Draft:XV Parteitag der KPD

Bibliography

• Bericht über die Verhandlungen des 15. Parteitag der KPD: 19. und 20. April 1946 in Berlin. Verlag Neuer Weg, 1946

References

• Pieck speech reviewed work of Central Committee from Brussels Party Conference 1935 to end of 1945.

• XV parteitag sent 12 West Zone communists to SED PV

• XV. Parteitag der KPD: 19. — 20. April 1946 in Berlin.
• legal after WWII
• " After the KPD leadership had initially rejected a "unified party" of the workers, it changed its tactics after the electoral defeats of the communists in Austria and Hungary. Now it tried to transfer SPD membership to the KPD. By exploiting the desire for a "unified workers' party" and by applying massive pressure, the KPD leadership achieved its goal."
• Ulbricht gave the main speech.
• The 519 delegates (including 130 from West Germany) discussed — on the day before the "unification party congress" — mainly the questions of the "merger" with the SPD.

• 205,000 party members in West Zone
• Ulbricht speech 15 parteitag "Schumacher has obviously fallen for the Western reactionaries' tricks by rejecting unity of action with the Communist Party"

• 805,000 party members (out of whom 205,000 in West Zone).

• 2nd conf of 30 SPD and KPD reps Feb 26, 1946 set route for SED
• Unified local and district party congresses occured in March 1946, SED state federations founded on April 7. April 19-20 congress of KPD east and west and SPD east. Then common SED congress

• KPD in West requested to change name to SED, but vetoed by Allied powers. April 1948 west KPD separated from SED, three zones, elected Max Reimann chairman and leadership, fall of 1948 separate party executive

Dalhem speech

19 April

Speech by Franz Dahlem at the 15th KPD Party Congress on April 19 and 20, 1946. Dahlem, who spoke about the party's organizational policy, stated: "From the very first hour of its legal existence after the collapse of the Hitler regime, our party has made it clear that it is its conviction that now, following the bankruptcy of big capitalist rule in our country, the working class must take Germany's fate into its own hands and that it must build and lead the new state.”

• new type organization

• Communists in the first place who worked brilliantly and actively to restore order in the general chaos, to ensure food supplies, to clear roads and bridges for traffic, to repair homes for the winter and to restore a more or less normal life.

• It is equally undisputed that, thanks to our party's initiative, the first local governments were formed, the destroyed factories were repaired, production started and traffic got up and running.
• Thus, the party, in close cooperation with the Social Democrats and in a bloc with the anti-fascist democratic parties, developed a policy of development in all areas of administration, economy and cultural life, which led to such notable successes in the Soviet occupation zone
• Parallel to this development work, the party organization developed as a new type of organization. From the outset, it shed its previous character as an opposition party. Through persistent and ongoing persuasion and training work, it set about converting the membership from the previously predominant negative-critical and mainly agitational politics to the day-to-day practical representation of the current interests of the working people, to a real responsible politics, with a view to which this conversion to mass work was largely carried out successfully in the districts of eastern Germany.
• Party membership 100,000 pre 1933 in 6 districts, 600,000 in 1946
• This shift of the party towards shared responsibility for solving problems in production, economy and administration in the municipalities, provinces and countries also had to result in a change in the methods of work and the forms of party organization. The previous methods of work of the factory and street cells from the period before 1933 proved to be unusable, the old organizational form too narrow. *In the factories, the newly formed party leaderships and party collectives developed operational work of their own accord. They were the driving force behind the launch of a new peacetime production, they dealt with questions of raw material procurement, price regulation, co-determination and even management in the factories; they drew up factory programs and mobilized the workforce to implement them.
• In this way, in contrast to the earlier more or less semi-legal or illegal factory cells, they developed into broad legal factory groups with a completely new and concrete content of their work.

• The development of work in the residential area was similar. At first, the party members in the street cells in the residential area had to solve tasks such as clearing the streets, roofing, securing food supplies, collecting wood for the winter, building warming sheds, sewing rooms, etc. They mobilized broad masses for this in voluntary work, created new forms of mass mobilization such as house and street foremen. The previous methods, the discussion evenings of the street cells, were no longer sufficient for advising and organizing these diverse tasks. Broad street groups were formed which had to work operatively if they were to fulfill all these tasks. This process of developing operative party groups in the residential area is still ongoing and is far from complete. ---
• It was the same with the local groups in the countryside. The party used to be extremely weakly represented in the villages. In connection with the implementation of the land reform, which we can proudly say was excellently supported by the activities of the KPD, the need arose and now also the opportunity to create hundreds of new rural local groups by taking on many new farmers. These local groups constantly had to take a practical stand on new concrete questions, such as autumn tillage, the creation and management of associations for mutual aid to farmers, the creation of rural cooperatives, etc. In this way, a new, progressive type of local party organization was created in the countryside too. This was the development of the lower units of the party in the first phase of reconstruction.
• Today, ten months after the collapse of the Hitler dictatorship, we have reached a stage - I am speaking of the Soviet occupation zone - where there is a well-developed system of local governments in the municipalities and towns, right up to the provincial and state administrations, where both on the provincial and state level and on the level of the whole zone, work is carried out systematically according to agricultural plans and a general economic plan, where local government, industry, transport, trade and supply in town and country work together in combination to supply the population with food, clothing, shoes and consumer goods and the factories with raw materials and semi-finished products, where the trade unions, consumer cooperatives, farmers' associations and agricultural cooperatives are beginning to play a leading role in the management of the economy, where the economic apparatus in the Soviet zone is moving on to establishing economic relations and exchanging goods and raw materials with the rest of Germany.
• In view of the fact that the working class in these areas of Germany, that is, in one third of Germany, now represented by the Socialist Unity Party, plays the leading role in politics, economy and administration, we must carefully examine what the best forms of party organization are in order to be able to solve the task before us with the greatest possible success.

ackermann

• In December 1945 KPD CC invotes representatives from all Western bezirks to Berlin for meetings, 3 Jan Pieck 70th birthday celebratiions, Pieck meeting 4 Jan, Secretariat meeting 5 and 7 January, meeting officials from CC departments, and 8-9 Jan KPD Reichberatung. Congress in all but name, first national party meeting after the war. March 2-3 1946 Reichkonferenz.
• KPD leaders in berlin rejected any organization on zonal basis, and SED would be founded by communists and social democrats from both west and east
• Ackermann speech, on national question, KPD had made mistakes to frown on word terms like 'fatherland' and ' nation' due to burg connotation. He argued patriotism could become 'a new source of patriotism', patriotism would help party reach broader
• "'our broad national strategy will enable us to become the decisive [political] force among the people ... That way the Socialist Unity Party of Germany will become a mass party (Millionenpartei) leading the entire nation."

Misc

• "Wilhelm Pieck devoted great attention to the political orientation of the work of the intelligentsia. In his report to the XV Party Congress of the KPD (April 1946) he said: “After 12 years of the blackest reaction, during which art and science in Germany served Hitler’s predatory war policy, the intellectual workers"