1884–1948
○ Natural causes
Main theorist of the KPD and Bonapartist analyst of fascism
In July 1937, when six KPO members were arrested by Stalinists in Barcelona, Thalheimer and Brandler issued a joint statement: 'We take upon ourselves any political and personal guarantee for our arrested comrades. They are anti-Fascists and revolutionaries, incapable of any action that could be construed as high treason to the Spanish Revolution.'
One of the leading theorists of the founding generation of the German Communist Party (KPD), and the originator of the 'Bonapartist' theory of fascism, which saw fascism not as a mere instrument of finance capital but as an autonomous executive power rising above class antagonism. Expelled from the KPD in 1929, he co-founded the Communist Party Opposition (KPO) with Heinrich Brandler, holding a line opposed to both Stalinism and Social Democracy while continuing his anti-fascist writings in exile.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1910Joined the SPD; edited left-wing party newspapers
- 1916–1918Active in the Spartacus League; drafted and jailed for anti-war agitation
- 1918.12Founding member of the KPD; its main theorist in the early 1920s
- 1923Co-led the KPD with Brandler; summoned to Moscow after the failed 'German October'
- 1924–1928Taught and researched at the Marx-Engels Institute and Sun Yat-sen University, Moscow
- 1929Expelled from the KPD; co-founded the Communist Party Opposition (KPO) with Brandler
- 1933–1948Exile in France and Cuba; continued anti-fascist theoretical work
Related historical events
- 1914–1918First World WarAnti-war activist drafted and jailedHe was active in the Spartacus League, and was drafted and jailed for anti-war agitation.
- 1923–1927The Succession Struggle and the Left OppositionKPD co-leader of the aborted German OctoberWith Brandler he called off the 'German October' uprising of 1923; the two bore the blame and their withdrawal became a flashpoint in the Soviet intraparty debate.
The Fascism Analysis: Bonapartism as Method
Thalheimer's most influential theoretical work is his analysis of fascism by way of Bonapartism. Written in 1928 as an internal document of the Comintern, it cost him his place in the organisation, whose then ultra-left line he opposed; it appeared in 1930 in Gegen den Strom, the theoretical journal of the KPO. Thalheimer stated explicitly that he did not equate fascism with Bonapartism, yet took Marx's and Engels' analysis of Louis Bonaparte as his starting point.
The crux is the independence of the executive power. To preserve its social rule, the bourgeoisie surrenders its political rule and subordinates itself to an executive authority that has made itself an independent power. To this are joined a working class that has launched a revolutionary assault but proved unable to seize and hold power, and the small peasantry as a second social root. Fascism thus seizes an autonomous executive power in the gap where class forces neutralise one another. Fascism therefore represents the interests of the bourgeoisie objectively, yet becomes politically independent of it. This diverged from the Comintern's official definition of fascism as a mere instrument of finance capital.
Thalheimer argued that German fascism would be more brutal than its Italian counterpart, and that bourgeois democracy should for that reason be defended against destruction as 'the best fighting ground for socialism'. The analysis fell into neglect and was reissued in the 1960s by Wolfgang Abendroth, where it fed the fascism debates of the 1968 generation and influenced historians and political scientists such as Timothy Mason and Reinhard Kühnl.