Brussels Party Conference of the Communist Party of Germany

[1] In the aftermath of the Reichstag fire and the banning of the party, the KPD leadership maintained that the 'Third Period' line was correct and that the Hitler regime would soon be toppled by a communist uprising.

[1] With the arrest of KPD leader Ernst Thälmann on March 3, 1933, a struggle over the party leadership emerged with Hermann Schubert, John Schehr and Ulbricht as the main competitors.

[1] In the latter half of 1934, resulting from demands of Ulbricht and Pieck (who had the backing of the Communist International), KPD began identifying the National Socialists as the main enemy and opened up for a united front with SPD albeit this did not represent a complete rejection of the Third Period line.

In his address he affirmed that in January 1935 an ECCI sub-commission and secretariat had discussed the German situation, and taken the position that the KPD Politburo majority had an incorrect political line.

According to Togliatti the KPD had failed to work for a united front with the SPD and the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB), and beyond the social democrats an alliance with the followers of Heinrich Brüning.

Moreover Togliatti argued that the KPD should work for the voluntary and peaceful unification of the German people, annulment of the Treaty of Versailles and abolishing the Polish Corridor.

"[7] Pieck stated that while the KPD had committed serious strategic and tactical errors, the main mistake had been that two years before Hitler coming to power the party had decided to concentrate their attacks on the SPD and not the fascist movement.

"[2][3] In order to achieve the united front it was demanded that the "Communist Party, its organizations and members must approach the fulfillment of their tasks with a new attitude towards social democracy.

"[5] The Brussels Party Conference instructed the KPD to employ Trojan horse tactics, planning to infiltrate National Socialist organizations (in particular the German Labour Front).

[1] The anti-fascist people's front would, per the Brussels Party Conference resolution, also gather "the oppositional bourgeois groups (from the ranks of the German nationalists, the Reichswehr, etc.)".

[8] The Brussels Party Conference argued that the victory of socialism in the Soviet Union was a decisive factor in strengthening all anti-fascist forces around the world and at the same time condemned the war preparations of German fascism.

[1] A new decentralized organizational set-up was adopted by the conference, setting out to create Sectional Leaderships in Prague, Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Forbach which would liaise with small groups of cadres inside Germany.

[1] Pieck's speech at the Brussels Party Conference was published in the German-language booklet titled The new path towards a united struggle to overthrow the Hitler dictatorship, of which 5,000 copies were printed in Moscow.