23 October 1924
Daily newspaper of the KPD Hamburg
HAMBURG FORWARD!
When, last October, the class-conscious proletariat of Hamburg took up arms and kept its vow for the revolution and for the liberation of the oppressed and exploited class, the entire revolutionary world sat up and took notice. Proletarian fists throughout Germany clenched their rifles tighter and waited impatiently for the moment to follow the example of the Hamburg barricade fighters and start armed confrontations with the class enemy.
The vanguard of the German revolution in Hamburg fought alone. The labour movement of all countries honours the heroic struggle as a beacon, as a shining sign of unbroken revolutionary spirit and as a strong declaration of the power and class consciousness of the Hamburg worker. With his strong arm, he courageously intervened to master the criminal chaos of bourgeois society: to end the hunger, unemployment and inflationary fraud of the desperate masses; to end dull misery and dull resignation to their fate. Hamburg alone to the saving act, to courage and sacrifice, coupled with discipline and loyalty to the leaders, whose qualities will always be tested in battle. The Communist International looks with pride on the deeds accomplished by the Hamburg proletariat.
The barricade fighters of Hamburg have been given their place of honour in the history of the labour movement. The soldiers of the revolution, who were insulted as 'ordinary hooligans' by the 'Hamburger Echo' [a Social Democratic inflammatory newspaper in Hamburg], join the Bolsheviks of 1905, the Communards of 187 1, as well as the March fighters of 1921, and the old Spartacus and USP workers who in 1918 and 1919 wanted to turn a bourgeois revolution into a social revolution.
The blood sacrifices of the previous year have been no more in vain and useless for the revolutionary movement than the sacrifices of earlier struggles.
No sacrifice that brings the proletarian class closer to its rise and liberation is in vain.
Marx taught the workers this. Lenin also emphasised this again and again.
The proletarian revolution will assert its victory after a hard struggle, after a series of ups and downs of successes and defeats. But every defeat – even if it temporarily weakens the revolutionary proletariat – lays the foundation for new lessons and experiences, becomes the starting point for new revolutionary forces, which, purified and steeled, will take up the fight against a capitalist system of murder and impoverishment, which is doomed by history, once more and will finally win.
The proletariat makes hard sacrifices. The road to revolution is thorny and arduous, causing some to despair and tire. But the oppressed class is welded together under the ruthless blows of the exploitative and parasitic caste. Dungeon and death do not frighten the revolutionary if he is imbued with his mission to give his all in the service of the revolution. Just as the Russian proletariat learned from its defeats and blood sacrifices for its later victories, so too will the Hamburg October struggle become the cornerstone for the German proletariat for the great work of liberation that fills us all with glowing hearts.
It is true that the class-conscious part of Hamburg's working class was alone in the struggle of 1923. The workers in the area around the Elbe were still hesitant to intervene actively, although sympathy was with the barricade fighters, despite the influence and shameful betrayal of the workers by the Social Democratic leaders, which was newly confirmed in these very days. The rest of the workers in Germany were held back from providing active support at this decisive hour due to their ignorance and incompetence. The Social Democratic cry-babies, who at that time offered the Black-Red-White People's Party an alliance of arms against the revolutionary vanguard, the Sollmanns and Radbruchs who followed in Noske's footsteps and surrendered the Saxon and Thuringian workers to the sword of the military dictatorship, croak 'coup' and 'Moscow bloodbath'. The social-democratic corruption heroes are trying to besmirch revolutionary idealism with the squalor of their own thoughts, which are directed at sinecures and feeding troughs. The social-democratic leaders are thereby proving that they are separated from the class-conscious workers, who are aglow with the ideals of Karl Marx, by an abyss-deep, unbridgeable gulf. The SPD is a bourgeois party in which well-fed renegades maintain the leadership.
The red banner of the class struggle is held by the KPD. Under its banners, the proletariat will fight and win.
The October retreat could not discourage the fighters who were directly involved, nor the proletarian masses who sympathised with them. The bourgeoisie and their state apparatus took revenge on the sign of the will of the Hamburg proletariat. In Germany, a period of widespread terror began, with the participation of Social-Democratic 'assessors' and other accomplices of the class justice system. Prison sentences and terror verdicts rained down on the Communists. But the idea of communism is too deeply rooted in the masses for the Communists to be torn away from the masses. Arbitrary use of exception, persecution, defamation are used to try to break the ranks of the class struggle, to confuse them, to eradicate the revolutionary will, in order to start the criminal game of unrestrained plundering and new impoverishment of the working classes all over again. Welfare, advancement, peace – beautiful, shimmering soap bubbles are let rise. The proletariat is supposed to believe this swindle in order to maintain 'peace and order', to keep still when the plunderers of the people help their American clients fill their pockets.
Does the enlightened Hamburg proletariat, which set such an outstanding example of revolutionary duty to the masses last year, intend to stand idly by and watch how the bourgeois and social-democratic deceivers of the people succeed in misleading the working classes and stabilising their misery? Propaganda work and influence, organisational recruitment and tireless collection of proletarians is also a piece of revolution, is revolutionary detail work, which is the prerequisite for great decisive successes. A convinced communist still does his duty today by stirring up the vote, by bringing the broad masses to the KPD, in order to stand his ground with the same zeal at the barricades tomorrow, when necessary.
By recognising the revolutionary necessities in the respective situation, the communist distinguishes himself from the indifferent worker.
Once again, after a year, the revolutionary proletariat of Hamburg is to prove its maturity of understanding. The election day of bourgeois democracy must become a powerful counter-demonstration of the enlightened working class that is already marching with us.
Every vote for communism is a confession of the proletarian dictatorship, a show of solidarity for last year's October struggles.
The party comrades must prove themselves worthy of the spirit of the October fighters. The mobilisation of all forces is necessary to show the enemies of the working class:
We Hamburg proletarians stand unbowed.
The KPD Hamburg is marching at the forefront of the working class.
Hamburg ahead!
