Spartacus League of Left Communist Organizations

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The Spartakusbund of left communist organizations also called Spartakusbund (political-economic unity organization) or Spartakusbund Nr. 2 , was an amalgamation of left communist groups during the time of the Weimar Republic .

history

At the suggestion of the General Workers' Union - Unity Organization (AAU-E) , talks between the Communist Workers' Party of Germany (KAPD) , the General Workers' Union (AAU) , the remnants of the left-communist industrial association for the transport industry and other industrial associations took place from the end of 1925 , the rest of the USPD around Theodor Liebknecht , the decided left (EL) and the KPD opposition (Left KPD) around Iwan Katz , Berthold Karwahne and Theodor Gohr , who were excluded from the KPD , in order to unite the fragmented left-communist organizations in a "cartel" . On March 12, 1926, there was a first meeting of a total of 12 organizations to discuss the possibilities of forming such a "combat cartel".

However, the KAPD and with it the AAU, the EL and the USPD, as well as most of the industrial associations, soon broke off the talks or were excluded from them. What remained were the AAU-E, the KPD opposition (Left) and the Industry Association for the Transport Industry (IfdV). On June 28, 1926 they formed a "cartel" called the "Spartakusbund". On October 21, the IfdV left the cartel again because it accused the Katz group in particular of adopting a naive, utopian line.

At the 1st Reich Conference of the Spartakusbund on 20./21. November 1926 in Göttingen the organizational unification of the AAU-E and the KPD opposition (left), which had largely approximated the AAU-E in their positions, became the "Spartakusbund (political-economic unit organization)". The Berlin magazine United Front of the AAUE and the Mitteilungsblatt of the Katz group were combined to form the magazine Spartakusbund . In addition to Iwan Katz and the former president of the "Socialist Republic of Braunschweig" , August Merges , Franz Pfemfert , editor of the magazine Die Aktion, and the poet Oskar Kanehl, who belongs to the AAU-E, were among the founders of Spartakusbund No. 2. There is nothing about the exact number of members known, according to estimates by the police, it should have 7,000 members in early 1927. The Braunschweig local group had around 20 members.

The organizational union existed only for a short time. In the course of 1927, the industry association for the transport sector and then the Katz group split off again. After the "Spartakusbund Nr. 2" collapsed, the AAU-E continued to exist with a few local groups. In Braunschweig a local branch of the Spartakusbund existed until at least 1930. This consisted mainly of August Merges and his family.

See also

literature

  • Hans Manfred Bock : Syndicalism and Left Communism from 1918-1923. On the history and sociology of the Free Workers' Union of Germany (Syndicalists), the General Workers' Union of Germany and the Communist Workers' Party of Germany (Marburg Treatises on Political Science, Vol. 13) . Meisenheim / Glan 1969.
  • Marcel Bois: Communists against Hitler and Stalin. The left opposition of the KPD in the Weimar Republic. An overall picture. Klartext, Essen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8375-1282-3
  • Olaf Ihlau : The Red Fighters. A contribution to the history of the labor movement in the Weimar Republic and in the “Third Reich” . Meisenheim am Glan 1969.
  • Otto Langels: The ultra-left opposition of the KPD in the Weimar Republic. On the history and theory of the KPD opposition (Left KPD), the decided left, the “Communist Politics” group and the German Industry Association from 1924 to 1928 . Frankfurt / Main 1984.
  • Lothar Peter : Literary Intelligence and Class Struggle: The Action, 1911-1932 . Cologne 1972.

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