The Revolutionary “Opportunity” of 1923 and some relevant data

by Mike Jones

Some interesting details about the strength of the workers’ parties in “Red Saxony” of the early ’20s, relating to the so-called “Missed Revolution” of October 1923.

At the Halle Congress of the USPD in October 1920, where the decision was taken whether or not to adhere to the CI, and where the party split, 49 of the Saxon delegates opposed the 21 Conditions, and only 21 voted for. All the USPD Landtag deputies, the party press and a majority of its officials stayed in the USPD, while only a small part of the members went into the VKPD.

Before fusion the KPD had 18,629 members in Saxony. It grew where the USPD was weak, in Western Saxony. In Eastern Saxony the KAPD was stronger (the KPD had c. 1,000 members), and Otto Rühle was very popular there (he later left the KAPD with the revolutionary unionists). From November ’20 to January ’21, the Saxon KPD went from 24,000 to 40,600 members. The rump (“right”) USPD kept more than double that until 1922. Already in early 1921, the KPD began to lose members again. On 1/4/22, the SPD had 50,000, the USPD had 10-12,000, the KAPD had 1,000, and the KPD had 14,421 members – mainly in Western Saxony.

“The spectrum of the coalition between proletarian Saxon milieux and political currents/parties, took shape already during the war: it stretched from the MSPD (i.e., majority – m.j.) to the left radicals around Otto Rühle … One had the left SPD bastion, not capable of being captured by either the MSPD or the Western Saxon KPD. Dresden and Eastern Saxony remained a domain of the (right) MSPD continually confronted by an extraordinarily strong council-communist movement here and there, that offered the KPD only a few chances to profile itself. In the Chemnitz area, the KPD faced an, at first right-wing, then left-wing, SPD, that left no place for the USPD. The KPD’s problem, was that it couldn’t create its own independent milieu”.

The KPD was permanently searching for a solid membership basis – the membership tended to fluctuate with movements. Paul Böttcher (Chairman of the Saxon KPD and Landtag Deputy) tried to pursue a steady policy linked to the experiences of the left proletarian milieux, that rested on a temporary alliance with the Social Democracy. But his attempts came up against 3 social-political limits: 1) In part, the KPD Zentrale, but particularly Moscow (schematic uprising plans); 2) The left Western and Eastern Saxon KPD districts, under pressure of the left-communist and “revolutionary union” people, but also Erzgebirge district (the Chemnitz area – m.j.) via new members recruited in new social, protest movements; 3) Collaboration with the SPD was only possible with its leftwing and the moderate KPD. Both parties risked losing members an both outer wings.

The above interesting details of the situation in Saxony during the early 20s, were taken from Kersten Rudolph, Das Scheitern des Kommunismus im deutschen Oktober 1923, in the Internationale wissensschaftliche Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, Volume 32, No.4, December 1996, pp.484-519. I consulted it to see if it had come up with anything radically new about the October events, but it had not, the usefulness of the essay is in the filling in of much detail about what took place. The above I thought worth noting down, as it shows the difficulty of the KPD, operating as it did in competition with other workers parties, both on its left and on its right, and trying to find a space for itself.