The Internationalism

Internationalism No. 86, April 2026 Page 9 From the series Pages from the history of the workers’ movement Revolution is a dramatic and oscillating historical process, marked by brutal accelerations, sudden freezes, and deceptive moments of dead calm. Hence the need to develop the party in the preceding years, so that it can act consciously as a vanguard rooted in the masses — as the premise for the revolutionary process rather than the result . Arrigo Cervetto wrote in his article “The General Task” , now in Opere, vol. 2 : If the party does not want to fall into adventurism, it cannot regulate its conduct on accelerated and unexpected movements but must always continue in its systematic work of organisation and education of the proletariat. The more the party is able to work according to this plan [...] the more it will have the possibility of not being caught off guard by the turn of events . In G...

Internationalism No. 84, February 2026 Page 8 From the series Pages from the history of the workers’ movement In Germany, following the events of Christmas 1918, the Independent (USPD) ministers left the Ebert government. Gustav Noske, Rudolf Wissell, and Paul Löbe took their place. With even the mild scruples of people like Haase, Dittmann, and Barth now removed, the Social Democrats showed the face of repression more explicitly. Noske stated his mission without any pretence: One of us must act as executioner . The leaders’ indecision On December 29th, a crowd accompanying to the cemetery the coffins of the sailors who had been killed, held a banner on which was written: We charge Ebert, Landsberg, and Scheidemann with the murder of sailors . On the same day, the SPD organised a counterdemonstration with the watchword: Down with the Spartacus League’s bloody dictatorship . Both sides were preparing for civil war. The masses were in ferment, but w...