Beaten But Not Defeated

by Merilyn Moos

  They must be fit for the struggle,

  Right until we reach our goal!95

  Sportsmen call, not silenced, by Siegfried Moos (Trans Irene Fick)

  The sportsmen call: do not be silent!

  Attention now: No need to wait!

  Stop bending over backwards.

  Now attention! Go! Wait no longer.

  Hone your muscles! Focus your eyes!

  Sharpen your brains! Work your lungs!

  We must be fit for our struggle,

  Right until we reach our goal.96

  The plot of ‘Allen an der Roten Start’ reads like ghastly social realist fare, but, performed partly in song, with its strong beat, and set to Wolpe’s highly modern and supposedly accessible score, it may have galvanised its audience to support the KPD candidate and it certainly upset the police and Social Democratic administration.

  It is not difficult to see how it fits with Siegi’s theoretical exhortations to relate to the issues of the everyday (which indeed still resonate) and to avoid a bourgeois style of romantic happy ending, but there is for all that what appears to be a caricature quality to the characters and the plot. And there is little doubt that the overall message here, which Siegi must have gone along with, was an uncritical support for the KPD and the USSR.

  The day before the Revue, the Rote Fahne was banned by the police for 15 days, indicative of the political climate but also meaning that the Communist paper with the largest circulation was not in a position to review the Revue of the previous day. Nor was the Revue mentioned in the Social Democratic papers. But one or two Communist or sympathetic papers did comment on the Revue afterwards, reporting that it had been well attended, a gigantic success with around 4000 people attending. Siegi’s ‘The Sport of the Ruling Class’, ‘steel the Muscles’ (partic-ularly admired) and one other of his songs was specifically mentioned. The songs’ themes, according to this review, centred on the role and function of sport, rejecting the reformist view of freeing yourself through sport, as sport cannot free the oppressed and exploited, and that the bourgeois sports movement is anti-revolutionary. The songs also reject the warmongers who organised for and profited from war. The songs we are told, were political but without descending into merely being popular revolutionary songs and without the sentimentality of bourgeois music.

  This is one of the only examples we have of Siegi’s actual work in agit-prop but it is unlikely to have been the first or the last. My guess is that he also worked independently of Wolpe but that this work has all been lost. Indeed, my mother’s story that she had originally met Siegi when he was directing a worker’s agit-prop group in which she was acting, bears out the existence of his work in other now forgotten troupes. It probably was far more impromptu, organised in taverns and workers halls, and never aiming for or receiving the publicity of work done in association with Wolpe.

  I remember my father’s story that shortly before the night of the Reichstag fire (and how I now wish I had been listening more carefully), he had been directing a play when the whole stage was occupied by the SA. Siegi pulled up the curtain and the last the audience saw were the SA men chasing the actors around the stage. My father presented this as seizing a small victory from the jaws of a terrible defeat.

  Theatre used as a part of revolutionary struggle is rare in Britain. But Siegi represented a position, far from unique at the time, that political opposition could be mobilised through the use of theatre, agit-prop and song.

  It is impossible to know Siegi’s exact role during the vital years 1930-1933. No KPD Berlin minutes from the time have been found - and probably no longer exist97 - so it has not proved possible to establish Siegi’s role in the Party itself. While clearly not one of the Party leadership, he appears to have had a leadership role in some of the more cultural organisations that circled around the KPD. Moreover, he embodied a link between at least four of these: the Red Front, the Proletarian Freethinkers, the ‘revolutionary theatre’ and its journal, and some left sports organisations. This kind of coordinating role would alone have given him a strategic influence, and is indicative that he was a trusted Party man.

  It maybe that I want to create a distance between my father and the Party which did not exist, but my impression is that there are hints that he was ambivalent about identifying too closely with some of the KPD positions - his consistent failure to use the concept of ‘social fascist’ in any of his extensive writings when that term was much in fashion, the emphasis on the Nazis being the main enemy, connected with his work in the Red Front, all suggest he was not always ‘on line’. Crucially, his involvement with the Red Front suggests he was at a minimum able and willing to ride out the swings in the line of the KPD leadership towards the Red Front. And, although to varying degrees, all maintained their Third Period positions; the interviews with the Berlin 3 suggest Siegi was not alone in his critical - if loyal - approach. Siegi’s involvement in different working class organisations, the BPF and in the youthful Red Front is likely to have reinforced for him the importance of the anti-Nazi fight and helped him keep a critical distance from all-out hackery.

  The India connection

  One small and intriguing puzzle remains from this period. In the India files in the British Library, there is a report: ‘Negotiations between Jehangir Vakil with Russian Oil Products Co’ (ROP), dated 1932, which centres on the creation of a new Russian company to negotiate with the Indians over supplying India with oil, instead of alternative companies, both Russian and American. (See Appendix for details of ROP, and MI5’s suspicions about it)

  These negotiations involved trips to Europe where the Russian and Indian representatives met. One leading figure in this world was the Indian, J. Vakil. J. Vakil was in touch with Saklatvala, (famous as the first British Communist MP, first elected in 1922), who introduced him to Brenner, ‘probably an Austrian’. Then the document states: ‘And it seems that Vakil and one Moos returned to London via Vienna (the latter seems to have received his orders from the company in India).’

  Saklatvala, who will reappear in Siegi’s story, was born in Bombay and came to the UK in 1905. A regular delegate to Independent Labour Party (ILP) Conferences, he joined the CP in the early 1920s.98 (The source here is Saklatvala’s daughter’s biography on the web, 2008, which no longer exists.) Saklatvala maintained a passionate involvement in the anti-imperialist and class struggles in India, even being banned from visiting by the Home Office in the late 1920’s! In 1927, the League against Imperialism was launched by Münzenberg, a German KPDer, here acting for the Comintern. Fenner Brockway, a leading ILPer, was the League’s first International Chair, but the ILP disapproved because of the League’s Communist links. James Maxton (another significant figure in Siegi’s life) subsequently replaced Brockway as Chair.99 In this overlapping world of politics and people, Saklatvla also visited Berlin in 1931 addressing KPD meetings (Pennybacker, 2009)100. Maybe he encountered Siegi there who was already involved in Indian matters.

  How to make sense of Siegi’s links with India? Firstly, it can only be surmised that ‘Moos’ is Siegi but this seems highly likely. Moos is not a common name in Germany and even less so in Austria. The name is Swiss. Also Siegi possessed a rare - and useful - combination of skills. He had some (limited) managerial banking experience, had worked, even if in a subordinate position, for a highly successful vintner business in Bavaria, was able to speak some English and, crucially, we know was a leading and apparently trusted activist in Berlin at that time.

  If we assume it is him, what does one make of this infor-mation? What seems likely is that Siegi was seen as a safe pair of hands by the Berlin KPD leadership, one who also knew something about Western business practices, an expertise, one assumes not held by many in the KPD, and had never appeared on any security radar and therefore would be more able to gain easy entry into the UK or elsewhere. Moreover, even if his English was limited, he could therefore communicate relatively easily with Indian business people. From the USSR’s persp
ective, trade with India was beneficial both for commercial purposes (the USSR economy was in crisis) and in terms of the political influence it offered. We also know that after the First World War, a variety of Indian activists with Comintern affiliations operated out of Berlin (Pennybacker, 2009).

  As the Indian papers make very clear, the British government maintained a close eye on all things Indian in the early 1930s (and presumably beyond). India was not referred to as ‘the jewel in the crown’ for nothing. The Home Office 144/17917 (H.O.: ‘Activities of ROP in India’, 10.1.1933) kept files on ROP and assumed that its trip to India (by Bauer) at the end of 1930 (which did not apparently involve Siegi) was to arrange for the sale of Russian oil. They are also aware that Vakil and Joshi visited Moscow in Bauer’s company during 1931, which they assumed was for similar purposes. Why the UK Indian Service was so interested is not stated but is certainly at least in part because they suspected that such business dealing could also be fronts for Communist activities. That the Comintern’s contacts with India were located in Berlin will in part be due to the keen level of the UK HO’s surveillance on Indian affairs.

  Siegi will almost certainly have been part of a negotiating team. His political and economic expertise - and his mention in the India office files - lend credence to his playing a significant role. That role one can presume included negotiation with Jehangir Vaki on behalf of ROP, providing managerial expertise, keeping an eye on the books, or/and as a political overseer for Russian Oil and the Comintern. If we trust the U.K. India Office minutes, which refer to Moos ‘receiving his orders from the company in India’ Siegi was acting in some manner on behalf of the Indian buyers during the negotiations in London. Siegi’s activities were probably rewarded through the Comintern, providing a small source of income to the KPD.

  This analysis is given credence by the similar and better known activities of Willy Münzenberg.101 Münzenberg, who already had much practice dealing with Comintern monies, also negotiated with a - rival - Indian company on behalf of the (nationalised) Russian oil companies and the Comintern. Indeed, the UK India office appears to think that the Russians were playing ‘divide and rule’ games with different Indian companies. Münzenberg was a key figure in the KPD and the Comintern and the owner of the German papers Welt am Abend, Berlin am Morgen and Arbeiter-Illustrierte (amongst others). The British kept an eye on Münzenberg. Münzenberg had launched the World League against Imperialism (1926-9, see earlier endnote), which campaigned, amongst other things, for Indian independence and which supported the Indian Communist Party.102 An HO document (HO144/17917, 7.12.1932) states that they have definite information that a financial - but ‘hidden’ - link existed between W. Münzenberg and ROP, lending support to the hypothesis that the ROP did vire moneys to German comrades.

  Siegi managed, yet again, to stay under the surveillance radar. His MI5 file is either not available or has been destroyed but evidently he was admitted as a refugee to this country in 1934, so, one assumes, was not ‘spotted’ in his earlier trip to the UK in 1931 or 1932. (Though not mundane here, while Siegi’s role could be seen as acting in the interests of Russia - or at least one fraction there - it shows up how vague are the parameters of the concept of ‘spy’. Siegi was acting in the interests of the USSR/India in these dealings and distributing ‘foreign’ monies to the German comrades.)

  Siegi’s knowledge of and involvement with Indian matters is also evident in his writing for the AITB Journal. In March, 1931, No 3, there is an article, signed by Siegi, which goes into a high level of - rhetoric - detail about the Indian opposition to British imperialism, which would not be known through casual interest. He excoriates the giving of Honours to those in positions of responsibility: ‘82 members of the police force were honoured for their heroism…60,000 political prisoners are languishing in Indian prisons…The police President of Bombay and of Punjab who have hundreds of lives on their conscience were awarded with hereditary titles…..Prison directors…lead judges..all honoured. Archbishops and missionaries honoured….’

  When in Durham in the late 40s, early 1950s, Siegi gave a series of lectures on the BBC on ‘Gandhi and the spinning wheel’, gain suggesting a deep knowledge of Indian affairs. He argued, as I remember it - but I was still very young - for combining the modern with the old. (Unfortunately the recording no longer seems to be available.) I took listening to my father’s voice coming out of the wireless for granted and it was not till writing this biography, that I became curious as to how he became an expert in this area, indeed invited by the BBC to give a series of talks. Now I guess that his involvement in Indian affairs in the early 1930s gave him a lasting interest.103 Curiously, there were no notes or records of these lectures in his voluminous papers which I later cleared and sorted. So, despite his willingness to stick his head above the parapet and be broadcast, his desire to keep the KPD part of his past completely hidden must have won out.

  Siegi’s India link may also be connected to his coming to Britain a few years later. He had visited Britain as part of the Comintern/India dealings and may well have made contacts, for example with Maxton, which would prove useful.

  Going underground in Berlin

  My father told me the ‘story’ of the night Hitler completed the deals that made him Chancellor on January 30th. Siegi came out that night thinking that Berlin would rise in revolt. But neither the KPD nor the SPD called a counter-demonstration. Did Siegi hope that Red Wedding would rise, that the RFB roots in the working class and the youth gangs would somehow mobilise a mass counter-demonstration? Instead, he was left as a bystander watching as the candle-lit procession of the SA ‘spontaneously’ marched past. There was no protest. It must have broken his heart.

  Margaret Dewar (1989), a member of the KPD in Berlin at this time, confirms Siegi’s take on that night. She writes that there were no protests either called by the SPD or the KPD, ‘yet everybody had expected some action: a demonstration, a strike. But nothing happened. Not one demo, not one strike. The Communist press came out with the slogans: The worst the better’ and ‘After Hitler, it will be us.”104

  Siegi was, I suspect, not quite on the Party line. After all, why otherwise did he come out on the night of January 30th, when the Party had not issued a call to do so? This was surely more than curiosity. It reflects, I suggest, his greater awareness of the real threat the Nazis posed. Moreover, as argued earlier, Siegi’s involvement in the RFB, however much he was the Party man in the RFB also is likely to have led him into some conflict with the Party. His articles for the ATB also ploughed their own furrow. My guess is that Siegi was already developing private criticisms of the Party line.

  Rosenhaft (1983) notes that many middle ranking KPD officers opposed the KPD decision not to call a counter-demonstration. I can hear my father’s voice now. ‘Now or never,’ I hear him argue. His defeat was the first time he seriously questioned his membership of the KPD. But I am only guessing.

  The story of January 30th curled its way into my emotional entrails. I still wonder what went wrong that night. How did Berlin - unlike Vienna in 1934 and unlike Barcelona - allow the Nazis to walk in and occupy their streets without any resistance? Indeed, there were demonstrations in Stuttgart, Frankfurt, in some cities in the Ruhr and Rhineland and strikes in Hamburg and other Northern ports the following day, but not coordinated and not sustained, and crucially, not in Berlin (Merson, 1986).

  After Hitler gained power, ‘only one member of the ten man Politburo [Hermann Remmele]…is known to have urged an attempt to draw the workers into armed struggle in [pre-April 25th] 1933 in order to prevent the new government from consolidating its power‘ (Merson 1986).105 Just how wrong the KPD got it is shown by Pieck stating on February 6th, days after Hitler assumed the Chancellorship: ‘We are by no means pessimistic.’

  There are different ways of looking at the failure of the Berlin working class to rise, some already discussed. The KPD’s own explanation was that at the time of the January elections and soon afterw
ards, they lacked the industrial strength, the political allies or the para-military preparedness to take on the Nazis (Merson, 1986). Moreover, the KPD was no longer confidant they could direct their membership, never mind a larger periphery. Their lurches of line and Third Period sectarianism had fatally caught up with them.

  To return to an earlier analysis, a further ambivalence which blinded the KPD to the deathly anti-working class nature of the Nazis as opposed to the Nazis usefulness to the ‘Establishment’ was whether their primary task was to build the working class for revolution or to specifically counter Nazism. Their – vacillating – emphasis, previously explored, was that by smashing capitalism, fascism would also be destroyed.

  Another factor in the failure to oppose the Nazi take-over was that the KPD’s recent vacillations on whether to work with or against the SA may well have confused some of its members, especially given that the KPD was not initially banned after Hitler became Chancellor (Indeed, not immediately after the Reichstag fire.) Moreover, the KPD had, except when under extreme rank and file pressure, generally not supported, either as strategy or tactics, the use of force against the SA. This position was also partly a result of their other intermittent tendency not to want to put off the SPD, and partly a result of the KPD’s growing parliamentary orientation.

  Though here is not the place to develop on this, many historians argue that the crucial failure to resist Hitler’s becoming Chancellor and the Nazi take-over, which marked the end of any real possibility of legal resistance to the Nazis, had its roots ten years earlier, back in the 1920s, in the failed insurrections of 1919 and 1923, and the subsequent unresolved divisions between the different warring factions in the KPD.

  Over the coming months, the KPD reiterated that the Nazis were running into their final crisis (wrong), that the SPD leadership were bankrupt (wrong - though almost all the SPD’s notably failed to resist the Nazis in Parliament or elsewhere) and that this would open the doors to proletarian revolution (wrong). It seems only Thaelmann of the main leadership showed even a glimmering of understanding, referring, on 7th February, to the fight against fascism being different from the goal of proletarian revolution (Merson, 1986). Thaelmann was arrested a few weeks later and this idea also disappears.