Communist Party of Switzerland

The Communist Party of Switzerland was founded in 1921 and 1940 prohibited. The party merged in 1943 with the Socialist Federation of Switzerland to the Labour Party ( PdA ). Its first president was Francis Welti.

History

The Communist Party of Switzerland (KPS ) was established against the opposition of the Social Democratic Party (SP). The SP declined in 1919 and 1920 accession to the Comintern from and so provoked the secession of the party left under Franz Welti. On a unification congress of the Socialist Left on 5 and 6 March 1921 in Zurich, the merger of Welti's group with the " old communists ", a first communist party founded under James Duke in 1918, and the establishment of the KPS was decided. At this time the party had around 6,000 members.

The KPS was a member of the Comintern and took over their ideological positions, which they came in the wake of " Bolshevism " of the communist parties in Europe under the influence of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Since also developed the SP after 1918 from its traditional democratic evolutionary line in Marxist revolutionary direction, demarcation problems arose. The KPS differed in the sequence of the SP mainly through the acquisition of Leninist and Stalinist positions and by their Bolshevik party structure.

The KPS was particularly common in German-speaking Switzerland, with emphasis in Zurich, Schaffhausen and Basel. In the canton of Schaffhausen, she managed to oust the Social Democratic Party almost entirely to reach at times 26% ( 1928) share of the vote. In Basel, the KPS was at times more than the SP, leaving them with 19.7% share of the vote could win 25 seats in the Grand Council in 1929.

Internal party factional fights between Stalinists and Trotskyites led to loss of members. KPS an aggressive course against the SP, which they accused of social fascism in 1928 decided. The radicalization led in 1929 to replace his previous party leadership under Franz Welti, who was accused of having previously driven a legal course. Under similar allegations of Schaffhausen labor leaders Walther Bringolf 1930 was excluded. This then founded his cantonal section of the " Communist Party of Switzerland - opposition " and joined the SP in 1935.

Since the power of Adolf Hitler in Germany, it was in the SP and the KPS efforts to combine the two workers' parties in a " united front " and the KPS was their social fascism thesis. The ideological trenches were too low, particularly because the SP rather moved away from radical class struggle positions. 1935 offered the KPS, the SP the creation of a so-called Popular Front on the French model, and won sympathy in the left wing of the SP. Since the SP but in the context of Directive movement moved toward an alliance in the political center, came into existence in Switzerland no popular front. At the national level, the KPS won by these rights movement of the SP in 1939 with 2.6 %, the highest proportion in the general election and set four national councils. Under the impact of the emerging war and the ideological U-turn of the Comintern after the Hitler -Stalin Pact, KPS lost its backing and supporters. She was first in many cantons, finally 1940 in Switzerland banned as subversive organization. The Swiss Federal Court found in this context, communist propaganda was forbidden only because of Hinarbeitens on a violent overthrow, not because of ideological goals that are to be found " in the teachings of other movements and parties, for example, in Plato's philosophy, in the Christian religion and in the Social program. " (BGE 68 IV 148).

In Geneva, the Communist Party was banned in 1937. The Geneva SP party leader Léon Nicole then took the members of the KPS on in his section of the SP. When in 1939 he was also expelled from the SP because of its acceptance of the Hitler -Stalin Pact, he founded the Socialist Federation of Switzerland, on May 30, 1943 joined most members of the KPS. However, the former of Nicole and the President of KPS, Jules Humbert- Droz, sought union with the SP did not materialize, as they rejected a collective intake of the Socialist Federation of Switzerland and insisted on a single shot all the Communists. After the failure of the merger negotiations with the SP the Party of Labour ( PdA ) was founded in 1944 as a new collective movement of the Communists.

Important members

  • Marino ground man, 1921-1930 and 1936, party secretary; 1934-1939 National Council of KPS
  • Walther Bringolf, 1925-1930 National Council of KPS; exclusion 1930
  • Fritz Brupbacher, Exclusion 1933
  • Jakob Herzog
  • Karl Hofmaier
  • Jules Humbert- Droz, 1935-1942 President of KPS; 1938-1939 National Council of KPS; exclusion 1943
  • Franz Welti, President of KPS; 1925-1932 National Council of KPS
  • Edgar Woog

Communist newspapers in Switzerland

  • Freedom
  • Schaffhauser Arbeiterzeitung
  • Fighter
Leninism Trotskyism Communist Party Opposition (Switzerland) Jules Humbert-Droz
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