Machine works N. & K.
Machine works N. & K. A novel from everyday proletarian life is the first novel by the writer Willi Bredel .
This was published in 1930 by the International Workers' Publishing House in Berlin , the publishing house of the KPD , in the series of Der Rote-1-Mark-Roman .
The novel was written during the two years of imprisonment Bredel was sentenced to in 1930.
The location of the novel is the Hamburger Maschinenfabrik Nagel & Kaemp ; in the novel this is called Negel & Kopp. At the end of the 1920s, Bredel worked as a lathe operator in the factory .
content
The real plot of the novel begins when the workers at the N. & K. Speak at a meeting against a demand brought to them by the factory management for a recalculation of piecework wages and the introduction of overtime in the turning shop.
Instead, the workers agree to a motion formulated by the communist factory cell, which provides for wage increases and a forty-five hour week.
The works meeting ended with a tumult when one of the social democratic workers 'council members declared that the workers could decide what they wanted, the workers' council had already made a decision with the factory management.
A treacherous attitude on the part of the workers' council members, who had already given a commitment to the factory management without having previously agreed on it with the workers, clearly emerges at this point .
Social democratic workers' council members (later also trade union officials ) and factory management or communists and parts of the workforce face each other irreconcilably in the novel.
When the factory management ignored the decision of the works meeting a few days later and announced that overtime was to be worked in the turning shop, the workers split into two camps. A minority is willing to work the overtime, but the majority refuse. In order to prevent the lathe operators from working overtime, the communists agitate among the workers. They manage to dissuade a small group of lathe operators who are willing to stay in the factory beyond their actual working hours.
In addition to this approach carried from the inside to the workforce conflict , the workers are also with a conflict faced who approaches penetrates from the outside to them: As the metal workers 'union with the employers' association , an agreement concludes that the actually expiring wage and collective declared prolonged revolt , the Lathe operator. They call on the union delegate from the lathe shop to call an industry meeting. On this, the workers support a motion from the communist factory cell threatening strike measures unless wages are increased.
A short time later, at a workers 'meeting, the workers decide by a large majority for a list drawn up by the revolutionary trade union opposition (communists) for the workers' council election . The incumbent workers' council members (Social Democrats), who also stood for election, suffer a heavy defeat.
The factory management responded to the election of the opposition workers' council by dismissing two communists. Under the leadership of the communist factory cell, the workers then decide to call on the factory management to withdraw the layoffs and to comply with the lathe operators' demands.
Since the management of the factory does not meet the workers, the workforce goes on strike . The factory management reacts to the strike with a lockout .
The union declares the strike of the workers of the engineering works N. & K. for unlawful. The strikers receive no support from this side. The workers are therefore solely dependent on the grants of International Workers Aid .
When the strike leadership was informed that the factory wanted to resume production with some of the workers, they organized strike protection. In the following there are clashes with the police , in the course of which a worker is killed. The strike leadership was arrested after the clashes.
While the majority of the workers are still on strike, some of the workforce begins to resume production under police protection, together with members of the Reichsbanner recruited by the union .
The provisional strike leadership recognized the hopelessness of the situation that had developed after the actual strike leadership was arrested. It encourages those workers to accept the offer of continued employment to whom this is made by the factory management. That ended the strike.
After the majority of the opposition workers have been sacked, the Social Democrats succeed in asserting themselves against a (nonetheless) drawn up opposition list in a new workers' council election .
shape
Machine works N. & K. is divided into 49 episodes . The headings of the individual episodes give an indication of the following content, e.g. B. this applies to the works meeting , on the other hand they can also have an evaluative character. B. for lackeys of capital .
The narrative perspective changes within the novel . There are both episodes in which a superordinate narrator appears alone or is dominant, e.g. B. in Das Werk , as well as episodes in which a dialogue between the workers lets the narrator take a back seat, e.g. B. in The strike leadership is arrested .
The language of the novel is phrased . For example, when Melmster, the novel's hero , grapples with the question of whether or not one of his colleagues was killed by the police, his comment is:
"He was on his way to becoming a good revolutionary!"
The characters in the novel are typified. Melmster expresses this fact when he says:
"My life has meaning and content only through my political activity in the organizations of the proletariat and in the revolutionary struggle for its liberation."
In the novel, the characters serve as carriers of political ideas. They do not go through an inner development.
interpretation
In machine works N. & K. Bredel describes the events that lead to the start and end of a strike in the factory . The plot focuses entirely on what is happening inside the factory. It depicts an almost closed world in which good and bad face each other.
The communist Bredel uses the novel for agitation. Literature is used as a tool in political struggle. Bredel's attack is aimed at social democracy. The aim of the novel is to translate the KPD's theory of social fascism into literature.
The social fascism theory is justified by a negative characterization of people who belong to social democracy and are union members. They are portrayed as unsympathetic, corrupt villains who betray the interests of factory workers for personal gain.
The case description is given in Maschinenfabrik N. & K. generalized. In the novel it says:
"[...] the political role that this social democratic workers' council plays in our company is, on a small scale, the role that the SPD leadership plays in major politics within the capitalist republic."
See also
literature
- Lilli Bock: Willi Bredel. His life and work , 2nd edited edition, Berlin ( Volk und Wissen Verlag ) 1968.
- Willi Bredel: Collected Works in Individual Editions , Volume 1: Maschinenfabrik N. & K., Rosenhofstrasse, The property paragraph, 3rd edition, Berlin and Weimar ( Aufbau-Verlag ) 1982.
- Helga Gallas : Proletarian literature and bourgeois recipients. Report on an introductory course in the study of modern German literature based on Willi Bredel's novel "Maschinenfabrik N. & K." (1973) . In: Alternative , 16. Jhg., 1973, Issue 90, pp. 138–147.
Web links
- Maschinenfabrik N. & K. , accessed on July 16, 2016.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Willi Bredel: Collected Works in Individual Editions, Volume 1: Maschinenfabrik N. & K., Rosenhofstrasse, The property paragraph, 3rd edition, Berlin and Weimar (Aufbau-Verlag) 1982, p. 143.
- ↑ Willi Bredel: Collected Works in Individual Editions, Volume 1: Maschinenfabrik N. & K., Rosenhofstrasse, The property paragraph, 3rd edition, Berlin and Weimar (Aufbau-Verlag) 1982, p. 91.
- ↑ Willi Bredel: Collected Works in Individual Editions, Volume 1: Maschinenfabrik N. & K., Rosenhofstrasse, The property paragraph, 3rd edition, Berlin and Weimar (Aufbau-Verlag) 1982, p. 95.