Bremer Bürger-Zeitung, 1916, No. 139, June 16, 1916. “International Socialists of Germany and the Internationale Group”.[1]
Comrade Knief, now on holiday, writes to us:
“The Bremer Bürger-Zeitung’s editorial comment, the day before yesterday, on the statement of the Internationale group might give rise to erroneous views on the relation between the International Socialists of Germany (I.S.D.) and the Internationale group.”
The relation between these groups has been repeatedly discussed on our pages, particularly in a leading article in No. 77 (of March 31), from which we quote:
“The opposition consists of two fundamentally different groups: the Party Centre (Kautsky ... Haase—Ledebour ... Neue Zeit ... Leipziger Volkszeitung, Vorwärts) ... and the radical Left, to which belong ... the I.S.D. and the Internationale group ... (Lichtstrahlen, Bremer Bürger-Zeitung, the Braunschweig Volksfreund, Sozial-Demokrat (Stuttgart)), and also, although not quite consistently, some Rhenish press organs.”
The Braunschweig Volksfreund was Left-radical under Thalheimer’s editorship—now, however, with Wesemeyer as editor it “represents the standpoint of the Centre”.
The Bremer Bürger-Zeitung No. 74 (March 28) published (in the absence of Henke) a comment from the Braunschweig Volksfreund to the effect that that newspaper supported (at that time) the attitude of the Internationale group (and regarded the “guiding theses of the ‘Spartacus letters’” as its “tactical and theoretical programme”)...
“Hence the I.S.D. and the Internationale group are not identical. Both represent the radical Left and on tactical issues are strongly opposed to the Party Centre and the Social-Democratic Labour Commonwealth. While, however, the I.S.D. adopted this position from the outset, the Internationale group has only gradually broken away from the opposition grouped around Ledebour-Haase. At the time, the Bremer Bürger-Zeitung greeted this process as a further step towards clarification (No. 74, March 28).... Since then, in its ‘Spartacus letters’, the Internationale group has sharply and vigorously fought the Social-Democratic Labour Commonwealth”.
(Quoted from the last ‘Spartacus letter’.)
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“In this attitude to private property [the private property of the Social-Democratic Labour Common- wealth??], the I.S.D. and the Internationale group, as already stated, are in full agreement, although they differ on many other issues.” |
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Both groups work “within the framework of the present organisation” “as long as this is not made impossible by the tyranny of the Party bureaucracy”....
All this is important (he writes), for people often make the mistake of “trying to erase the line of division between the Centre and radical Left”....
“How far the two groups will move towards separate organisational existence depends entirely on the development of inner-Party relations. In any case, in the interests of clarity it is to be welcomed that they should be distinguished also externally, by their names.” (End.)
Johann Knief
Ibidem, No. 140 (June 17, 1916).
Henke’s reply: “Not Identical, But the Same”....
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...“I have no recollection of having read of the difference between the two groups and of their higher unity in Left-radicalism. My scant interest in such sectarian groupings may perhaps have con- tributed to this forgetfulness. “Myself, I do not belong to either group”.... |
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I have always stood by “socialist principles”, etc., etc., and such like phrases but nothing specific. |
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Henke
No. 141 (June 19, 1916)—prints the appeal to subscribe to Arbeiterpolitik (a radical Left weekly).
[1] International Socialists of Germany (Internationale Sozialisten Deutschlands)—a group of German Left-wing Social-Democrats who during the First World War united round the magazine Lichtstrahlen (Rays), published in Berlin from 1913 to 1921. Without wide contacts with the masses, the group quickly fell apart.
The Internationale group—a revolutionary organisation of German Left Social-Democrats, founded at the beginning of the First World War by Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring, Clara Zetkin, Julian Marchlewski, Leo Jogiches (Tyszka), and Wilhelm Pieck. In April 1915 Rosa Luxemburg and Franz Mehring started the magazine Die Internationale, which united the main Left Social-Democrat forces. At the All-German Conference of Left Social-Democrats in Berlin on January 1, 1916, the organisation was formalised and the name Internationale Group adopted. In 1916, in addition to the political leaflets it had been issuing, it began illegal publication and distribution of “Political Letters” signed “Spartacus” (they came out regularly until October 1918), and the group began to be called the “Spartacus” group.
The Spartacists conducted revolutionary propaganda among the masses, organised mass anti-war demonstrations, led strikes and exposed the imperialist nature of the world war and the treachery of the opportunist Social-Democratic leaders. However, they committed serious errors in matters of theory and tactics.
In April 1917, the Spartacists joined the centrist Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany, but preserved their organisational independence. During the November 1918 German revolution, the Spartacists broke with the Independents and formed the Spartacus League, and on December 14, 1918 published their programme. At the Inaugural Congress (December 30, 1918-January. 1, 1919) the Spartacists founded the Communist Party of Germany. Lenin repeatedly criticised the errors of the German Left Social-Democrats and pointed to their inconsistency, but he highly valued their revolutionary work.
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