It depends what you view as empowering the power elite, working within their institutions or refusing to do so. There is a case to be made that the Communist party of Germany's total rejection of the Social Democrats is one of the big reasons why the Nazis were succesful in taking power. To argue that it was a bigger factor than the Social Democrat suppressing the revolution and directly collaborsting with the right wing, I think is a much more difficult argument to make.

I'm just going to ignore your third paragraph, it is a bit ridiculous.