Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

698 DER FUEHRERof world revolution and the desire for national security still re-mainedundecided. The Executive Committee of the Third International sittingin Moscow seriously proclaimed in its 'Theses' of December, 1933, thatin all the countries with which Russia had recently concluded treatiesand alliances revolution was imminent; this revolution, as the 'Theses'stated explicitly, would be led and inspired by Soviet Russia. In theFascist countries — this was said in full earnest — the chief enemy wasnot fascism, but still Social Democracy. This remarkable documentdeclared that 'the revolutionary crisis and the indignation of largemasses against the domination of capital is growing . . . that as a result,the capitalists are compelled to pass to open terrorist dictatorship and tounrestrained chauvinism in their foreign policy, which is a directpreparation for imperialist wars. In fascism, which has grown out of thewomb of bourgeois democracy, the capitalists see a means of savingtheir system from collapse. Social Democracy continues to play the partof the chief social support of the bourgeoisie, even in countries underopen Fascist dictatorship, by fighting against the revolutionary unity ofthe proletariat and the Soviet Union. . . .' For that reason, the struggleagainst Social Democracy remained the chief task of the Communistseven under the rule of fascism: 'How soon the rule of bankruptcapitalism will be overthrown by the proletariat depends on the successof the Communist parties in undermining the influence of the SocialDemocracy upon the masses.' Everywhere the Committee discoveredthe handwriting on the wall: 'In China — war, intervention, andrevolution. In Japan — growth of the revolutionary forces andmobilization of the military-Fascist forces preliminary to great classconflicts. In Spain — the struggle between the revolution and thecounter-revolution. In the United States — a wave of mass strikes and arevolt of farmers against the bourgeois program for solving the crisis. Inpresent-day Germany the revolutionary sentiment of the proletariat isassuming less open forms; there an immense revolutionary energy isaccumulating in the masses, and the new revolutionary upsurge isalready beginning. ...' And so on. The Committee found 'an uncommonsharpening of class relations in Czechoslovakia, Austria, Scandinavia,Holland, Belgium, Switzerland'; it found 'mass strikes of workers