11
they had no voice in it, that the "Freiheit" was not the central organ of the party for which the party as a whole could be held responsible; that it was the organ of "your" Berlin Left organisation. "If the Berliners could not create such a press as would satisfy you, this is not their (Crispien's, etc.) fault, but that of the Berliners."
The hypocrisy underlying their arguments is seen from the following: The Berlin organisation had an overwhelming majority for the Lefts; the Berlin organisation, according to all the rules of the constitution, expressed lack of confidence in Hilferding, and demanded a change of editorship. But Hilferding. "the democrat," and his followers the famous and ardent supporters of "government by the people," completely ignored the decision of the Berlin organisation. They did what Scheidemann did in 1915 with regard to the "Vorwarts." They stole the paper from the Berlin workers, making use of the bourgeois courts and police, which of course backed the Rights against the Left.
However, in spite of all the subterfuges of the Right Wing, in spite of the campaign of calumny in the press, and the short space oi time which the Lefts had at their disposal to enlighten the workers, our side secured the majority. If under such conditions the Communist elements, i.e. the Left Independents, secured a two-thirds majority at the congress, it is obvious that among the rank and file of the party, among the workers, the Lefts could have no less than nine-tenths on their side. The next few weeks or months will prove this.
We are on the field of battle. The audience in the hall is divided in two sections: it is as if a knife has cut them sharply in two. Two parties are present. The relations between the Rights and Lefts have become very strained during the pre-congress deliberations, and at the congress itself we had to deal with bitter enemies. There were two chairmen presiding over the meeting—the representative of the Left, Brass, a worker, and the representative of the Right, no other than Dittmann; that very same Dittmann who had appeared as a sordid calumniator of Soviet Russia, and had been honoured by the notorious Anti-Bolshevik League, which reprinted in Its press his Insinuations against Russia.
