March Actions of 1921

March Actions of 1921 

struggles that broke out in Ger-many after the government ordered troops sent into a number of factories in the central industrial region of the country, where the Communists had great influence.

The aim of the ruling circles in the March actions was to hinder the further growth of the authority of the Communist Party of Germany (CPG) and to provoke the revolutionary workers into premature armed action-. From March 23 to April 1 the workers fought defensively, courageously resisting the government troops. However, the superiority of the government forces was too great. Moreover, the workers of central Germany were isolated, for the government succeeded on the whole in eliminating the solidarity movement that developed in other parts of the country. The uprising of the central German workers was savagely repressed. After the March actions of 1921, Paul Levi was removed from the CPG leadership and expelled from the party. He had taken a right-opportunist position and regarded the defensive struggle of the proletariat as a putsch.

REFERENCES

Lenin, V . I. “Rech’ v zashchitu taktiki Kommunisticheskogo Internatsionala (na III kongresse Kommunisticheskogo Internatsionala).” Poln. sobr. soch. , 5th ed., vol. 44.
Riabov, Iu. M. Bor’ba Ob”edinennoi kommunisticheskoi partii Germanii za edinstvo deistvii rabochego klassa i uroki martovskikh revoliutsionnykh boev. [Moscow] 1964.
Gotsche, O. Die Mäzaktion 1921 in Mitteldeutschland und ihre historische Bedeutung. Berlin, 1956.

L. I. GINTSBERG