by Victor Serge
50 An Iraqi city.
51 (1863-1936): Belgian Socialist.
52 The Independent Social Democrats (USPD) split from the SPD in 1917; in October 1920 the majority voted to fuse with the KPD; in September 1922 most of what was left of the USPD reunited with the SPD, leaving a small splinter group including the veteran revolutionary Georg Ledebour (1850-1947).
53 That is, the Second International (of which the British Labour Party was a major constituent) and the International Union of Socialist Parties (Two and a half International), founded in Vienna.
54 Leader of the American Federation of Labor.
55 Split from the SPD led by Liebknecht and Luxemburg which became the original core of the KPD.
56 Emil Eichhorn (1863-1925), member of USPD. On November 9, 1918 he occupied Berlin police headquarters with a group of workers and soldiers and became police chief. His removal from office, on January 5, 1919, led to workers’ rising and repression.
57 Admiral A.V. Kolchak (1873-1920), General A.I. Denikin (1872-1947), General N.N. Yudenich (1862-1933): leaders of the white forces in the Russian civil war.
58 Otto Landsberg and Rudolf Wissell were, like Ebert, Scheidemann and Noske, SPD ministers and people’s commissars in 1919.
59 The troops which crushed the Commune of 1871 were sent in from Versailles, outside the Commune’s territory.
60 Heinrich Dorrenbach (1888-1919); revolutionary and sailors’ leader in 1918. Arrested 1919 and shot “trying to escape.”
61 The Badische Anilinund Soda Fabrik, a major chemical company.
62 French use of black African troops in the Ruhr occupation posed particular problems for the KPD, since some sections of the left responded in a racist manner. The KPD line was to reject racism while agreeing that black troops should not be there. A special leaflet was issued for Senegalese troops, which stated, “You are here to pillage and steal in favor of the same French imperialists who murder and rob you in your homeland.”
63 Walter Rathenau, the Jewish foreign minister of the Reich, was murdered on June 24, 1922 by an extreme right organization because of his support for paying reparations.
64 Franz Mehring (1846-1919), veteran socialist closely associated with Rosa Luxemburg.
65 A metric pound—half a kilogram.
66 Communists played a leading role in the short-lived Soviet Republic in Bavaria in April 1919, and were afterwards victims of savage repression.
67 Timofeyev was one of 14 Social Revolutionaries sentenced to death in Moscow in 1922, but the death sentences were suspended.
68 In Le Havre, on August 25, 1922, workers striking against a pay cut clashed with police who killed three and injured 15.
69 Joseph Cyrille Magdalaine Denvignes, French general who spent six years in Germany. He described his experiences in La guerre ou la paix (Paris, 1927).
70 The assistance given by Bismarck and the Prussian troops in the crushing of the Paris Commune.
71 Netherlands currency.
72 The Communist demand was that the part of the nation’s real wealth (land, buildings, factories) which was not eroded by inflation should be confiscated by the Reich to enable it to balance its budget.
73 On July 23 there had been violent clashes between demonstrating workers and police in these two cities. Wroclaw was formerly known as Breslau.
74 Louis XVI’s minister Foulon and his son-in-law Berthier, the intendant, were killed by the Paris crowd on July 22, 1789.
75 German police wore green or blue uniforms according to which force they belonged to. The Schutzpolizei—municipal police—wore green; the national Sicherheitspolizei, under direct control of the minister of the interior, wore blue.
76 Serge refers to SPD members as “citizen”—a form of address current in the French bourgeois revolution—rather than using the Communist “comrade.”
77 At the time of the March Action.
78 The Freikorps, used to crush the working class in 1919.
79 In June we saw a sharp increase in the crime rate and in suicide. In Berlin alone, there were 2,700 crimes against property in the course of the month, and over 150 suicides. [Serge’s note.]
80 Since 1921 there had been much discussion of the demand for a “workers’ government,” that is, a KPD-SPD coalition within the existing parliamentary framework. Such a demand flowed from united front policies yet risked encouraging reformist illusions. As Serge shows, the “workers’ governments” established in Saxony and Thuringia later in 1923 were conceived as short term measures, and as springboards for insurrection and civil war.
81 The royal family of Prussia and subsequently of the German Empire.
82 November 1919; the general strike following the Kapp putsch in March 1920; the March Action in 1921.
83 A bank note (1922) and gold coin (1923) issued by the Russian state bank, worth ten roubles.
84 Serge uses a comic misspelling of “finances,” borrowed from the dramatist Alfred Jarry, author of King Ubu.
85 The term “stable value” meant, in effect, inflation-proof.
86 Part of Prussia 1893-1919, then a free city, known in German as Danzig.
87 Unfortunately Serge does not make clear what the two separate figures refer to.
88 The Independent Social Democrats—USPD—split from the SPD in 1917. The majority fused with the KPD in 1920. The remainder voted in September 1922 to return to the SPD.
89 Levi had been expelled for public criticism of the disastrous March Action of 1921.
90 Leading figures in the SPD.
91 Amid the massive inflation, there was much concern to base money on “real values”—Sachwerte—that is, actual goods exchanged for bills in the bank’s portfolio.
92 Freiheit was the USPD’s main daily paper from 1918 to 1922.
93 This was set up at the time of the November Revolution to examine proposals for public ownership. It achieved little or nothing.
94 A centime was a hundredth of a French franc. Serge several times gives comparative figures in French money, clearly expecting many of his readers to be French.
95 Serge is comparing the paper money to the assignats, paper currency issued during the French Revolution from 1790 on, which were notorious for rapid loss of value.
96 The Jungdeutscher Orden, a right wing paramilitary organization.
97 Technical emergency service: a strike-breaking body established by Noske in 1919.
98 Armed workers’ defense groups, initiated by the KPD, but often containing substantial numbers of non-Communist workers.
99 There were a hundred pfennigs to a mark.
100 Most of the USPD had rejoined the SPD in 1922, but a small minority maintained the organization.
101 Just recently the increase in Communist influence made itself felt by elections in the metalworkers’ union that were a great success for the KPD and by elections of delegates to the textile workers’ congress, likewise a big Communist success. [Serge’s note.]
102 After the “July Days” some Bolsheviks, including Trotsky and Kamenev, were arrested and imprisoned, while Lenin was forced to go into hiding.
103 Here, as in a number of places, Serge’s arithmetic is hard to follow.
104 Native land.
105 Following the killing of an Italian general, Mussolini had the Greek territory of Corfu bombarded in August 1923. He could be seen as following the example of the French in occupying the Ruhr.
106 Two of the most prestigious universities in Paris, and the five academies established to promote literature, science and art.
107 The DNVP.
108 Paul von Hindenburg commanded German forces in World War I. He was president from 1925 to 1933, when he appointed Hitler as chancellor.
109 The Battle of Sedan in the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 paved the way for the defeat of France and subsequently for the unification of Germany.
110 Severing, a veteran SPD member, was Prussian minister of the interior.
111 The French as
sociation of employers in heavy industry.
112 Pierre Renaudel, right winger in French Socialist Party (SFIO).
113 August Frölich—not to be confused with the Communist Paul Frölich, author of a biography of Rosa Luxemburg.
114 Crown Prince Rupprecht was heir to the Bavarian monarchy, abolished in 1918.
115 The post-1918 Reich was a federation of states, each of which had its own government.
116 It is interesting to contrast this dismissive account of German anarchism with the much more sympathetic account of Russian anarchism in Serge’s pamphlet “The anarchists and the experience of the Russian revolution,” published in Revolution in Danger (London, 1997). But the fact that this item was included at all shows Serge’s continuing concern to maintain a political dialogue with his former associates in the anarchist milieu.
117 Ernst Graf zu Reventlow (1869-1943): naval officer, then Pan-Germanist writer; joined the Nazis in 1927.
118 Those members of the French Socialist Party (SFIO) who refused to accept the majority decision of the party in 1920 to join the Comintern, and re-established the SFIO.
119 Electoral alliance of left parties—essentially SFIO and Radicals.
120 Separatists sought Bavarian independence from the Reich, while Pan-Germanists wanted a single state for all German speakers.
121 The KPD published a pamphlet entitled Schlageter. Eine Auseinandersetzung (Schlageter: a Debate—Schlageter was a German nationalist killed by the French during the occupation of the Ruhr). This contained articles by Radek, Frölich, Reventlow and the neo-conservative Moeller van den Bruck.
122 The Badische Anilin- und Soda Fabrik, a major chemical company.
123 André Marty (1886-1956) led a mutiny of French sailors in the Black Sea during anti-Bolshevik action. A leading member of the French Communist Party until purged in 1952.
124 The paper of the French SFIO.
125 The year of his advance on, and disastrous retreat from, Moscow.
126 Noske later claimed he had refused repeated requests from Ehrhardt to become dictator.
127 On September 13, 1923, Primo de Rivera, captain general of Catalonia, had declared martial law and taken over the administration of the province of Barcelona, dispossessing the governor. This initiated a period of military dictatorship in Spain.
128 Serge is probably thinking of L-O Frossard and those associated with him, who left the French Communist Party at the beginning of 1923 and returned to the SFIO.
129 Karl Radek (1875-1939) of the Russian Communist Party and Alfred Rosmer (1877-1964) of the French Communist Party both held leading positions in the Comintern and were involved in giving support to the KPD in its response to the Ruhr invasion.
130 Léon Daudet (1867-1942), right wing anti-Semitic writer and one of the founders of the Action française.
131 That is, at least twice what a French newspaper would have cost at the same time.
132 Influential conservative French newspaper (1861-1942); after 1929 it became the paper of the heavy industry employers’ organization.
133 The term was deliberately reminiscent of the Directory established in France (1795-99) after the overthrow of Robespierre.
134 He was overthrown by the February Revolution in 1917.
135 Suburbs of Paris. Serge is attacking ultra-lefts in or around the French Communist Party.
136 Wolfgang Kapp was the leader of an attempted right wing putsch in March 1920, blocked by workers’ action.
137 A long-standing class issue in Germany. One of Marx’s earliest political articles (October 1842) was on the “Debate on the Law on Thefts of Wood” in the Rhine Province Assembly.
138 A Prussian aristocratic landowner.
139 Bismarck was known as the “Iron Chancellor.” Serge is also thinking of Stinnes’s links with the employers in the iron and steel industry.
140 A leading Ruhr industrialist.
141 General Kornilov attempted a right wing coup against Kerensky in August 1917.
142 The opposition from both left and right.
143 A steel magnate belonging to the DNVP.
144 That is, like the personal guard of a Roman emperor.
145 Brandler was KPD president at the time of the March Action, though he did not bear the main responsibility for it. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment.
146 The Halle Congress of the USPD in October 1920 voted to merge with the KPD.
147 A ukase was a Tsarist decree.
148 Formerly known as Stettin.
149 Acting head of the French government at the time.
150 Prussian victories over Austria at Sadowa (1866) and France at Sedan (1870) led to the establishment of a united Germany (1871) of which Bismarck was the first chancellor.
151 At the time of writing Serge may have been aware the KPD had decided to retreat from its plan for a general strike leading to insurrection, but obviously he could not yet discuss this in public.
152 The DVP.
153 This was set up secretly by von Seeckt and Severing in 1923 to bolster the official armed forces which were restricted in size by the Versailles Treaty.
154 The Sokol (Czech for falcon) was a Czech nationalist gymnastic organisation.
155 A district in Southern Berlin.
156 That is, the “red battle standard” rather than the “red flag.”
157 The upper house of parliament, with representatives from the various states of the Reich.
158 The principle whereby each state in a federation governs itself without regard to the interests of the rest of the federation.
159 In fact the Hamburg rising was planned by the KPD as part of a national movement; orders cancelling the action failed to reach Hamburg. Serge was doubtless aware of this, but could not say so in the public press in a near civil war situation.
160 Temporary currency (November 1923 to August 1924) replacing marks made worthless by inflation.
161 The post-Robespierre government in France, 1795-99.
162 The conference had been called by KPD and SPD ministers to discuss the economic situation, and was attended by delegates from unions and factory councils as well as the KPD and SPD.
163 Allgemeiner freier Angestelltenbund, the union federation organizing office workers.
164 October 28 was in fact a Sunday.
165 Vereinigte Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands: the official name of the SPD after the merger with the USPD in 1922.
166 The Bund Bayern und Reich, a monarchist, Christian, anti-Semitic organization with 30,000 armed men.
167 A railway station in the eastern part of Berlin.
168 Almanac of the Oderberg District, Dortmund, quoted by the Vossische Zeitung (Voss Gazette) of November 4). [Serge’s note.]
169 The Zentrale was a committee smaller than the Central Committee, which looked after the day-to-day running of the KPD.
170 A square in central Berlin.
171 Police headquarters.
172 Hitler was born in Austria, and his paintings were mainly postcard-sized copies which were hawked around pubs. Serge’s account shows just how little known Hitler still was in 1923.
173 Disappointingly, this is not the sociologist Max Weber, who died in 1920, but probably Dr Friedrich Weber, head of the Bund Oberland, who worked closely with Hitler at this time.
174 Trade in bills or stocks on different markets to take advantage of different prices.
175 Karl Korsch (1886-1961), now best known for his philosophical writings.
176 Sealed orders whereby the pre-Revolutionary French king could order imprisonment without trial.
177 The charges were later dropped. [Serge’s note.]
178 The Wittelsbach were the Bavarian royal family; the Hohenzollern, formerly the Prussian royal family, had been emperors of united Germany from 1871 to 1918.
179 A legendary monster associated with the small French town of Tarascon (Bouches-du-Rhône). A model of the monster is brought out for local
festivals.
180 Later Hitler’s economics minister (1934-37), but then interned by the Nazis; acquitted at Nuremberg.
181 Before the outbreak of war in 1914, engineering workers in Paris earned around 1.20 francs per hour.
182 According to his Memoirs, Serge had already left Berlin for Prague by this date. His article often carried false place names to fool the authorities.