
The Revolutionäre Gewerkschafts Opposition (Revolutionary Union Opposition) was the communist
trade union
A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...
in Germany during the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...
.
[Larry Dean Peterson]
''German Communism, Workers' Protest, and Labor Unions: the Politics of the United Front in Rhineland-Westphalia 1920-1924''
International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam. Kluwer Academic Publishers (1993), p. 220. Retrieved August 9, 2011 It went underground after the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...
seized control of the government and continued operating until it was crushed by the Nazis in 1935.
Weimar era
The Communist International (
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...
) and the
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany (, ; KPD ) was a major Far-left politics, far-left political party in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period, German resistance to Nazism, underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and minor party ...
(KPD) had both wanted to create their own revolutionary unions and had attempted to use the
Union of Manual and Intellectual Workers (UMIW), which had a high proportion of KPD members within its ranks, to that end. The KPD's relationship with the UMIW was strained by the lack of discipline within the Union and eventually, the relationship was ended.
[Eric D. Weitz]
"Origins of the RGO"
''Creating German Communism, 1890-1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State'', Princeton University Press (1997) pp. 152-153. Retrieved August 12, 2011
In 1928, after the 4th World Congress of the
Profintern
The Red International of Labor Unions (, RILU), commonly known as the Profintern (), was an international body established by the Communist International (Comintern) with the aim of coordinating communist activities within trade unions. Formally ...
and the 6th World Congress of the Comintern, Communists took an ultra-left position toward
social democrats
Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, s ...
, branding them as "
social fascists
Social fascism was a theory developed by the Communist International (Comintern) in the early 1930s which saw social democracy as a moderate variant of fascism.
The Comintern argued that capitalism had entered a Third Period in which proletaria ...
". Efforts to establish an independent union were renewed,
and the KPD began to systematically set up an opposing faction within the ''
Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund
The General German Trade Union Federation (, ADGB) was a confederation of German trade unions in Germany founded during the Weimar Republic. It was founded in 1919 and was initially powerful enough to organize a general strike in 1920 against a rig ...
'' (ADGB).
On March 14, 1929, the central committee of the KPD decided to register as members people who had been expelled as radicals from a trade union. In June 1929, Michael Niederkirchner was expelled from the
German Metal Workers' Federation and founded an aid organization for others who had been expelled, which later became the core of the RGO. The KPD founded the RGO in December 1929 with the idea of consolidating the left within the ADGB.
[''"Die Revolutionäre Gewerkschaftsopposition"''](_blank)
German Historical Museum. Retrieved August 11, 2011 Those KPD members still in the ADGB became the principal opposition from within.
As of 1930, the RGO was promoted as a "red
class
Class, Classes, or The Class may refer to:
Common uses not otherwise categorized
* Class (biology), a taxonomic rank
* Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects
* Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used d ...
trade union" and several cross-over campaigns were initiated, but never to great success. The RGO had a membership in 1932 of about 250,000 members.
Large sections of the unionist wing of the KPD left the party and more than half of the RGO was unemployed. To bolster appearances, the RGO counted only admissions, not those who dropped out. Because the Communists lost influence in the trade unions from people leaving, and to a lesser extent, from expulsions, in 1931, they changed their strategy. Communists were to mount opposition within the ADGB and other such groups in order to strengthen "red associations", organizations that would develop into Communist unions. This turned the RGO into a
Communist front
A communist front (or a mass organization in communist parlance) is a political organization identified as a front organization, allied with or under the effective control of a communist party, the Communist International or other communist organ ...
organization, but it was unable to convert itself into a Communist union movement. The three largest "red associations" organized were in metalworking, mining, and construction and even those were never more than 1% of the workforce. RGO leaders were never elected at normal union meetings; rather they emerged from the trade union section of the KPD's central committee.
In the
1932 Berlin transport strike
The 1932 Berlin transport strike was an industrial labor dispute in Berlin, during the Weimar Republic period of interwar Germany. It took place in the context of the November 1932 German federal election, which was held on 6 November, 1932.
Hist ...
, the RGO attracted national attention by joining the
NSBO (the Nazi labor union) in support of a
wildcat strike
A wildcat strike is a strike action undertaken by unionised workers without union leadership's authorization, support, or approval; this is sometimes termed an unofficial industrial action. The legality of wildcat strikes varies between countries ...
against the
Berlin Transportation Company (BVG) which had cut wages.
After
the Nazis seized power, they crushed the unions. On 2 May 1933, the SS and SA seized all the offices of the ADGB and its member unions.
"Prohibition of Free Trade-Unions: SA Members Seize the Union Office on Engelsufer in Berlin (May 2, 1933)"
German History in Documents and Images. Retrieved August 7, 2011 The RGO went underground and continued to function until it was crushed in 1935.
Postwar era
After World War II
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 ...
, the Free German Trade Union Federation
The Free German Trade Union Federation ( or ''FDGB'') was the sole national trade union centre of the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) which existed from 1946 to 1990. As a mass organisation of the GDR, nominally representing al ...
was established in East Germany
East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...
as a unified trade union for Communists and others. In the 1970s, the Maoist
Maoism, officially Mao Zedong Thought, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed while trying to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic o ...
Communist Party of Germany (Structural Organization) and the KPD/Marxist–Leninist tried to revive the RGO, but had little success.
Leadership
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Revolutionare Gewerkschafts Opposition
Political organizations in the Weimar Republic
Labor history of Germany
Communist organisations in Germany
Defunct trade unions of Germany
1933 disestablishments in Germany
1929 establishments in Germany
National trade union centers of Germany
Trade unions established in 1929