Karl Heinrich Otto Rühle (; 23 October 1874 – 24 June 1943) was a German

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

active in opposition to both the First and

Second World Wars World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

as well as a council communist theorist.

Early years

Otto was born in Großvoigtsberg, Saxony on 23 October 1874. His father was a railway official. In 1889 he started to train as teacher in Oschatz. While there he became involved with the German Freethinkers League. In 1895 he became the private tutor for the Countess von Bühren, while also teaching at Öderan.

Political career

He joined the

Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany ( , SPD ) is a social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the party's leader since the 2019 leadership election together w ...

(SPD) in 1896 and soon established a socialist

Sunday school ] A Sunday school, sometimes known as a Sabbath school, is an educational institution, usually Christianity, Christian in character and intended for children or neophytes. Sunday school classes usually precede a Sunday church service and are u ...

. However he was dismissed as a primary school teacher in 1902, and soon supported himself as a writer and editor of social democratic newspapers in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

, followed by Breslau,

Chemnitz Chemnitz (; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt (); ; ) is the third-largest city in the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden, and the fourth-largest city in the area of former East Germany after (East Be ...

, Pirna and

Zwickau Zwickau (; ) is the fourth-largest city of Saxony, Germany, after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz, with around 88,000 inhabitants,. The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde (German: ''Zwickauer Mulde''; progression: ), ...

. Rühle had already become a vocal critic of existing teaching methods and set up a social democratic educational society for the Hamburg area. In 1907 he became an itinerant teacher for the SPD's educational committee and developed a reputation in the SPD, through his socially critical educational writings: "Work and Education" (1904), "The Enlightenment of Children About Sexual Matters", (1907), and, above all, "The Proletarian Child" (1911). Active in the wider Zimmerwald Movement of internationalist socialists united in opposition to the First World War, Rühle joined

Karl Liebknecht Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht (; ; 13 August 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a German politician and revolutionary socialist. A leader of the far-left wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Liebknecht was a co-founder of both ...

Rosa Luxemburg Rosa Luxemburg ( ; ; ; born Rozalia Luksenburg; 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary and Marxist theorist. She was a key figure of the socialist movements in Poland and Germany in the early 20t ...

, Franz Mehring and others in founding the group and magazine ''Internationale'', which proposed a revolutionary internationalism against a world of warring states. In 1916, Rühle also took part in the

Spartacus League The Spartacus League () was a Marxism, Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during World War I. It was founded in August 1914 as the International Group by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, and other members of the So ...

Reichstag

In 1912 he was elected as deputy for

Pirna Pirna (; , ) is a town in Saxony, Germany and capital of the administrative district Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge. The town's population is over 37,000. Pirna is located near Dresden and is an important district town as well as a ''Große ...

- Sebnitz, in Saxon Switzerland. He represented the SPD in the Reichstag. In 1918, Rühle decided not to seek re-election.

The German Revolution

Rühle participated in the

left opposition The Left Opposition () was a faction within the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from 1923 to 1927 headed '' de facto'' by Leon Trotsky. It was formed by Trotsky to mount a struggle against the perceived bureaucratic degeneration within th ...

of the German

labour movement The labour movement is the collective organisation of working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the trade union or labour union movement, as well as political parties of labour. It can be considere ...

, developing both an early communist critique of Bolshevism and an early opposition to fascism. Rühle saw the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

as a form of

state capitalism State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital accumulation, ...

that had much in common with the state-centred

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

of the

West West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...

as well as

fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...

, saying:

It has served as the model for other capitalistic dictatorships. Ideological divergences do not really differentiate socioeconomic systems.

Delegation to the Comintern Congress, 1920

The

Communist Workers' Party of Germany The Communist Workers' Party of Germany (; KAPD) was an anti-parliamentarian and left communist party that was active in Germany during the Weimar Republic. It was founded in 1920 in Heidelberg as a split from the Communist Party of Germany (KP ...

(KAPD) was invited by the

Executive Committee of the Communist International The Executive Committee of the Communist International, commonly known by its acronym, ECCI (Russian acronym ИККИ - for ), was the governing authority of the Comintern between the World Congresses of that body. The ECCI, established by the Fo ...

to participate in the Second Congress of the Communist International. However, when the KAPD lost touch with their first delegates, Jan Appel and Franz Jung, Otto Rühle and August Merges were sent as delegates.

''The Revolution is not a Party Affair''

While Rühle saw the

Leninist Leninism (, ) is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the Dictatorship of the proletariat#Vladimir Lenin, dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary Vangu ...

vanguardist party as an appropriate form for the overthrow of tsarism, it was ultimately an inappropriate form for a

proletarian revolution A proletarian revolution or proletariat revolution is a social revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie and change the previous political system. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialist ...

. As such, no matter what the actual intentions of the Bolsheviks, what they actually succeeded in bringing about was much more like the bourgeois revolutions of Europe than a proletarian revolution, arguing:

This distinction between head and body, between intellectuals and workers, officers and privates, corresponds to the duality of class society. One class is educated to rule; the other to be ruled. Lenin's organisation is only a replica of bourgeois society. His revolution is objectively determined by the forces that create a social order incorporating these class relations, regardless of the subjective goals accompanying this process.

Rühle was also critical of the party as a revolutionary organisational form, stating that "the revolution is not a party affair". As a result, he supported a more council communist approach which emphasised the importance of

workers' council A workers' council, also called labour council, is a type of council in a workplace or a locality made up of workers or of temporary and instantly revocable delegates elected by the workers in a locality's workplaces. In such a system of polit ...

s. In October 1921, he was involved in setting up the Allgemeine Arbeiter-Union – Einheitsorganisation. In ''Anti-Bolshevik Communism'', Paul Mattick describes Rühle as an exemplary radical figure within a German labour movement that had become ossified into various official structures, a perpetual outsider defined by his antagonistic relationship with the labour movement and to

Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism () is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the History of communism, communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution. It was the predominant ideology of most communist gov ...

as well as to bourgeois democracy and fascism. With the signing of the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Ge ...

in 1939, Rühle began to see the parallels between the two ideological dictators, writing:

Russia was the example for fascism. ..Whether party 'communists' like it or not, the fact remains that the state order and rule in Russia are indistinguishable from those in Italy and Germany. Essentially, they are alike. One may speak of a red, black, or brown 'soviet state', as well as of red, black or brown fascism.

Later life

Because of his connection to

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

, Rühle found it difficult to find work in Mexico and was forced to hand-paint notecards for hotels to financially survive. Rühle was a member of the Dewey Commission which cleared Trotsky of all charges made during the Moscow Trials. He also aided in the production of Leon Trotsky's "The Living Thought of Karl Marx" published in 1939. In 1928, Rühle wrote a very detailed biography of

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

, ''Karl Marx: His Life and Works''.Rühle, Otto (1928); trans. 1929)
''Karl Marx: His Life and Works''
New York: Viking Press.

Personal life

In 1921, Rühle married Alice Gerstel, a German-Jewish writer, feminist and psychologist. In 1936, Gerstel followed him to Mexico. She committed suicide on the day of his death on 24 June 1943.

References

Sources

Otto Rühle
at the

Marxists Internet Archive Marxists Internet Archive, also known as MIA or Marxists.org, is a non-profit online encyclopedia that hosts a multilingual library (created in 1990) of the works of communist, anarchist, and socialist writers, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Enge ...

.
Otto Rühle
at Kurasje.org. * "Non-Leninist Marxism: Writings on the Workers Councils" (2007). St. Petersburg, Florida: Red and Black Publishers. . It includes Ruhle's "The Revolution is Not a Party Affair" and "Report From Moscow". {{DEFAULTSORT:Ruhle, Otto 1874 births 1943 deaths Adlerian psychology Anti–World War II activists Communist Party of Germany politicians Communist Workers' Party of Germany politicians Council communists Exilliteratur writers German anti-fascists German anti–World War I activists German male writers German Marxists German pacifists German revolutionaries Left communists Libertarian socialists Members of the 13th Reichstag of the German Empire Marxist theorists People from Mittelsachsen People from the Kingdom of Saxony People of the German Revolution of 1918–1919 Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians Weimar Republic politicians