I've been somewhat tied up in my time due to final exams. I'll try to get another entry out in the next couple of days.
Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree: A Nineteen Eighty-Four Timeline
- Thread starter Roberto El Rey
- Start date
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- Tags
- 1984 book derivative dystopia orwell
14
Eyewitness account of the November Putsch by Karl Höller, an ironworker from Mitte
This must've been a half an hour after the roadblock. We were just getting onto the Königsplatz. The Reichstag was right in front of us, couldn't have been 200 metres, and getting closer with every step. I looked around, saw all the hate in their eyes...I couldn't quite tell if they were actually saying things or just making wild noises with their mouths. Before I joined up with the crowd, you could at least make out a few slogans, but now it was just gibberish. It was almost impossible not to join in yourself...I was shouting too, but I was just trying to tell them all to go home, turn back before it was too late. But every minute I had to resist the urge to start shouting along with them, bashing in the German people and name. All the while I kept imagining the Reichstag burning to the ground, some psychopath putting up a red flag and declaring a People's Proletariat Socialist Republic of bullshit. And that's when it happened.
I heard the first shot and I snapped my head around, looking for where it came from. I had noticed some mounted cops sitting in our way a minute ago, but after the show they put up with the roadblock I didn't think they'd be fit to stop a funeral procession. And that's when I saw them--the Freikorps men. They weren't quite up to where the police were, but they were gaining fast. I knew at once they weren't cops--for one thing, they weren't on horses, they were on foot. And they weren't uniformed, they had on brown shirts. I figured they had to be with the National Socialists, since they had a banner with that funny-looking diamond thing you see on those Chaplin posters. But that wasn't what I cared about...what mattered was that they weren't just sitting on their asses, watching as a horde of barbarians march on to tear down the German Republic. They were charging. And they were carrying guns but it looked like they might actually use them. Maybe if we'd had some of those folks in the police that mob wouldn't have gotten as far as it did!
Either way, once the first shot came off the bullets went flying in every direction. It looked like the police were volleying into the crowd at will, the bastards, not even caring if they hit the people like me, the ones who didn't want to be there, didn't want to do anyone a bit of harm...the Freikorps lads, they were looking around, making sure they only shot the ones who were shooting at them. I couldn't quite tell who shot first, but I'd give anything it was the damned Commies. Lord knows it wasn't the police, those cowards. And the Socialist fellows, they wouldn't have wanted to fire on their own people, but the reds wouldn't have given a damn who lived or died...it's all for the revolution with them, no matter how much needless blood they spill. I watched them shooting round after round into the crowd, just putting 'em all down, and the reds were scurrying about like madmen. A couple of them were trying to shoot back but they obviously couldn't hit the side of a barn if they tried. Most just dropped their guns and went screaming...I had to fight the urge to pick up a gun and pick 'em off one by one, those miserable bastards.
This must've been a half an hour after the roadblock. We were just getting onto the Königsplatz. The Reichstag was right in front of us, couldn't have been 200 metres, and getting closer with every step. I looked around, saw all the hate in their eyes...I couldn't quite tell if they were actually saying things or just making wild noises with their mouths. Before I joined up with the crowd, you could at least make out a few slogans, but now it was just gibberish. It was almost impossible not to join in yourself...I was shouting too, but I was just trying to tell them all to go home, turn back before it was too late. But every minute I had to resist the urge to start shouting along with them, bashing in the German people and name. All the while I kept imagining the Reichstag burning to the ground, some psychopath putting up a red flag and declaring a People's Proletariat Socialist Republic of bullshit. And that's when it happened.
I heard the first shot and I snapped my head around, looking for where it came from. I had noticed some mounted cops sitting in our way a minute ago, but after the show they put up with the roadblock I didn't think they'd be fit to stop a funeral procession. And that's when I saw them--the Freikorps men. They weren't quite up to where the police were, but they were gaining fast. I knew at once they weren't cops--for one thing, they weren't on horses, they were on foot. And they weren't uniformed, they had on brown shirts. I figured they had to be with the National Socialists, since they had a banner with that funny-looking diamond thing you see on those Chaplin posters. But that wasn't what I cared about...what mattered was that they weren't just sitting on their asses, watching as a horde of barbarians march on to tear down the German Republic. They were charging. And they were carrying guns but it looked like they might actually use them. Maybe if we'd had some of those folks in the police that mob wouldn't have gotten as far as it did!
Either way, once the first shot came off the bullets went flying in every direction. It looked like the police were volleying into the crowd at will, the bastards, not even caring if they hit the people like me, the ones who didn't want to be there, didn't want to do anyone a bit of harm...the Freikorps lads, they were looking around, making sure they only shot the ones who were shooting at them. I couldn't quite tell who shot first, but I'd give anything it was the damned Commies. Lord knows it wasn't the police, those cowards. And the Socialist fellows, they wouldn't have wanted to fire on their own people, but the reds wouldn't have given a damn who lived or died...it's all for the revolution with them, no matter how much needless blood they spill. I watched them shooting round after round into the crowd, just putting 'em all down, and the reds were scurrying about like madmen. A couple of them were trying to shoot back but they obviously couldn't hit the side of a barn if they tried. Most just dropped their guns and went screaming...I had to fight the urge to pick up a gun and pick 'em off one by one, those miserable bastards.
So what do you think so far? Can I get some feedback on the primary source format?
That was one of the best books I've ever read. (Wish I could say the same to the movie adaptation).
I'm trying as best I can to be true to the original. I have indeed taken a few liberties with the backstory (including setting it long before Orwell wrote the book) but the books I've crafted up until this point were all written and published before the propaganda machines will be in place. It will get harder later on to keep this up, for obvious reasons, so I may have to switch to a new medium as I get closer to the dread year.
15
Frankfurter Zeitung, 10 November 1925
PROTESTS IN BERLIN LEAD TO FIREFIGHT WITH POLICE; 82 KILLED
by Robert Reintke
A large protest in Berlin led to a massive exchange of gunfire yesterday, as several thousand armed demonstrators clashed with mounted police near the Reichstag building. At approximately two-thirty in the afternoon on 9 November, a detachment of the Berlin Landespolizei, some 35 in number, confronted a mass of protesters on the Königsplatz. Witnesses say that the protesters numbered between eight and twelve thousand; in addition, it was reported that some of the demonstrators were dressed in the red shirts characteristic of the Communist Party, though this has yet to be confirmed. It is, however, known with certainty that a sizeable portion of the activists were armed with firearms. Over seventy rifles were recovered from the scene of the skirmish. According to police sources, most of these were of the mark Mosin-Nagant, the principal make of rifle used by the Russians during the Great War, and by both sides of Russia's civil war.
It is unclear exactly how the conflict was initiated. Some witnesses claim that the police fired the first shots, while others say that the protesters were the first to shoot. Enquiry into the event is further complicated by the arrival of a third party at the moment of the incident. This group reportedly was carrying symbology associated with the National Socialist German Workers' Party; This evidence suggests the possible involvement of the NSDAP-affiliated Free German Men's Corps, or Free Corps*, which are infamous for their frequent, unsanctioned patrols of both Berlin and the northern countryside. After several minutes of fire from both sides, the remaining combatants surrendered or fled from the scene. In total, 82 were killed by gunshots and a further 70 were severely injured. Seven of the reported casualties were police officers, while the rest were composed of protesters.
*The Freikorps. Up until this point, the KPD has been much more successful than the NSDAP (even more so than it was in OTL 1925), due in no small part to the massive funding and resources being poured into it by Trotsky's government. Since most of the poor, disgruntled workers have been stolen away by them dirty commies, the Nazi Party's Berlin membership is pitiful. Most of its members are now and urban middle class men and rural farmers. These Nazis' primary drive is their fear of the Communists, who already have the cities in their grip and who threaten to degrade the traditional conservative, Christian, populist, German way of life. In that regard, they may as well hold the copyright on the Freikorps, which were formed in late 1918 from of the same class of people for the same reason in response to the same political trend. Therefore, the Freikorps (or the Free German Men's Corps, as they are now officially called) have been revived by the Nazis to patrol the rural north (where most of their membership is concentrated) and, to a much lesser extent, Berlin, for an excuse to intimidate anyone who looks vaguely Communist.
PROTESTS IN BERLIN LEAD TO FIREFIGHT WITH POLICE; 82 KILLED
by Robert Reintke
A large protest in Berlin led to a massive exchange of gunfire yesterday, as several thousand armed demonstrators clashed with mounted police near the Reichstag building. At approximately two-thirty in the afternoon on 9 November, a detachment of the Berlin Landespolizei, some 35 in number, confronted a mass of protesters on the Königsplatz. Witnesses say that the protesters numbered between eight and twelve thousand; in addition, it was reported that some of the demonstrators were dressed in the red shirts characteristic of the Communist Party, though this has yet to be confirmed. It is, however, known with certainty that a sizeable portion of the activists were armed with firearms. Over seventy rifles were recovered from the scene of the skirmish. According to police sources, most of these were of the mark Mosin-Nagant, the principal make of rifle used by the Russians during the Great War, and by both sides of Russia's civil war.
It is unclear exactly how the conflict was initiated. Some witnesses claim that the police fired the first shots, while others say that the protesters were the first to shoot. Enquiry into the event is further complicated by the arrival of a third party at the moment of the incident. This group reportedly was carrying symbology associated with the National Socialist German Workers' Party; This evidence suggests the possible involvement of the NSDAP-affiliated Free German Men's Corps, or Free Corps*, which are infamous for their frequent, unsanctioned patrols of both Berlin and the northern countryside. After several minutes of fire from both sides, the remaining combatants surrendered or fled from the scene. In total, 82 were killed by gunshots and a further 70 were severely injured. Seven of the reported casualties were police officers, while the rest were composed of protesters.
*The Freikorps. Up until this point, the KPD has been much more successful than the NSDAP (even more so than it was in OTL 1925), due in no small part to the massive funding and resources being poured into it by Trotsky's government. Since most of the poor, disgruntled workers have been stolen away by them dirty commies, the Nazi Party's Berlin membership is pitiful. Most of its members are now and urban middle class men and rural farmers. These Nazis' primary drive is their fear of the Communists, who already have the cities in their grip and who threaten to degrade the traditional conservative, Christian, populist, German way of life. In that regard, they may as well hold the copyright on the Freikorps, which were formed in late 1918 from of the same class of people for the same reason in response to the same political trend. Therefore, the Freikorps (or the Free German Men's Corps, as they are now officially called) have been revived by the Nazis to patrol the rural north (where most of their membership is concentrated) and, to a much lesser extent, Berlin, for an excuse to intimidate anyone who looks vaguely Communist.
16
Völkischer Beobachter*, 10 November 1925
ARMED BOLSHEVIK HORDE DESCENDS ON BERLIN!
Dozens of police murdered; Free Corps division saves Reichstag from certain destruction
by Fritz Klepperman
Yesterday, Berlin was attacked by an alien force hostile to the interests and welfare of the German people. The Communist Party, feared throughout the country for its frequent and oftentimes frightening displays of violence, finally showed its true intentions for Germany yesterday, as a hundred-thousand-man swarm of red-shirted hooligans--all of whom were reportedly armed with rifles--marched at a terrifying pace to the Reichstag, intending to destroy the foundations of the German Republic and transform the nation into a puppet of Bolshevik Russia. When the pathetic show of violence devolved, as it inevitably did, into a massacre of police and civilians, only the timely arrival of a brigade of the Free German Men's Corps saved the Reichstag from the rage of a mob of war-mongering lunatics.
For nearly an hour and a half, tens of thousands of communist agitators marched unstoppably through the city streets, intimidating helpless civilians and abusing the workers whom they claim to represent. At multiple points during the march, the police and the Communists met directly, but each time the police simply stood by and allowed the enemies of the German people to proceed; it appears from this that the Landespolizei, tasked with defending the German people from our enemies, is powerless to stop a pack of schoolchildren wielding guns they don't know how to use. This, of course, is ignoring the possibility that the police themselves are corrupted by the Marxist disease, and had willingly allowed the enemy to pass. Either explanation has serious implications as to whether or not we can depend on the police to protect us from further attempts to shake the strength of the German state and nation.
By two-thirty, it seemed that nothing could stop the rebels from reaching the Reichstag. As the rebellious mass set foot on the Königsplatz, mere metres away from its target, yet another detachment of police utterly failed to slow the attackers' path, standing down while it passed like a row of mounted statues. Suddenly, a shot rang out; within mere moments, the supposedly unified mass of rebels scattered into a frenzy of confused fire. In the ensuing firefight, dozens of police officers, all of whom were valiantly serving their duty in defence of the nation, were murdered by the communists; hundreds of insurrectionists were given the violent deaths they deserved. When the smoke cleared, only the brave members of the Free German Men's Corps, which had heroically intervened to save the Reichstag from the Bolshevik menace, remained standing amid the corpses of the violent revolutionaries and the useless police.
*The Nazi Party's official newspaper.
ARMED BOLSHEVIK HORDE DESCENDS ON BERLIN!
Dozens of police murdered; Free Corps division saves Reichstag from certain destruction
by Fritz Klepperman
Yesterday, Berlin was attacked by an alien force hostile to the interests and welfare of the German people. The Communist Party, feared throughout the country for its frequent and oftentimes frightening displays of violence, finally showed its true intentions for Germany yesterday, as a hundred-thousand-man swarm of red-shirted hooligans--all of whom were reportedly armed with rifles--marched at a terrifying pace to the Reichstag, intending to destroy the foundations of the German Republic and transform the nation into a puppet of Bolshevik Russia. When the pathetic show of violence devolved, as it inevitably did, into a massacre of police and civilians, only the timely arrival of a brigade of the Free German Men's Corps saved the Reichstag from the rage of a mob of war-mongering lunatics.
For nearly an hour and a half, tens of thousands of communist agitators marched unstoppably through the city streets, intimidating helpless civilians and abusing the workers whom they claim to represent. At multiple points during the march, the police and the Communists met directly, but each time the police simply stood by and allowed the enemies of the German people to proceed; it appears from this that the Landespolizei, tasked with defending the German people from our enemies, is powerless to stop a pack of schoolchildren wielding guns they don't know how to use. This, of course, is ignoring the possibility that the police themselves are corrupted by the Marxist disease, and had willingly allowed the enemy to pass. Either explanation has serious implications as to whether or not we can depend on the police to protect us from further attempts to shake the strength of the German state and nation.
By two-thirty, it seemed that nothing could stop the rebels from reaching the Reichstag. As the rebellious mass set foot on the Königsplatz, mere metres away from its target, yet another detachment of police utterly failed to slow the attackers' path, standing down while it passed like a row of mounted statues. Suddenly, a shot rang out; within mere moments, the supposedly unified mass of rebels scattered into a frenzy of confused fire. In the ensuing firefight, dozens of police officers, all of whom were valiantly serving their duty in defence of the nation, were murdered by the communists; hundreds of insurrectionists were given the violent deaths they deserved. When the smoke cleared, only the brave members of the Free German Men's Corps, which had heroically intervened to save the Reichstag from the Bolshevik menace, remained standing amid the corpses of the violent revolutionaries and the useless police.
*The Nazi Party's official newspaper.
17
Excerpt from p. 206 of Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Germany Between the Great Wars by Otto Grünwald, 1946
There comes now an inevitable question: Why did the November Putsch fail? Not just why its perpetrators failed to reach the Reichstag, but why did the sight of thousands of protesters marching in the streets fail to rouse the downtrodden people of Berlin to the righteous cause of revolution? And perhaps more importantly, why did the swift crushing of the rebellion fail to provoke the necessary outrage from the people of Germany, which would have made possible the people's revolution which Trotsky, Thälmann and the others were trying to accomplish?
The first part of the question is the simplest to answer. The November Putsch was unsuccessful in storming the Reichstag and overthrowing the government because it pitted several thousand young, disunified, untrained, inexperienced young men--in a word, amateurs--against the numerically inferior, but astronomically more competent, police. Thälmann's Russian advisors had placed far too much emphasis on indoctrinating the revolutionaries, and far too little on training them with their weapons or preparing them for the stress they would endure as Leninist-style "professional revolutionaries". The disastrous effects of this lopsided training strategy were made obvious during the march: hardly half an hour had gone by before the unanimous cries of "Down with the Chancellor" and "Freedom for the Proletariat" had devolved into a jumble of indistinguishable noises and shouts that said nothing about the purpose or the aim of the crowd. And when the shots rang out on the Königsplatz, the protesters, most of whom had barely touched a gun before that day, could do little more than panic and fire wildly in every possible direction--hitting more of each other than the police officers--while those well-trained policemen maintained their composure and fired back out of self-defence, inflicting embarrassing casualties on the Communists.
Now, to answer the second part of the question: why did the common folk not join in the protest? Those who planned this Putsch--Radek, Trotsky, Thälmann, and the rest--were hoping to trigger a "1917" in Germany: to invite throngs of masses, too huge to ignore, onto the streets with the revolutionaries to voice their hatred of the regime, to clamor so loudly for Ebert's resignation that he would have no choice but to heed their wishes. This was an absolute failure, and, with knowledge of the conditions that day, it's easier to understand why.
Firstly, this was a cold day, with temperatures as low as freezing. Few people were out on the streets when the march began, and even fewer were willing to endure the cold just to participate in some political protest. Secondly, 9 November 1925 was a Monday. While the KPD had managed to procure a day off in the factories, it was business as usual in non-industrial Berlin, and most potential revolutionaries were at work for the day. Even those who could have joined had a good reason not to: the demonstrators were armed. Without guns, they could be perceived as a mass of disgruntled citizens who were democratically voicing their concerns. With the guns, they were indistinguishable from a foreign invasion. No person in their proper mind would have wanted to throw in his lot with a troupe of gun-wielding maniacs who looked as though they might begin massacring civilians at any moment.
If a "1917" was unattainable, then the communists would have hoped at least for a "1905"--a situation in which the swift crushing of the rebellion would turn the people against the government to such a degree that a true people's revolution--in other words, a true "1917"--would be only a matter of time. In this regard, the coup failed perhaps even more spectacularly than it did in its immediate goals. For one, the event that constituted the original "1905" began with a few thousand patriotic, loyal workers peacefully imploring their beloved Tsar to improve the conditions of their lives. It ended with the unprovoked massacre of hundreds of unarmed demonstrators, because Nicholas preferred to suppress his nation's problems rather than to solve them. Bloody Sunday was so incisive in the minds of the Russian people because it was a case of a tyrannical government trampling innocent civilians. The November Putsch was quite obviously a case of a democratic government defending itself and its citizens from a violent aggressor. There was no reason at all for the German people to feel indignant towards their government as a result of the November Putsch.
Perhaps an even larger reason is that the Communist Party was frightening. With its outward militance, inescapable posters and slogans, and incessant worship of some strange, twisted idea of the future, the Communist Party was generally feared by the public, even hated and despised. The Communists failed to realize that their success in the electorate was due to their being the largest option outside of the Social Democrats, rather than a wide-scale acceptance of their ideas by the German people. Most ordinary Germans were indeed hungry for an ideological change from the tired reign of the SPD, but they wanted to feel empowered and patriotic after the embarrassment of the War. The KPD claimed to the people that they must endure even more hardship for the sake of the future generations, and that the workers of France, Britain and Russia were their comrades--a rhetoric which did little to satisfy the nationalist and populist urges that were brewing in the hearts of most Germans.
There comes now an inevitable question: Why did the November Putsch fail? Not just why its perpetrators failed to reach the Reichstag, but why did the sight of thousands of protesters marching in the streets fail to rouse the downtrodden people of Berlin to the righteous cause of revolution? And perhaps more importantly, why did the swift crushing of the rebellion fail to provoke the necessary outrage from the people of Germany, which would have made possible the people's revolution which Trotsky, Thälmann and the others were trying to accomplish?
The first part of the question is the simplest to answer. The November Putsch was unsuccessful in storming the Reichstag and overthrowing the government because it pitted several thousand young, disunified, untrained, inexperienced young men--in a word, amateurs--against the numerically inferior, but astronomically more competent, police. Thälmann's Russian advisors had placed far too much emphasis on indoctrinating the revolutionaries, and far too little on training them with their weapons or preparing them for the stress they would endure as Leninist-style "professional revolutionaries". The disastrous effects of this lopsided training strategy were made obvious during the march: hardly half an hour had gone by before the unanimous cries of "Down with the Chancellor" and "Freedom for the Proletariat" had devolved into a jumble of indistinguishable noises and shouts that said nothing about the purpose or the aim of the crowd. And when the shots rang out on the Königsplatz, the protesters, most of whom had barely touched a gun before that day, could do little more than panic and fire wildly in every possible direction--hitting more of each other than the police officers--while those well-trained policemen maintained their composure and fired back out of self-defence, inflicting embarrassing casualties on the Communists.
Now, to answer the second part of the question: why did the common folk not join in the protest? Those who planned this Putsch--Radek, Trotsky, Thälmann, and the rest--were hoping to trigger a "1917" in Germany: to invite throngs of masses, too huge to ignore, onto the streets with the revolutionaries to voice their hatred of the regime, to clamor so loudly for Ebert's resignation that he would have no choice but to heed their wishes. This was an absolute failure, and, with knowledge of the conditions that day, it's easier to understand why.
Firstly, this was a cold day, with temperatures as low as freezing. Few people were out on the streets when the march began, and even fewer were willing to endure the cold just to participate in some political protest. Secondly, 9 November 1925 was a Monday. While the KPD had managed to procure a day off in the factories, it was business as usual in non-industrial Berlin, and most potential revolutionaries were at work for the day. Even those who could have joined had a good reason not to: the demonstrators were armed. Without guns, they could be perceived as a mass of disgruntled citizens who were democratically voicing their concerns. With the guns, they were indistinguishable from a foreign invasion. No person in their proper mind would have wanted to throw in his lot with a troupe of gun-wielding maniacs who looked as though they might begin massacring civilians at any moment.
If a "1917" was unattainable, then the communists would have hoped at least for a "1905"--a situation in which the swift crushing of the rebellion would turn the people against the government to such a degree that a true people's revolution--in other words, a true "1917"--would be only a matter of time. In this regard, the coup failed perhaps even more spectacularly than it did in its immediate goals. For one, the event that constituted the original "1905" began with a few thousand patriotic, loyal workers peacefully imploring their beloved Tsar to improve the conditions of their lives. It ended with the unprovoked massacre of hundreds of unarmed demonstrators, because Nicholas preferred to suppress his nation's problems rather than to solve them. Bloody Sunday was so incisive in the minds of the Russian people because it was a case of a tyrannical government trampling innocent civilians. The November Putsch was quite obviously a case of a democratic government defending itself and its citizens from a violent aggressor. There was no reason at all for the German people to feel indignant towards their government as a result of the November Putsch.
Perhaps an even larger reason is that the Communist Party was frightening. With its outward militance, inescapable posters and slogans, and incessant worship of some strange, twisted idea of the future, the Communist Party was generally feared by the public, even hated and despised. The Communists failed to realize that their success in the electorate was due to their being the largest option outside of the Social Democrats, rather than a wide-scale acceptance of their ideas by the German people. Most ordinary Germans were indeed hungry for an ideological change from the tired reign of the SPD, but they wanted to feel empowered and patriotic after the embarrassment of the War. The KPD claimed to the people that they must endure even more hardship for the sake of the future generations, and that the workers of France, Britain and Russia were their comrades--a rhetoric which did little to satisfy the nationalist and populist urges that were brewing in the hearts of most Germans.
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18
Excerpt from p. 207 of Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Germany Between the World Wars by Otto Grünwald, 1946
The failure of the November Putsch was the beginning of the end for the KPD, and the end of the beginning for the National Socialist Party. Before the coup, the KPD was performing better in election after election, and was well on track to overtaking the Social Democrats as the majority party in the Reichstag. If Trotsky had allowed it, the communist movement would have secured its first foothold outside Russia through entirely legal means within just a few years. After the coup, the Party's reputation was permanently damaged. No longer the new, maverick foil to the SPD, now they were a violent, unstable, and dangerous fringe movement which intended fully to destabilise and destroy the government. No ordinary German, however jaded with the system he may have been, could support a cause like that. The electoral demise of the Communist Party of Germany was, therefore, sealed with the failure of the November Putsch.
And yet, even after the KPD had been thoroughly discredited in the minds of the public, the Party leadership believed that just by setting the example, they had set the stage for the people to eventually throw off the chains of oppression and establish communism in their own right, as they were naturally destined to do. This shows a level of self-delusion that is truly strange and somewhat frightening, when considering that these were the minds which might have come to rule Germany if they hadn't squandered their popularity in the way that they did.
The truth was that communism were never nearly as popular in postwar Germany as the Party believed it to be. As mentioned before, most who voted Communist did so mostly, if not entirely, out of disillusionment with the existing political order. Few KPD supporters adhered to, or were even familiar with, Marxist-Leninist ideals. As would become clear in the near future, any movement calling for radical economic and social change could easily capture the fickle hearts of interwar Germany, and up until that point, the Communist Party had simply been the most noticeable choice (thanks in no small part to the generous “donations” it received from the Russian government, which allowed it to saturate the country with propaganda at a rate that smaller parties could only imagine).
The ideologies of the Nazi Party, on the other hand, were perfectly suited to the political currents of '30s Germany. The people of Germany were resentful—hateful, even—of France, Britain and America for what they'd done to the nation at Versailles. And as a nation, they desired more than anything to regain the feeling of pride and superiority that they'd felt before the humiliation of the war. The Nazis, with their extreme, all-consuming nationalism and prominent enmity to the Allied Powers, were perfectly suited to capture the profound anger felt by the German people, and bend it to their own ends. And as anyone who reads this book will certainly be aware, once the Communists fell out of favour (largely as a result of the Nazis' own contributions to the field of journalism), the National Socialist Party was extremely effective at capitalising on these advantages.
The failure of the November Putsch was the beginning of the end for the KPD, and the end of the beginning for the National Socialist Party. Before the coup, the KPD was performing better in election after election, and was well on track to overtaking the Social Democrats as the majority party in the Reichstag. If Trotsky had allowed it, the communist movement would have secured its first foothold outside Russia through entirely legal means within just a few years. After the coup, the Party's reputation was permanently damaged. No longer the new, maverick foil to the SPD, now they were a violent, unstable, and dangerous fringe movement which intended fully to destabilise and destroy the government. No ordinary German, however jaded with the system he may have been, could support a cause like that. The electoral demise of the Communist Party of Germany was, therefore, sealed with the failure of the November Putsch.
And yet, even after the KPD had been thoroughly discredited in the minds of the public, the Party leadership believed that just by setting the example, they had set the stage for the people to eventually throw off the chains of oppression and establish communism in their own right, as they were naturally destined to do. This shows a level of self-delusion that is truly strange and somewhat frightening, when considering that these were the minds which might have come to rule Germany if they hadn't squandered their popularity in the way that they did.
The truth was that communism were never nearly as popular in postwar Germany as the Party believed it to be. As mentioned before, most who voted Communist did so mostly, if not entirely, out of disillusionment with the existing political order. Few KPD supporters adhered to, or were even familiar with, Marxist-Leninist ideals. As would become clear in the near future, any movement calling for radical economic and social change could easily capture the fickle hearts of interwar Germany, and up until that point, the Communist Party had simply been the most noticeable choice (thanks in no small part to the generous “donations” it received from the Russian government, which allowed it to saturate the country with propaganda at a rate that smaller parties could only imagine).
The ideologies of the Nazi Party, on the other hand, were perfectly suited to the political currents of '30s Germany. The people of Germany were resentful—hateful, even—of France, Britain and America for what they'd done to the nation at Versailles. And as a nation, they desired more than anything to regain the feeling of pride and superiority that they'd felt before the humiliation of the war. The Nazis, with their extreme, all-consuming nationalism and prominent enmity to the Allied Powers, were perfectly suited to capture the profound anger felt by the German people, and bend it to their own ends. And as anyone who reads this book will certainly be aware, once the Communists fell out of favour (largely as a result of the Nazis' own contributions to the field of journalism), the National Socialist Party was extremely effective at capitalising on these advantages.
19
Note: There are a lot of words in this entry, so here's the short version:
Ok, here's what happens after the November Putsch. Immediately after the Putsch is put down, Goebbels (essentially the leader of the Nazi Party with Hitler still sitting at Landsberg) realizes this is the Nazis' chance to get ahead. So he organizes a "special edition" of the Nazi Party's official newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, which claims that hundreds of innocent bystanders have been killed by the bloodthirsty communists and that the Freikorps, not the police, saved the day. This is of course false, but they print thousands of these issues, nail them to the walls and beat the bigger papers to the punch. Also, people already don't have much faith in the government so they're more willing to believe that the Reichstag was saved by a band of patriotic citizens rather than the police.
The people start to take notice of this new newspaper which gets its content out before everybody else. Some of the accusations it immediately makes about the KPD, such as that they are connected to Russia, actually turn out to be true, which gives the paper the reputation for reporting the truth long before anyone else does. On top of that, as established before, the Nazis are perfectly suited to take advantage of the emotions the German people are feeling post-World War I to gain. All of these things cause the Nazi Party's official newspaper extremely popular, giving the Nazis a suitable platform for their propaganda. And even though the communist movement has disgraced itself, the German people's anger at the state of things hasn't gone anywhere, and now it needs a new extreme ideology to latch onto, and Nazism is perfect for that. By 1928, the KPD is completely discredited, while the Nazi Party, through its influence over the extremely-popular Beobachter and by appealing to the German people's disillusionment, has convinced millions to hate Trotsky, Russia, Bolshevism, the Jews, and all combinations thereof. Just in time for the 1928 federal elections...
Excerpt from p. 213 of Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Germany Between the Great Wars by Otto Grünwald, 1946
The press would play a massive role in the politics of Germany in the latter half of the 1920s. Dominance over the media was a crucial part of the National Socialists' supplanting of the KPD as the main opposition, and control of the press was elemental in its eventual rise to power. This all started immediately after the November Putsch, when Deputy Führer Goebbels*, in a moment of astounding inspiration, had somehow foreseen that this would be the Party's chance to propel itself into the mainstream political scene at the expense of its Communist rivals, and swiftly mobilised his Party to take advantage of the KPD's failure and advance their own popularity and anti-Communist agenda.
By special orders of Deputy Führer Goebbels, Party members far and wide gathered in cramped Party offices to endure a long night of rigorous work. Goebbels had always had a knack for communications, as well as a keen understanding of the effectiveness of print media over the opinions of the public. So, despite the financial limitations of the Party, Goebbels had ensured that the Party would always be well-equipped to produce its own brand of propaganda in the form of its official newspaper. Though some Party offices were little more than small rooms in members' basements, most were equipped with printing presses and stocked with ink and paper. All through the night of 9 November, copy after copy of the Völkischer Beobachter was slammed out until tens of thousands of issues had been produced just in the vicinity of Berlin. Typically it was released on Fridays, but a Tuesday “special edition” had been hastily drawn up specifically to condemn the KPD's involvement in the Putsch.
Once a suitably huge number of issues had been produced, the paper's printers became its handlers and merchants. By two in the morning, half of all able Party members in Berlin—two, even three thousand men—were scurrying around the city, tacking up copies of the Beobachter onto every available building and edifice. The other half stayed in the offices, producing more copies for their compatriots to distribute.
By morning, the “special edition” of the Beobachter was even more conspicuous than the KPD's posters. As the citizens left home to head to work, they were greeted with large, eye-catching headlines proclaiming the events of the previous day to be the work of Bolshevik conspirators aiming to destroy the government. Interested by the new, unrestrained description of the event, millions of Berliners read their fill of information from this remarkable new newspaper. By the time the paperboys emerged, hocking the more moderate accounts of the Putsch to be found in the Berliner Tageblatt, most Berliners were already fully convinced of the NSDAP's wild interpretation of the event, and had no need to spend a few pfennigs just to hear what the reserved, mainstream sources had to say about it. On that day, the Völkischer Beobachter changed from a little-known rag run by a radical fringe group to a credible and intriguing source of information about German affairs. The National Socialists had finally been proven right about the dangerous ideas of the KPD, and they intended to take full advantage of this new credibility in order to pilfer popular support from the disgraced Communists.
*Goebbels is effectively the acting Party leader with Hitler still at Landsberg
Excerpt from p. 279 of Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Germany Between the Great Wars by Otto Grünwald, 1946
By 1928, the KPD was seen as nothing more than a radical fringe group. They were outspokenly unpatriotic, which made them unpopular in a Germany which was giving in to the self-aggrandizing nationalism which so often plagues defeated nations. They were known to be connected with the Russians, the Bolsheviks, and—even worse in the minds of a growing number—the Jews. The Communist Party had essentially arranged its own downfall with the Putsch, and its actions were rightfully condemned by all the main news sources as well as by the far-right press, so this decline would have occurred without the meddling of the National Socialists.
On the other hand, the NSDAP's rise, which mirrored the decline of the KPD, was a direct product of the journalistic tactics employed by the National Socialist Party in the months following the Putsch. After making itself known through its direct coverage of the coup, the Völkischer Beobachter proceeded to establish itself as a credible news outlet which covered stories more frankly and more interestingly than the larger papers did. Though anyone today is aware that the Beobachter was little more than a propagandistic tabloid serving the whims of the National Socialists, its credibility was greatly helped at the time because many of the baseless claims it had made regarding the KPD—such as that it was closely tied to the Russian government, that the government in Moscow had supported the Putsch, and that a disproportionate number of the Party were Jews—just so happened to be true. This persuaded millions of citizens that the Beobachter was capable of delivering the truth earlier and more honestly than any other news source.
In addition, while the other newspapers waited for the facts to come out before reporting them, the Beobachter lobbed scandalous, intriguing accusations with hardly any basis in reality. And whereas the main newspapers only ever drew restrained, boring conclusions, the Beobachter made outrageous, memorable claims that were just plausible enough to be believable. In short, the Beobachter became more interesting and more honest than the Tageblatt and the Zeitung in the minds of the people, mostly through luck and through dubious journalistic practises.
Once the Nazis had the ear of the people, they set to work gaining political support and convincing the people of their contemptible ideologies. Soon after the November Putsch, the official enquiries established that the Putsch had been stopped by the police, and that the NSDAP-affiliated Freikorps unit which arrived in the midst of the shooting had had no effect on the battle. Despite this, the Beobachter aggressively pursued the myth that the Freikorps had single-handedly stopped the coup in its tracks, while the police had sat around powerlessly.
Due to the average citizen's deep disillusionment with the government, this lie was more “believable” than the truth, and millions of Germans believed it. In this way, the Nazis effectively painted themselves as the patriotic saviours of Germany from the Bolshevik tide. This alone gained the National Socialists millions of supporters and deepened the popular disillusionment with the government.
The Nazis were also largely responsible for turning the German people against Bolshevism and the “Jewish Bolsheviks” who supposedly were in control of Russia and the KPD. Of course, the KPD's connections with Moscow had been well established during the official enquiries into the Putsch, and they were dutifully reported by the mainstream press. Thus, Trotsky's and Russia's involvement in the Putsch would have been uncovered even without the influence of the National Socialists.
However, it was the Nazis who used these facts to manipulate public opinion of Russia so negatively. With such headlines as “BEOBACHTER INVESTIGATION UNCOVERS BOLSHEVIK PLOT TO SUBDUE GERMAN SOVEREIGNTY” after a and “JEWS NUMBER SIXTY PER CENT OF COMMUNIST PARTY”, it is quite obvious that the Nazis were “guiding” their readership toward the conclusion that Russia was a dangerous, Jewish- and Bolshevik-controlled enemy of Germany
Taking into account the influence the Nazi Party's propaganda had amassed by 1928, it is no surprise that by the time of that year's federal elections, so many voters were thoroughly contemptuous of Russia, which they saw as Germany's historical and current enemy, which had secretly orchestrated the November Putsch and was still sending its Bolshevik spies and agents to disrupt German affairs; of Communists, whom they viewed as Russia's treasonous agents in Germany; and of Bolshevism, which they saw as a miserable ideology which had no provisions for the welfare of race or nation.
But more than anything else, they were contemptuous of the Jews. By 1928, millions of voting Germans were convinced that the Jews were at the root of all of Germany's problems, and that they were in control of Russia and the Communist Parties of Germany, and the Soviet Union; that Trotsky, himself of course a Jew, was their leader; that Bolshevism was merely a tool for the Jews to achieve supremacy; and, of course, that the Jews had betrayed Germany during the War, had created the Weimar Republic, and were secretly engineering the German people's woes to this day. The results, then, of the 1928 federal election are quite predictable in hindsight.
Ok, here's what happens after the November Putsch. Immediately after the Putsch is put down, Goebbels (essentially the leader of the Nazi Party with Hitler still sitting at Landsberg) realizes this is the Nazis' chance to get ahead. So he organizes a "special edition" of the Nazi Party's official newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, which claims that hundreds of innocent bystanders have been killed by the bloodthirsty communists and that the Freikorps, not the police, saved the day. This is of course false, but they print thousands of these issues, nail them to the walls and beat the bigger papers to the punch. Also, people already don't have much faith in the government so they're more willing to believe that the Reichstag was saved by a band of patriotic citizens rather than the police.
The people start to take notice of this new newspaper which gets its content out before everybody else. Some of the accusations it immediately makes about the KPD, such as that they are connected to Russia, actually turn out to be true, which gives the paper the reputation for reporting the truth long before anyone else does. On top of that, as established before, the Nazis are perfectly suited to take advantage of the emotions the German people are feeling post-World War I to gain. All of these things cause the Nazi Party's official newspaper extremely popular, giving the Nazis a suitable platform for their propaganda. And even though the communist movement has disgraced itself, the German people's anger at the state of things hasn't gone anywhere, and now it needs a new extreme ideology to latch onto, and Nazism is perfect for that. By 1928, the KPD is completely discredited, while the Nazi Party, through its influence over the extremely-popular Beobachter and by appealing to the German people's disillusionment, has convinced millions to hate Trotsky, Russia, Bolshevism, the Jews, and all combinations thereof. Just in time for the 1928 federal elections...
Excerpt from p. 213 of Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Germany Between the Great Wars by Otto Grünwald, 1946
The press would play a massive role in the politics of Germany in the latter half of the 1920s. Dominance over the media was a crucial part of the National Socialists' supplanting of the KPD as the main opposition, and control of the press was elemental in its eventual rise to power. This all started immediately after the November Putsch, when Deputy Führer Goebbels*, in a moment of astounding inspiration, had somehow foreseen that this would be the Party's chance to propel itself into the mainstream political scene at the expense of its Communist rivals, and swiftly mobilised his Party to take advantage of the KPD's failure and advance their own popularity and anti-Communist agenda.
By special orders of Deputy Führer Goebbels, Party members far and wide gathered in cramped Party offices to endure a long night of rigorous work. Goebbels had always had a knack for communications, as well as a keen understanding of the effectiveness of print media over the opinions of the public. So, despite the financial limitations of the Party, Goebbels had ensured that the Party would always be well-equipped to produce its own brand of propaganda in the form of its official newspaper. Though some Party offices were little more than small rooms in members' basements, most were equipped with printing presses and stocked with ink and paper. All through the night of 9 November, copy after copy of the Völkischer Beobachter was slammed out until tens of thousands of issues had been produced just in the vicinity of Berlin. Typically it was released on Fridays, but a Tuesday “special edition” had been hastily drawn up specifically to condemn the KPD's involvement in the Putsch.
Once a suitably huge number of issues had been produced, the paper's printers became its handlers and merchants. By two in the morning, half of all able Party members in Berlin—two, even three thousand men—were scurrying around the city, tacking up copies of the Beobachter onto every available building and edifice. The other half stayed in the offices, producing more copies for their compatriots to distribute.
By morning, the “special edition” of the Beobachter was even more conspicuous than the KPD's posters. As the citizens left home to head to work, they were greeted with large, eye-catching headlines proclaiming the events of the previous day to be the work of Bolshevik conspirators aiming to destroy the government. Interested by the new, unrestrained description of the event, millions of Berliners read their fill of information from this remarkable new newspaper. By the time the paperboys emerged, hocking the more moderate accounts of the Putsch to be found in the Berliner Tageblatt, most Berliners were already fully convinced of the NSDAP's wild interpretation of the event, and had no need to spend a few pfennigs just to hear what the reserved, mainstream sources had to say about it. On that day, the Völkischer Beobachter changed from a little-known rag run by a radical fringe group to a credible and intriguing source of information about German affairs. The National Socialists had finally been proven right about the dangerous ideas of the KPD, and they intended to take full advantage of this new credibility in order to pilfer popular support from the disgraced Communists.
*Goebbels is effectively the acting Party leader with Hitler still at Landsberg
Excerpt from p. 279 of Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Germany Between the Great Wars by Otto Grünwald, 1946
By 1928, the KPD was seen as nothing more than a radical fringe group. They were outspokenly unpatriotic, which made them unpopular in a Germany which was giving in to the self-aggrandizing nationalism which so often plagues defeated nations. They were known to be connected with the Russians, the Bolsheviks, and—even worse in the minds of a growing number—the Jews. The Communist Party had essentially arranged its own downfall with the Putsch, and its actions were rightfully condemned by all the main news sources as well as by the far-right press, so this decline would have occurred without the meddling of the National Socialists.
On the other hand, the NSDAP's rise, which mirrored the decline of the KPD, was a direct product of the journalistic tactics employed by the National Socialist Party in the months following the Putsch. After making itself known through its direct coverage of the coup, the Völkischer Beobachter proceeded to establish itself as a credible news outlet which covered stories more frankly and more interestingly than the larger papers did. Though anyone today is aware that the Beobachter was little more than a propagandistic tabloid serving the whims of the National Socialists, its credibility was greatly helped at the time because many of the baseless claims it had made regarding the KPD—such as that it was closely tied to the Russian government, that the government in Moscow had supported the Putsch, and that a disproportionate number of the Party were Jews—just so happened to be true. This persuaded millions of citizens that the Beobachter was capable of delivering the truth earlier and more honestly than any other news source.
In addition, while the other newspapers waited for the facts to come out before reporting them, the Beobachter lobbed scandalous, intriguing accusations with hardly any basis in reality. And whereas the main newspapers only ever drew restrained, boring conclusions, the Beobachter made outrageous, memorable claims that were just plausible enough to be believable. In short, the Beobachter became more interesting and more honest than the Tageblatt and the Zeitung in the minds of the people, mostly through luck and through dubious journalistic practises.
Once the Nazis had the ear of the people, they set to work gaining political support and convincing the people of their contemptible ideologies. Soon after the November Putsch, the official enquiries established that the Putsch had been stopped by the police, and that the NSDAP-affiliated Freikorps unit which arrived in the midst of the shooting had had no effect on the battle. Despite this, the Beobachter aggressively pursued the myth that the Freikorps had single-handedly stopped the coup in its tracks, while the police had sat around powerlessly.
Due to the average citizen's deep disillusionment with the government, this lie was more “believable” than the truth, and millions of Germans believed it. In this way, the Nazis effectively painted themselves as the patriotic saviours of Germany from the Bolshevik tide. This alone gained the National Socialists millions of supporters and deepened the popular disillusionment with the government.
The Nazis were also largely responsible for turning the German people against Bolshevism and the “Jewish Bolsheviks” who supposedly were in control of Russia and the KPD. Of course, the KPD's connections with Moscow had been well established during the official enquiries into the Putsch, and they were dutifully reported by the mainstream press. Thus, Trotsky's and Russia's involvement in the Putsch would have been uncovered even without the influence of the National Socialists.
However, it was the Nazis who used these facts to manipulate public opinion of Russia so negatively. With such headlines as “BEOBACHTER INVESTIGATION UNCOVERS BOLSHEVIK PLOT TO SUBDUE GERMAN SOVEREIGNTY” after a and “JEWS NUMBER SIXTY PER CENT OF COMMUNIST PARTY”, it is quite obvious that the Nazis were “guiding” their readership toward the conclusion that Russia was a dangerous, Jewish- and Bolshevik-controlled enemy of Germany
Taking into account the influence the Nazi Party's propaganda had amassed by 1928, it is no surprise that by the time of that year's federal elections, so many voters were thoroughly contemptuous of Russia, which they saw as Germany's historical and current enemy, which had secretly orchestrated the November Putsch and was still sending its Bolshevik spies and agents to disrupt German affairs; of Communists, whom they viewed as Russia's treasonous agents in Germany; and of Bolshevism, which they saw as a miserable ideology which had no provisions for the welfare of race or nation.
But more than anything else, they were contemptuous of the Jews. By 1928, millions of voting Germans were convinced that the Jews were at the root of all of Germany's problems, and that they were in control of Russia and the Communist Parties of Germany, and the Soviet Union; that Trotsky, himself of course a Jew, was their leader; that Bolshevism was merely a tool for the Jews to achieve supremacy; and, of course, that the Jews had betrayed Germany during the War, had created the Weimar Republic, and were secretly engineering the German people's woes to this day. The results, then, of the 1928 federal election are quite predictable in hindsight.
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I certainly will. Next post coming in a couple of days. It's taking longer because it'll be important for understanding how the Soviets' approach will change towards effecting world revolution.I'm loving this TL. Keep it Up!
20: A Shifting of Strategies
General Secretary Trotsky's weekly address to the people, Pravda, 15 March 1926
Comrades, when the peoples of Russia threw off the oppressive yoke of the Tsar and his cronies, we did not exempt ourselves from our responsibility to the oppressed peoples of other nations. The world revolution has just begun, and it is permanent, ongoing—it will not be complete until it has been spread to every remaining bastion of capitalism, every remaining refuge of the bourgeoisie. The people of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have a responsibility to quicken the revolution wherever it has not yet been effected, and the Communist Party, vanguard of the revolutionary class, has shaped its reaction to foreign affairs around this goal. And nowhere in the world do the anti-progressives and the bourgeoisie exercise tighter control over the populace and the means of production than they do in Europe.
This has been true for decades—when Marx was formulating the ideas which drive the unmatched progress of our unique socialist state, he understood very well that the states which preceded his native Germany and the Britain in which he did his work were, even eight decades ago, strongholds of the industrial urban oligarchy, already perfectly ripe for the people to seize power. However, the upheavals of 1848, which would certainly have been the turning point for Europe's oppressed classes, were squandered by intrigue and opportunism; it is for this reason that the capitalist states of Europe artificially survived for decades past their natural points of collapse. By the early years of the 20th century, authoritarianism, imperialism, and reactionary conservatism had become so firmly entrenched in the societies of Europe that even when the foundations which supported them were destroyed by the Great War, as had occurred in Russia, the people were stifled in their attempts to carry out a workers' revolution. In Germany, the domination of the reactionary bourgeoisie was so deep that even when the Revolution of 1919 had progressed to such a point that it seemed unstoppable, it was suddenly dismantled by such organs as the Social Democratic Party and the Chancellery, which had long before been highjacked by operatives of the counterrevolutionary class.
For the past years of this decade, the foreign policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has been to deliver monetary, military, and political support to the international nuclei of the revolutionary movement, in accordance with the responsibility of the peoples of the USSR to advance the cause of Worldwide Revolution. The recent revolution in Germany, which would have emancipated the German people from their oppression had it not been crushed by despotic bourgeois forces, has not diminished this responsibility. However, it, along with other recent events in Europe which resulted from the Party's attempts to bring revolution to the capitalist world, has made it clear that our own October Revolution--a massive, popularly-supported uprising of workers--is practically ineffective as a model for revolutions in the Western countries. This new reality, which has been so suddenly thrust upon us, forces us to consider a new strategy with which the people and the Party of the Soviet Union approach the goal of exporting revolution.
As stated before, the Soviet people are, in spite of these setbacks, still obligated to commit themselves entirely to the liberation of all oppressed people; to discard this goal after a few disappointments would be to concede ideological ground to Stalin and his followers. In fact, each person's individual commitment to the progress of socialism must not decrease, but increase: to adapt to the harsh realities of the task at hand, we must completely rebuild our industrial base, our agricultural processes, our military structure. With history, progress, and the benefits of socialism on our side. We must build our land into a military power so omnipotent that it will emerge victorious against any capitalistically-backed army. We must strengthen ourselves such that when the workers' armies march through the streets of Berlin, of Paris, of London, the foreign bourgeoisie and the domestic Stalinists will have little else to do but to throw themselves down in surrender to the unstoppable progress of the human race!
We will plan, we will work, we will build, we will march, and we will conquer. We all will devote ourselves, mind and body, to the defeat of the bourgeoisie, the denunciation of Stalin and his followers, the dismantling of capitalism, and, on that path, to the achievement of the World Revolution. When the Red Army has an outpost in every province, a garrison in every city, and a port on every coast, then, and only then, will the revolution be complete! Workers of Russia, unite! Unite for your freedom, unite for your compatriots, unite for the revolution!
Comrades, when the peoples of Russia threw off the oppressive yoke of the Tsar and his cronies, we did not exempt ourselves from our responsibility to the oppressed peoples of other nations. The world revolution has just begun, and it is permanent, ongoing—it will not be complete until it has been spread to every remaining bastion of capitalism, every remaining refuge of the bourgeoisie. The people of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have a responsibility to quicken the revolution wherever it has not yet been effected, and the Communist Party, vanguard of the revolutionary class, has shaped its reaction to foreign affairs around this goal. And nowhere in the world do the anti-progressives and the bourgeoisie exercise tighter control over the populace and the means of production than they do in Europe.
This has been true for decades—when Marx was formulating the ideas which drive the unmatched progress of our unique socialist state, he understood very well that the states which preceded his native Germany and the Britain in which he did his work were, even eight decades ago, strongholds of the industrial urban oligarchy, already perfectly ripe for the people to seize power. However, the upheavals of 1848, which would certainly have been the turning point for Europe's oppressed classes, were squandered by intrigue and opportunism; it is for this reason that the capitalist states of Europe artificially survived for decades past their natural points of collapse. By the early years of the 20th century, authoritarianism, imperialism, and reactionary conservatism had become so firmly entrenched in the societies of Europe that even when the foundations which supported them were destroyed by the Great War, as had occurred in Russia, the people were stifled in their attempts to carry out a workers' revolution. In Germany, the domination of the reactionary bourgeoisie was so deep that even when the Revolution of 1919 had progressed to such a point that it seemed unstoppable, it was suddenly dismantled by such organs as the Social Democratic Party and the Chancellery, which had long before been highjacked by operatives of the counterrevolutionary class.
For the past years of this decade, the foreign policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has been to deliver monetary, military, and political support to the international nuclei of the revolutionary movement, in accordance with the responsibility of the peoples of the USSR to advance the cause of Worldwide Revolution. The recent revolution in Germany, which would have emancipated the German people from their oppression had it not been crushed by despotic bourgeois forces, has not diminished this responsibility. However, it, along with other recent events in Europe which resulted from the Party's attempts to bring revolution to the capitalist world, has made it clear that our own October Revolution--a massive, popularly-supported uprising of workers--is practically ineffective as a model for revolutions in the Western countries. This new reality, which has been so suddenly thrust upon us, forces us to consider a new strategy with which the people and the Party of the Soviet Union approach the goal of exporting revolution.
As stated before, the Soviet people are, in spite of these setbacks, still obligated to commit themselves entirely to the liberation of all oppressed people; to discard this goal after a few disappointments would be to concede ideological ground to Stalin and his followers. In fact, each person's individual commitment to the progress of socialism must not decrease, but increase: to adapt to the harsh realities of the task at hand, we must completely rebuild our industrial base, our agricultural processes, our military structure. With history, progress, and the benefits of socialism on our side. We must build our land into a military power so omnipotent that it will emerge victorious against any capitalistically-backed army. We must strengthen ourselves such that when the workers' armies march through the streets of Berlin, of Paris, of London, the foreign bourgeoisie and the domestic Stalinists will have little else to do but to throw themselves down in surrender to the unstoppable progress of the human race!
We will plan, we will work, we will build, we will march, and we will conquer. We all will devote ourselves, mind and body, to the defeat of the bourgeoisie, the denunciation of Stalin and his followers, the dismantling of capitalism, and, on that path, to the achievement of the World Revolution. When the Red Army has an outpost in every province, a garrison in every city, and a port on every coast, then, and only then, will the revolution be complete! Workers of Russia, unite! Unite for your freedom, unite for your compatriots, unite for the revolution!
21
Memo drafted after Politburo meeting, 22 February 1926
New military quotas will be devised and voted upon at the Twenty-Fifth Party Congress in April 1926, in particular for dramatically increasing the number of active and reserve personnel of the Workers' and Peasants' Army, and for organizing the production of supplies and weapons to uphold the additional units. Broader plans will soon be developed for the industrialization of the cities, and for the development of infrastructure to support the extraction of such resources as will be required for the aforementioned military goals. General economic plans will also be drawn to regulate all sectors of the economy in accordance with the priority on military buildup.
New military quotas will be devised and voted upon at the Twenty-Fifth Party Congress in April 1926, in particular for dramatically increasing the number of active and reserve personnel of the Workers' and Peasants' Army, and for organizing the production of supplies and weapons to uphold the additional units. Broader plans will soon be developed for the industrialization of the cities, and for the development of infrastructure to support the extraction of such resources as will be required for the aforementioned military goals. General economic plans will also be drawn to regulate all sectors of the economy in accordance with the priority on military buildup.
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22
Berliner Tageblatt, 15 August 1928
HITLER FREED FROM PRISON
by Joseph Dauer
Adolf Hitler, former leader of the National Socialist Party, was released yesterday from his internment at Landsberg Prison in Landsberg-am-Lech, Bavaria, where he had been incarcerated for over four years following his imprisonment on 1 April 1924 for charges of high treason. Hitler was convicted of treason for his role in the Munich Putsch of 9 November 1923, and was sentenced to five years' detention. However, at the advice of Chancellor Wels, Hitler's sentence was overturned by a presidential order, which was signed by President Hindenburg on 3 July.
Though more than seven months of his sentence remain unserved, the public has reacted positively to the activist's release. At the ceremony celebrating his emancipation, Hitler was greeted by several thousand Nazi Party supporters hailing the early discharge of their leader. While the Party has formally been led by Joseph Goebbels since Hitler's imprisonment, Hitler has exercised considerable control over the ideological direction and public perception of the Party through his widespread writings. He has been featured prominently in Party advertisements, and his political tract, Mein Kampf, which he wrote in prison and has since been published, has been used effectively as a manifesto for the fiercely nationalist movement which he has spearheaded.
Since the Nazi Party gained legislative representation in the May elections, it has been leveraging its newfound political power to secure its spiritual leader's release. At the first congregation of the Reichstag following the elections, Goebbels firmly declared that the Nazi Party constituency would vote against the SPD on all issues unless Hitler was freed; although the Party holds less than a fifth of the seats, it is the second-largest in the Reichstag, and since Chancellor Wels' democratic coalition has been reduced to a shaky four-party alliance with a mere twenty-two seat majority, he finds himself forced to make concessions to the maverick Party.
After the presidential order was signed, Chancellor Wels expressed his hope that the National Socialists would see Hitler's freedom as a “sign of friendship between the National Socialist German Workers' Party and their political peers” and that, under the renewed leadership of Adolf Hitler, the National Socialist Party will collaborate with the SPD and its allies to “together lead the German Reich into a new period of peace and prosperity”. Hitler is soon expected to officially assume the duties of Leader of the National Socialist Party, and will likely be the Party's principal political and ideological guide for the duration of its mandate. Whether he intends to cooperate with the republican parties in the years to come, however, is uncertain and will likely be a point of contention in future political struggles.
HITLER FREED FROM PRISON
by Joseph Dauer
Adolf Hitler, former leader of the National Socialist Party, was released yesterday from his internment at Landsberg Prison in Landsberg-am-Lech, Bavaria, where he had been incarcerated for over four years following his imprisonment on 1 April 1924 for charges of high treason. Hitler was convicted of treason for his role in the Munich Putsch of 9 November 1923, and was sentenced to five years' detention. However, at the advice of Chancellor Wels, Hitler's sentence was overturned by a presidential order, which was signed by President Hindenburg on 3 July.
Though more than seven months of his sentence remain unserved, the public has reacted positively to the activist's release. At the ceremony celebrating his emancipation, Hitler was greeted by several thousand Nazi Party supporters hailing the early discharge of their leader. While the Party has formally been led by Joseph Goebbels since Hitler's imprisonment, Hitler has exercised considerable control over the ideological direction and public perception of the Party through his widespread writings. He has been featured prominently in Party advertisements, and his political tract, Mein Kampf, which he wrote in prison and has since been published, has been used effectively as a manifesto for the fiercely nationalist movement which he has spearheaded.
Since the Nazi Party gained legislative representation in the May elections, it has been leveraging its newfound political power to secure its spiritual leader's release. At the first congregation of the Reichstag following the elections, Goebbels firmly declared that the Nazi Party constituency would vote against the SPD on all issues unless Hitler was freed; although the Party holds less than a fifth of the seats, it is the second-largest in the Reichstag, and since Chancellor Wels' democratic coalition has been reduced to a shaky four-party alliance with a mere twenty-two seat majority, he finds himself forced to make concessions to the maverick Party.
After the presidential order was signed, Chancellor Wels expressed his hope that the National Socialists would see Hitler's freedom as a “sign of friendship between the National Socialist German Workers' Party and their political peers” and that, under the renewed leadership of Adolf Hitler, the National Socialist Party will collaborate with the SPD and its allies to “together lead the German Reich into a new period of peace and prosperity”. Hitler is soon expected to officially assume the duties of Leader of the National Socialist Party, and will likely be the Party's principal political and ideological guide for the duration of its mandate. Whether he intends to cooperate with the republican parties in the years to come, however, is uncertain and will likely be a point of contention in future political struggles.