened their own ranks to informers. Besides, whereas all the other groups have ceased attacking one another, the Communists miss no°opportunity of attaekiug the Socialists, which is the inevitable consequence of their sectarian and nonpolitical character. The Communists can only conceive of a "united front" under Communist leadership. This attitude—which is proclaimed quite bluntly in the "Roto Fahne" dated "middle of July"—is also inherent in their sectarian character. Tho X.P.O. began to form ' 'Groups or Fivo" over a year ago.. They are a very small group, but are much less doctrinaire without being less audacious than the K.P.D. Their losses have been slight. They have their own agents amongst tho Brown Shirts, while tho Brown Shirts have none in the K:P.O. But they are desperately poor, and are able to produce hardly any printed matter. Their typewritten or hectographed leaflets are eagerly read, workmen often paying moro for them I than the fixed price.

The S.P.D. aro still in a condition of disarray. They were able to save a large part of their funds. The executive was transferred to Prague, but their contact with tho Socialist workmen in Germany is still slight. The new "Vorwarts," of which an edition So small that it can be enclosed in an ordinary letter is printed and smuggled into Germany, is beginning to have, a circulation, but it is not road nearly as much'as the "Rote Fahne."

The S.A.P. aro a small group vrho broke away from tho S.P.D. over a year ago. They almost faded away, but have had a slight revival under the dictatorship.