Page 54 - The Chief Culprit

Stalin’s Role in Elevating Hitler y 31

and, ultimately, prevents the victory of the Working Class, while the Nazi policy enhances
the chances for war and revolution and, ultimately, the victory of the Working Class. From
this bizarre dialectic, they concluded that Hitler’s party must carry out the main attack on
the Social Democrats, since they were the most dangerous enemy, which still retained some
influence over the worker class and hindered an effective war on capitalism.
Hitler came to power as a result of this perverted ideological mind game. German
Communists, out of instincts for self-preservation, should have joined a coalition with the
Social Democrats. But Stalin intervened and opened the way for Hitler. e first time there
was open cooperation between the Nazis and Communists was in August 1931 in Eastern
Prussia, where the Social Democrats were in power. e Nazis initiated a referendum to oust
the Social Democrats. At first the Communists were opposed to the referendum. However,
after instructions from Moscow, they changed their minds. e Nazis and Communists
joined forces under a common red flag, on which the swastika and the hammer and sickle
were intertwined. Despite the Communists’ calling the plebiscite a “Red Referendum” and
the Nazis “working people’s comrades,” the referendum failed to gain a majority.
A year later, several days before the November 1932 elections for the Reichstag, a public
transportation strike began in Berlin. e Communists and Nazis jointly coordinated the
strike. Storm troopers and rotfronters (Communist paramilitary) paralyzed public transporta-
tion for five days, dug up tram tracks, picketed, beat up those who came to work, and used
force to stop the cars that the authorities managed to put to work.
Once the Nazis came to power, Stalin used all his might to push them toward war.
When Germany attacked Poland, and France and Britain entered the war against Germany,
Stalin ordered the Communists of the Western democracies to oppose the war. e Western
democracies were branded as capitalist imperialists, and the Comintern ordered its members
to weaken the armies of the Western democracies through strikes in armament and airplane
factories. e Communist Parties were to demand an end to the “imperialist war.” Hitler was
portrayed as a fighter for the working classes. But by pushing Hitler into conflict with demo-
cratic Europe, Stalin had issued Hitler a death sentence. By offering to divide Poland with
Hitler, Stalin had dragged him into a larger scale war with no end in sight. Stalin expected
that the Western allies and Germany would exhaust their strength by fighting against each
other as they did in World War I. e struggle between Hitler and the Western democracies
would create the moment for a “mighty strike” from the East and bring forth world revolu-
tion on the bayonets of the Red Army. Five years prior to the Nazis’ rise to power in Germany,
Stalin had already planned their annihilation: “[We will] crush fascism, destroy capitalism,
establish Soviet power, and liberate the colonies from slavery.”
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