Comrade Leonie Kascher and the Communist International
#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!
#COMRADE LEONIE KASCHER AND THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL
#Red Star
#August 2019
There is but one goal — the conquest of power.1
In March of 1919, around 100 years ago, the Third International was founded in Moscow. Switzerland was represented by two factions: Through the Communist Party of Switzerland, the so-called «Old Communists», represented through Leonie Kascher; and through the Social-Democratic Party of Switzerland, represented through Fritz Platten. As a Jew, migrant, woman, and proletarian, Leonie Kascher herself was affected by gross oppression. In Poland, she was not allowed to study due to anti-Semitic and sexist limitations. Before her immigration to Switzerland, she was already active in the revolutionary Socialist movement in Poland. She came to Switzerland in 1913, and in order to study, she also worked in a factory. She became politically active fast — as a Socialist, she fought for the independence of Poland and even volunteered for the liberation struggle — but quickly returned to Zurich, severely disappointed by the Polish liberation movement. «On the spot, I was soon convinced that this war was, on the part of Poland, not being fought for the working class and socialism»,2 she recalled. The Social-Democratic Parties of Europe at this time supported the participation by their countries in the 1st World War. Against this, the comrade supported and united with the Zimmerwald Left, which arose in the Bernese village of Zimmerwald in 1916 at a conference of the anti-imperialist Left wing, which positioned itself against the imperialist war and against the ruling line of the Social-Democratic Parties.
Then, she was first active inside of the Social-Democratic Party of Switzerland. To this, she said: «In the factory, I got used to the environment of the workers, of the labour movement, fast, I participated in a strike, entered the trade union, and, later — in the summer of 1916 — the Swiss Social-Democratic Party. It was clear to me that the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat is the real way to its liberation.» «Under the permanent leadership of Vladimir Il'ic [Lenin] and with his tireless and patient aid to the members of the Swiss Party, especially the youth, we waged a permanent, principled struggle against the opportunist tendencies in the Party, and we worked in the midst of the masses.»2
Later, the Forderung [Demand] group arose, a revolutionary youth group in Zurich. Following the November Revolution in Russia in 1917, a mass uprising in Zurich followed, the November Uprising, in which this group participated on the front line. Comrade Kascher distributed leaflets, in which the soldiers were encouraged to turn around the guns. For this, she was imprisoned for weeks because of calling for mutiny. After she was free again — and more comrades still sat in the dungeons — she drafted the fundamental document of the Communist Party of Switzerland — the so-called «Old Communists». «The will to fight is of course the first condition for this new form of struggle to flourish»,3 she wrote, and this form of struggle was the «councils of workers' and soldiers' deputies».3 The councils of soldiers' deputies at this time served the goal of conquering political power militarily, whereas the councils of workers' deputies represented the masses. Shortly thereafter, she was condemned to prison, after which she — as a foreigner — was commanded to leave Switzerland by the Federal Council. She was deported to Moscow — right on time to participate in the Founding Congress of the Communist International.
At the Founding Congress of the Communist International, Leonie Kascher showed both the opportunist line of the Swiss Social-Democratic Party as well as the revolutionary line of the Communist Party of Switzerland:
Comrades, in addition to the Social-Democratic Party and the Socialist Youth Organization, there is also a small, but determined, Communist movement in Switzerland. It originated in and was taught by the Zimmerwald Left, whose ideas circulated among us in Switzerland, as elsewhere.
What we learned from the Zimmerwald Left is to demand mass action, not just in the distant future, but right now — in the present. [...]
We knew, of course, that there is but one goal — the conquest of power.1
The comrade also showed the methods of work of the Communists inside of the Swiss State, how they gathered the ideas and demands of the masses, synthesized them, and, in the form of slogans and demands, brought them back to the masses. Thus, the question of political power was inevitably linked with practical demands and the daily struggle — such as the eight-hour workday.
The comrade actually shouldn't have been allowed to participate in the Congress — Fritz Platten, the representative of the Left wing of the Swiss Social-Democratic Party, was not happy about her participation. Only on the basis of personal intervention by Lenin was the Communist Party represented alongside the Social-Democratic Party at the Founding Congress. Kascher demanded to break with reformism and opportunism in Switzerland, a struggle she led at the Congress as well, with the agreement of Lenin. To this, she described: «Knowing that Platten would be representing the Left wing of the Social-Democratic Party at the Congress, I asked him [Lenin] if I should report on what I considered to be Platten's overly cautious, opportunist tactics; it was with the greatest pleasure that I heard Lenin's harsh ‹yes›. It was that unrelenting Leninist adherence to principle which did not permit the covering up of disagreements and the suppression of criticism from below, from the masses — given that Platten represented a very influential group.»2 This demand to break with reformism and opportunism was implemented in 1921, when the Left wing of the Social-Democratic Party split off from its party and, together with the «Old Communists», united in the Communist Party of Switzerland, that is to say, the Left wing of the Social-Democratic Party was incorporated into the Communist Party.
Comrade Leonie Kascher was one of the best fighters of our class ever seen in this country. She was an eagle, she understood with far-sightedness, bravery, and energy the concrete situation and on a correct basis, on the basis of Lenin's Thought, constituted the Party of the proletariat, the Communist Party, for the reconstitution of which we struggle today. Leonie Kascher means struggle; she means to combat imperialism, revisionism, and reaction uncompromisingly. Leonie Kascher means the conquest of political power; she means to focus on the question of political power, to understand that «the time for parliamentarism was over and that nothing more could be expected from this bourgeois institution».1 Leonie Kascher means the Communist Party of Switzerland; she means the necessity of constituting it, which today means to reconstitute it. We must embody these three qualities in our work. Comrade Leonie Kascher is not dead, her combative spirit lives on in us, the Communists in a process of formation in the Swiss State.