The Cause of the Nation (Part 4/4)

From communism without fatherland to national-communism - the history of a German liberation movement 

National-communism after 1945

After 1945 the KPD and SED took all the practical elements from the national-revolutionary politics of the 20's and 30's and developed them even further:

While the national-social liberation program of 1930 aimed at "all workers, poor peasants and working middleclass” and explicitly emanated from the class society and class struggle, the KPD program of 1952, that was radicalized in a national-revolutionary sense, only knew one revolutionary subject: the nation. The program aimed towards all "fair" and "good willing" Germans. The American puppet and traitor Ardenauer was excluded, as well as the owners of those big concerns "who supported the betrayal of Adenauer", these had to be punished by expropriation. This program marked the preliminary and final climax of the national-communist politics in Germany.      

After a more moderate national phase of the "antifascist-democratic united front" (1945-1948), in which in accordance to a somewhat diagrammatic phase thinking in Germany, firstly the bourgeois revolution had to be accomplished. The politics and theory of the communists from this time on was more and more aimed, in the context of the "Cold war", against the Anglo-American "Fremdherrschaft" (foreign occupation) and the "colonial exploitation" of Germany (KPD conference in Solingen 1949):

"Because of the national treason of our "own" financiers-oligarchy, Germany is caught in a state of national slavery. The USA and other imperialist powers squeeze colonial profits from West-Germany" (Which was proved by the results of a survey, which showed that in the 1241 German companies in 1041 cases participation of foreign capital was present)    

Just like in 1919 Germany was once again caught in a "double slavery" according to the KPD and she proclaimed the unity of Germany to be the "highest and most precious good" (KPD chairman Max Reimann in 1949). To accomplish this, the party called upon the "irreconcilable and revolutionary struggle of all German patriots, with the overthrow of the Andauer-regime as the main goal." This contributed to the prohibition of the KPD in 1956. Shortly before the prohibition a self-criticism was published by the Party, which had nothing to do with the nationalist component of the program, but only with her revolutionary phraseology: The call for a revolutionary overthrow of Bonner’s traitor-regime had hampered the united front of the working class on the decisive moment (declaration of the KPD Party leadership in 1956).  


Lessons for the current situation

After '68 the new leftwing has, in practical as well as in theoretical regard, used many elements from the experiences and theoretical potential of the KPD. For the DKP as well as most other K-groups, the realization of a united, socialist Germany remained absolutely essential. Some among them, like the KPD/ML, the KPD/AO, the MLPD (not the same as the current MLPD!) and the AB (Arbeiterbund for the reconstruction of the KPD), still propagated the national liberation struggle during the '70's and '80's.

However far beyond the action radius of these groups, in big parts of the leftwing, the rock solid believe in the unnaturalness of German division, as well as the conviction that the nationalist "wanderers" among the German people could be easily corrected was present. Remains of this were abound in the reactions of the left about the "re-unification", as well as the increasing "shift to the right" of big parts of society (reactionary "roll back" - the offensive of the bourgeoisie against the leftwing).  

Today the complete leftwing movement is socially marginalized, politically disoriented and has ideologically bled to death. While it thinks it still has some social influence, it tries to adapt to the bourgeois mainstream. What is essentially needed is a reconsideration of those elements of the left-national political formation, as described above in this article. Just as in the '50's and 60's "the cause of the nation" is still on the direct agenda, with the main difference that after 1989 foreign Western capital has ruined East-Germany as well and uses it as a colony. It’s needed in East-Germany, which is brought back to a (semi-) colony by the West-German annexation regime, to create a front for "national unity". It’s about two things:

Social justice - for everyone - and a righteous nation, because the first can only be accomplished by the second!         

Who doesn’t understand this, hasn’t understood Marx’s critique on capitalism! 

The wish for solidarity, the community towards social relations is the worker's own. The (myth of) the nation (myth in a Sorellian context!) ensures the worker a place of security, a true Heimat (homeland). "Luxemburgism" and nihilism in regard to the national question, are mainly responsible for the complete downfall of the left, NOT her essentially and rightly incitement to national politics.    

Nevertheless, decidedly anti-national groups, such as the Luxemburgists and Trotskists, who propagated an "intransigent internationalism" as foundation for proletarian politics, never accomplished  to gain ground within the organized German communist and labour movement (apart from a short period during the 20's). "Luxemburgists" with their sterile and unworldly politics and "denial" of the national question, always stayed Fremdkörper (a foreign body) in the organism of the German labour movement. In that time the German communist and labour movement still were resistant to the germ of "national nihilism". This must be an incentive to once again connect ourselves with a healthy national tradition, the spirit of the German communists and the German labour movement.      

Comrades let us, in the words of Karl Radek, "make the cause of the people, the cause of the nation", so that "the cause of the nation becomes the cause of the people!"