MESSAGE OF THE COMINTERN (SH) ON OCCASION OF THE 70th DEATH DAY OF ERNST THAELMANN - AUGUST 18, 1944 - WHO WAS MURDERED BY THE FASCIST SS-THUGS ON THE ORDERS OF HITLER Today, on August 18, 2014, we want to remember the sad day when our comrade Ernst Thalmann was shot on Hitlers orders of the fascist killers. We swear, that we will continue the heroic struggle of Ernst Thalmann until the very end, until we gained the victory. This site is published by the Comintern (SH) on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the assassination of Comrade Ernst Thalmann. We publish all his writings and speeches, his letters and essays and especially his contributions to the Comintern - in German language. Translations will follow in English language - depending on our limited forces. We have also created a picture book, and we made a photo gallery. Moreover we linked this website with the two famous DEFA films about life and struggle of Ernst Thalmann. For the first time we published - in German language - the speech of comrade Ernst Aust on occasion of the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Ernst Thalmann and his article in the Red Dawn of the KPD/ML published in 1974. It is a great honor for us to highlight the significance of the internationalist merits of comrade Ernst Thalmann. Ernst Thalmann was a working man from the seaport Hamburg , born on April 16, 1886. Not only was he the best leader of the German working class, but also an outstanding leader of the world proletariat. Ernst Thalmann rendered outstanding servives to the Bolshevisation of the Communist International, especially its growing influence in broadest masses. He was by far the best leader of the Communist International outside the Soviet Union of Lenin and Stalin. At the III. World Congress, held in Moscow from 22 June to 12 July 1921, Ernst Thalmann participated as German delegate for the first time. Here he met Lenin for the first time. On midnight from 23 to 24 January 1924, from 0.00 to 0.30 o clock, Ernst Thalmann held the guard of honor at the bier of Lenin. Ernst Thalmann met Stalin for the first time at the Fifth World Congress of the Comintern in 1924 in Moscow. This face-to-face encounter was the beginning of a close collaboration and friendship between the two communist leaders. Stalin was the best teacher and advisor of the Communist Party under the leadership of Ernst Thalmann. Stalin made the decisive contribution to the Bolshevisation of the KPD, especially with his famous 12 conditions for the Bolshevisation of the KPD. This famous Stalinist theses were valid for all sections of the Comintern. These theses have still not lost their current importance for the building of a party of new type. By the way, these 12 theses of Bolshevization were both founding document of the KPD / ML in 1968, as well as the founding document of the Comintern (SH) in the year 2000. Ernst Thalmann was elected as Chairman of the Communist Party on October 30, 1925. Stalin wrote: The current Central Committee of the KPD did not come about by chance. It was born in the fight against the right deviation. It gained strength in the fight against the ultra-left deviation. Hence, it is neither a right nor an ultra-left Central Committee. It is a genuine Leninist Central Committee. This is just the leading proletarian group that needs the KPD now ... the strength of the current Central Committee consists precisely in the fact that it performs a correct Leninist policy ... the fact that the current Central Committee is predominated by the workers, a great preference of the German Communist Party. (Stalin) Since the Fifth World Congress, held in Moscow from June 17 to July 9, 1924, Ernst Thalmann was initially elected as a candidate, then he became very soon a full member of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. He was one of its most respected officials. As leader of the Hamburg uprising, Ernst Thalmann was the symbol of the revolutionary German proletariat. However, the outbreak of the proletarian revolution in entire Germany had been betrayed by the leadership of the Communist Party which was in hands of the rightist Brandlerists. In his first speech to the Congress, Ernst Thalmann justified the Hamburg uprising as follows: The decision was : either white dictatorship or proletarian dictatorship. Learning from the criticism of Ernst Thalmann at the opportunist party leadership of the Communist Party, the Comintern took the path towards Bolshevisation of all its sections. Ernst Thalmann was elected at the Fifth World Congress of the Comintern Secretary of the Political Commission. He was also a member of the Youth Commission and a member of the regional commissions for Russia, Italy, Poland, Austria and Scandinavia. Ernst Thalmann supported the line of Stalin against the Luxemburgism, against the left wing of social democracy and against social fascism. On V. ECCI Plenum Ernst Thalmann did not participate because he was candidate for the presidential election in Germany. Between the V and Vl. Congress of the Comintern, the ECCI became more important as the governing body because the Congresses were held no longer regularly (1924, 1928, 1935). But the most important meetings were conducted as extended plenums. With the 6th Enlarged Plenum all the following meetings of the Comintern and the ECCI were focused on the contributions of comrade Ernst Thalmann. In this plenary (17.2.1926), Ernst Thalmann was at first successful in overcomingultra-leftist deviations of the Comintern. The following 7 Enlarged Plenum from 22.11. until 16 12 1926, Ernst Thalmann reported on the successful impact of orientation on admission and participation of Communists in the free trade unions, in which he was mainly engaged. At the beginning of the plenum, on which Ernst Thalmann was chairman, he read out Zinovievs resignation as Chairman of the International. In place of Zinoviev, Bukharin was elected leader of the Comintern. Stalin reported on the developments in the Soviet Union and the situation in the Soviet Party, when Zinoviev and Kamenev were removed because of factionism. In this discussion Ernst Thalmann supported fully the Leninist-Stalinist theses of building socialism in one country. From the very beginning Ernst Thalmann was absolutely faithful in the Soviet policy until his death. This fundamental connectedness with the first socialist state and the international task of its defense was educated by Ernst Thalmann to the German Communists. This confidence in the Soviet Union was also decisive for the steadfastness of German communists in the struggle against fascism, especially the fight of Ernst Thalmann himself. With the 9th Plenum of the ECCI in February 1928 a new alignment of the communist policy began, which initiated a tightening of dealing with the social democracy. Ernst Thalmann was well acquainted with the most important revolutionary movements in the international arena. He analysed the Pilsudski coup in Poland. He pointed to the significance of the biggest strike movement of the British miners, and stressed the victorious advance of the Chinese revolution. Ernst Thalmann supported all the sections of the Comintern in word and deed. So he helped in 1926 with his article On the tactics of the Communist Party of Poland the Polish section in overcoming its errors (published in Pravda no. 123, dated 30 May 1926) Ernst Thalmann had a very intimate relationship to the Russian proletariat. He made numerous visits to the factories and in the Red Army. The friendly relationship was expressed in his election as an honorary member of various Soviet enterprises and institutions. In friendly talks and many speeches on meetings with the Russian workers he strengthened the revolutionary spirit of proletarian internationalism between the German and Russian working class. His close ties with the Russian proletariat is expressed in his following words: The crucial question of the international movement is its position towards the proletarian dictatorship in the Soviet Union. Opinions differ on this question, and must differ ! The attitude towards the Soviet Union decides on the question, to which camp somebody belongs - either to the camp of the revolution or to the camp of the counter-revolution! (Ernst Thalmann speech at the Seventh. Enlarged Plenum of the Comintern Executive Committee from 22 November to 16 December 1926 in Moscow). Comrade Enver Hoxha seized these words of Ernst Thalmann by applying it to the changed situation in the Soviet Union which had turned to the world camp of the counter-revolution. Analogously, Enver Hoxha said: The attitude towards the Soviet Union in the times of Lenin and Stalin as basis and lever of the world revolution, as the criterion of proletarian internationalism, must be understood in the opposite sense under conditions of today ... A revolutionary and internationalist of today is the one who fights against the Soviet revisionists, who exposes their treachery, who turned Marxism-Leninism into an anti-Marxist and imperialist policy and line. (Enver Hoxha) On the XI. Congress of the KPD (Essen) in 1927 Ernst Thalmann defined four international main tasks: First, the fight against the threat of war. Second, defense of the Soviet Union and other countries against imperialist attacks. Third, the struggle for the international trade union unity. Fourth, the fight against international fascism . From July 17 to September 1, 1928 the VI. World Congress of the Comintern was held in Moscow. Ernst Thalmann, who took a prominent part in the work of the Congress, was elected to the ECCI. Ernst Thalmann became one of the main leaders in the so called Third period which was then condemned by all enemies of the Stalinist course of the Comintern, first and foremost the Trotskyites. Today, we cannot defend comrade Ernst Thalmann without defending the Stalinist Third period. In his speech at the VI. Congress, Ernst Thalmann stressed: A new period of revolutionary upsurge matures. In this situation, we need more than ever the internationalism, the revolutionary solidarity of the toiling masses of the world in alliance with the oppressed colonial peoples. We had to lead the struggle against Trotskyism several years. In this great struggle Leninism prevailed as the undisputed winner in the entire Communist International. Even more than before, the spirit of internationalism emerged from this hard struggle, the spirit of unconditional loyalty to the Communist International and the solid confidence in its leading party, the CPSU. This revolutionary spirit must guide all our thinking and actions, and must a,ways be maintained in us. Our victory will be for certain if we strengthen our revolutionary energy, if we firmly and unwaveringly believe in the revolutionary power of the proletariat and all the working people led by the Communist International, the only genuine International throughout the world. (Speech in the debate on the activity reports of the ECCI and the Executive Committee of the Young Communist International.) In his contribution to the discussion on the report of the Executive Committee Ernst Thalmann underlined that he - in accordance with Stalin - considers the fight against the Left Social-Democrats as a major task. He says there: Effected by this treacherous activity (of the social democracy) and by the demeanor of the Communist parties and the revolutionary movement the social democratic workers turn increasingly to Communism. In this situation, the left social democracy comes to the fore for the purpose to avoid the trespass of the social Democratic workers to the Communist Party. Every vacillation, hesitation in exposing the left Socialist-democracy must be fought in our ranks with the greatest sharpness. The social democracy is - as the 9th Plenum of the Comintern has stated correctly - the major social bearer of the bourgeoisie, the main obstacle of the proletarian revolution in Germany and all over the capitalist world (Ernst Thälmann) The Communist Party in Germany has, far removed from the social democratic traditions that nourish the Right danger in the KPD. (Stalin, Volume 11, page 275). The 10th Plenum of the ECCI was held from 3 to 17 July 1929. Besides Losovski (the chairman of the RILU), Ernst Thalmann was the second speaker, who spoke at the meeting about the intensification of the economic struggle and the tasks of the communists. He called for the strengthening of the revolutionary work in the trade unions, and in view of the criminal role of the trade union bureaucracy he advocated wildcat strike actions, thus against the will of the rightist leaders. Ernst Thalmann put up a case for mobilizing and integrating the unorganized workers in these battles. Ernst Thalmann was the pioneer in building up the RGO (Revolutionary Trade Unions Opposition) in Germany as a preform for the red trade unions. However, after VII. World Congress, the right-wing leaders of the Comintern did not only eliminate the RGO policy of comrade Ernst Thalmann, but moreover in 1936, they liquidated the entire Red Trade Union International, an international organization of the Comintern, which was once brought into being by none other than comrade Lenin. On March 18, 1931 Ernst Thalmann was expelled from the union, to which he belonged for decades and in which he fought not only for the daily interests of the workers, but also to shatter the entire system of wage slavery in the spirit of Marxism. In a response letter to the ADGB (Yellow Trade Union Association in Germany), Ernst Thalmann wrote: We live in a time where there is no intermediate position. There are only two alternatives in the trade union: The path of revolutionary mass struggle or the path of supporting capitalism through workers betrayal and strike-breaking. There is only one clear choice: either overthrow or maintenance of the infamous regime of exploitation of man by man .. Everyone has to decide in our time: either for the red front of the workers or for the front of the exploiters. The giant power of millions of proletarian fighter will sweep away all exploiters, inclusively you, their lackeys. (Hamburg March 23, 1931) On October 31, 1932 ErnstThalmann was welcomed by the Parisian workers with loud and never ending applause. He called: Comrades, I came here to Paris to the city of the Commune of 1871 - this luminous Fanals of the revolutionary workers movement. Having to bring charges against the capitalist governments of our two countries. We Communists in Germany and France act commonly in spirit of proletarian internationalism under the banner of the Communist International to conduct our international campaign of struggle against imperialist war, against chauvinism and militarism and against the Versailles system, which has been so shamefully supported by the Second International. When the German working class will emerge as the winner of the class struggle, the French imperialism will try to destroy the German workers and peasants republic by means of bloody imperialist intervention. Then it is your task to counter such intervention plans of our common enemies. Proletarians of Germany and France, unite! Ernst Thalmann presented his speeches at the last two ECCI meetings before Hitler seized power. He defined the central strategical task of the Comintern as a connection of the mass struggle against fascism with the aim of armed proletarian revolution. As well-known, the rightist leaders of the Comintern - in contrast - dropped this indispensable connection of the united anti-fascist front with the armed proletarian revolution. The fight against fascism, the mobilisation of mass struggles of the workers and the unemployed, the recovery of the Social Democratic workers for the combined fight for the socialist revolution was the focus of the 11th and 12th ECCI Plenum in March / April 1931 and in August / September 1932 . In his presentation on the 11th Plenum (The situation in Germany and the tasks of the KPD) Ernst Thalmann defined Germany as the weakest link of capitalism. The economic and political crisis in Germany produces the revolutionary upsurge on the one hand, but on the other hand, this effects a strengthening of the fascist counter-revolution. ... Its therefore dangerous to underestimate the fascist development. Fascism in Germany is not a product of the strength of the bourgeoisie, not (as in Italy 1922) a product of the defeat of the proletariat ... Ernst Thalmann saw in the Brüning government a maturing, if not yet fully developed fascist dictatorship. He clearly saw that a higher maturity of the proletarian revolution will probably bring about a higher level of counter-revolutionmore rapidly and heavily. Concerning the NSDAP he said: . .. the role of the National Socialists (is) that of a new protective wall for keeping away increasing parts of the bourgeois camp which went over to the proletarian revolution. Furthermore, Ernst Thalmann emphasized at the 11th Plenum of the ECCI: Capitalism can not be defeated without destroying the social democracy ... You can not defeat the social fascism ... if you do not mobilize systematically the Social Democratic workers to battle under the leadership of the Communist Party against fascism. The last time before his arrest, Ernst Thalmann took part at the 12th plenary session of the ECCI from 27 August to 15 September in Moscow. He presented the keynote address on The teachings of the economic strikes and the fight against unemployment. By the arrest on March 3, 1933, the Nazis isolated Ernst Thalmann from the Comintern and - with this - did a disservice to the right leaders of the Comintern - namely for their undisturbed preparation of the world historical turn of the Comintern on the VII World Congress. Was this by chance or according to the systematical consideration of the fascists to arrest the revolutionaries on the one hand and to release revisionists and other traitors on the other hand ? The 12th Plenum of the ECCI - under the Bolshevik leadership of Ernst Thalmann - was after all the very last Bolshevik Plenum of the ECCI in the history of the Comintern. With the 13th plenary meeting, the world-historical turning point was initiated which ended with the dissolution of the Comintern ten years later. So the 13th plenary took place, without Ernst Thalmann, from 28 November to 12 December 1933. The Plenary Meeting was opened by Wilhelm Pieck, who was definitively jointly responsible for the revisionist turn of both the Comintern and the KPD. The focus of the 13th Plenum was the elimination of the Leninist definition of fascism on the IV. World Congress. It was replaced by a revisionist definition that was presented by the revisionist Otto Kuusinen (Finland) in his paper fascism, the threat of war and the tasks of the Communist Party. The 13th Plenum of the ECCI became the starting point for the elimination of the Leninist proletarian united front policy of the Comintern and its replacement by the bourgeois popular front policy of Dimitrov. This revisionist line was adopted unanimously at the 13th Plenum of the ECCI. De facto, the Comintern was no longer led by Bolshevik leaders, but of such leaders, which later turned out to be the well-known revisionist leaders of the communist parties. We give only an example - the renegades Ulbricht and Togliatti (Ercoli). Togliatti was always a bitter opponent of Ernst Thalmann, especially the latter had called for a tougher approach in the fight with the conciliators. Togliatti, however, succeeded in smuggling in a number of conciliators who were elected leaders on the VI. Congress of the Comintern. In August 1935 Stalin was thrown out of the Comintern. The revisionist did unblushingly not re-elect him as member of the ECCI. Other revolutionary leaders were put to death such as Bela Kun who led the Cominterns commission of struggle against social-democracy. In the very end of the Comintern the leadership was in the hands of the triarchy of the traitors Dimitrov, Manuilski and Togliatti (and partly Pieck). The fascists incarcerated Ernst Thalmann in the gaol of Bautzen, a small city of the former GDR. And the social-fascists of the GDR incarcerated on their part our comrades of the KPD / ML decades later - namely in the same gaol of Bautzen !! Fascists and Social Fascists commit the same crime - namely to incarcerate communists ! The bourgeoisie is and will always remain the mortal enemy of Communism. She always tries to eliminate the Communists both openly (fascism) and hiddenly behind a red mask (social fascism). Fascism is a fighting organization of the bourgeoisie, which is based on the active support of social democracy. Social democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism (Stalin, Volume 6, page 253). Therefore there can be no united front with social fascists. A united front can exist only for the purpose of the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie as a unity of the whole working class. At the essence, cooperation between fascism and social fascism has not changed until today. This proves the whole history of the world communist movement. If we want to defend comrade Ernst Thalman, then we must side with the Stalinist anti-socialfascist thesis. The accuracy of the social fascism thesis is proved by the death of Ernst Thalmann. The death of Ernst Thalmann will only be avenged by the classless society of world communism where there is no danger of fascism and social-fascism anymore. 10 days after the arrest of Ernst Thalmann, the SPD had enforced the KPD banning law. So this was the answer to Ernst Thalmanns call for united front between the KPD and the SPD-workers. The SPD was not only responsible for the bloodbath of the workers in the November Revolution in 1919, but also for the bloodbath in Berlin on May 1. Finally the anti-communist social democracy paved also the way to the victims of revolutionary workers under the reign of fascist terror and last not least to the fascists assassination of Ernst Thalmann. It is a matter of historical fact that the social-fascists of the SPD were involved in the death of the communist leaders in Germany, of which Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and Ernst Thalmann were the most prominent ones. But not only the social-fascists of the SPD were jointly responsible for the death of Ernst Thalmann. Complicit in the death of Ernst Thalman were also the hidden enemies in his own communist camp. We belong to those communists in the world who put the blame also on the revisionist traitors for the assassination of Ernst Thalmann. Just as Lenin and Stalin had fought against the traitors of the Second International, the Comintern (SH) fights against the betrayal of the revisionists, especially concerning the Comintern and Ernst Thalmann. Especially since mid 1927, the opposition against Ernst Thalmann was active within the Communist Party of Germany. And also on all Congresses of the Comintern in which Ernst Thalmann took part, the traitors tried to attack his revolutionary views and actions. And the more he had received support by the majority of the delegates of the Congresses, the more intensively increased the struggle of the oppositional minorities against him. When these hostile attempts failed on the VI. World Congress, the so-called Wittorf affair was launched against the person of Ernst Thalmann. Involved in these intrigues were not only the open rightists of Brandler and Thalheimer, but also the reconciliators and the ultraleftists. All these opposional forces were hiddenly encouraged by Pieck (Pieck was the person who recommended that Ernst Thalmann withdraws from the presidency of the KPD !!). The Wittorf affair was openly directed against the Bolshevisation of the KPD and indirectly against Stalin, especially against the Stalinist decisions of the 6th World Congress of the Comintern. The enemies wanted to beat Ernst Thalmann and to hit the Comintern. And last not least, they beat comrade Ernst Thalmann to hit comrade Stalin ! As even Bukharin turned against Ernst Thalmann, Stalin intervened personally. Stalin protected Ernst Thalmann and thwarted all attempts of party coups for the purpose of the overthrow of Ernst Thalmann. Stalin defended comrade Ernst Thalmann as follows: The second stage of our disagreements is connected with what is known as the Wittorf and Thälmann case. Wittorf was formerly secretary of the Hamburg organisation, and was accused of embezzling Party funds. For this he was expelled from the Party. The conciliators in the Central Committee of the German Communist Party, advantage of the fact that Wittorf had been close to Comrade Thälmann, although Comrade Thälmann was in no way implicated in Wittorf ’s crime, converted the Wittorf case into a Thälmann case, and set out to overthrow the leadership of the German Communist Party. No doubt you know from the press that at that time the conciliators Ewert and Gerhart succeeded temporarily in winning over a majority of the Central Committee of the German Communist Party against Comrade Thälmann. And what followed? They removed Thälmann from the leadership, began to accuse him of corruption and published a “corresponding” resolution without the knowledge and sanction of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. Thus, instead of the directive of the Sixth Congress of the Comintern about fighting conciliation being carried out, instead of a fight against the Right deviation and against conciliation, there was, in fact, a most gross violation of this directive, there was a fight against the revolutionary leadership of the German Communist Party, a fight against Comrade Thälmann, with the object of covering up the Right deviation and of consolidating the conciliatory tendency in the ranks of the German Communists. And so, instead of swinging the tiller over and correcting the situation, instead of restoring the validity of the violated directive of the Sixth Congress and calling the conciliators to order, Bukharin proposed in his wellknown letter to sanction the conciliators’ coup, to hand over the German Communist Party to the conciliators, and to revile Comrade Thälmann in the press again by issuing another statement declaring him to be guilty. And this is supposed to be a “leader” of the Comintern! Can there really be such “leaders”? The Central Committee discussed Bukharin’s proposal and rejected it. Bukharin, of course, did not like that. But who is to blame? The decisions of the Sixth Congress were adopted not in order that they should be violated but in order that they should be carried out. If the Sixth Congress decided to declare war on the Right deviation and conciliation towards it, keeping the leadership in the hands of the main core of the German Communist Party, headed by Comrade Thälmann, and if it occurred to the conciliators Ewert and Gerhart to upset that decision, it was Bukharin’s duty to call the conciliators to order and not to leave in their hands the leadership of the German Communist Party. It is Bukharin, who “forgot” the decisions of the Sixth Congress, who is to blame. The third stage of our disagreements is connected with the question of the fight against the Rights in the German Communist Party, with the question of routing the Brandler and Thalheimer faction, and of expelling the leaders of that faction from the German Communist Party. The “position” taken up by Bukharin and his friends on that cardinal question was that they persistently avoided taking part in settling it. At bottom, it was the fate of the German Communist Party that was being decided. Yet Bukharin and his friends, knowing this, nevertheless continually hindered matters by systematically keeping away from the meetings of the bodies which had the question under consideration. For the sake of what? Presumably, for the sake of remaining “clean” in the eyes of both the Comintern and the Rights in the German Communist Party. For the sake of being able subsequently to say: “It was not we, the Bukharinites, who carried out the expulsion of Brandler and Thalheimer from the Communist Party, but they, the majority in the Central Committee.” And that is what is called fighting the Right danger! (Stalin) So Stalin defended Ernst Thalmann in an impressive and convincing manner. This refutes all fabrications that Stalin would have allegedly turned against Ernst Thalmann - namely that Stalin would not have tried to save him from death. That what the opponents of Ernst Thalmann did not succeed in , namely to silence the tongue of Ernst Thalmann- was finally achieved by his fascist execution. The truth is that the revisionist traitors had hidden their crimes easily behind the crimes of the fascists. Although Ernst Thalmann disagreed on specific issues with the majority of the Comintern (and this in face of many false leaders of the Comintern as Trotsky, Radek, Zinoviev and Kamenev, Bukharin, Rykov and many other traitors), Ernst Thalmann always emphasized: I am so disciplined, so centralizing ... that I follow the decisions ... Ernst Thalmann was betrayed by the revisionist leaders of the KPD and the Comintern - and - Ernst Thalmann himself was not blind, he certainly knew the names of the traitors better than we do: Why should I spend in prison my fresh mind and healthy life, the best years of my life? This message he left to the Comintern leadership in Moscow. Ernst Thalmann said it openly: If you really want this, then say it quite frankly. In the interests of the right-wing leaders of the KPD and the Comintern - such as Ulbricht and Pieck - Ernst Thalmann was more valuable in custody than in freedom: We live in a time where your voice is needed from custody. Until the mid-thirties comrade Bela Kun organized the struggle of the Comintern for his release. All the efforts on a gaolbreak failed several times by treachery in the own ranks of the Comintern and the KPD. The Thalmann-Liberation Committee of the Comintern used his case to denounce the injustice of the brown system before the eyes of the world. But for the liberation of Ernst Thalmann they did nothing, the renegade Ulbricht said satisfactorily. Ulbricht did not only hinder Ernst Thalmanns escape from his fascist murderers. Ulbricht also succeeded in Moscow to deliver many true Thalmann successor to the NKVD who killed them. The traitors usurped the leadership of the Communist Party of Germany by means of their bloody hands. And Ernst Thalmann addressed the following words to the traitors: Why are you such bastards and let me sit here? The Nazis were willing to release an opportunist like Dimitroff, but not such a revolutionary and principled communist like Ernst Thalmann: The Nazis expressed their fear of Ernst Thalmann with the following sentence: Such birds like Thalmann will never be delivered to the Russians. The Central Committee, which was appointed on the so-called Berner conference by itself (and not in Bern but in a Moscow hotel - of course without any legitimacy from the party base), consisted of masked anti-communists. These included not only Ulbricht and Pieck but also a Herbert Wehner (later leader of the SPD in the Bundestag, which adopted the law banning of the Communist Party in 1956!!). In connection with the arrest of Ernst Thalmann, Wehner was indeed subjected to an examination procedure in Moscow, but the examination was abandoned in 1939, after Wehner had denounced numerous comrades of Ernst Thalmann as alleged deviants. The traitors escaped and the revolutionaries were doomed to die. The abyss profound difference between comrade Ernst Thalmann and his traitors can be illustrated solely in the fact of the anti-fascist daily struggle of Ernst Thalmann - always recklessly of endangering his life - while the revisionists made themselves comfortable in the secure Hotel Lux in Moscow. There they waited calmly - far away from fascist Germany - until the the Red Army served them the GDR on a silver platter. The revisionists, praising Ernst Thalmann to the skies and allegedly defending him, were in truth the worst enemies of Ernst Thalmann and the German working class, lackeys, agents of fascism in the camp of communism. The social-fascist Erich Honecker was a spy (Kapo) of the commandant of the concentration camp in Buchenwald, exactly at the same place where Ernst Thalmann was shot and his body cremated the day after. This knowledge was given to us from our party member Heinz Reiche, who was himself a prisoner in Buchenwald - thus he was a trustworthy eyewitness of this crime of Erich Honecker. We condemn the heinous crimes of the leaders of the GDR to camouflage their social fascism with the personal cult on Ernst Thalmann. The cult of personality of Ernst Thalmann served the same criminal objectives in Germany as the same objectives of the cult of personality that the Soviet revisionists had launched against comrade Stalin. The cult of personality is and remains a propaganda weapon of cooperation between revisionists and imperialists. Cult of personality and alleged combating the personality cult are two sides of the same tactics, namely to separate the leaders and their revolutionary ideas and lessons from the world proletariat. Without the betrayal of the revisionists against the German Communist Party, against Ernst Thalmann and the Comintern, the social fascist GDR would never have been established. The foundation of the SED (German Unity Party of the modern revisionists) was totally in contrast to the teachings of Ernst Thalmann, namely that there can never be a fusion of social democracy and Marxism-Leninism. In his closing remarks at the last plenary session before his death, Ernst Thalmann defined the line of demarcation between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism: We create the slogan of the united front and not the union of .. the SPD and KPD. Neither the Bolshevik Party of the Soviet Union of Lenin and Stalin, nor the Party of Labour of Albania under the leadership of Enver Hoxha, had ever united with the Social Democratic Party. What is a Communist Party or a Comintern worth, which is guided not by Bolsheviks, but by revisionists? In the time of the assassination of Ernst Thalmann there were a lot of revisionists in the Communist Parties and in the Comintern. There were, both in the KPD and in the Comintern, many hypocrites, double-dealers and careerists who were not honest Bolsheviks - no principled comrades like Ernst Thalmann, like Lenin and Stalin! The whole history of world communism, the 5 Classics of Marxism-Leninism and particularly the death of Ernst Thalmann teaches us communists, that there can never be a unity with traitors of communism. On the contrary, they must be purified. The history of Bolshevism knows no unity with the Mensheviks - as later practised by the modern revisionists. For the bourgeoisie, the co-operation of social democracy and modern revisionism was the usual solution for overcoming Stalinism not only in Germany, but also in the former peoples democracies (- with the exception of Albania). The merger of the SPD and KPD into a SED was a special tactic of the bourgeoisie to save the SPD and to prevent the turning of the Social Democratic workers towards the KPD. And it was the Comintern of Dimitrov which paved the way to this crime. The social democracy had emerged from the betrayal of Marxism, while the modern revisionism emerged from the betrayal of Stalinism under the cloak of alleged protection of Leninism. Social democracy and modern revisionism are therefore both anti-communist ideologies of the bourgeoisie, which complement each other - the one leads unavoidably to the other. The leaders of social democracy, revisionism and neo-revisionism are lackeys of the bourgeoisie and thus united enemies of the Stalinist-Hoxhaist world movement. The association with the social democratic parties was not a great victory for the proletarian united front against fascism - as it is still propagated by the modern revisionists and their cheeky imitators , but a big scam on communism, on the world proletariat and the world revolution. The Bolshevik united front policy of the Comintern was transformed into a bourgeois united front. By this crime, the world proletariat was disarmed ideologically and subordinated under the rule of the bourgeoisie. The turn of the Comintern on the VII. World Congress has subsequently proved to be one of the greatest crimes in the history of the workers and communist movement. Even today, the Comintern is praised by the revisionists precisely because of its turn on the VII. World Congress, while the Comintern should have been most criticized for this criminal turn. The revisionism and social democracy are two manifestations of the same bourgeois ideology (Enver Hoxha: Report to the 5th Congress of the PLA, page 221, April 1977) The cooperation of the revisionists with the social democracy, this proven agency of the international bourgeoisie, is based on their common anti-Marxist ideology, which forms their natural base. Based on this, now the complete fusion of the modern revisionists with the Social Democrats became a single anti-Marxist, anti-revolutionary current (History of the PAA, page 581, Tirana 1971). The struggle against revisionism is only based on Marxism-Leninism if you remove its inevitability, if you eliminate capitalism on a world scale. Revisionism can not be eliminated without the elimination of its social democratic roots as its natural base. With the neo-revisionism the bourgeoisie protects the revisionists. With the revisionism the bourgeoisie protects the Social Democracy. With the Social Democrats, the bourgeoisie protects the transformation of democratic dictatorship of the bourgeoisie into the open fascist dictatorship - and vice versa. And by means of the alliance of the modern revisionists with the Social Democrats the bourgeoisie transforms the dictatorship of the proletariat into the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The rule of the world bourgeoisie is always based on deceiving the world proletariat. This deceiving spider web is spread by the bourgeoisie over the entire proletariat for the purpose to avoid the socialist world revolution which is the only alternative of the liberation of the world proletariat. Ernst Thalmann teaches us that you can not defeat world fascism without defeatingsocial fascism. The modern revisionists betrayed this decisive lesson of comrade Ernst Thalmann. And the whole physiognomy of this betrayal is this: The modern revisionists masquerade their bourgeois united front tactic as the alleged proletarian united front tactic of Ernst Thalmann. In truth, this betrayal began exactly to the same point of time when comrade Ernst Thalmann was imprisoned. And we Stalinist-Hoxhaists know the reason and shout: The death of comrade Ernst Thalman could have been avoided ! This betrayal was not by chance ! It was hiddenly planned and implemented by the modern revisionists within the Comintern and its Sections. The correct understanding of the lessons of comrade Ernst Thälmann requires the consequent struggle against the neo-revisionists who try to put the wheel of history into reverse. What is the significance of the work and life of Ernst Thalmann for the Communist world movement? Ernst Thalmann was ardent supporter and defender of the first socialist state, whose policies he defended unconditionally. For him, the October Revolution and the building of the foundations of socialism was an example for the German Communists. Ernst Thalmann was the most loyal and greatest Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist of Germany. He was convinced that the battle for the German dictatorship of the proletariat would be in the service of the establishment of the dictatorship of the world proletariat. Ernst Thalmanns break with the Social Democrats, who betrayed the socialist goal, dominated his thinking in all his life. He fought against all sorts of centrism and any conciliation towards the left wing of social democracy. The united front tactic had to be implemented in the sharpest struggle against Right opportunist deviations and trends. (Ernst Thalmann, The International, Issue 7.8, 1932). Thus Ernst Thalmann was actually a pioneer of the struggle against modern revisionism. He called this struggle against modern revisionism the new stage of Bolshevism. We can therefore define justifiably the great anti-revisionist period of the Marxist-Leninist World Movement of Comrade Enver Hoxha as the new stage of Bolshevisation of the communist world movement. In the sense of comrade Ernst Thälmann, we understand our struggle against neo-revisionism as the new stage towards the triumph of world-Bolshevism. He also fought relentlessly against the ultra-left opportunism, who slandered the Social Democratic workers as social fascists. Ernst Thalmann showed great skills in the struggle for the thinking of social democratic workers who had to be won for a socialist Germany. He saw himself responsable as a leader not only for the Communist workers, but for the whole working class, including the social democratic, Christian and even national-socialist workers. With his speeches, essays and theoretical works, Ernst Thalmann has enriched the treasury of Marxism-Leninism and thus he had made an outstanding theoretical contribution to the emancipation of the working class. Ernst Thalmann fought with courage and exemplary against fascism and against war danger. The fascists could not bend him. He was a great symbol of the anti-fascist resistance: Stay steadfast as Ernst Thalmann! The programs that he worked out against the fascist mass influence, his creation of the anti-fascist action, the fight against the imperialist war danger, the struggle for a revolutionary trade union of class-struggle - all this is one of the most important merits of Ernst Thalmann and the KPD. Ernst Thalmann was a staunch democratic centralist, sat on the organizational unit and impact of the Comintern and the KPD according to the model of the Bolsheviks. He supported and defended the Bolshevisation of the Comintern and the KPD against the Trotskyists, the rightists and conciliators - exceptionally from the basis of Marxism-Leninism - namely not only in Germany, but also on a world scale. Ernst Thalmann fought not only in the forefront of the Comintern, but also in his own section for the revolutionary implementation of the decisions of the Comintern. Ernst Thalmann was a great organizer not only of the communists, but of the entire working class and its allies, whose battles and campaigns he led to the forefront. Ernst Thalmann was himself a worker and was beloved by the whole world proletariat. Every worker understood of what he said. He wowed the world proletariat, and especially the Russian workers with all his rousing speeches. He was principled and subordinated himself only to party discipline. Until his assassination he remained a courageous anti-fascist and principled communist, a fighter for the world socialist revolution, for world socialism and world communism. Ernst Thalmann was a great proletarian internationalist. The international solidarity for the release of Ernst Thalmann was a world-historical manifestation of the joint action of the proletarians of all countries, which Lenin had called the only way for the overthrow of the world bourgeoisie. One of the famous International Brigades bore the honorable name Ernst Thalmann Battalion in the Spanish Civil War. Ernst Thalmanns name is a symbol of the highest qualities of character of the revolutionary world proletariat. Lets keep high the red banner of Comrade Ernst Thalmann! Lets defend it against the revisionists and neo-revisionists! Learning from the struggle of comrade Ernst Thalmann against fascism, is to strive for the removal of the inevitability of fascism, is to sweep away the rule of the world bourgeoisie! We will finnish the struggle that Ernst Thalmann begun - the struggle for the dictatorship of the world proletariat ! We will transform world fascism into world socialism by the victory of the socialist world revolution ! We want to be a fighter like Ernst Thalmann ! Long live Comrade Ernst Thalmann ! - this our great beloved son and leader of the world proletariat ! Comintern (SH) - 18th of August, 2014
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 13:35:04 +0000