Fear of Mirrors

by Tariq Ali

  ‘Fantasy politics, Klaus. Do you think I should accept Sao’s offer?’

  ‘Of course. Immediately. Without second thoughts. What’s wrong with you, Vlady? It would be good to have you running a global publishing house. Who knows, I might even offer you my memoirs!’

  ‘As long as I’m not in them, Klaus. Look, your cousin’s leaving. Please make friends with him. He’s really upset. Go on. If you do, I might seriously consider joining the PDS or something.’

  ‘Walter!’

  Winter’s voice was heard by everyone. His cousin stopped near the door and turned round to look at him. Winter nodded. Walter rushed to their table and the two men embraced.

  ‘By the way, this is my friend, Professor Vladimir Meyer, his wife Helge. Walter Nürnberg.’

  ‘Happy to be present on this occasion Herr Nürnberg. We were both leaving. Happy reunion.’

  Vlady and Helge walked out quickly. It was clear again and they stood still to observe the cluster of stars in the night sky over their city, which would soon be remodelled as the capital of the new Reich …

  ‘Without you,’ he whispered to Helge, ‘I had begun to feel like a blown seed, floating on the wind.’

  She did not reply, but took his arm and gently propelled him homewards.

  Author’s Note

  THIS NOVEL (MY THIRD) was written in 1992. The first, Redemption, a satirical excess on the Far Left had been published in 1990; the second, Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, in 1992. Fear of Mirrors was, for most publishers, far too close in time to the fall of the Berlin Wall. It wasn’t till 1997 that Gary Pulsifer at Arcadia sent it to a reader (Malcolm Bull), who strongly recommended its publication. Since then it has been travelling slowly to other parts of the world.

  The Turkish and Arab editions, in particular, appealed to many on the Left who had not given up hope. I remember arriving at the Istanbul Book Fair in the late nineties to be greeted by dozens of journalists asking questions about what Vlady might have thought about current events in Turkey, Germany, Russia, etcetera. I was completely nonplussed. Other questions (related to other characters in the novel) followed in swift succession. Needless to say, I had forgotten some of them.

  Redemption and Fear of Mirrors were part of an intended Fall of Communism trilogy, but the last one (set in Brazil at an IBM-sponsored conference of renegades, who assemble to recall their pasts with ex-Maoist cabinet ministers in Portugal and Germany, clashing with ex-Trotskyist counterparts from Brazil and Britain on the key question of who was a more effective defender of the New Order) is proving elusive. History quickened its pace. I had to return to non-fiction.

  TA, 2016

  Glossary

  East Berlin Uprising, 1953 The first of the post–Second World War democratic upheavals in the Soviet satellite states. Resisting a wage cut, a demonstration by Berlin building workers on 16 June 1953 marked a revolt that spread rapidly to Leipzig, Dresden, Magdeburg, Jena and Halle. More than 300,000 workers defied the régime, which declared a state of emergency. Soviet troops (10,000 men, 200 tanks) crushed the peaceful protest. Twenty lives were lost. Bertolt Brecht, rehearsing Coriolanus at the time, penned his famous quatrain to the Politbureau suggesting that if the problem was the people, perhaps the leadership should dissolve them and elect another. Three years later Hungary erupted and Soviet tanks were in action again. The Communist reformer, Imre Nagy was arrested and executed, and in 1957 Poland smouldered. In 1968 the Czechoslovak Communist Party under its new leader, Alexander Dubček, adopted a new programme known informally as ‘Socialism with a Human Face’. Soviet tanks entered the country and dissolved the leadership. That was the death knell of reform Communism.

  Die Arbeiterzeitung Austrian Social-Democratic Party daily.

  Bernstein, Eduard (1850–1932) German Social-Democratic theorist and leader of its right wing. He was the German equivalent of the English Fabians and, like them, a staunch defender of the ‘civilizing mission’ of British and German imperialism.

  Bahro, Rudolf East German dissident, author of The Alternative in Eastern Europe, published by Verso in 1978.

  Biermann, Wolf (1936) East German poet and singer. An oppositionist, he was expelled from the SED in 1963 then stripped of his nationality and finally kicked out of the GDR in 1976.

  Bukharin, Nikolai (1888–1938) Bolshevik leader, economist and theorist, ‘the favourite of the Party’ in Lenin’s words. Joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1906, in exile from 1911. Member of the Bolshevik central committee from 1917. A partisan of ‘war communism’ and then the theorist of the New Economic Policy, he allied with Stalin in 1923 and took over from Zinoviev at the head of the Comintern. He broke with Stalin in 1929, criticizing ‘forced collectivization’. Charged with ‘conspiracy and espionage’ he was condemned and executed in 1938 at the end of the third Moscow Trial. Fully rehabilitated by Gorbachev.

  CDU German Christian–Democratic party.

  Curzon, George Nathaniel (1859–1925) A leading figure in Britain’s conservative political establishment. He gave his name to the Curzon Line the British proposed in 1920 to delimit the border between Poland and the Soviet Union, and which was finally adopted in 1945. Later a Viceroy of India who pushed through the first partition of Bengal along communal lines.

  Connolly, James (1868–1916) Founder of the first Irish–Marxist organization in 1896. A syndicalist and Marxist theorist, he established a link between the national struggle and the struggle for socialism. Founder of the Irish Citizen Army in 1913, he was named vice-president of the provisional government and was the military commander during the 1916 Easter Rising. Wounded and captured, he was executed by the British Army on 12 May 1916.

  Deutschmark über alles In the nineteenth century, this was a liberal slogan favouring German unification, and the song featuring this line was the anthem of Weimar Germany, so there is no essential Nazi connection. It means Germany above all the local identities.

  Die Neue Zeit A German Social-Democratic Party daily edited in the early twentieth century by its most gifted left theoretician, Karl Kautsky. Its latter-day successor, the weekly Die Zeit was, during the Cold War, the informal organ of the US State Department and NATO.

  Dzerzhinsky, Felix(1877–1926) A Bolshevik of Polish origin, he was the founder of the Cheka (Pan-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Fighting Counter-Revolution), which became the GPU in 1922. He was its head until his death.

  Easter Rising On 24 April 1916, 1,200 members of the Irish Volunteers led by Patrick Pearse and the Irish Citizen Army led by James Connolly took over Dublin’s General Post Office and various official buildings, proclaiming the Irish Republic. However, after six days of fighting against 20,000 British soldiers, the insurgents had to surrender. Sixteen of the leaders, including Pearse and Connolly, were brought before military tribunals and executed; 2,500 Republicans were deported to camps in Britain.

  Ebert, Friedrich (1871–1925) Succeeded August Bebel at the head of the German Social-Democratic Party in 1913. President of the Weimar Republic from 1919 to 1925. He supported Germany’s entry into the First World War. Organized the repression of the revolution of 1918–1919 and, together with Gustav Noske, approved the murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.

  Heym, Stefan (1913–2001) German Jewish writer, went into exile in 1933 and moved to the United States, where he contributed to publishing a German-language anti-fascist paper. He took part in the Normandy landings in American uniform. As a victim of McCarthyism he moved to East Berlin in 1953 but in his writings opposed ‘actually existing socialism’.

  Honecker, Erich (1912–1994) A shoemaker and communist militant, after the Nazis took power in 1933 he entered Germany clandestinity. After his arrest he was in prison from 1935 to 1945. Freed by the Soviet army he took part in the founding of the new East German communist party, which took the name Socialist Unity Party (SED). A member of the Politburo, in 1961 he ordered the construction of the Berlin Wall. He replaced Walter Ulbricht a
s general secretary in 1971. He resigned in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Accused of forty-nine murders and twenty-five attempted murders, he was ultimately judged unfit to stand trial for health reasons and went into exile in Chile, where he died in May 1994.

  ‘Horst Wessel Lied’ A sadly renowned song that the Nazis took from the communists at the beginning of the 1930s, changing its lyrics to make it an hymn to one of their ‘martyrs’. Supposedly killed during a fight with KPD militants, Horst Wessel was in reality a petty thug probably killed in a dispute between score-settling pimps.

  Junkers Late-nineteenth-century German landed nobility, nationalist and ultra-conservative upholders of the ‘Prussian spirit’.

  Kaskichen White cheesecakes, in Yiddish

  Kautsky, Karl (1854–1938) Theorist and leader of the German Social-Democratic Party and Second International. After Engels’s death the most prominent Marxist and at the end of the 1890s leader of the struggle against Bernstein’s revisionism. He opposed the First World War and the Russian Revolution.

  Kollontai, Alexandra (1872–1952) Only female and feminist member of the Bolshevik central committee in 1917 and one of its few survivors. A pioneer of the struggle for women’s liberation and, later, Stalin’s Ambassador to Norway.

  KPD German Communist Party.

  Lafontaine, Oskar (1944) Former minister-president of the Saarland in 1985, SPD president from 1995. Having been finance minister he resigned from the Schröder government in 1999 out of disapproval at its social-liberal policy. Later Die Linke co-chair.

  Kamenev, Leon (1883–1936) Founder of the RSDLP. Although opposed to the October insurrection in 1917 (together with Zinoviev), that same year he became president of the executive committee of the Second Congress of the Soviets, and a member of the Bolshevik Politburo in 1919. He formed the ‘troika’ together with Zinoviev and Stalin in 1923 and opposed Trotsky. However, in 1926–1927 he took part in the left opposition against Stalin. Expelled then reintegrated into the Party. Condemned and executed at the second Moscow Trial.

  Lemberg A city in the former eastern Galicia belonging to Austro-Hungary and then (as Lwów) to Poland until 1939. Conquered by the Soviets, it was renamed Lvov. Since the disintegration of the USSR it has been part of the Ukraine, and is today known as Lviv.

  Liebknecht, Karl (1871–1919) A German socialist MP, he opposed the vote for war credits in December 1914. A tireless fighter against the war, he proclaimed, ‘The main enemy is at home!’ Imprisoned for high treason, he was released with the November 1918 Revolution, and indeed together with Rosa Luxemburg he would take the leadership of the unfolding revolution. Both were arrested during the Social-Democrat Noske’s repression of the Spartakist insurrection of January 1919. They were murdered by a group of officers at the Tiergarten, the Berlin zoo.

  Luxemburg, Rosa (1870–1919) Participated in the foundation of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania in 1893. She asserted herself as one of the leading figures of the left wing of German Social Democracy through her fight against Eduard Bernstein, and also criticized Lenin’s conceptions. The author of numerous books. Arrested in 1915, she was released thanks to the 1918 Revolution. Leader of the Spartakist League, founder of the German Communist Party (1 January 1919), murdered by the Freikorps in Berlin on 15 January.

  Mikhoels, Solomon (1890–1948) Renowned Jewish actor and director of Moscow’s famous Yiddish theatre. In 1942 he was named president of the Soviet Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, which Stalin wanted to use as a propaganda tool. He was murdered by the Soviet secret services in 1948, at the beginning of the violent wave of anti-Semitism unleashed by the dictator.

  NLF National Liberation Front. Political–military organization constituted under the leadership of the Vietnamese Communist Party fighting the US presence in South Vietnam.

  NKVD People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. After being absorbed by the GPU in 1934 it became the organism in charge of the Soviet secret police (whose finished version was the KGB). Led in turn by Yagoda then Yezhov and Beria, each of whom was themselves executed.

  Oblast Soviet administrative district.

  Old Bolshevik Name given to the first generation of Bolsheviks who had cut their teeth as militants in the late nineteenth century before joining the left of the RSDLP at its 1903 Second Congress. Among Stalin’s more privileged targets.

  Ossis Literally ‘Easterners’. Popular term used in Germany to designate the inhabitants of the former GDR.

  PDS Party of Democratic Socialism. Successor of the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The leaders most compromised in the old régime were excluded. This party later merged into Die Linke, maintaining strong influence in the eastern Länder.

  Philby, Kim (1912–1988) Joined the Communists during his studies at Cambridge. Took part in Willy Münzenberg’s World Committee for the Victims of German Fascism. It was in this period that he together with several of his Cambridge contemporaries began working for Soviet intelligence. After having infiltrated pro-Nazi circles in the British establishment he was The Times’ war correspondent reporting from Franco’s high command. He joined the British secret services in 1940, working as a Soviet double agent until his 1963 escape.

  Pilsudski, Józef (1867–1935) Polish general and head of state. Attacked the USSR in May 1920 and took part in the capture of Kiev. Pushed back by the Red Army, he nonetheless halted the Soviet troops in August 1920. Established a dictatorial regime in 1926.

  POUM Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification. This Spanish revolutionary party was very strongly implanted in Catalonia and held positions similar to Trotsky’s. In the Civil War it fought for socialist revolution and not simply to defend Spanish democracy. Its main leader, Andreu Nin, was captured, tortured and murdered by Stalin’s agents.

  Radek, Karl (1885–1939) A militant active in Polish, Russian and German social democracy. Rallied to Bolshevism during the First World War. Delegate to the Congress of Workers’ Councils held in Berlin in 1918, he was a KPD advisor and official representative of the Soviet government in Germany. A member of the left opposition together with Trotsky in 1923, he was kicked off the central committee. Expelled in 1927 and deported to Siberia, in 1929 he rallied to Stalin. He demanded the death penalty for the defendants at the 1937 Moscow Trial. In turn arrested himself, he disappeared without trace.

  Scharping, Rudolf (1947) Social-Democratic prime minister of the Rhineland-Palatinate in 1991. Leading figure in the right wing of the SPD, he was leader of the Party from 1993 to 1995, when he was replaced by Oskar Lafontaine. A person of little significance.

  Seghers, Anna (pseudonym of Netty Radvanyi-Reiling) (1900–1983) German novelist. A member of the German Communist Party, she was forced into French exile in 1933. She then headed to Mexico, before returning to live in the GDR in 1947. The author of The Seventh Cross (1942).

  Shtetl Yiddish word for Jewish villages in central–eastern Europe. Not one was left after the First World War.

  Sneevliet, Henk (1883–1942) Participant in the foundation of the Dutch Communist Party. Secretary of the colonial commission at the Comintern’s second congress, he helped to establish trade unions in Indonesia. He left the Communist Party in 1927. Founded the Revolutionary Socialist Workers’ Party (RSAP) in 1935 and drew close to Trotsky, before entering into conflict with him over Spain – even while remaining a fierce opponent of Stalin. Shot by the Gestapo on 13 April 1942.

  Spartakist League (Spartakusbund) Formed in 1915 by militants who came out of the left wing of Social Democracy after having rejected the Union sacrée (national unity for war mobilization) in 1914. Its best known leaders were Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. The League became one of the main components of the German Communist Party (KPD) founded on 1 January 1919.

  SPD German Social-Democratic Party.

  Stasi (short for Staatsichereit [State Security]) GDR political police.

  Strauss, Franz Josef (1915–1988) Leader of the Ba
varian Christian-Democrats and the embodiment of the postwar German hard right.

  Thälmann Brigade One of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, composed of German Communists.

  Thälmann, Ernst (1886–1944) Hamburg docker. A loyal Stalinist he became president of the KPD. Arrested by the Nazis in 1934 and executed at Buchenwald in August 1944.

  Toller, Ernst (1893–1939) German playwright and poet. Participated in the Bavarian Soviet government in 1918. His plays (perhaps the best known of which is Hoppla, We’re Alive!) shed light on the content of the social revolt following the First World War. After the Nazis’ victory he took refuge in New York, but killed himself soon after.

  Tukhachevsky, Mikhail (1893–1937) Originally an officer in the Russian imperial army, he rallied to the October Revolution. Took part in the foundation of the Red Army and contributed to defeating the White and allied armies. A partisan of exporting the revolutionary war, he commanded the Red Army during the Polish campaign of 1920 and repressed the Kronstadt uprising. Vice-president of the military council, he was arrested in 1937 for ‘high treason in the service of Nazi Germany’, sentenced to death and executed. A year before his execution, Tukhachevsky had engaged the Red Army in manoeuvres that predicted to the finest detail the course that the German attack

  Treuhand (‘Trust Agency’) Para-state body established by the Kohl government. Responsible for privatizing East-German companies after reunification in 1990.