of the speeches of these ministers. Of course, the most important is, why the masses did not rise, but the conduct of the ministers implied something. It implied an incorrect orientation.
Comrade Fischer undoubtedly exaggerated yesterday when she said that Brandler was playing a deliberate game. One of the greatest defects of Comrade Fischer's otherwise good speeches, is that she exaggerates. Things are reduced to a caricature. This generally is the chief defect of the left wing, and we have frequently said this to our bolshevik left. It is impossible that Brandler should have acted so deliberately.
(Walcher: It was her only argument.)
But she put forward many good arguments with which we must agree. The reason why we pay so much attention to the speeches of the Communist ministers was that they were the reflection of an incorrect policy. That is why things were reduced to a banal hotch-potch with the Social-Democracy.
We wrongly estimated the situation. We could not arm sixty, let alone 60,000. It turned out that the situation had been over-estimated. But why were we obliged to come out like Social-Democrats? Why should we have talked about the constitutionalness of our position? Why was it made to appear that we alone were responsible for the Landtag? This is old-fashioned and, at best, a Bebelist position of the '90's. Bebel in his best period said this. At that time it was right. Now, however, we must appeal to the direct revolutionary forces of the workers, and must say that the Left Social-Democracy is the principal enemy; the Left goes with the Right, with Seckt, Seckt with Ludendorf. But we must never say we stand on the basis of the constitution.
Therefore, the carrying out of the tasks was extraordinarily bad, and threatened greater dangers for our Party than anybody imagined. That is why we unanimously decided to send the critical letter to the German Central Committee. This, too, must not be forgotten. I do not wish to shift the responsibility upon other comrades. I wrote the letter. But it was not my personal letter, as has been stated in Germany. Yes, it is one of the notorious letters. A commission was appointed which included both Comrades Kolarov and Zetkin, who made certain amendments, most of which I accepted.
(Zetkin: I beg to observe that the letters were written before we had received full information—before we received any information.)
Of course, we were not as well informed as we are now. I am prepared to say that in certain details my decision now is different to what it was before, but in the main we were right. If we can defend what has happened in Germany—in Saxony, we should join the Second International. We do not need elastic formulas, but we must express the facts. We have already expressed much in the theses of the present majority on the Central Committee.
The attitude towards the Social-Democracy as a whole. It
( 39 )
