"Fascists for a Day: A Fresh Look at the 6 Février 1934 in Paris" A brief appendix (original) (raw)

An appendix to my chapter entitled "Star Pupils: A Transnational, Comparative Approach to Comintern "army work" in France and Spain 1932-1936." In my forthcoming book: Red Tide Rising: The Comintern in Spain before the Civil War. Communist agitation and propaganda were deployed with significant success by the Comintern and its sections in Europe throughout the inter-war period. Driven by the old Leninist principle of "chem khuzhe, chem luchshe", the worse it is, the better it is, any instance of popular frustration and discontent was leveraged in order to "expose the contradictions of the capitalist bourgeois system" and lead the masses to a revolutionary exit. A good Bolshevik was to be, fundamentally, a good listener and interpreter of the sentiment of the masses and Comintern leaders did not hesitate to put forth examples of excellence in such a skill from the most unexpected sources. Addressing the ECCI in April 1932, 1 Dmitry Manuilsky shared with admiration the story of how the NSDAP´s brown-shirted militia, the Sturmabteilungen, had leveraged and exploited the indignation of the German masses at the Sklarek corruption scandal. In a very timely and emotionally compelling manner, a local S.A. leader demonstrated that the nazis had understood the gravity of the scandal and offered their party as the only truly revolutionary cure for German society´s ills. The trial of the three Sklarek brothers was costing the German taxpayer 17,000 marks daily, claimed the S.A. agitator as quoted by Manuilsky. If the nazis were in power they would put an end to such a bourgeois democratic process. What then should we do with the Sklarek brothers? "Shoot them!" responded the crowd. Manuilsky concludes admiringly: There is a vivid picture! The nazis had, the Comintern secretary reflected, understood and exploited the national socioeconomic moment and demonstrated they were men of timely, radical action. The French section of the Comintern would get their opportunity to apply this tactic in France, with spectacular success, less than two years later.