August Thalheimer (18 March 1884 – 19 September 1948) was a German

Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...

activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...

and theorist.

Early life

He was born in 1884 in Affaltrach, now called

Obersulm Obersulm is a municipality in the district of Heilbronn, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, formed in the 1970s as a merger of the formerly independent municipalities Affaltrach, Eichelberg, Eschenau, Sülzbach, Weiler, and Willsbach. It is situate ...

Württemberg Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart. Together with Baden and Hohenzollern, two other historical territories, Württ ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

in to a Jewish working-class family. He studied at the universities of Munich, Oxford, London, Strasbourg and Berlin.

Political career

He was a member of the German

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

prior to the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. He edited ''Volksfreund'', one of the party newspapers, and from, he 1916 worked on ''Spartakusbriefe'', the official paper of the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD). Thalheimer became a founder member of the

Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West German ...

(KPD), and he was recognised as its main theorist. He edited ''

Rote Fahne ''Die Rote Fahne'' (, ''The Red Flag'') was a German newspaper originally founded in 1876 by Socialist Worker's party leader Wilhelm Hasselmann, and which has been since published on and off, at times underground, by German Socialists and Communi ...

'' and the manuscripts that Franz Mehring left unpublished at his death. Thalheimer was part of the local government in Württemberg serving as Minister of Finance during the crisis of 1923. He and Heinrich Brandler were blamed for the consequences and summoned to Moscow in 1924. There, he worked for the

Comintern The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...

and the Marx-Engels Institute. In 1927, Thalheimer gave a series of lectures at the

Moscow Sun Yat-sen University Moscow Sun Yat-sen University, officially the Sun Yat-sen Communist University of the Toilers of China, was a Comintern school, which operated from 1925–1930 in the city of Moscow, Russia, then the Soviet Union. It was a training camp for ...

that were then published as a textbook in philosophy (the English translation appeared as ''Introduction to Dialectical Materialism'', New York, 1936). He also worked with

Nikolai Bukharin Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Буха́рин) ( – 15 March 1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, Marxist philosopher and economist and prolific author on revolutionary theory. ...

on the draft programme of the

. Unease with the leadership of

Ernst Thälmann Ernst Johannes Fritz Thälmann (; 16 April 1886 – 18 August 1944) was a German communist politician, and leader of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) from 1925 to 1933. A committed Marxist-Leninist and Stalinist, Thälmann played a major r ...

made him return to the KPD in Germany in 1928. However, a year later, he and Brandler were expelled from the KPD and they went on to form the

Communist Party Opposition The Communist Party of Germany (Opposition) (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Opposition)), generally abbreviated as KPO or KPD(O), was a communist opposition organisation established at the end of 1928 and maintaining its existence un ...

(KPO). The KPO criticised the foreign policy of the Soviet Union but not its domestic policies. Thalheimer stated: "We do not want to draw the conclusion that as the politics of the Comintern are wrong, it must follow that the politics of Russia are also wrong". (''Gegen den Strom'', 4/1931) Thalheimer supported both forced collectivization and

Stakhanovism The term Stakhanovite () originated in the Soviet Union and referred to workers who modeled themselves after Alexey Stakhanov. These workers took pride in their ability to produce more than was required, by working harder and more efficiently, thu ...

. Thalheimer went into exile in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

from 1932. Beginning at the start of 1935 Thalheimer began writing a regular column on international news for ''Workers Age,'' the official newspaper of the

Communist Party of the USA (Opposition) The Lovestoneites, led by former General Secretary of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) Jay Lovestone, were a small American oppositionist communist movement of the 1930s. The organization emerged from a factional fight in the CPUSA in 1929 and uns ...

, headed by

Jay Lovestone Jay Lovestone (15 December 1897 – 7 March 1990) was an American activist. He was at various times a member of the Socialist Party of America, a leader of the Communist Party USA, leader of a small oppositionist party, an anti-Communist and Centr ...

."August Thalheimer Joins Workers Age Staff," ''Workers Age, vol. 3, no. 21 (December 1, 1934), pg. 8. Thalheimer went to

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

, in 1936. Here he became involved in an argument with

Andrés Nin Andreu Nin Pérez (4 February 1892 – 20 June 1937) was a Spanish communist politician, translator and publicist. In 1937, Nin and the rest of the POUM leadership were arrested by the Moscow-oriented government of the Second Spanish Republic o ...

over the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification's (

POUM The Workers' Party of Marxist Unification ( es, Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista, POUM; ca, Partit Obrer d'Unificació Marxista) was a Spanish communist party formed during the Second Republic and mainly active around the Spanish Civil ...

) condemnation of the

first Moscow Trial The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against "Trotskyists" and members of "Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of the ...

. He soon returned to France again to work with the KPO in exile. In July 1937, when six members of the KPO in Barcelona were arrested by the Stalinists, he issued a joint statement with Brandler:

"We take upon ourselves any political and personal guarantee for our arrested comrades. They are anti-Fascists and revolutionaries, incapable of any action that could be construed as high treason to the Spanish Revolution."

Later life

In 1940, after the German conquest of France, Thalheimer fled to

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribb ...

. He died in

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

in 1948.

Works

"1923: A Missed Opportunity? The German October Legend and the Real History of 1923."
(1931) Mike Jones, trans. London: Marken Press, 1993. * “On Fascism”
''Telos''
40 (Summer 1979). New York: Telos Press.

References

Sources

* Theodor Bergmann: August Thalheimer - ein kommunistischer Ketzer. Zu seinem 60. Todestag, in:

Jahrbuch für Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung ''Arbeit - Bewegung - Geschichte'' ("''Labour - Movement - History''") is an academic journal covering the history of labour and other social movements. It was established in 2002 as ''Jahrbuch für Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung ...

, No. III/2008.

External links

August Thalheimer Archive (in German)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thalheimer, August 1884 births 1948 deaths People from Heilbronn (district) Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians Independent Social Democratic Party politicians Communist Party of Germany politicians Communist Party of Germany (Opposition) politicians German Comintern people German Marxists German revolutionaries German people of Jewish descent Marxist journalists Marxist theorists People from the Kingdom of Württemberg Right Opposition People who emigrated to escape Nazism Spinoza scholars