Mole (trotskyism)
Mole or Red Mole was the name of a Trotskyist organization with a maximum of 90 members in Germany in the 1980s and 1990s, which published a magazine of the same name.
Organization history
As early as the early 1970s, the group of International Marxists had a youth organization ( Revolutionary Communist Youth ), with which they merged in 1972. At the beginning of the 1980s, a youth organization of the GIM was formed again, this time under the name Red Mole . The red mole was mentioned in the reports for the protection of the constitution in 1982 and 1986. The red mole was active in the Nicaragua solidarity, in the trade union movement (35-hour week) and in the student movement. A membership of up to 90 people is specified for the red mole.
After the merger of GIM and KPD / ML in October 1986 to form the VSP , this step was not followed by parts of the “Red Mole”. They founded an independent youth organization called the Mole and wanted to keep in closer contact with the United Secretariat of the Fourth International .
From 1987 to 1989 the organization moved in the federal student council, various regional student councils and the green-alternative-colorful-autonomous youth structures (GABA), an early forerunner of the Green Youth . One of the only noteworthy actions during this period was a spectacular leaflet campaign that disrupted the memorial event on June 17, 1953 in Mönchengladbach in 1988 . Especially the ironic tone of the leaflet ("German unity is stronger than any Russian tank!") Caused a sensation.
In April 1989, at a conference, there was a break between various organizational and content-related concepts: While some of the members wanted to continue entry into the GABA structures (local groups in Hanover , Berlin , Munich ), another parliamentary group (Mönchengladbach, Duisburg ) wanted to do so To advance the building of a revolutionary party of the working class, which in their view would be incompatible with the petty-bourgeois composition of the GABA structures and the Greens. From then on, this faction worked with the International Communist League (IKL) in Vienna, which in 1989 merged with the Austrian youth organization of the Fourth International to form the Revolutionary Communist League (RKL) . In the context of these contacts, the mole politically distanced itself from the United Secretariat, which from then on was accused of a centrist policy.
Former members of the Mole created the “Working Group on Communist Politics” (AKP), which was later renamed “Socialist Action” , after a failed entry project at the Viersener Falken . After a further decline in membership and a further split - caused by the upheavals in the Austrian RKL - there had been a Duisburg and a Stuttgart-Hamburg cell since 1994, with the Duisburg cell remaining in close contact with the RKL.
In 1992 the organization was renamed the spartacusbund - revolutionary socialists , following the example of the former German sister organization of the IKL , but continued to publish its magazine under the name of Mole . In the following years, the Duisburg group carried out political work in a cultural center (Fabrik eV) and took part in the “Red Monday” series of events, the main focus of which was on international issues (Turkey, anti-imperialism) and anti-fascism. In this context, contacts were made with the Turkish DHKP-C and the Peruvian MRTA . However, this time was also shaped by content-related and personal disputes with the Duisburg Antifa .
Around the same time the organization took on the name Red Action .
The number of members is difficult to determine, as the distinction between membership and sympathizer status was insufficient and the work in the local groups was coordinated on a decentralized basis. The number is likely to have moved between 50 and 200 at weddings (1987–1989), with a clear downward trend from 1989 onwards. From 1991 the group consisted of only one to four people.
Contacts with other groups
Since distancing itself from the former GIM, the group has been in constant contact with other Trotskyist organizations that were critical of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. At the national level, these include the Revolutionary Socialists group around the magazine “oktober” in Berlin, the “Leninist-Trotskyist Tendency” in Cologne (both consisting of former GIM members) and the “Spartakus Group” (split off from the BSA in Mülheim the Ruhr ). At the turn of the year 1989/1990 there was brief contact with representatives of the United Left in the GDR. The mole was also represented several times with a stand at the Fête de Lutte Ouvrière in the 1990s .
Together with the RKL, the mole was part of the Liaison Committee of Communists , which in 1989 also included Voce Operaia from Italy and the Revolutionary Workers League (RWP) from Sri Lanka (around ex-MP Edmund Samarakoddy). At times the German-Belgian LTT (see above) and the ex-Healeyist Workers International League (WIL) from Great Britain also took part in this committee. Formative issues were the assessment of the so-called (former) degenerate workers' states as well as the war in Yugoslavia in the following years and the attitude towards anti-imperialism. In the context of the crisis in the Austrian RKL, there was also an intensive discussion of the politics of the workers' point of view .
The groups belonging to the Liaison Committee formed the International Leninist Current in 1996 .
The ILC later broke with Trotskyism and is now called “ Anti-Imperialist Coordination ” (AIK). The Duisburg branch went in an initiative e. V. - Association for Democracy and Culture from below , whose management staff is recruited from old mole cadres. According to the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in North Rhine-Westphalia, the section in Vienna is a sub-organization of the Revolutionary Communist League (RKL).
magazine
The magazine Roter Maulwurf was published from 1981/82 until around 1986.
The magazine Maulwurf appeared from 1987 - initially with the subtitle youth newspaper for feminist and socialist action - in about 25 issues in changing formats and with changing subtitles. The first editions - around 1990 - appeared in an edition of 400 to 600 copies and were produced in a print shop in Opladen. They were characterized by a very unusual and sophisticated layout. Later editions were of poor quality in terms of layout and printing - needle printer and copier.
The issue that dealt with the murder of Alfred Herrhausen by RAF terrorists ("We would not have blown the car, we would have stolen it!") Attracted increased attention in autonomous circles .
The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung has only seven numbers from 1987 to 1991 in its Trotskyism archive. At one point the IBT refers to No. 35 from 1999, which is probably a publication by the above-mentioned Stuttgart cell. T. Zmrzly was most recently named as the person responsible under press law, and in later editions a post office box in Duisburg or Stuttgart.
Together with the RKL - at least temporarily - their theoretical organ Results & Perspectives were published , as well as the International discussion bulletin and the International Trotskyist correspondence as part of the international cooperation .
origin of the name
The use of the name Mole for a socialist youth organization can be traced back to a quote from the work The Eighteenth Brumaire by Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx , in which the latter exclaims “Well rooted, old mole!”.
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.mao-projekt.de/BRD/ORG/TRO/GIM_Linkliste.shtml
- ↑ In addition, it was viewed by Gauweiler (CSU) as an alleged potential interference in a demonstration registration, cf. Spiegel 43/1986: Red Mole .
- ↑ See also this leaflet from 1982 and this brochure from 1984
- ↑ See Gellrich, pp. 66–69.
- ↑ For the process and the naming cf. "On our own behalf", in: Maulwurf 9 (1992) and "Organizational status in Germany", in: International discussion bulletin 3 (1992)
- ↑ On the Stuttgart group cf. this brief self-presentation , in addition, she last participated in the festival of Lutte Ouvrière in 2005 with her own stand .
- ↑ In 1999 the name mole was still used. See this list of supporters from a leaflet by the Spartakus group
- ↑ Marcel Souzin: Marxist State Theory and the Collapse of Stalinism. An analysis by the LTT (1995) . For information on the LTT and the Liaison Committee, see also The LTT's Experience with the Liaison Committee: An Open Letter to Voce Operaia (formerly GOR) of Italy . In: In defense of Marxism 2 (May 1993) and Comment on the VO-thesis concerning the world situation
- ↑ Frank Nitzsche, “From the shadows into the range of the cameras”. The development of Trotskyist organizations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland with special consideration of the influence of the new social movements from 1968 to today , dissertation in political science at the University of Siegen 2006, online (PDF file; 1.85 MB), p. 59– 60
- ↑ See The Story of Hamas City and anti-Semites march again in Duisburg ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ^ Red Mole: revolutionary-socialist youth newspaper in the Berlin State Library
- ↑ Anne Bärhausen, Gabriele Rose (arrangement): The Trotskyism Archive (Hermann Weber Collection) in the library of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. An inventory , online (PDF file; 6.11 MB), p. 173
- ↑ International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT) - The Left in War: A Reckoning . In: Bolschewik 9 (2000) No. 13, pp. 3-8 .
- ↑ See the imprint of issues 1 to 20.
- ↑ Lubitz: Trotskyist Serials Bibliography (PDF file; 2.55 MB)
