Rays of light (magazine)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The magazine Lichtstrahl was published monthly between September 1913 and April 1916 - with an interruption in August and September 1914 - in Berlin . Its editor was the social democratic journalist Julian Borchardt . The beams were next to that of Clara Zetkin published women's political magazine equality in the early stages of the First World War represented the only continuously published nationwide sheet positions of the social democratic left. In November 1918, Borchardt relaunched the magazine. At that time, however, it was almost without influence and was discontinued in 1921.

Positions and meaning

Borchardt saw his magazine - so the subtitle - as an educational organ for thinking workers . Initially, his criticism was directed at the social democratic level policy, which was fixated on political reforms. In contrast, the editor of the rays of light called for a thorough study of the socio-economic foundations of bourgeois society - that alone provides the basis for a radical criticism. In the first issue Borchardt wrote:

“Anyone who wants to free humanity from social misery must above all know its causes. This requires careful research into all of our social conditions, especially our economic conditions. Because only there can the roots of social misery be fathomed. "

The magazine also brought articles on historical questions, pedagogy and criticism of religion. The authors included prominent leftists such as Franz Mehring , Edwin Hoernle , Johann Knief (under the pseudonym Alfred Nussbaum), Julian Marchlewski , Angelica Balabanoff , Anton Pannekoek , Otto Rühle and Karl Radek .

Since October 1914, the magazine attacked the burgfriedenspolitik the SPD sharply and pleaded relatively quickly - unlike, say, the left to Liebknecht and Luxembourg who were initially continue to work within the party - for a consistent fresh start and an immediate break with the old organization. The paper expressly dissociated itself from appeals to the party leadership that such a thing would be completely pointless. A new “social-imperialist party” had emerged; it is impossible as a socialist to belong to an organization run by the "men of August 4th". The attitude of the Russian Bolsheviks to war and "defense of the fatherland" was described and propagated as exemplary in the rays of light .

In April 1915, Borchardt caused a scandal when he revealed in a carefully researched article that right-wing Social Democrats had been disclosing internal party information to the bourgeois press for months and published articles under pseudonyms that cheered the right-wing majority in the party executive. Thereupon the party executive of the SPD sent a circular in which regional and local party leaderships were requested to take action against the further spread of the rays of light or the International, which had just appeared with a first issue . At the same time, the rays of light also attacked the centrist current around Kautsky . It is mainly responsible for ensuring that the irreconcilable differences between revolutionaries and opportunists are repeatedly blurred; this disorientates the majority of party members and delivers them to the board course. Is necessary

"(...) a struggle for the unification of all left elements of the party, some of which, under the influence of Kautsky's authority, commute between right and left, declaring themselves against the right with words and supporting them with actions."

Borchardt gathered in Berlin a circle of 15 to 20 readers of the rays of light who appeared with him as Germany's International Socialists . As their representative, he took part in the Zimmerwald Conference in September 1915 . Unlike the Spartacus letters that have appeared regularly since August 1915 (initially under different names) or the Bremen workers' policy , however, Borchardt's magazine was hardly received by social democratic workers and functionaries. In contrast to the sheets mentioned, only a circle of reading and debating gathered around the rays of light, without any major activist potential. After Borchardt's temporary arrest in February 1916 and the magazine's ban in April 1916, this group gradually disintegrated. The magazine Leuchtturm, which was founded as a follow-up project (published from May 1916 to October 1918) quickly lost all importance, as Julian Borchardt completely isolated himself in the debates of the social democratic left on essential - above all organizational - issues.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lichtstrahl, September 1913, p. 1. Quoted from Fricke, Dieter, Handbuch zur Geschichte der Deutschen Arbeiterbew Movement 1869 to 1917 in two volumes, Berlin 1987, Volume 1, p. 629.
  2. ↑ See Fricke, Handbuch, Volume 1, p. 629. See also Bock, Hans Manfred, Syndikalismus und Linkskommunismus from 1918 to 1923. A contribution to the social and intellectual history of the early Weimar Republic, Darmstadt 1993, p. 73f.
  3. ↑ See Bock, Syndikalismus, pp. 74f.
  4. ↑ Lichtstrahl, September 1915, pp. 305, 307. Quoted from Fricke, Handbuch, Volume 1, p. 629.
  5. ↑ See Fricke, Handbuch, Volume 1, p. 629.
  6. ↑ See Bartel, Walter, Die Linken in der Deutschen Sozialdemokratie im Kampf gegen Militarismus und Krieg, Berlin 1958, p. 294.
  7. ↑ See Bartel, Die Linken, p. 228.
  8. ↑ See Bartel, Die Linken, p. 406.
  9. ↑ Lichtstrahl, July 1915, p. 260. Quoted from Bartel, Die Linken, p. 406.
  10. ↑ See Fricke, Handbuch, Volume 1, p. 381. See also Schumacher, Gabriele, Julian Borchardt and the "Lichtstrahl" (1913-1916), in: Contributions to the history of the labor movement, year 1985, issue 6, p. 798ff .
  11. ↑ See Fricke, Handbuch, Volume 1, p. 629.
  12. ↑ Borchardt called for a general strike at an event organized by social democratic youth in Neukölln. See Bartel, Die Linken, pp. 293f.
  13. ↑ See Fricke, Handbuch, Volume 1, p. 630.
  14. ↑ See Fricke, Handbuch, Volume 1, pp. 396, 630. See also Bartel, Die Linken, p. 421 and Bock, Syndikalismus, pp. 75ff.