In the winter of 1917, the October Revolution would change the course of the 20th century. October was one of many revolutions that would come to light over the coming years. All would be crushed by the reactionaries with the aid of those once thought the leaders of the workers. But what if that had not been so? What if the Soviet's sister revolutions were not strangled in their cribs?
That is the premise of Vetenbele, an anthology that covers what would happen if the German Revolution succeeded. If the Communist world had two great powers at its head, what geopolitical, economic, Social, and cultural impacts would this have on the Socialist world and beyond?
November 5 1918
Hugo Zimmerman
05 Deichstraße
Hamburg
Salutations Felix I hope this letter finds you quickly. As I hope you heard, Hamburg has risen up against the Kaiser. There has been mass mutiny among the soldiers and the high seas fleet. The workers have joined them. The scab unions are no more and the true unions have taken to the streets. Both women and men have come out, like in Russia. With the events in Russia and the general feelings I have been seeing among the workers, I believe now is the time for action!
Felix, I know you have influence With the masses in Munich. I implore you to use it. The people are ready so we have to be as well. Here in the north, we are forming Rates to take charge, not unlike the soviets of Russia. The Proletariat are unsatisfied with the lies of the Kaiser and his Capitalist masters. The lies of liberal "democracy" have become clear. It is time for action!
At the moment the Working people are headless. There is no organization to help lead them. No theory. If this continues, the revolution will be crushed like In February and In the days directly before this war. A few of our comrades here in Hamburg and I have taken action. The people are ready, You can tear the party apart but a boot made by the masses can't put the masses down.
I think that you could do the same in Munich and wider Bavaria. Help the WORKERS rise up and lead the revolution. I intend on sending similar letters to Berlin and the Ruhr. I would like to see our comrades there take similar actions. It is clear to me that the revolution is at hand and I wish you ALL LUCK AND I HOPE TO HEAR GREAT PROGRESS.
Sincerely, your Comrade and friend Hugo.
An Introduction to the German Revolution
Chapter 1
German Revisionism and the Imperialist War
The defining events of the 20th century were those that none could see coming and those that were too obvious to all informed observers, both Marxist and Bourgeois, both uneducated and educated. But the one event that truly all but the most ignorant pacifists, liberal or revisionist, could predict whether they dreaded it, begrudgingly accepted it, or waited for it as a Child on Christmas Eve awaits the dawn. That cataclysm would come to be known as the First Great Imperialist War.
After 40 years of unprecedented expansion, the Imperialist powers had run out of People's to enslave, and Continents and nations to divide amongst themselves. By the second decade of the 20th Century, bound by capitalist laws of endless growth, there was no other choice but for the great powers to turn their guns on eachother. The once "sacred" land of Europe was to be made red with the blood of millions of the world's workers.
The excuse to begin the murder would be, ironically, the assassination of one of Europe's Crowned Princes. The death of a prince would also be the beginning of the end of all Princes. With the death of Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Habsburgs, at the hands of a Yugoslav Nationalist, the powder keg would go up in flames that Autumn of 1914.
All the great Empires prepared with jubilation for the slaughter to come. All the Capitalists sat back and waited for all their respective proletariats to sacrifice their lives for the glory and profit of the noble and better classes. That is if the Prole did as they were told. Which, for the first time in the history of class society, was a question the Ruling class had to ask.
The birth of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and its revisionism
Since the last great European war of 1871, much had changed among the working peoples of Europe and the rest of the world. With the establishment of the Second Workers' International and the many socialist parties within it, the working class had, for the first time, established organizations that truly united the majority of a nation's proletariat. The Trade Unions would force many concessions from the Ruling class during this time, both in alliance with Socialist parties and independently of them.
The greatest of these socialist parties of the Second International was, without a doubt, the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany). The SPD would rise after the unification of German Socialism at the Gatha Congress of 1875. The two branches of German Socialism united at the Gotha Congress were the Reformist Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiter-Verein (General German Workers' Association) and the Marxist Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany).
The new party would grow rapidly in the rapidly industrializing German Empire in close alliance with the Trade Unions. This would lead to large-scale repression from the German state under the leadership of the Junker aristocratic Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The repression was best shown by the passing of the anti-socialist laws by the German Reichstag on October 1, 1878.
The anti-socialist laws, officially the Gesetz gegen die gemeingefährlichen Bestrebungen der Sozialdemokratie (Law against the public danger of Social Democratic endeavors) banned all expressions and advocacy of socialism and the trade unions. This would lead to a 12-year period of repression against the worker's movement in Germany, with many minor states of siege being declared in cities all across the Riech.
This would lead to much division between the party's right and left wings. The right would blame the repression on the left radicalism and supposed anarchism, while the left would blame the right for surrendering to the Kaiser. Ultimately, choice members of the party's left would be expelled as scapegoats to keep the party together.
During the enactment of Anti-Socialist laws, the SPD continued to fight the struggle through several methods. The party's newspapers were moved aboard and smuggled into Germany. From there, the party's candidates continued to run for the Reichstag as independents. Much of the SPD's leadership was forced to flee abroad, with even several party Congresses being held in Denmark and Switzerland.
Ultimately, the Anti-Socialist law would end with Chancellor Bismarck himself. In 1890, the dual blow of the SPD winning 19 percent in the Reichstag and the loss of the favor of the young new Kaiser Wilhelm II would be the doom of the elder reactionary. The Anti-Socialist law would not be renewed that year, and Bismarck would resign in disgrace.
In many ways, Bismarck's efforts to strangle the Socialist moment in its crib had the opposite effect. The vast amount of resources the Prusso-German Empire devoted to crushing the Socialist moment brought it much attention that it otherwise would not have had. This helped the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany) to grow at an astonishing rate.
This would also coincide with the adoption of the Enfure program, which would officially make the SPD a Marxist organization.
With these great gains came growing pains. Mainly the division between those reformists who saw the anti-socialist law as a response to the "Anarchistic" far left of the party. They thought if the SPD had only been less bellicose and confrontational and had confined itself to the "legal means," there would have been no oppression from the German ruling class.
What made this reformist tendency within the Party more concerning was their attempt to camouflage it in Marxist terms. This would be the first great revisionist of Marxist Theory perpetrated by the infamous Eduard Bernstein. Bernstein, who had gone into exile during the period of the Anti-socialist law. Came back with his revolutionary vigor lost. After the Death of Engles, he would set out to undo all that the great curator of Marxism had done.
Bernstein's so-called "evolutionary socialism" would lead to much conflict within the Party of German Socialism. A Young Polish exile most strictly represents those on the left, Rosa Luxemburg, in her first great work, Reform and Revolution. Ultimately, the nail in the coffin of Bernstein's revisionism would come from the Center of the party—the so-called "Pope of Marxism," Karl Kautsky.
With the adoption at the Hannover Congress of 1899 of a provision to denounce Bernstien backed by party's center heavyweights Karl Kautsky and August Babel. Luxemburg would also give a Fiery speech denouncing the Revisionism. This was supposed to put the matter to rest. But it would not, as the rules of history tell us all things have their origin in class struggle, and the degeneration of the world's greatest Socialist party would be no different.
The SPD was not just made of the Industrial proletariat, as Marx had envisioned. The workers did make up a majority in the party, but there was also a significant Petti Bourgeois membership. This Petti Bourgeois membership consisted of Lawyers, doctors, and intellectuals.
Because of their higher educational, social, and financial positions, the Petti Bourgeois were able to obtain the majority of leadership offices in the trade unions and the SPD, with an average of 70 percent of the SPD's Congress being of a Petti Bourgeois background.
This was the material basis of revisionism in the Party and because of this material base it could not be undone with resolutions and condemnations. Which was all the party leadership was willing to do shown by Breinsteins election under the Social Democratic banner to the Reichstag in 1900.
The reason for this was that not only was the right of Petti Bourgeois origin but also the center. The material difference between the two sections of the social Petti Bourgeois was their relation to the German state and ruling class. The right of the party personified by Breinstein had good relations and working relationships with the German Ruling class, while the center personified by Kautsky was because of their political beliefs alienated from the status quo.
Therefore, they wish to struggle to alter the status quo so they might once again be a part of "reputable" society. This put the Kautskites at odds with the goals of the socialist revolution, as it would destroy the "reputable" society they so very much wished to be a part of. But it also put them at odds with the Breinsteinites, who did not wish to struggle at all, preferring small reforms within the Capitalist system. The Kautshites spoke of revelation but only ever worked for reform.
This Petti Bourgeoisification of the SPD leadership led to constant supersession of the party's left when the revisionism of the right was attacked or when they called for more direct and revolutionary actions. Because the center did one thing and said another, it was very hard for their revisionism to be noticed when compared to that of the Breinsteinites. Only when there was no right to compare them and when it was the question of revolution would their true nature come to the fore.
The SPD left consisted of a broad score of committed Marxists who watched worryingly at the degradation of the Party of the German Workers. There was the outspoken and uncompromising Karl Liebknecht, son of the SPD co-founder Wilhelm Liebknecht; Liebknecht would become known as the great spokesperson of the left. Then, there was the elderly but not any less fiery Clara Zetkin, a friend of Luxemburg and the mother of International Women's Day. She was deeply critical of the party's lack of support for Working Women's issues.
Of course, who could forget the mighty and unconquerable Rosa Luxemburg? She who, even in her early days in the revolutionary moment, made all the reactionary and revisionists tremble in fear. Luxemburg would be the fiercest and most brilliant of all the opposition to the Social petti Bourgeois.
This left faction would, unlike the Bolsheviks in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, not form a party within a party. The reason for this was a belief among the Leftists that the Unity of the Socialist movement in Germany was paramount and that any ideological disagreement within the party could be resolved through internal party democracy. This sentiment would, in the pre-war years, confine the Left opposition battle against the Breinsteinites to the party newspapers. When their work was published, that is, as Kautsky would use his influence to stop the publication of works from the left that "threatened party unity."
The Nationaler Pakt
This would be the situation within the SPD in that fateful summer and autumn of 1914. The capitalists of Europe were marching to war, and all looked to the socialist parties of the Second International and the working people of Europe as to what would happen next. The workers would show their position when, all across Europe, they would go out and demonstrate against the coming war. The Leadership of world Socialism would declare in Brussels its support for the courageous actions of the workers and would call on all the workers of the world to oppose the war.
But these acts of courage were not universal, for revisionism ran deep in the Second International. The British Independent Labor League. Always the weakest link in the workers' movement, being the first in kowtowing to "King and country," throwing their lot in with the imperialists. The French socialists would attempt to work with the SPD to arrange a joint general strike to stop the war.
But this would not come to pass. Jean Jaurès, a leading French socialist, would be killed for his efforts on July 31st. The SPD would soon face the same threats. The Imperial High Command and Ruling class watched these actions of international solidarity among the working people with apprehension. They knew that with its millions of members and dominant position among the German Industrial Workers, the SPD could put a nail in their plan for a glorious imperialist war.
At first, Kaiser Wilhelm II was against extraordinary action against the SPD, fearing it would antagonize them. But his advisers would convince him otherwise. The Junker chiefs of staff would persuade him that it was not worth the risk to the fatherland and that the war could not be waged with an openly internationalist force, like the SPD's operating in the heart of the Reich.
Persuaded, the Kaiser would have his Chancellor on August 2nd introduce the Das Gesetz gegen die nationalen Gefahren antinationaler sozialdemokratischer Bestrebungen (The Law against the National Dangers of Anti-National Social Democratic endeavors) or the second Anti-socialist law the Reichstag. This law would outlaw all Socialism that was not explicitly "patriotic" and any agitation against the war or suggestion of international Solidarity between "the patriotic German laborers and hostile nations or peoples." It would also deny the right to strike and, in effect, outlaw all progressive and militant unions.
The introduction of the Second Ant-Socialist Law would bring the contradictions within the SPD to a breaking point. The party left, and the center was outraged and let it be felt in the Chamber, calling for a general strike and protests against this tyranny. Liebknecht would give a fiery speech calling for a revolution by the German workers against the imperialist war.
In contrast, right revisionists, led by Friedrich Ebert, the Party's Chairman, would meet in secret that night with Imperial Chancellor Hollweg and the leaders of the Bourgeois and Junker parties. They would come to an understanding with the revisionists betraying the socialist movement for their interests. The right Revisionists would split with the SPD and would take with them the party's Property, organizations, and Trade Unions.
As part of the bargain that would come to be known as the Nationaler Pakt (National Pact), the Revisionists would also formally reject international socialism and declare their loyalty to the Kaiser and Fatherland. They would also frame the war as a progressive one for the workers, as a "crusade against the Barbaric Russians." This utterly social-Imperialist party would be known as the Deutsche Arbeiterfront des Vaterlandes (German Workers Front of the Fatherland) or DAV.
The vast majority of the SPD's Parliamentary wing would seamlessly join the new Class Collaborationist party. Those who did not, the most prominent of which was Liebknecht, would be expelled from the chamber under a motion by Ebert, now chairman of the DAV.
On August 4th, Kaiser Whillem II declared war on France, and traitors were the first to vote for loans to finance the war. Calling for all the German Workers to stand with their masters and give up their lives for Capital.
The DAV had hoped that it would be able to seamlessly take the position of the SPD in the German labor movement. The new DAV's Central Committee would, on the 8th, send orders out to all SPD locals of that effect. This would work well in the Southern German States, where the former SPD right held the most sway. The Social Imperialists would not be so lucky in the northern cities, where more resistance would be found amongst the more advanced workers.
This would include anti-war protests in Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, and the Rurr from the declaration of war until the early days of September. This highest point in the unrest would be when the leaders of the remaining sections of the SPD claimed to be a new Acting Central Committee led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Kautsky, issued the famous Dresden Declaration on August 13th. (Liebknecht had been arrested on the 11th while giving a speech denouncing the war and the DAV as Imperialist and murderous).
The Dresden Declaration called on all the workers of Germany to oppose the War and declared the DAV to be a puppet of the Kaiser and Capitalists. It called for a general strike and for all SPD party members to reject the DAV and support the new acting SPD Central Committee.
Unfortunately for the workers of the world, the Dresden Declaration and the new Central Committee would quickly be suppressed, with its members either being arrested (Luxemburg) or successfully fleeing to Neutral countries ( Karl Kautsky, Clara Zetkin, Franz Mehring, and Hugo Haase). The protest did not fare better, as it suffered from a lack of organization, leadership, and concrete goals. These internal weaknesses were compounded by both the traditional bourgeois papers and the old SPD papers, now under the control of the DAV (or being brought under its control with police support), which would undermine popular support for the moment and ultimately lead to its suppression by the Police.
With the greatest of the world's socialist parties betrayed by those chosen to lead it and seemingly destroyed by the Imperialists, the rest of the second international surrendered to their own imperialists and declared for their "fatherland". The only exceptions of this among the participants in the war were the Italian Socialist Party and the Bolsheviks in Russia. Neither of which was in any position to resist the capitalist blood lust when their respective countries began the death march.
With the worker's resistance to the war broken for now, the great machines of the war of the "civilized" nations began to lurch violently forward, unleashing decimation on the working men. Their blood lubricated its monstrous gears like oil. Europe's once green fields turned to a concoction of barbed wire and mud.
The First Great Imperialist War and the Hungry years
The Capitalist press boasted that "the war would be over by Christmas". Unfortunately for the workers of Germany, they actively seemed to believe it. His is the only consultation that can be drawn from the complete and utter lack of economic preparation for the war. The Junker General staff, lost in an ancient era, did not understand the sheer amount of material an industrial war would consume.
This would lead to no effort by the State to coordinate the transition to a planned war economy. Believing the vulgar economists and liberals, for the first few months of the Imperialist war, leaving production up to the "free market". This would mean the German economy was entirely consumed by the Anarchy of Production.
Their folly would first become clear when the Reich shell reserves began to run low by the winter of 1914. This would lead to the establishment of associations of the Capitalists to establish more centralized planning to coordinate war production.
However, the lack of competence in war planning would be the tip of the iceberg compared to civilian economic planning for war, which, it would quickly become clear, was little to nothing.
Neither the Kaiser nor any of his officials had made any effort to create the reserve of resources needed for a prolonged war, because of Germany's dependence on the import of most raw materials, including both the coal needed for the production of the highest quality of steel and the foodstuffs needed to sustain the German people. The British blockade would cut off the German economy from the world market and would in effect, put the nation under siege.
The burden put on the German economy would be worsened by the huge need for both men and materials for the war effort. This was compounded by the class bias of conscription, with those of a nonindustrial worker background being far more likely to be conscripted than industrial workers. The reasons for this were twofold: 1. The Prussian authorities did not trust the loyalty of the German Proletariat to the Junker and Capitalist State, and 2. Industrial workers were needed in the factories to keep production going.
Even with this active decision by the state to limit the conscripting of workers, there were still major shortages of labor. This would be compounded by German industry being unequipped to supply 8 million soldiers. This would lead to the shifting of industrial labor over to war industries in order to fulfill the need of slaughter, with up to 50 percent increase of women in the workforce being a further consequence of this.
This shift made law by the Reichstag in 1916 under the Hilfsdienstgesetz (Auxiliary Service Law), which would, in effect, conscript all German working men into war-related industries and give the state the power to directly enforce this. The Hilfsdienstgesetz would also establish labor review boards to mediate disputes in factories made up of reprieves of owners of enterprises and of the class collaborationist Unions controlled by the DAV. The Prussian/German State did this as a concession to the DAV, who needed some kind of victory to keep the workers subservient to the social imperialists. Rather than turning illegal anti-war cells that had existed in the mainstream unions since the suppression of the SPD.
This was done in response to the ever-worsening situation for the German working class. As mentioned above, Germany simply could not feed itself with imports, which were, at this point, no longer available thanks to the British Blockade. This problem, which had been successfully mediated using various reserves, would become much worse by 1916 as said reserves began to run low.
Because of the local methods of rationing, each locality has the power to decide on the amount and methods of implementing rationing. This would lead to some districts (especially urban ones) having tighter rationing and rural ones having little to none. This led to the formation of a black market and hoarding among the junker landowners, big capitalists, and small petti bourgeois land owners.
This hoarding led to the working class taking the brunt of the food shortages. Many cities faced famine as the war went on, and food became less and less common. This would be made even worse by the particularly hard winters of 1916 to 1917 and of 1917 to 1918.
The road to November
This period would see increasing worker resistance to the war among the workers with wild cat strikes and strikes organized by the Unabhängige Arbeitnehmerausschüsse (Independent Worker's Committees). This, along with increasing revolts by the workers over the lack of food, consumer goods, and the war, made the cities of Germany hotbeds of descent. These actions would, for a time, stay localized and sporadic, thanks to needing to build the organization of the labor movement from scratch and the extensive state suppression of any such descent.
However, as the war went on, the workers' resistance to the Imperialist war became increasingly organized and widespread, especially as their living conditions at home worsened. This would become supercharged by the successful Russian revolutions of 1917. This led to a massive general strike in February 1918, starting in Vienna and spreading across the German and Habsburg empires. With millions of workers out on the streets and news of the Bolsheviks fresh in the air, it looked like the two empires were on the precipice of revolution.
It would not come to be as the army refused to disobey their Junker officers; the new revolutionary organizations were not yet experienced enough to lead the workers over the barricades (even as the first German equivalent of the Russian Soviets, the Rates, came into existence in Hambourg. As of early 1918, there was no unified revolutionary party to present a revolutionary program. Both the Reformists and the Revolutionaries factions were unable to organize any national organization under the force of the Kaiser's oppression.
Because of these reasons, the strikes would be suppressed through minor concessions negotiated by the DAV and the violence of the police and army. By May, the unrest had ended, and the workers were back in the factories. This would not be the end of the revolutionary organizations, as many would successfully unify in the aftermath, ready to learn from their past mistakes.
Nor would it be the end of the unrest. Conditions for the German workers and soldiers would keep worsening as necessities became less and less common. This, combined with the failed spring offensive, would cause a collapse in morale as Germany's defeat became increasingly clear. This would culminate in the successful offensive by the Allies in the spring of 1918, which was a devastating defeat for the fatally weakened German army.
This would lead to one of the most consequential decisions in world history. As it became clear the war was lost, the German high command became increasingly concerned that the German High Seas fleet (one of the largest in the world at that time) would be taken as part of a peace deal. Feeling that this "dishonor" was unacceptable, it was decided that it would be better that the Fleet be destroyed in one final battle rather than be surrendered.
When this order was leaked to the sailors, they decided they would not die in a useless suicide mission for the ruling class that card nothing for them. This led to the mutiny of the high seas fleet in Keil on October 27th, with officers being killed. The city was quickly seized by the sailors, and the workers who the sailors inspired rose up. As news of this spread, revolt followed suit, with Rates established in most major industrial cities by November 3rd
The Kaiser attempted to appease the workers by appointing Friedrich Eber, the head of the DAV and former head of the dead SPD, as Chancellor. This would fall on deaf ears, as the workers of Germany had long recognized the treasonous nature of the DAV and Ebert.
Instead, on November 10th, 1918, the Red Flag would fly over the Reichstag as on its steps, the newly freed Karl Liebknecht declared the Freie Sozialistische Republik Deutschland ( Free Socialist Republic of Germany). The whole world was in shock for the second november in a row. The Great Proletarian November Revolution had begun.
Interview with Frida Kollman
Editor: This is an interview with a member of the Women's World Political magazine, a moderately popular magazine in the American midwest, which did an interview with a German socialist in the early 1920's. The magazine never published the interviews but Frida Kollman offered us a copy of the interview a friend of hers was taking at the time of the interview.
Mavis: I'm glad I have been allowed to meet with you today, Mrs Von Kollman. Many of our readers are interested in Germany for what must be obvious reasons.
Fria: Just Kollman now and there's no need for formalities. I'm no one special, just call me Freia and I'm glad to take your interview.
Mavis: Okay, Fria, would you like to introduce yourself?
Frida: My name is Frida Kollman. I am a member of the Communist Party of Germany and a veteran of the civil war. At the moment, I am working in the Hamburg Region with the local branch of the communist women's league, the Women's Section of the Communist Party .
Mavis: Can you give more emphasis on this woman's league? We don't have such things in America and it's a point of intrest.
Frida: Yes Women's organizations are a socialist concept that's older than the revolution itself, they are the greatest weapon the women can use in their struggle, we might be the best country on women's issues on paper but such things have to be fought for, women's organizations let us do that. If male chauvinism is shown in a factory all women of the factory can complain and they can have a direct party organ to complain, we can campaign to have a manager removed all we need is a petition from the trade union. We are the workers, we are the communists we can't lose.
Mavis: Do you think women could do something similar in America?
Frida: I'm not sure how large the communist party is but I don't see why not our organization started off with the SPD they might already have one.
(Editor: We did not at the time but times are changing., The communist international has voted that all communist parties should form women's organizations)
Mavis: what about starting one without a party?"
Frida: Not to the effectiveness one would have with a party; women are not just women. A woman is of their class and nationality. To solve women's issues these contexts must be considered only forming around the one aspect of being a woman is folly.
Mavis: Moving on, many of our readers are struck with the women soldiers of the civil war, you fought, correct?"
Frida: Yes, like many women all over Europe and Asia, I fought and helped free us of our oppressors.
Mavis: What made you want to fight, it's to my understanding that your family was rather wealthy?
Frida: Yes I come from the nobility, that's why I did it in a way, my brother and father both died in the Imperialists war and I just wanted to fight like they did, Prussian militarism on a women. When I learned the Spartacists were recruiting women, I fled my family's estate. Not as glamorous as the peasant women who left their farms to seek liberation or better brought their villages to their side.
Mavis: The imperialist's war is the great war, correct?
Frida: Yes it's a more appropriate name. There is nothing great about a war started so the bourgeoisie could dominate the markets of the others.
Mavis: Wasn't the war started over the death of Archduke Ferdinand
Frida: That sparked it but the imperialists' powers need to expand is what set the context for the powers to go to war.
Mavis: I fear we are getting off track. Can we get back on track about you?
Frida: Sure, ask what you like.
Mavis: You mentioned a father and brother, what are their thoughts on the revolution?
Frida: Nothing, they never saw it.
Mavis: Oh i'm sorry then perhaps you can share why you think the revolution happened?"
Frida: The people were tired and starving, yet the Kaiser decided to kick them and fight more. They had banned even the illusion of a voice. They told us we were starving for the men on the front while they told the men on the front they were starving for us back home.
Mavis: So, like the French Revolution?
Frida: In a way but the french revolution stopped being a revolution, it accepted Napoleon we have not done that we succeeded. From the Pacific to the Atlantic, the bourgeoisie have lost sway.
Mavis: Many in America share the opinion that Luxenburg, Lenin and Gramsci are red napoleons in their own right, do you have any thoughts on this?
Frida: The comparison is just not the same, Napoleon ended France's revolutionary character, Napoleon was reactionary, he ended the republic, the current leaders of socialist nations are more Robespierre than Napoleon. Radical but sticking to the radical and democratic solutions.
Mavis: There have been many stories of brutality of the revolution, land theft, executions and of hundreds of people including putting an end to bloodlines that have rules for centuries. Can you confirm these?
Frida: Land belongs to us all and those who work it should have say on it. I won't deny that many who kept the land were killed and others put to trial and executed but that's simply in the nature of revolution. Ending the previous society to make a new one is the most violent thing possible if you change the laws of the world. Women getting an education equal to men in a nation with the first democratically elected women leader, What is that to them other than a new world.
Mavis: I see, that is quite the concept, perhaps we should move on, cloud we go back to women's organizations?
Frida: Yes we can get back to that.
Mavis: This might be forward but… As someone loyal to the party, what's it like being shared by your constituents?
Frida: I'm sorry I don't think I follow?"
Mavis: The equal distribution of women is a very commonly reported occurrence in Germany and Russia; as a loyal and dedicated communist, you must have experience in this practice.
Frida: That's… Not a practice, from all you've seen how can you even ask that question? It's clearly not true, who reported on this?
Mavis: It's well documented from, both german and Russian refugees, The SPD and exile, has been very dedicated, your fellow socialists have stories of it.
Frida: The SPD in exile is a reactionary force that should not be trusted, they have no reason to speak kindly of a revolution they betrayed.
Mavis: Perhaps but, their words shouldn't be shut down without critical thought or investigation, now back to the question.
Frida: Were done, no women are being redistributed like property were humans, the fact that you view the redistribution of property as including women proves you have non interest in learning. Any reader interested in our republic who also asks questions like yours needs to read theory not interviews. Engles wrote the principles of communism start with that.
(Interview basically ends there.)
Shoulda paid attention to my last diary but it's lost now. Might as well start anew with this diary, lucky Mr Neumann gave me one. He's been good to me but now I am to start livin with my new caretaker. Mr Beck seemed nice from his letters he's already got a daughter named Wilhelma she'sa bit younger than me but he hopes we get along. What's more excitin is Berlin. Hamburg is already the biggest city I've ever seen. Howidey even makes a city larger than New orleans. Same goes for the cities in the north like NewYork and Chicago. It's startlin how big cities are gettin. Father always said cities were hotbeds for crime and undesirable folk but I'find them nice. Hamburg was amazin and I expect mor'of Berlin. It's the heart of the revolution aftall. If Sable was here this would be perfect. She always wanted to see big cities so i'll see everyone. Moscow, Vienna, Budapest, Kiev, Stockholm, Leningrad and Rome. I'll see them all. Gotta make a dream section in this Diary. Losing the old one is definitely the worst part but some of those were becomin impossible, she's definitely not meetin president Willson anymore. Somethin else that's new is the trains. Ividden on them before but the ones in Mississippi gave my family a whole cart. My father said itas a benefit of our heritage, ain't like that around here. Equality was the name of this new world that's what communism isalbout though Mr Neumann says it's more complicated thanat. Point bein the trains are nice not what she had at home but everyone gets this. Sable would have gotten this. I'm runnin out of room to write and I'll be in Berlin soon. It's late but Mr Beck will be waitin for me.
I'm re-reading the post, and there's still a lot of the same stuff there. Below is just from the first paragraph. Are you a native German-speaker by any chance? I notice you tend to capitalize common nouns.
Salutations Felix I hope this letter finds you quickly. As I hope you heard, Hamburg has risen up against the Kkaiser. There has been mass mutiny among the soldiers and the high seas fleet. The workers have joined them. The scab uUnions are no more and the true uUnions have taken to the streets. Both women and men have come out, like in Russia. With the events in Russia and the general feelings I have been seeing among the wWorkers, I believe now is the time for action!
I'm re-reading the post, and there's still a lot of the same stuff there. Below is just from the first paragraph. Are you a native German-speaker by any chance? I notice you tend to capitalize common nouns.
