by Merilyn Moos
Workers’ theatre is not frivolity, nor is it party theatre. We want revolutionary theatre. Revolutionary theatre, which can only be achieved, which must be achieved, through the workers’ theatre.
Arbeiterbühne und Film, No 7, July 1930.
RECRUITMENT
Siegfried Moos
“Here!! The fiiirst new member!!!! Here!! The seeecond new member!!! The thiiird, the fourth new member! Hello! Hello! Where is the tenth new member??!! The tenth new member?!!! Hello! The tenth new member! Where is the tenth new member? Here!! The tenth new member!!! It’s fun. While the recruiter shouts himself hoarse, you can hear below in the audience: “Fresh salty bread”, “Membership forms for the….”, “Acid drops”. That’s right, membership forms are being pushed just like acid drops. The man with the membership forms has it easier than the acid drop seller, only because he is still backed up by the recruiter. But it’s amusing. Isn’t it?
Where is the tenth new member? “Come on, give it here!” says someone from the audience to the man with the membership forms. He doesn’t ask anything else; for example what duties he’s taking on thereby. He fills the form out. He has filled out the tenth membership form. He. Yes, he. Yes. Isn’t that splendid? Hello! Here’s the tenth membership form. Yes, perhaps you think that I’m writing about the fairground. Far from it. You’ll see. So: Three weeks later they ring at the door of the man who was recruited. “Listen, comrade, how about the money? Admission fee and subs?” “Look, I’ve already told you that I don’t have any money.” “This is the third time I’ve come here. You signed up.” “Yes, well …. back then I didn’t know what it meant.” And six months later none of the ten new members is left.
Not one. Because we recruited the wrong way. Every troupe is proud, when it can say: “We’ve made so many new members. Aren’t we splendid?” But we don’t want completed membership forms, we want people who are convinced of the necessity to be organised, we want fighters. With market-trader methods we may dazzle people for a moment, But we don’t win their strength for our movement. So let’s get rid of our complacency about the quantity of new members. Our first aim is quality. It isn’t a rejection of quantity, but rather a precondition.
“So how should we set about it?” you will ask. There is, I think, only one possible way to recruit successfully, and that is individual, personal recruitment. We can and should as far as possible support this from the stage. We can announce a recruitment target.
This recruitment target should not be fixed too high. A target that has been exceeded is more inspiring than one which has not been reached. We can make a big diagram (on linen or cardboard) with big figures that go from the bottom to the top, with a big pointer, a red flag or some other symbol of the revolutionary working class, which moves upwards according to the current increase in new members. Perhaps its silent impact will be greater than the effect of marketplace methods. One comrade has suggested that we should put on stage a recruitment scene, in which one comrade is recruiting and other comrades are being recruited. The comrades who are acting as “unorganised” will make the usual objections, which will be answered by the recruiting comrades. We can develop this suggestion, by having the comrades who are recruiting in the hall repeating aloud to the audience and the stage the objections that are made to them, providing that they are not of a particularly private nature. The reply then comes from the audience, or, alternatively, the objection is repeated by one of the “unorganised” comrades on the stage, and is refuted by the comrade who is recruiting. Recruitment thus becomes alive, effective and enlightening. We must draw into the individual recruitment and into the public replies of the audience the numbers of organised comrades who are present at almost every performance.
Personal recruitment goes best when we go up to a comrade and discuss with him so loudly that the people around him listen and if possible help with the recruitment. The troupe must have factual material at its disposal, in order to be able to give information about work that has been done already and about tasks lying ahead for the organisation in question, and above all about how money collected in subscriptions is used. The members of the troupe must exchange their experiences of recruitment and be prepared for objections. For example: “No money? But in fact we are the organisation of the impoverished masses. A few cigarettes, a glass or tankard of beer less, and the subs can be paid. The fewer sacrifices we make for our organisation, the more sacrifices we shall have to make for the capitalists”, etc. In addition the comrades must make connections with topical events, in order to base the necessity for the organisation or newspaper in question on the current situation. So get a move on and write to us about your methods and experiences of recruitment, so that other troupes can learn from you.
In short: Individual recruitment backed up with good, not fairground-style, ideas from the stage. Not only quantitative but above all qualitative recruitment. And no more of: “where is the tenth new member??!” and “Membership forms for the….” but “Comrade, are you already in the …. organisation? Won’t you help us with our work?”
Arbeiterbühne und Film, No 12, December 1930.
Appendix 2
Researching the KPD 1929-37. Conversations with three members of the KPD in the 1930s
I had started to look for people who either might have known or at least known of my father, because of writing his biography, but I had left it too late. I concentrated instead on trying to understand the lived experience of being in the KPD in Germany between about 1929-1933. Very little has been done on the lived experience of KPDers as opposed to the KPD ‘line’.
I was very lucky to find and be allowed to interview 3 centenarians who had been in the KPD in the early 30s and who are now living in Berlin
There has been little attention or research into this area or indeed these people, particularly in E Germany. Who became celebrated, who not? After all, the E Germans, unlike the W Germans, celebrated their heroes. But which heroes? I suggest that it was those who in one way or another, always with unbelievable bravery, fought and resisted fascism during the war who have received the accolades, rather than the far less visible - though always courageous -underground fighters of the period leading up to and soon after Hitler’s ascendancy who - after all - ‘failed’ to stop the Nazis.
I will first introduce the 3 Berliners. As luck would have it, the three people represented a cross section of society: in the early 1930s, Elfreida had been a writer, Hans a white-collar/skilled worker (later on, he became a high-up police officer in E Germany) and Rudi had been semi-unemployed. All had been active members of the KPD, though in different areas. My principal concern was with the three areas of my father’s political activism-agit-prop, the Red Front and the Proletarian Free Thinkers, but I was also interested in the Berlin 3’s total political experiences in the early 1930s. My focus was not on their lives in a fuller sense or in what had become of them after 1945.
Another limitation was that I speak little German. I was and am therefore dependant on the good will of others and in this case, I have to thank Irene Fick for translating for me so generously. But this cannot be the same as being able to follow up for oneself the issues of interest in the interview.
Another problem which was in itself fascinating was how difficult it was to persuade the three to separate out their experiences before and after January/February 1933, which makes interpreting what they said more difficult. I had grown up in a family where the Reichstag fire of February 28 1933 had marked the beginning of exile, an assumption reinforced by most academic literature on this period which presents the January/February events as a division, between supposedly democratic Weimar Germany and the start of Nazism.
What quickly became apparent was how active the SA were before 1933. Rudi’s testimony highlighted how active the SA were amongst the unemployed. Hans also reported their activities amongst white-collar workers: the employers for example in metal, tobacco and coal would give SA men jobs, pay for their uniforms and different sort
s of hand outs. Elfrieda talked of the nightly battles between the SA and the Red Front in Prenzlauerberg in Berlin.
Rudi lived in a hut on his allotment in Wedding, the red centre of Berlin. Every day involved a battle with the SA. There were daily attacks, blood flowed, and many people murdered before 1933. He described their lives as if it were a military operation. They had people on bikes and ‘courting couples’ as look outs. He wrote, printed and then distributed the illegal leaflets by putting the leaflets under the baby in the pram which his wife pushed. You could never trust anybody, nobody at all. He talked about how careful they had to be, because people talked, friends of friends could not be trusted. You always had to have an exit strategy. He and his wife distributed leaflets without anybody else knowing.
Of course, as Rudi stated, there were differences according to region and place, but certainly in Berlin and Leipsig, Hans’ home at the time, the battles between the SA and Red Front were daily. The SA were organised into groups (and as many of their members were unemployed youth, they had the time to roam) and would attempt to attack most left meetings and demonstrations and indeed any informal group of lefties who made the mistake of walking the streets as a group. That all three, from their different class fractions, all attested to this, increases its reliability as a source.
Rudi was arrested near Roder before 1933 during an illegal demonstration, and had experienced and witnessed many beatings up, prior to 1933, by the police, in Berlin under a Social Democratic authority. ‘One must remember never to remember names’.
The Red Front was part of the daily lived experience of these young KPDers. The Red Front was an anti-fascist organisation set up by the KPD which had been made illegal in 1929 following the May1st demonstration and consequent repression (see main text). Yet the Red Front is not an organisation that most historians spend time on. But talking to these three old comrades, I suddenly realised it was not just one of many of the KPD front organisations, but was the key organisation for protecting not just the comrades, but local left meetings, streets and left taverns..
What also emerged, especially from Rudi, was that the Red Front recruited from a wide range of political backgrounds. What mattered was where one lived, so young people who sided with the Social Democrats would join the Red Front if they lived in an area where it was organized and the SA were a threat. (To that degree, the third period line of working with rank and file Social Democrats was working in practice.) Rudi was the leader of his small group of seven or eight young Red Fronters Their aim was to be defensive he said, until attacked. But Rudi also attested how some members were out for trouble and he had to calm them down. Rudi walked a tightrope, or so it seemed to me, between cooling down his hotheads and defending his comrades by whatever means necessary. Rudi appears to have experienced the growth of the Nazis, the SA at street level and while his resistance to them was a consequence of his Communist politics, he seems to have understood far more clearly than most of the KPD leadership the importance of consistently opposing the SA.
My impression was that this had little to do with the line of the KPD and far more to do with the reality of the situation and expediency. Though it is hardly necessary to remind the reader, it was unusual, at an official level, both within the KPD and the Comintern, to prioritise the fight against Nazism almost up till 1933, yet for Rudi and the two others, there was a daily need to defend yourself against the SA. Nevertheless, like Rudi, the cadres of the Red Front were generally KPD, but the Red Front can clearly not be reduced to the KPD, although conventionally it has been presented as no more than its military adjunct.
Again, how far was Rudi, with his amazing illegal printer and leaflets, seizing an opportunity, rather than being a part of some organised KPD underground? Really we have very little evidence about how far an underground existed. Indeed Elfrieda’s story indicates how unaware the KPD were of the importance of secrecy. After January 1933, Elfrieda’s home was used for the KPD leadership’s secret meetings. The CC met there for the whole of 1933, and – predictably – were finally picked up and arrested there.
But there are wider questions. Given the essentially random nature of the sample, how come the KPD leadership was so out of touch with their members’ every day experiences on the street? Secondly, how far did these comrades experiences really change with Jan/Feb 1933? Rudi certainly did not remember the Reichstag fire, not even roughly the year it took place, but did say that in 1933, he went to hide with his parents-in-law for a few weeks till everything calmed down. So he did not conceptually distinguish the two periods, but did remember the need to hide. The KPD CC itself did not at first recognise that the January election and Hitler’s becoming Chancellor marked a fundamental shift. So is it so surprising if some of the members did not either, especially as many were ‘loose’ members of the KPD?
Another issue which deserves more research was how far there were attempts by the KPD to draw members of the SA over to them. SA spokespersons were invited to speak at KPD meetings, even in the early 1930s. Both Elfrieda and Rudi talked about this. Elfreida writers’ group had a member, Felix, who was a member of the SA, indeed arrived in his uniform and ultimately betrayed them after 1933. The KPD ‘boss’ had agreed to, even encouraged Felix to become a member. I got the sense that it was thought more important to draw from the SA, than the SPD.
But Rudi provided an eloquent explanation for this policy: the people who joined the SA were workers too, he said. They belonged to the same families, had gone to the same schools, lived in the same streets and were often good friends. Families were divided between the SA and KPD, and this could make things very difficult. This semi-official attempt to draw over workers may have helped legitimate what happened next. Rudi talked of counter-recruitment but noted that most of the traffic was one way, especially after 1933 (his dating) because some Communists were so harassed by the SA and so afraid, that they joined the SA and then they stayed. Rudi knew that, as the going got ever tougher, especially after 1933, that it was KPD members who joined the SA, not the other way round, though he was not clear about how far this was expediency, how far ideological.
As Ian Birchall has highlighted, the initiative for debate in the 1920’s did not come from the KPD. Nationalists were attending KPD meetings, not in order to disrupt them, but to try and engage Communists in discussion. And as Victor Serge reported, the debate was already taking place on the streets, where the unemployed congregated until late at night, while Communists, Socialist Democrats and Nazis argued their rival solutions.
Hans was the only one of the three to be employed in the relevant period. He was a skilled worker. Hans joined the Social Democratic union in Leipsig, not the Red Union, which was the KPD line (for the most part). The union was his main area of activity. I had tried to find out in the interview whether there was a Red Union at his place of work but failed. Hans also referred to working with individual members of the SPD prior to February 1933. Of course, Hans lived in Leipsig where the SPD, most unusually, were in the leadership of the struggle, so Hans experience may not be that typical. Hans’ emphasis was on how difficult it was to be politically active before 1933. Even if it was known one had said something left-wing outside work, one lost the job. He was beaten up - maybe more than once - by members of the SPD. He said his Trade Union officially never discussed working with the KPD.
On the issue of the Freethinkers, only one person, Hans, had been involved, but he was not clear whether or how the Proletarian Freethinkers differed from the Freethinkers, whom he saw as under Social Democratic control in Leipsig. (Rights to abortion, something the Catholic Church stood against, was apparently not a demand.) Again, there is the question of the specificity of the Saxon experience. Hans changed sports club because the one he had been attending was SPD dominated and he was not comfortable there and went over to a Red Sports Club, run by the KPD! Here the third period line held! But it still is not clear how far a separate Proletarian Freethinkers was a feature of Leipsig. Although the con
versation became a bit confused at this point, Hans connected the Proletarian Free thinkers with the Fichte, which he said were a Berlin phenomenon, aligned with the KPD. Until around 1928, it had been a united organisation, but then it split into SPD and KPD. Hans seemed to suggest that the Red Sports organisations were banned as early as 1931.
What emerged from Rudi and Hans in particular was how far their politics was still influenced by third period politics. Hans, although decrying the use of the term ‘social fascist’ went on to blame the SPD for the defeat of the left. Rudi, the person most active on the front line against the SA through the Red Front, had already been subjected too much violence and persecution before the Nazi take-over, and did not recognise that the Nazis gaining power and the Reichstag fire were a turning point. In none of the interviews did I get the impression that these comrades saw their task as to draw those sympathetic to the SPD over to them, though Rudi did refer to some SPD youth joining the Red Front. Indeed, the absence of reference to Social Democrats reinforces the impression that they were not seen as that relevant.
Yet I suggest that, although the ‘social fascist’ line was a historical disaster, seeing January/February as a fundamental turning point was not most comrades lived experience. They had been doing battle with the Nazis long before 1933, and had already had serious confrontations with the police, who were under SPD control. Their leadership moreover did not suggest there had been any sort of qualitative break which would have provided a framework for them to re-assess what was happening. My suspicion is that their voices are not untypical of this layer of KPDers who experienced the 1930s at street level and survived to live in E Germany.