Discussion points for educationals on Trotsky's writings on Germany.
1. "People's Revolution", "national liberation", "struggle against Versailles", and workers' control
Reading: items 1 to 5 from the collection "The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany":
"The Turn in the Communist International and the Situation in Germany"
"Against National Communism! Lessons of the 'Red Referendum'"
and the shorter items:
"Thaelmann and the People's Revolution",
"Workers' Control of Production",
"Factory Councils and Workers' Control of Production".
Discussion points:
a) Trotsky reports that "the programmatic declaration of the German Communist Party before the [1930] elections was completely and exclusively devoted to fascism as the main enemy". How do you think the CP squared this with their general "third period" line? (Bearing in mind that the apparent CP swing away from general "third period" politics in 1930, mentioned by Trotsky in the first article, turned out to be a blip rather than a solid turn).
b) After the CP had gained votes in the 1930 election, and the SPD had lost votes, so Trotsky reports, "the official press of the Comintern [depicted] the results of the German elections as a prodigious victory of Communism, which places the slogan of a Soviet Germany on the order of the day". Trotsky argues that the assessment was false and that the "the tactics of the German Communist Party in the immediate period [should] follow a... defensive line". Why?
c) The Versailles Treaty was bad. So what was wrong with the CP agitating strongly against it?
d) What parallels are there with the arguments about the EU today?
e) What was wrong with the CP's slogans of "People's Revolution" and "National Liberation"? What do you think of the Socialist Worker headline, "World leaders won't stop climate change: People power can save the planet"?
f) Surely communists were against the Social-Democratic government in Prussia? Trotsky concedes that. So why not vote for the dissolution of the Prussian parliament in the referendum on 9 August 1931?
[Note: the results of the referendum were:
Eligible to vote - 26,587,672
Votes cast - 10,425,635
Valid votes - 10,182,185
Yes votes - 9,793,030
No votes - 389,155]
g) Why does Trotsky suggest the slogan of workers' control in Germany, and how does he deal with the response that revolutionaries should instead call for soviets?