
The Revolution
Is Not A Party Affair

Otto Ruhle


Parliamentarism appeared with the domination of the
bourgeoisie. Political parties appeared with parliament.

In parliaments the bourgeois epoch found the historical arena
of its first contentions with the crown and nobility. It
organised itself politically and gave legislation a form
corresponding to the needs of capitalism. But capitalism is not
something homogeneous. The various strata and interest groups
within the bourgeoisie each developed demands with differing
natures. In order to bring these demands to a successful
conclusion, the parties were created which sent their
representatives and activists to the parliaments. Parliament
became a forum, a place for all the struggles for economic and
political power, at first for legislative power but then,
within the framework of the parliamentary system, for
governmental power. But the parliamentary struggles as
struggles between parties, are only battles of words.
Programmes, journalistic polemics, tracts, meeting reports,
resolutions, parliamentary debates, decisions nothing but
words. Parliament degenerated into a talking shop (increasingly
as time passed). But from the start parties were only mere
machines for preparing for elections. It was no chance that
they originally were called "electoral associations".

The bourgeoisie, parliamentarism, and political parties
mutually and reciprocally conditioned one another. Each is
necessary for the others. None is conceivable without the
others. They mark the political physiognomy of the bourgeois
system, of the bourgeois-capitalist system.

The revolution of 1848 was still-born. But the democratic
state, the ideal of the bourgeois era was erected. The
bourgeoisie, impotent and faint)hearted by nature provided no
force and displayed no will to realise this ideal in the
struggle. It knuckled under to the crown and the nobility,
contenting itself with the right to exploit the masses
economically and so reducing parliamentarism to a parody.

So resulted the need for the working class to send
representatives to parliament. These then took the democratic
demands out of the perfidious hands of the bourgeoisie. They
carried out energetic propaganda for them. They tried to
inscribe them in legislation. Social)Democracy adopted a
minimum democratic programme to this end: a programme of
immediate and practical demands adapted to the bourgeois
period. Its parliamentary activity was dominated by this
programme. It was also dominated by a concern to gain the
advantages of a legalised field of manoeuvre both for the
working class and its own political activity, through the
construction and perfection of a liberal-bourgeois formal
democracy.

When Wilhelm Liebknecht proposed a refusal to take up
parliamentary seats, it was a matter of failing to recognise
the historical situation. If Social)Democracy wanted to be
effective as a political party, it would have to enter
parliament. There was no other way to act and to develop
politically.

When the syndicalists turned away from parliamentarism and
preached anti)parliamentarism, this did honour to their
appreciation of the growing emptiness and corruption of
parliamentary practice. But in practice, they demanded
something impossible of Social)Democracy: that it take a
position contrary to the historical situation and renounce
itself. It could not take up this view. As a political party it
had to enter parliament.


The KPD has also become a political party, a party in the
historical sense, like the German Social Democratic Party (SPD)
and the Independent Social)Democrats (USPD).

The leaders have the first say. They speak, they promise, they
seduce, they command. The masses, when they are there, find
themselves faced with a fait)accompli. They have to form up in
ranks and march in step. They have to believe, to be silent,
and pay up. They have to receive their orders and carry them
out. And they have to vote.

Their leaders want to enter parliament. They have to elect
them. Then while the masses abide by silent obedience and
devoted passivity, the leaders decide the policy in
parliament.

The KPD has become a political party. It also wants to enter
parliament. It lies when it tells the masses that it only wants
to enter parliament in order to destroy it. It lies when it
states that it does not want to carry out any positive work in
parliament. It will not destroy parliament; it doesn't want to
and it can't. It will do "positive work" in parliament, it is
forced to, it wants to. This is its life.

The KPD has become a parliamentary party like any other; a
party of compromise, opportunism, criticism and verbal jousting
a party that has ceased to be revolutionary.

Consider this:

It entered parliament. It recognised the trade unions. It bowed
before the democratic constitution. It makes peace with the
ruling powers. It places itself on the terrain of real force
relations. It takes part in the work of national and capitalist
reconstruction.

How is it different from the USPD? It criticises instead of
repudiating. It acts as the opposition instead of making the
revolution. It bargains instead of acting. It chatters away
instead of struggling. That is why it had ceased to be a
revolutionary organisation.

It has become a Social)Democratic party. Only a few nuances
distinguish it from the Scheidemanns (SPD) and the Daumigs(USPD). 
This is how it has finished up.

The masses have one consolation there is an opposition. But
this opposition has not broken away from the
counter)revolution. What could it do? What has it done? It has
assembled and united a political organisation. Was this
necessary?

From a revolutionary point of view the most decisive and active
elements, the most mature elements have to form themselves into
a phalanx of the revolution. They can only do this through a
firm and solid foundation. They are the elite of the new
revolutionary proletariat. By the firm character of their
organisation they gain in strength and their judgment develops
a greater profundity. They demonstrate themselves as the
vanguard of the proletariat, as an active will in relation to
hesitant and confused individuals. At decisive moments they
form a magnetic centre of all activity. They are a political
organisation but not a political party, not a party in the
traditional sense.

The title of the Communist Workers Party (KAPD) is the last
external vestige @"@ soon superfluous  of a tradition that can't
be simply wiped away when the living mass ideology of yesterday
no longer has any relevance. But this last vestige will also be
removed.

The organisation of communists in the front line of the
revolution must not be the usual sort of party, on pain of
death, on pain of following the course of the KPD.

The epoch of the foundation of parties is over, because the
epoch of political parties in general is over. The KPD is the
last party. Its bankruptcy is the most shameful, its end is
without dignity or glory. . . .But what comes of the
opposition? of the revolution?

The revolution is not a party affair. The three
social)democratic parties (SPD, USPD, KPD) are so foolish as to
consider the revolution as their own party affair and to
proclaim the victory of the revolution as their party goal. The
revolution is the political and economic affair of the totality
of the proletarian class. Only the proletariat as a class can
lead the revolution to victory. Everything else is
superstition, demagogy and political chicanery. The proletariat
must be conceived of as a class and its activity for the
revolutionary struggle unleashed on the broadest possible basis
and in the most extensive framework.

This is why all proletarians ready for revolutionary combat
must be got together at the workplace in revolutionary factory
organisations, regardless of their political origins or the
basis by which they are recruited. Such groups should be united
in the framework of the General Workers Union (AAU).

The AAU is not indiscriminate, it is not a hotch)potch nor a
chance amalgam. It is a regroupment for all proletarian
elements ready for revolutionary activity, who declare
themselves for class struggle, the council system and the
dictatorship of the proletariat. It is the revolutionary army
of the proletariat.

This General Workers Union is taking root in the factories,
building itself up in branches of industry from the base up 
federally at the base, and through revolutionary shop)stewards
at the top. It exerts pressure from the base up, from the
working masses. It is built according to their needs; it is the
flesh and blood of the proletariat; the force that motivates it
is the action of the masses; its soul is the burning breath of
the revolution. It is not the creation of some leaders, it is
not a subtly altered construction. It is neither a political
party with parliamentary chatter and paid hacks, nor a trade
union. It is the revolutionary proletariat.

So what will the KAPD do?

It will create revolutionary factory organisations. It will
propagate the General Workers Union. Factory by factory,
industry by industry it will organise the revolutionary masses.
They will be prepared for the onslaught, given the power for
decisive combat, until the last resistance offered by
capitalism as it collapses is overcome.

It will inspire the fighting masses with confidence in their
own strength, the guarantee for victory in that confidence will
free them ambitious and traitorous leaders.

From this General Workers Union the communist movement will
emerge, starting in the factories, then spreading itself over
economic regions and finally over the entire country, i.e. a
new communist "party" which is no longer a party, but which is,
for the time communist! The heart and head of the revolution!

We shall show this process in a concrete way:

There are 200 men in a factory. Some of them belong to the AAU
and agitate for it, at first without success. But during the
first struggle the trade unions naturally give in and the old
bonds are broken. Some 100 men have gone over to the AAU.
Amongst them there are 20 communists, the others being from the
USPD, syndicalists and unorganised. At the beginning the USPD
inspires most confidence. Its politics dominate the tactics of
the struggles carried out in the factory. However slowly but
surely, the politics of the USPD are proved false,
non)revolutionary. The confidence that the workers have in the
USPD decreases. The politics of the communists are confirmed.
The 20 communists become 50 then 100 and more. Soon the
communist group politically dominates the whole of the factory,
determining the tactics of the AAU, at the front of the
revolutionary struggle. This is so both at the small scale and
large scale. Communist politics take root from factory to
factory, from economic region to economic region. They are
realised, gaining command becoming both body and head, the
guiding principle.

It is from such communist groups in the factories, from mass
sections of communists in the economic regions that the new
communist movement through the council system will come
into being. As for "revolutionising" the trade unions or
"restructuring" them. How long will that take? A few years? A
few dozen years? Until 1926 perhaps. Anyway, the aim could not
be to wipe out the clay giant of the trade unions with their 7
million members in order to reconstruct them in another form.

The aim is to seize hold of the commanding levers of industry
for the process of social production and so to decisively carry
the day in revolutionary combat, to seize hold of the lever
that will let the air out of the capitalist system in entire
industrial regions and branches.

It is here, in a mature situation, that the resolute action of
a single organisation can completely surpass a general strike
in effectiveness. It is here that the David of the factory can
defeat the Goliath of the union bureaucracy.


The KPD has ceased to be the incarnation of the communist
movement in Germany. Despite its noisy claims about Marx, Lenin
and Radek it only forms the latest member of the
counter)revolutionary united front. Soon it will present itself
as the amiable companion of the SPD and USPD in the framework
of a purely "socialist" workers government. Its assurance of
being a "loyal" opposition to the murderous parties who have
betrayed the workers is the first step. To renounce the
revolutionary extermination of the Eberts and the Kautskys is
already to tacitly ally oneself with them.

Ebert @"@ Kautsky @"@ Levi. The final stage of capitalism reaches
its end, the last political relief of the German bourgeoisie the end.

The end also of parties, the politics of the parties, the
deceit and treachery of the parties.

It is a new beginning for the communist movement the
communist workers party, the revolutionary factory
organisations regrouped in the General Workers Union, the
revolutionary councils, the congress of revolutionary councils,
the government of the revolutionary councils, the communist
dictatorship of the councils.

