Stalin and German Communism : A Study in the Origins of the State Party

Through her long involvement in the German Communist party, Ruth Fischer amassed valuable material on its changing fortunes, the transformation of the Bolshevik party into a totalitarian dictatorship, and the degeneration of the Comintern. Drawing on this material and on her own vivid recollections, Fischer reconstructs the history of the German Communist party from 1918 to 1929. First published in 1948, this fundamental work opened up the study of the inner organizational life of a major revolutionary movement. In his introduction to the Social Science Classics edition, John Leggett reviews and summarizes the social, political, and economic issues and events that precipitated the revolution and those factors that contributed to its failure. Stalin and German Communism 1 Frontmatter 1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 5 PREFACE 7 CONTENTS 17 MAPS 23 1. Resistance to the First World War 25 2. Brest-Litovsk 50 3. Germany 1918 74 4. Years of Civil War 1919-1920 110 5. The Kapp-Lltwitz Putsch 139 6. The Road to the New Economic Policy 170 7. The United Communist Party 193 8. The Reparations Crisis 209 9. Karl Radek 221 10. Communist Convention at Leipzig 239 11. Struggle for Succession in the Russian Party 253 12. Occupation of the Ruhr 272 13. The Schlageter Policy 287 14. The Cuno Strike 309 15. Preparation for the Uprising 323 16. Dresden Hamburg Munich 347 17. Effects of the German Defeat on the Russian Party 366 组合 3 403 18. Left Communism and the Dawes Plan 403 19. The Hindenburg Election 428 20. Stalins Intervention in German Communist Affairs 448 21. Russias Foreign Policy versus the Comintern 472 22. Socialism in One Country 487 23. Stalinization of the German Party 513 24. The Reichswehr and the Red Army 529 25. Trotsky and Zinoviev Form a Bloc 551 26. The Defeat of the Bloc 587 27. Agit-Prop Agitation and Propaganda 620 28. Summary and Conclusion 641 Index 689