of workers, I have been connected with the Leningrad workers for twenty years. But if I had attempted to apply compulsion do you think they would have carried out the great cause merely for the sake of our beautiful eyes? This is not an accident, one must know how to compromise. You have possession of the newspapers and the whole apparatus. Why have you not won in Berlin and Hamburg? Moreover, you over-estimate the role of individuals in history.
(Radek: Quite right.)
(Pieck: You are always relying on persons in Germany.)
Never. Certainly with regard to the policy in October, we believed that Brandler personified this best. We asked ourselves: Who will do this? And we said Brandler. We do not think that Brandler will never do anything any more. We believe that he will do much good. We know perfectly well that we must suffer twenty defeats before we achieve one victory. World history is so badly arranged. We say you have made great mistakes with us: we, too, have made mistakes.
(Brandler: I have made mistakes, but not those you refer to.)
What you said yesterday about the masses understanding the united front tactics as evolutionary tactics indicates your deviations.
(Brandler: Are there any tactics that have not their dangers and deviations?)
Do you know what Lenin once wrote? "The leader is responsible not for what he does, but what the masses do under his leadership." When, after two years, we come and say that the masses think in a certain way, it is proof that there is something rotten in the leadership.
The conclusion to be drawn is that we must have a change in the leadership. Under no circumstances do we wish to undertake a crusade against the so-called Right. To speak of the Kag spirit is an exaggeration. Exaggeration is the greatest enemy of Comrade Ruth Fischer. We must stand on the exact truth, and exaggeration is untrue. The Kag crisis, I must say, gives one to think. After having read all your letters, after having discussed the thing for days, these people come to you with petitions: "How can we on the Central Committee discuss the question of whether we can surrender the Party, or not?" That was the opinion also of Comrade Radek.
(Radek: Until to-day.)
But the Central Committee for weeks discussed the question of surrendering the Party. Until this very day, Radek has the impression that there are Right Wing tendencies in the Party. And now when I read to you the draft resolution of the Russian Party, you ask where are the Right tendencies? Is it Brandler, Pieck? Why do you mention these names? The tendencies do exist; it is a fact.
( 50 )
