Otto Rühle
Otto Rühle | |
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Reichstag | |
In office 12 January 1912 – 9 November 1918 | |
Constituency | Pirna-Sebnitz |
Personal details | |
Born | Karl Heinrich Otto Rühle 23 October 1874 Großvoigtsberg, German Empire |
Died | 24 June 1943 Mexico City, Mexico | (aged 68)
Citizenship | German |
Nationality | German |
Political party | |
Spouse | |
Occupation |
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Part of a series on |
Left communism |
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Part of a series on |
Libertarian socialism |
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Karl Heinrich Otto Rühle (23 October 1874 – 24 June 1943) was a German
Early years
Otto was born in Großvoigtsberg, Saxony on 23 October 1874. His father was a railway official. In 1889 he started to train as teacher in Oschatz. While there he became involved with the German Freethinkers League. In 1895 he became the private tutor for the Countess von Bühren, while also teaching at Öderan.[1]
Political career
He joined the
. Rühle had already become a vocal critic of existing teaching methods and set up a social democratic educational society for the Hamburg area. In 1907 he became an itinerant teacher for the SPD's educational committee and developed a reputation in the SPD, through his socially critical educational writings: "Work and Education" (1904), "The Enlightenment of Children About Sexual Matters", (1907), and, above all, "The Proletarian Child" (1911).Rühle joined Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring and others in founding the group and magazine Internationale, which proposed a revolutionary internationalism against a world of warring states. In 1916, Rühle also took part in the Spartacus League.
Reichstag
In 1912 he was elected as deputy for Pirna-Sebnitz, in Saxon Switzerland. He represented the SPD in the Reichstag.[2] In 1918, Rühle decided not to seek re-election.[2] Following the disorderly period of time in Germany, 1918–19, the dissolution of the Reichstag, which would subsequently be the end of Rühle's term in office, is not exactly known. However, given that the abdication of Wilhelm II was the first event in a series of events that would eventually lead to a new republic, this is the date that shall be put as the end of his term in office.
The German Revolution
Rühle participated in the
It has served as the model for other capitalistic dictatorships. Ideological divergences do not really differentiate socioeconomic systems.[3]
Delegation to the Comintern Congress, 1920
The
The Revolution is not a Party Affair
While Rühle saw the
This distinction between head and body, between intellectuals and workers, officers and privates, corresponds to the duality of class society. One class is educated to rule; the other to be ruled. Lenin's organisation is only a replica of bourgeois society. His revolution is objectively determined by the forces that create a social order incorporating these class relations, regardless of the subjective goals accompanying this process.[3]
Rühle was also critical of the party as a revolutionary organisational form, stating that "the revolution is not a party affair".
In Anti-Bolshevik Communism,
With the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, Rühle began to see the parallels between the two ideological dictators, writing:
Russia was the example for fascism. [...] Whether party 'communists' like it or not, the fact remains that the state order and rule in Russia are indistinguishable from those in Italy and Germany. Essentially, they are alike. One may speak of a red, black, or brown 'soviet state', as well as of red, black or brown fascism.[7]
Because of his connection to Leon Trotsky, Rühle found it difficult to find work in Mexico and was forced to hand-paint notecards for hotels to financially survive.[8]
Rühle was a member of the
In 1928, Rühle wrote a very detailed biography of Karl Marx, Karl Marx: His Life and Works.[10]
Personal life
In 1921, Rühle married Alice Gerstel, a German-Jewish writer, feminist and psychologist.
In 1936, Gerstel followed him to Mexico. She committed suicide on the day of his death on 24 June 1943.
See also
References
- ^ a b "Rühle, Otto". www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de. Karl Dietz Verlag Berlin. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
- ^ a b Bax, E. Belfort (1918). "Otto Rühle". Justice (6 June 1918).
- ^ a b Mattick, Paul. "Otto Rühle and the German Labour Movement by Paul Mattick 1945". Marxists Internet Archive.
- ^ Rühle, Otto. "Rühle: Revolution Not A Party Affair". Marxists Internet Archive.
- ^ Prichard, Alex; Kinna, Ruth; Pinta, Saku; Berry, Dave (2012). Libertarian Socialism: Politics in Black and Red. Palgrave Macmillan.
- ^ Mattick, Paul (1978). Anti-Bolshevik Communism. London: Merlin Press. See the PDF version.
- ^ Rühle, Otto (1939). "The Struggle Against Fascism Begins with the Struggle Against Bolshevism". First appeared in the American Councilist journal Living Marxism (4: 8). A longer text was published in French as "Fascisme Brun, Fascisme Rouge" by Spartacus in 1975 (Série B: 63).
- ^ Roth, Gary (2015). Marxism in a Lost Century: A Biography of Paul Mattick. Leiden/Boston: Brill Nijhoff and Hotel Publishing. p. 195. See the PDF version.
- ^ Trotsky, Leon. "The Case of Leon Trotsky (Report of Dewey Commission - 1937)". Marxists Internet Archive.
- ^ Rühle, Otto (1928); trans. 1929). Karl Marx: His Life and Works. New York: Viking Press.
Sources
- Otto Rühle at the Marxists Internet Archive.
- Otto Rühle at Kurasje.org.
- "Non-Leninist Marxism: Writings on the Workers Councils" (2007). St. Petersburg, Florida: Red and Black Publishers. ISBN 978-0-9791813-6-8. It includes Ruhle's "The Revolution is Not a Party Affair" and "Report From Moscow".