Politics of the past: the use and abuse of history - Socialists ...

the KPD – even now – is not about peace or property but about
democracy. The KPD has always opposed the Weimar democracy,
which was essentially based on social democratic ideas. The strong
stand against Bolshevism in German social democracy, which
counted distinguished Menshevik émigrés from Russia among its
members, is understandable in this context.
rom the early 1920s, German social democracy faced the danger
of Fascism in Italy and, soon after, the danger of National Socialism
in its own country. Many social democratic views were certainly
variations on very simple Marxist interpretations. However, social
democrats also produced some very clear exposés of National Socialism.
Also, the Social Democratic Party certainly opposed National
Socialism as no other democratic party did in the final phase
of the Weimar Republic – although there has been some discussion
in this connection as to whether it showed sufficient determination.
The double stand found expression in social democratic positions
which can be described as early forms of totalitarianism theory.
Prominent German social democrats not only spoke out strongly
against totalitarianism on both right and left but also emphasised
that they had much in common. As the important theorist, Karl Kautsky,
put it: ‘Fascism is nothing but a counterpart of Bolshevism,
Mussolini is simply aping Lenin’ (1930). At the party conference in
Leipzig in 1931, Otto Wels described Bolshevism and Fascism as
brothers and Rudolf Breitscheid explained in a key speech that in
the Fascist and communist systems – unlike democracy – supreme
power was vested in the state and the right to determine political
opinion did not rest with all citizens but with certain individuals or
with a privileged minority: ‘As regards the effect on constitutional
law’, Breitscheid explained, ‘there is no difference between Moscow
and Rome’.
The social democrats were aware that the Mensheviks were being
persecuted in Russia and the socialists in Italy, and they duly
protested. After the National Socialists took over, they became the
preferred target of National Socialist persecution in Germany – next
to the communists, oddly enough (both were regarded as ‘Marxists’).
Social democrats fled abroad, small groups put up some
resistance, most party members just tried to survive and keep in
115 Bernd Faulenbach