The Communist Workers' Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Arbeiter-Partei Deutschlands; KAPD) was an anti-parliamentarian and
left communist
Left communism, or the communist left, is a position held by the left wing of communism, which criticises the political ideas and practices espoused by Marxist–Leninists and social democrats. Left communists assert positions which they rega ...
party that was active in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
during the time of the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...
. It was founded in April 1920 in
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
as a split from the
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West German ...
(KPD). Originally the party remained a "sympathising member of
Communist International
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...
." In 1922 the KAPD split into two factions, both of whom kept the name but are referred to as the KAPD Essen Faction and the KAPD Berlin Faction.
The KAPD Essen Faction was linked to the
Communist Workers International.
The
Entschiedene Linke
The Entschiedene Linke (Determined Left) was communist political current formed by Karl Korsch and Ernst Schwarz in 1926. It initially attracted 7,000 members.Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany.
Saskia Esken has been the ...
(SPD), calling itself the
International Socialists of Germany
International Socialists of Germany (german: Internazionale Sozialisten Deutschlands; ISD) was the name of a political party, formed in September 1915, which split from the Social Democratic Party of Germany, following the latter's decision to sup ...
(ISD). The ISD consisted of elements which were to the left of the
Spartacus League
The Spartacus League (German: ''Spartakusbund'') was a Marxism, Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during World War I. It was founded in August 1914 as the "International Group" by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, ...
of
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg (; ; pl, Róża Luksemburg or ; 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary socialist, Marxist philosopher and anti-war activist. Successively, she was a member of the Proletariat party, ...
and
Karl Liebknecht
Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht (; 13 August 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a German socialist and anti-militarist. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) beginning in 1900, he was one of its deputies in the Reichstag from ...
. The Spartacists and the ISD entered the
Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, USPD) was a short-lived political party in Germany during the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. The organization was establish ...
(USPD), the
centrist
Centrism is a political outlook or position involving acceptance or support of a balance of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy while opposing political changes that would result in a significant shift of society strongly to the l ...
split from SPD, in 1915 as an autonomous tendency within the party. The left-wing of the USPD, consisting of Spartacists and ultra-left council communists went on to form the
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West German ...
(KPD) in 1918. In 1920, the ultra-lefts of this party, mainly consisting of
council communist
Council communism is a current of communist thought that emerged in the 1920s. Inspired by the November Revolution, council communism was opposed to state socialism and advocated workers' councils and council democracy. Strong in Germany a ...
members whose origins lay in the ISD, split from it to form the KAPD.
Founding Conference, 4-5 April, 1920 Berlin
The KAPD was formed on 4 April 1920 by members of the left wing of the KPD who had been excluded at the Heidelberg Party Conference of the KPD (20–23 October 1919) by the central leadership under
Paul Levi
Paul Levi (11 March 1883 – 9 February 1930) was a German communist and social democratic political leader. He was the head of the Communist Party of Germany following the assassination of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in 1919. After being ...
. Their main goal was an immediate abolition of bourgeois democracy and the constitution of a
dictatorship of the proletariat
In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat holds state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, whereby the ...
, although they decided against a one-party dictatorship in the Russian model. The KAPD especially rejected the Leninist form of organisation along with
democratic centralism
Democratic centralism is a practice in which political decisions reached by voting processes are binding upon all members of the political party. It is mainly associated with Leninism, wherein the party's political vanguard of professional revo ...
, participation in elections, and activism within reformist trade unions, unlike the KPD. The Dutch communist theoreticians
Anton Pannekoek
Antonie “Anton” Pannekoek (; 2 January 1873 – 28 April 1960) was a Dutch astronomer, philosopher, Marxist theorist, and socialist revolutionary. He was one of the main theorists of council communism (Dutch: ''radencommunisme'').
Biograph ...
and
Herman Gorter
Herman Gorter (26 November 1864, Wormerveer – 15 September 1927, Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, Brussels) was a Dutch poet and socialist. He was a leading member of the Tachtigers, a highly influential group of Dutch writers who worked together in Am ...
played an important role within the KAPD; they had, on the model of the KAPD, formed the
Communist Workers' Party of the Netherlands
The Communist Workers' Party of the Netherlands ( nl, Kommunistische Arbeiders-Partij Nederland) was a council communist party in the Netherlands. It was founded in September 1921, and was modelled after the Communist Workers' Party of Germany. I ...
(KAPN), which however never attained a similar status to that of the KAPD.
The conference was attended by 11 delegates from Berlin with 24 from further afield, who together represented about 38,000 members.
The origins of the KAPD's establishment lay in the
Kapp Putsch
The Kapp Putsch (), also known as the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch (), was an attempted coup against the German national government in Berlin on 13 March 1920. Named after its leaders Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz, its goal was to undo the ...
. In the view of KPD's left wing, this event had shown that the behaviour of the KPD party leadership was synonymous with giving up the revolutionary fight, as the KPD's position on the general strike had changed several times, and in the
Bielefeld Agreement The Bielefeld Agreement was an agreement during the Ruhr uprising of 1920 between the representatives of the Ruhr Red Army and the German government.
Background
At the height of the conflict in the Ruhr, which had started due to the Kapp Putsch, ...
of 24 March 1920 the KPD had consented to the disarmament of the
Ruhr Red Army
The Ruhr Red Army (13 March – 12 April 1920) was an army of between 50,000 and 80,000 left-wing workers who conducted what was known as the Ruhr Uprising (''Ruhraufstand''), in the Weimar Republic. It was the largest armed workers' uprising in ...
. The Berlin district group on 3 April 1920 called a congress of the left wing. There it was decided to form the KAPD. The delegates, according to estimates, represented 80,000 KPD members. The newly formed party advocated the ending of parliamentary activities, and the active fight against the bourgeois state. In the coming period it worked closely with the
General Workers' Union of Germany
The General Workers' Union of Germany (german: Allgemeine Arbeiter-Union Deutschlands; AAUD) was a factory organisation formed following the German Revolution of 1918–1919 in opposition to the traditional trade unions.
The AAUD was formed by th ...
(AAUD). The main bastions of the party were in Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen and East Saxony, all places in which a large part of KPD members switched allegiance to the new party.
First Ordinary Party Congress, 1-4 August 1920
The Congress was held in the ''Zum Prälaten'' restaurant, Berlin. In August 1920, the founding members of the Hamburg branch were expelled,
Heinrich Laufenberg
Heinrich Laufenberg (19 January 1872 – 3 February 1932) was a leading German communist and one of the first to develop the idea of National Bolshevism. Laufenberg was a history academic by profession and was also known by the pseudonym Karl Erle ...
and
Fritz Wolffheim
Fritz Wolffheim (30 October 1888 – 17 March 1942) was a German communist politician and writer. He was a leading figure in the National Bolshevism tendency that was briefly influential in Germany after World War I.
Early life
Wolffheim, who ca ...
, who had advocated
National Bolshevist ideas. Two months later another founding member,
Otto Rühle
Karl Heinrich Otto Rühle (23 October 1874 – 24 June 1943) was a German Marxist active in opposition to both the First and Second World Wars as well as a council communist theorist.
Early years
Otto was born in Großschirma, Saxony on 23 Octo ...
, was expelled. From 1920 to 1921 the KAPD was a coopted member of the
Third International
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...
.
In 1921 the KAPD cooperated again with the KPD during the
March Action
The March Action (German "März Aktion" or "Märzkämpfe in Mitteldeutschland," i.e. "The March battles in Central Germany") was a 1921 failed Communist uprising, led by the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), the Communist Workers' Party of Germa ...
. This was triggered by Weimar Republic troops marching into the industrial region of Central Germany, and the KAPD and KPD's fear that the military intended to occupy the factories.
In 1921 a further fragmentation occurred, when parts of the AAUD around Rühle, Franz Pfemfert and Oskar Kanehl broke off from the KAPD and formed the AAUE.
After 1921, when the KAPD still had over 43,000 members, the party's influence declined more and more, and it separated in 1922 into the Berlin Tendency and the Essen Tendency around
Alexander Schwab
Alexander Schwab (5 July 1887 – 12 November 1943) was a German political activist. He withdrew from active participation in politics after resigning from the fractious and short-lived Communist Workers' Party (''"Kommunistische Arbeiter-Partei ...
,
Arthur Goldstein
Arthur Goldstein (18 March 1887 in Lipine, German Empire – 1943 in Auschwitz, German-occupied Poland) was a German Jewish journalist and communist politician.
Life
Goldstein joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1914, and ...
,
Bernhard Reichenbach
Bernhard Reichenbach (Berlin, 1888 – London, 1975) was a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. He was a member of the Communist Workers' Party of Germany and acted as their delegate to the Third Congress of the Third ...
and
Karl Schröder. The main reason was the Essen Faction's rejection of participation in workers' struggles in factories, in a situation seen as revolutionary. The Essen Tendency founded the
Communist Workers' International
The Communist Workers' International (german: Kommunistische Arbeiter-Internationale, KAI) or Fourth Communist International was a council communist international. It was founded around the ''Manifesto of the Fourth Communist International'', pu ...
, but dissolved in 1927. The Berlin Tendency was the larger and more enduring group, surviving until 1933, when it merged into the
Communist Workers' Union.
Affiliated ''unionen''
The AAUD, which was formed as factory organisations in opposition to the traditional trade unions, affiliated with the KAPD. The AAUD was formed by the German leftists who considered organising based on trades as being an outmoded form of organisation and instead advocated organising workers based on factories, thus forming the AAUD. The factory organisations in the AAUD consisted the basis for organising
workers' councils
A workers' council or labor council is a form of political and economic organization in which a workplace or municipality is governed by a council made up of workers or their elected delegates. The workers within each council decide on what thei ...
.
A section led by
Otto Rühle
Karl Heinrich Otto Rühle (23 October 1874 – 24 June 1943) was a German Marxist active in opposition to both the First and Second World Wars as well as a council communist theorist.
Early years
Otto was born in Großschirma, Saxony on 23 Octo ...
, based in
Essen
Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...
, split from the AAUD, forming the
General Workers' Union of Germany – Unitary Organization (AAUD-E).
Kommunistische Arbeiter Jugend
The youth wing of the party was the Kommunistische Arbeiter Jugend (KAJ) or Communist Workers Youth. They published a "struggle-organ", ''Rote Jugend'', or Red Youth.
Relations with the Comintern
The delegates of the KAPD to the
2nd World Congress of the Comintern
The 2nd World Congress of the Communist International was a gathering of approximately 220 voting and non-voting representatives of Communist and revolutionary socialist political parties from around the world, held in Petrograd and Moscow from J ...
were scorned and their speeches were restricted to a mere ten minutes. This was following the publication of Lenin's ''
Left Wing Communism
Left may refer to:
Music
* ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006
* ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016
* "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996
Direction
* Left (direction), the relative direction opposite of right
* L ...
'', which was written as a critique of the left-wing ideas of the KAPD, among other parties, the KAPN and related leftist parties. ''Theses on the Role of the Communist Party in the Proletarian Revolution'', adopted by the 2nd World Congress also explicitly criticize KAPD for their position about the role of the Communist Party. Following the exclusionary attitude shown towards them by the Comintern, the KAPD broke with the International in 1921. Historian E.H. Carr has argued that the 2nd World Congress — to some extent unintentionally and unconsciously — was the first to "establish Russian leadership of Comintern on an impregnable basis."
Relations with the (Italian) Communist Left
Although German left-communists from KAPD are often understood as same opposition towards the Comintern as Italian Communist Left from then
Communist Party of Italy
The Italian Communist Party ( it, Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) was a communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current ...
, PCd'I, a tendency also known as Sinistra Comunista, nowadays represented by
International Communist Party
The International Communist Party (ICP) is a left communist international political party which is often described as Bordigist due to the contributions by longtime member Amadeo Bordiga, although the adherents of the party don't define themselv ...
, between these two ''lefts'' were fundamental political divergencies - party role, trade unions, class and party, anti-parliamentarism in principle, - Sinistra held same criticism towards KAPD as the Comintern on 2nd World Congress and these divergencies were not patched up with progressive stalinization of the Comintern. Amadeo Bordiga, leader of Sinistra in that time, who met members of KAPD in person in Berlin on his route to Moscow, was in a later letter to Karl Korsch from 1926 even sceptical of possilibity of join activity between the two ''lefts'' because of fundamental political divergencies and stated: ''(...) We agree with Lenin's theses at the 2nd Congress. (...)''.
Newspapers and journals related to the KAPD
The party published a paper, ''Kommunistische Arbeiter-Zeitung''. It also published a monthly theoretical magazine, ''
Der Proletarier'', between 1920 and 1927.
Prominent members of the KAPD
*
Jan Appel
Jan Appel (pseudonyms: ''Max Hempel'', ''Jan Arndt'', ''Jan Voß''; 22 August 1890, Mecklenburg4 May 1985, Maastricht) was a German revolutionary who participated in the German Revolution of 1918. He became a prominent Left Communist activist ...
*
Adolf Dethmann
Adolf Dethmann (born 3 December 1896, Neumünster; died 6 August 1979, Hamburg) was a German engineer, social scientist and communist activist and industrial manager.
Adolf Dethmann was a son of Hans Peter Adolf Dethmann (born 20 February 1865 in ...
*
Arthur Goldstein
Arthur Goldstein (18 March 1887 in Lipine, German Empire – 1943 in Auschwitz, German-occupied Poland) was a German Jewish journalist and communist politician.
Life
Goldstein joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1914, and ...
*
Herman Gorter
Herman Gorter (26 November 1864, Wormerveer – 15 September 1927, Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, Brussels) was a Dutch poet and socialist. He was a leading member of the Tachtigers, a highly influential group of Dutch writers who worked together in Am ...
Harry Dyck(1895–1920)
(1899–1920)
*
Antonie Pannekoek
Antonie “Anton” Pannekoek (; 2 January 1873 – 28 April 1960) was a Dutch astronomer, philosopher, Marxist theory, Marxist theorist, and socialist revolutionary. He was one of the main theorists of council communism (Dutch: ''radencommunisme ...
*
Franz Jung
Franz Josef Johannes Konrad Jung (26 November 1888, Neisse, Upper Silesia – 21 January 1963, Stuttgart) was a writer, economist and political activist in Germany. He also wrote under the names Franz Larsz and Frank Ryberg.
He grew up in Neisse ...
*
Karl Korsch
Karl Korsch (; August 15, 1886 – October 21, 1961) was a German Marxist theoretician and political philosopher. Along with György Lukács, Korsch is considered to be one of the major figures responsible for laying the groundwork for Western ...
*
Heinrich Laufenberg
Heinrich Laufenberg (19 January 1872 – 3 February 1932) was a leading German communist and one of the first to develop the idea of National Bolshevism. Laufenberg was a history academic by profession and was also known by the pseudonym Karl Erle ...
*
Paul Mattick
Paul Mattick Sr. (March 13, 1904 – February 7, 1981) was a German-American Marxist political writer and social revolutionary, whose thought can be placed within the council communist and left communist traditions.
Throughout his life, Mattick ...
(1904–1981)
*
Franz Pfemfert
Franz Pfemfert (20 November 1879, Lötzen, East Prussia (now Giżycko, Poland) – 26 May 1954, Mexico City) was a German journalist, editor of ''Die Aktion'', literary critic, politician and portrait photographer. Pfemfert occasionally wrote u ...
*
Bernhard Reichenbach
Bernhard Reichenbach (Berlin, 1888 – London, 1975) was a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. He was a member of the Communist Workers' Party of Germany and acted as their delegate to the Third Congress of the Third ...
*
Otto Rühle
Karl Heinrich Otto Rühle (23 October 1874 – 24 June 1943) was a German Marxist active in opposition to both the First and Second World Wars as well as a council communist theorist.
Early years
Otto was born in Großschirma, Saxony on 23 Octo ...
(1874–1943)
*
Adam Scharrer
*
Karl Schröder (1884–1950), (
Essen
Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...
Tendency)
*
Ernst Schwarz
*
Fritz Wolffheim
Fritz Wolffheim (30 October 1888 – 17 March 1942) was a German communist politician and writer. He was a leading figure in the National Bolshevism tendency that was briefly influential in Germany after World War I.
Early life
Wolffheim, who ca ...
See also
*
Council communism
Council communism is a current of communist thought that emerged in the 1920s. Inspired by the November Revolution, council communism was opposed to state socialism and advocated workers' councils and council democracy. Strong in Germany a ...
*
Left communism
Left communism, or the communist left, is a position held by the left wing of communism, which criticises the political ideas and practices espoused by Marxist–Leninists and social democrats. Left communists assert positions which they rega ...
*
Communist Workers Party of Bulgaria
Communist Workers' Party of Bulgaria was a council communism, council communist party in the Kingdom of Bulgaria. It was founded in September 1921, and was modelled after the Communist Workers' Party of Germany. It was founded at a conference in th ...
*
Communist Workers' Party of the Netherlands
The Communist Workers' Party of the Netherlands ( nl, Kommunistische Arbeiders-Partij Nederland) was a council communist party in the Netherlands. It was founded in September 1921, and was modelled after the Communist Workers' Party of Germany. I ...
References
External links
Programme of the Communist Workers Party of Germany (KAPD), May 1920Libertarian Communist Library KAPD archive
{{Authority control
1920 establishments in Germany
1933 disestablishments in Germany
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
Council communism
Defunct communist parties in Germany
Left communist organizations
Political parties disestablished in 1933
Political parties established in 1920
Political parties in the Weimar Republic
Revolutions of 1917–1923