ABSTRACT
The Bulgarian crisis to which Stalin referred indicates how differently the Politburo judged the situation in the Balkans from that in Germany. A scholastic discussion ensued, a most bizarre introduction to the events in Germany, around the question of whether Marxists can set in advance the date for a revolutionary uprising, and, in particular, whether such a date could be set in the case of Germany. The official promise of the Russian Politburo to support the German uprising was enthusiastically regarded as decisive. The Russian Politburo got the impression that an armed nucleus existed in Germany that could be developed by energetic intervention from the outside. Communist propaganda pictured the economic situation, as always, in terms of complete collapse of the capitalist system in Germany. In Moscow, Stresemann’s pending rearrangement with Britain had brought Stalin over to support a turn in German Communist policy.
