xxViii HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION relative stability'. These facts meant that I had to re-think my repelled by his attitude here. However, it did nothing to retard In the debates of the r my gradual disenchantment with the ultra-left tendencies of my with Stalin about the necessity for socialism in one co untry and early revolutionary years as most of the left-wing groupings in the this shows very clearly the start of a new epoch in my though European parties were Trotskyite--a position which I always More immediately, this was brought about mainly by my rejected. Of course, if I was against Ruth Fischer and Maslow experience in working for the Hungarian Party. The correct in their attitude to German problems-and it was these with policy of the Landler faction began to bear fruit. The Party, which I was always most concerned-this does not mean that I working in conditions of strict illegality, steadily increased its was in sympathy with Brandler and Thalheimer. To clear my influence on the left wing of the Social Democrats so that in own mind and to achieve a political and theoretical self-under 1924-25 it came to a split and the founding of a workers'Party standing I was engaged at the time on a search for a genuine that would be radical and yet legal. This party was led illegally left-wing programme that would provide a third alternative oy Communists and for its strategic objective it had chosen the to the opposing factions in Germany. But the idea of such a theor- task of establishing democracy in Hungary. While the efforts etical and political solution to the contradictions in the period of this party culminated in the call for a republic the Communist transition doomed to remain a dream. i never succeeded in Party continued to pursue the aim of a dictatorship of the pro solving it to my own satisfaction and so I did not publish any letariat, At the tim ne i was in agreement with this tactical policy theoretical or political contribution on the international level but was increasingly tormented by a whole complex of unresolved problems concerning the theoretical justification of such a posi The situation was different in the Hungarian movement. Landler died in 1928 and in 1929 the party prepared for its These considerations began to undermine the bases of the ideas Second Congress. I was given the task of drafting the political I had formed during the period 1917-24. A contributory factor theses for the Congress. This brought me face to face with my old problem in the Hungarian question: can a party opt simultane- revolutionary ferment inevitably led to co-operation among the ously for two different strategic objectives(legally for a republic, illegally for a soviet republic)? Or looked at from another angle: strong growth of a reactionary movement. In the Hungary of can the party's attitude towards the form of the state be a matter horthy this was an obvious necessity for any legal and left-wing of purely tactical expediency (i.e. with the illegal Communist radical workers'party. But even in the international movement movement as the genuine objective while the legal party is no there were similar tendencies. In 1922 the march on Rome had more than a tactical manoeuvre)? A thorough analysis of the aken place and in germany, too, the next few years brought a social and economic situation in Hungary convinced me more and growth in National Socialism, an increasing concentration of more that Landler with his strategic policy in favour of a republic the forces of reaction. This put the problems of a United Front had instinctively touched on the central issue of a correct revolu and a Popular Front on the agenda and these had to be discussed tionary plan for Hungary: even if the Horthy regime had under on the plane of theory as well as strategy and tactics. Moreover, gone such a profound crisis as to create the objective conditions few initiatives could be expected from the Third International for a thorough-going revolution, Hungary would still be unable which was being influenced more and more strongly by Stalinist to make the transition directly to a soviet republic. Therefore, tactics. Tactically it swung back and forth between right an the legal policy of working for a republic had to be concretised to nean what Lenin meant in 1905 by a democratic dictatorship when,around 1928, he described the of the workers and peasants. It is hard for most people to imagine Social Democrats as thetwin brothers'of the Fascists. This pr how paradoxical this sounded then. Although the Sixth Congress an end to all prospects of a United Front on the left. Although of the Third International did mention this I was on Stalins side on the central issue of Russia, I was deeply was generally thought to be historically impossible to take such a