Communists From Germany

"Recognition of the principle of the inviolability of frontiers remains the criterion of whether or not a policy really serves peace and thus the interests of man."

"We consider the unrestricted application of these principles of security to be the basic prerequisite for the development of equal, mutually advantageous co-operation. Security provides a solid basis for co-operation. The German Democratic Republic is ready to work together peacefully with all States in the economic, technological and scientific fields, in education, culture and sports."

"The peoples will judge the historic value and the validity of the results of the Conference on the basis of how they will be filled with life in practical inter-State relations. This will not be the work of a few days but the result of a continuous, persistent effort. In this endeavour we are encouraged by the fact that this Conference is itself an example of the varied possibilities of solving complicated international issues in the mutual interest. Nor do we overlook the obstacles still being put in the way of detente — obstacles which should be overcome with courage and determination so that the results achieved can be consolidated and improved."

"We cannot help noticing that the events in Poland are, first of all a consequence of the attacks from the inside and the outside, intended to undermine the socialist system. It is important for us to understand that the PUWP has a bitter enemy."

"Leninism is said to be creatively applied in Poland. This is a pretext of the counterrevolutionary and antisocialist forces so that they may be able to succeed in diverting Poland from its course, in changing the Polish socialist system. Free elections are talked about more and more in Poland. What purpose is pursued by this? It is easy to understand. That is why, via the information mass media, all these issues must be well clarified. However, on November 7th a cartoon was published in Poland showing an executioner with an axe in his hand, bearing the following caption: services rendered to the population. There are lots of facts attesting to the fact that some Polish writers write material against the people's system in Poland."

"Imperialism bet its bottom dollar on counterrevolution. Under the circumstances, we combined political actions with administrative measures and, very shortly, we succeeded in isolating the counterrevolutionary forces from the working class."

"In Berlin, the city of peace, your unshakable will now more than ever to do everything for the strengthening of our socialist fatherland, the German Democratic Republic, and for the safeguarding of peace, will be reinforced."

"35 years of the German Democratic Republic have been 35 years of hard struggle for peace and socialism. Our people, under the leadership of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, has truly done great things during these years. We are filled with joy that you, under the sign of the rising sun, display the same revolutionary spirit for the strengthening and defense of socialism."

"I don't think the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe means that there will not be other attempts to do what we did. The systems that are now in place are not solving people's economic, social and environmental problems. Other ways have to be found. New social structures will emerge, including some that embrace the socialist principles I believe in. After all, what good are moral privileges if you are poor and starving?"

"I deplore the fact that East Germans were shot while trying to flee westward, but the Berlin wall served a useful purpose. It contributed to a polarization between the two blocs, but it also gave a certain stability to their relationship."

"While the wall was standing, there was peace. Today there’s hardly a place that isn’t in flames. The wall was our protection – it was fantastic for me to be part of it."

"Maybe not every detail of what the Stasi did was correct, but you can say that about any secret service. Their job is to deal with people who threaten the country's sovereignty and independence. That's what the Stasi did."

"Sure, I hear about the new freedom that people are enjoying in Eastern Europe. But how do you define freedom? Millions of people in Eastern Europe are now free from employment, free from safe streets, free from health care, free from social security. What is happening to people in the former Soviet Union is a catastrophe. Even without idealizing what they had before, you have to admit that it was a lot better than what they have now."

"On some matters I cannot change my position. I refuse to sacrifice my Communist beliefs to the fashion of the day. I am and remain a believer in democratic centralism and a revolutionary socialist party."

"Heinz Kessler, a former East German defense minister who was later convicted of incitement to manslaughter for upholding the shoot-to-kill policy at the communist country's border, has died. He was 97. ... Kessler was arrested in May 1991 after officials in reunited Germany ... received a tip that he would try to flee the country wearing a Red Army uniform. ... In 1993, he was sentenced to 7 ½ years in prison. The case went as far as the European Court of Human Rights, which in 2001 upheld Kessler's conviction"

"In the PSP a group of us organized a woman's caucus; in fact this is what most of the women in Left organizations did. We studied the writings of the Russian leader, Clara Zetkin on the "women's question." We read about revolutionary Cuban women-Haydée Santamaría, Vilma Espín-and the role they played in toppling the Batista government."

"At the second annual meeting of the International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen in 1910, Clara Zetkin, a prominent Marxist activist from Germany’s Social Democratic Party, proposed the idea of holding an international day for women. She thought that women should press for their demands for equality and suffrage on a single day of celebration. The conference agreed."

"Despite her writing and speaking experience during the 1880s, as well as her general political experience working within the socialist movement, not even the active support of the party's leader August Bebel and its chief theoretician Karl Kautsky could secure for Zetkin any more creative work within the party than soliciting advertisements for the party press."

"the great revolutionary Clara Zetkin, a woman who fought passionately for the emancipation of women-workers"

"La mujer," one of the articles that Luisa Capetillo published in 1912 in Cultura obrera, was later included in the anthology, Voces de liberación (Voices of Liberation), published in 1921 by Lux Editorial from Argentina. Printed for the purpose of gathering the libertarian voices of the most progressive women in the world, the book contains short essays by Rosa Luxembourg, Clara Zetkin, Emma Goldman, Louise Michel, and various Latin American women including Margarita Ortega, a Mexican revolutionary, María López from Buenos Aires, and Rosalina Gutiérrez from Montevideo. The editorial note introducing the authors states, "These voices of liberation are a call to women by their own compañeras to think more and act together with men in the struggle for human emancipation."

"Healthy sport, swimming, racing, walking, bodily exercises of every kind, and many-sided intellectual interests. . . . that will give young people more than eternal theories and discussions about sexual problems and the so- called "living life to the full." Healthy bodies, healthy minds! . . . And I wouldn't bet on the reliability, the endurance in struggle of those women who confuse their personal romances with politics. . . . No, no! that does not square with the revolution."

"The liberation of the workers can only be the work of the working class itself, it can never accomplish this gigantic and terrible work of history, however, if it is torn in two halves by the sex distinction. As the men and women of the proletariat are united body and soul in their crushing life of misery, so must they also unite a burning hatred of capitalism with a more confident, more daring will to fight for the Revolution."

"Clara had been so affected by the failure of the German Social Democracy, to which she had dedicated the best years of her life, that I felt she would never recover from the shock."

"[About Rosa Luxemburg] Rarely was heard on her lips the phrase, “I cannot”; more frequently were heard the words, “I must.”"

"I have already mentioned the rôle of Clara Zetkin in the German revolutionary movement and as founder and leader of the Marxist movement among women throughout the world. When Clara arrived in Moscow in the fall of 1920, she was ill and hysterical...Knowing that she was being used for demonstration purposes by Zinoviev, I urged her to refuse these invitations or to cut her speeches to a few words of greeting and solidarity. But I did not realize how Clara was fascinated by the platform itself and by the applause that greeted her. "Look at this white-haired veteran of the movement," Zinoviev would say when he introduced her. "She is a living testament to the approval which all great revolutionaries give to the tactics of our great, invincible Party. Long live the glorious Communist Party!" Then, as soon as Clara would begin to speak, Zinoviev would write in a note to the translator: "Abbreviate; cut her speech. We can't waste so much time on her eloquence." I soon discovered that Clara really loved the atmosphere with which she was surrounded and that she would speak for the sake of the applause. The Bolsheviks availed themselves of this weakness to the full; they flattered her, invited her for personal audiences, let her think that she was influencing their policies. Instead, they were laughing at her naïveté-especially when she criticized them for the fatal mistakes they had imposed upon the German Communists. Yet, knowing their tactical errors and the fruits of these errors in Germany, Clara could not resist their flattery. After my departure from Russia, when she was surrounded completely by the tools of Zinoviev, she let herself become one of these tools. She emphasized her adherence to the dominant Bolshevik leadership which meant the leadership of the Russian government-even while she knew that the nonconformist minority in Germany was right. This attitude of Clara was one of the bitter personal disillusionments of my life. I had been not only her ardent disciple, but also her friend. She had once assured me that after the loss of Rosa Luxemburg, for whom she had had an unlimited devotion, she looked upon me as her closest friend. At the time of our last encounter in Russia I realized that I could no longer look to her either as a friend or as a teacher. I had told her of my refusal to collaborate any longer with the Bolsheviks and of my determination to leave Russia as soon as possible. She insisted that I should remain. "You can be appointed secretary of the International Woman's movement, Angelica," she said. "This will leave you independent of the other Comintern institutions. You must remain, Angelica. You are one of the few honest people left in the movement." There were tears in her eyes as she said this. I shook my head. "No, I can't do it, even for Clara Zetkin." This was the second time in my life when I found it necessary to resist the appeal of some one for whom I had had the most profound admiration and whose happiness was dear to me."

"The honored guest of the conference, Klara Zetkin, like a sweet old grandmother, is surrounded by respectful attention."

"[About Rosa Luxemburg] With a will, determination, selflessness and devotion for which words are too weak, she consecrated her whole life and her whole being to Socialism. She gave herself completely to the cause of Socialism, not only in her tragic death, but throughout her whole life, daily and hourly, through the struggles of many years ... She was the sharp sword, the living flame of revolution."

"Where there’s a will there’s a way. We have the will to world revolution, therefore we must find the way to reach the masses of the exploited and the enslaved women, whether the historical conditions make it easy or difficult."

"The woman of the proletariat has achieved her economic independence but neither as a person nor as a woman or wife does she have the possibility of living a full life as an individual. For her work as wife and mother she gets only the crumbs that are dropped from the table by capitalist production. Consequently, the liberation struggle of the proletarian woman cannot be – as it is for the bourgeois woman, a struggle against the men of their own class. She does not need to struggle, as against the men of her own class, to tear down the barriers erected to limit her free competition... The end goal of her struggle is not free competition with men, but bringing about the political rule of the proletariat. Hand in hand with the men of her own class, the proletarian woman fights against capitalist society."

"It was a great privilege to work so closely with these wonderful women of our movement. Clara Zetkin, one of the outstanding members of the German Party, all her life long devoted herself especially to work among women. She was known throughout the world for her great fight against the World War. She had been a friend of Engels, and Lenin was very fond of her, and loved to talk with her. She was a fine orator, and spoke with a strong resonant voice. Though she suffered from a heart ailment, she never spared herself. I have seen her talk until she dropped unconscious. At such times her son, who was always with her, would revive her, and then she would continue. The last time I saw her was in 1929. She was already beginning to fail. She was sitting outside the door of a committee meeting, resting, and I can remember her telling me she wished that she still had the strength I had. In the last popular election in Germany before Hitler became dictator, she was elected to the Reichstag on the Communist ticket, and, as the oldest member, opened the session. Weak and frail as she was at that time, she made a powerful attack on Nazi brutality, appealing to the German people to unite against fascism."

"March 8 was designated International Women's Day by the International Socialist Conference in 1910, upon the initiative of Clara Zetkin, the heroic German Communist leader, who later electrified the world with her brave denunciation of the Nazis in Hitler's Reichstag in 1933."

"The Communist challenge to the capitalist world system also started with the Great War. The war split Social Democratic parties everywhere into prowar and antiwar camps. Some Social Democrats supported the war efforts out of a sense of obligation to the nation. But in Germany, France, Italy, and Russia, minority socialists, including the Russian Bolsheviks, condemned the fighting as a conflict between different groups of capitalists. Karl Liebknecht, the only socialist who voted against the war in the German parliament, bravely argued that “this war, which none of the peoples involved desired, was not started for the benefit of the German or of any other people. It is an imperialist war, a war for capitalist domination of world markets and for the political domination of important colonies in the interest of industrial and financial capital.” Revolutionaries such as Liebknecht and Lenin contended that soldiers, workers, and peasants had more in common with their brothers on the other side than with their superior officers and the capitalists behind the lines. The war was between robbers and thieves, for which ordinary people had to suffer. Capitalism itself produced war and would produce more wars if it was not abolished. The answer, the ultra-Left proclaimed, was a transnational form of revolution, in which soldiers turned their weapons on their own officers and embraced their comrades across the trenches."

"The tide of events mount into the heavens – we are accustomed to being catapulted down from the peak into the depths. But our ship continues on its straight course proudly sailing to its goal. And whether we will still be alive when it is reached – our programme will live; it will rule the world of humanity redeemed. In spite of everything!"

"No one would claim that the revolt of a few hundred insurgents in the Warsaw ghetto in April 1943 influenced the course of the war in any way. The immense importance of this event was in another dimension: a symbol, as is often said, the manifestation par excellence of the will to attest by struggle 'despite everything' - the famous trotz alledem of Heinrich Heine, found also from the pens of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, and again in the famous song of Wolf Biermann. It embodied the will and capacity of human resistance in the face of adversity, despite the extreme disproportion of forces."

"Those who are defeated today shall be the victors of tomorrow. Because defeat serves as a lesson. The German proletariat still lacks revolutionary experience. And only through tentative attempts, adolescent errors and painful setbacks can it obtain practical education, which will ensure future victory. For the living forces of the social revolution, whose unstoppable growth is the natural law of societal development, a defeat means stimulus. And through defeat after defeat, their road leads to victory."

"From every drop of this blood, from these dragon’s teeth sown for the victors of today, shall rise the avengers of the fallen – from every tattered fibre new soldiers shall rise for the great cause, which is eternal and unwithering like the firmament."

"The defeated of today, they will have learned. They will be cured of the delusion of being able to find their salvation in the help of masses of confused soldiers; cured of the delusion of being able to trust in leaders who prove themselves to be feeble and impotent; cured of the belief in independent social democracy, which disdainfully abandoned them. Left only to their own devices, they will fight their coming battles, gain their coming victories. And the watchword, that the liberation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself, will have gained for them a new, deeper meaning."

"If Theodore Roosevelt is the great champion of democracy —the arch foe of autocracy , what business had he as the guest of honor of the Prussian Kaiser? And when he met the Kaiser, and did honor to the Kaiser, under the terms imputed to him, wasn't it pretty strong proof that he himself was a Kaiser at heart? Now, after being the guest of Emperor Wilhelm, the Beast of Berlin, he comes back to this country, and wants you to send ten million men over there to kill the Kaiser; to murder his former friend and pal. Rather queer, isn't it? And yet, he is the patriot, and we are the traitors. I challenge you to find a Socialist anywhere on the face of the earth who was ever the guest of the Beast of Berlin, except as an inmate of his prison—the elder Liebknecht and the younger Liebknecht, the heroic son of his immortal sire."

"The main enemy of the German people is in Germany: German imperialism, the German war party, German secret diplomacy. This enemy at home must be fought by the German people in a political struggle, cooperating with the proletariat of other countries whose struggle is against their own imperialists."

"Lay down your weapons, you soldiers at the front. Lay down your tools, you workers at home. Do not let yourselves be deceived any longer by your rulers, the lip patriots, and the munitions profiteers. Rise with power and seize the reins of government. Yours is the force. To you belongs the right to rule. Answer the call for freedom and win your own war for liberty."

"There were sometimes in our own ranks comrades who thought themselves cleverer and more capable of judging various questions than was done in the definite decisions of our World Party. Here I stress with the greatest emphasis: our relations with the Comintern, this close, indestructible, firm confidence between the C.P.G. and the C.I. and its Executive—this is one of our Party, the inner-political struggles and disputes in the past and of the higher political maturity of our Party generally."

"Nach Hitler kommen Wir."

"Ernest Thalmann was a devoted revolutionary, a good orator with a fine instinct for the worker's temper, he was an excellent medium for expounding theories and ideas laid down by others. He was a poor thinker, and not given to abstract study, even lacking enough self-discipline to reach the cultural and theoretical level of an average Party member."

"These letters have come to be important to me because they help throw a little sand in the inevitability of the great story-telling machine in which everything is propelled towards death, murder, suicide."

"I feel that by her act, she did something liberating, even for our family"

"They must have wanted to tell us — Look, this is where we are, where you have brought us. It is the position you have put us in."

"I am also overcome by fury and helplessness when I read these letters... What twisted thinking! What helplessness! What desperation and brutality against themselves, against me and others."

"If we made a mistake, then we made a mistake (I don't see it myself); after all, what's been missing in the European fight for socialism over the last 100 years, is the element of 'madness'"

"Hell YES! Andreas, praxis, you said it!"

"Please never say again that I wanted to be rid of Felix, I am getting frantic here … When I get out I 'want' Felix terribly, but I don't want to take him away from you."