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Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 18, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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According to Communist doctrine, the dictatorship of the proletariat becomes possible when the capitalist regime is undone by its inherent internal contradictions and can no longer sustain itself. German Communists believed that the NSDAP are simply the goons of the capitalist class and will inexorably contribute to this process with their antics, so temporarily cooperating with them on certain matters* and egging them on in general was seen as acceptable, as it serves the final goal. "The worse, the better."

Again, I'm not making this up. The KPD leadership were actually convinced that the Nazis will be incapable of consolidating their rule once they seize power, because the revolution will certainly follow.

Also, the SocDems were the main political power in the Weimar regime, at least until its final years. Since the Communists wanted to topple this burgeois republic, they saw the SocDems as the main enemy, as they were the main political obstacle. They also, of course, saw them as the dirty traitors of the Revolution of 1918-19. In reality, of course, there was nothing for the SocDems to betray, as they never signed up for a violent revolution to overthrow the capitalist order in the first place.

*I remember finding in an otherwise forgettable history book pictures of a rent strike co-organized by the local NSDAP and KPD party leaders in November 1932 in Berlin, with their respective banners put up next to one another on the forefronts, to just give one example. I couldn't find anything about it online though.