Witness to the German Revolution (39 page)

A bank note (1922) and gold coin (1923) issued by the Russian state bank, worth ten roubles.

Serge uses a comic misspelling of “finances,” borrowed from the dramatist Alfred Jarry, author of
King Ubu.

The term “stable value” meant, in effect, inflation-proof.

Part of Prussia 1893-1919, then a free city, known in German as Danzig.

Unfortunately Serge does not make clear what the two separate figures refer to.

The Independent Social Democrats—USPD—split from the SPD in 1917. The majority fused with the KPD in 1920. The remainder voted in September 1922 to return to the SPD.

Levi had been expelled for public criticism of the disastrous March Action of 1921.

Leading figures in the SPD.

Amid the massive inflation, there was much concern to base money on “real values”—
Sachwerte
—that is, actual goods exchanged for bills in the bank's portfolio.

Freiheit
was the USPD's main daily paper from 1918 to 1922.

This was set up at the time of the November Revolution to examine proposals for public ownership. It achieved little or nothing.

A centime was a hundredth of a French franc. Serge several times gives comparative figures in French money, clearly expecting many of his readers to be French.

Serge is comparing the paper money to the
assignats,
paper currency issued during the French Revolution from 1790 on, which were notorious for rapid loss of value.

The Jungdeutscher Orden, a right wing paramilitary organization.

Technical emergency service: a strike-breaking body established by Noske in 1919.

Armed workers' defense groups, initiated by the KPD, but often containing substantial numbers of non-Communist workers.

There were a hundred pfennigs to a mark.

Most of the USPD had rejoined the SPD in 1922, but a small minority maintained the organization.

Just recently the increase in Communist influence made itself felt by elections in the metalworkers' union that were a great success for the KPD and by elections of delegates to the textile workers' congress, likewise a big Communist success. [Serge's note.]

After the “July Days” some Bolsheviks, including Trotsky and Kamenev, were arrested and imprisoned, while Lenin was forced to go into hiding.

Here, as in a number of places, Serge's arithmetic is hard to follow.

Native land.

Following the killing of an Italian general, Mussolini had the Greek territory of Corfu bombarded in August 1923. He could be seen as following the example of the French in occupying the Ruhr.

Two of the most prestigious universities in Paris, and the five academies established to promote literature, science and art.

The DNVP.

Paul von Hindenburg commanded German forces in World War I. He was president from 1925 to 1933, when he appointed Hitler as chancellor.

The Battle of Sedan in the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 paved the way for the defeat of France and subsequently for the unification of Germany.

Severing, a veteran SPD member, was Prussian minister of the interior.

The French association of employers in heavy industry.

Pierre Renaudel, right winger in French Socialist Party (SFIO).

August Frölich—not to be confused with the Communist Paul Frölich, author of a biography of Rosa Luxemburg.

Crown Prince Rupprecht was heir to the Bavarian monarchy, abolished in 1918.

The post-1918 Reich was a federation of states, each of which had its own government.

It is interesting to contrast this dismissive account of German anarchism with the much more sympathetic account of Russian anarchism in Serge's pamphlet “The anarchists and the experience of the Russian revolution,” published in
Revolution in Danger
(London, 1997). But the fact that this item was included at all shows Serge's continuing concern to maintain a political dialogue with his former associates in the anarchist milieu.

Ernst Graf zu Reventlow (1869-1943): naval officer, then Pan-Germanist writer; joined the Nazis in 1927.

Those members of the French Socialist Party (SFIO) who refused to accept the majority decision of the party in 1920 to join the Comintern, and re-established the SFIO.

Electoral alliance of left parties—essentially SFIO and Radicals.

Separatists sought Bavarian independence from the Reich, while Pan-Germanists wanted a single state for all German speakers.

The KPD published a pamphlet entitled
Schlageter. Eine Auseinandersetzung
(Schlageter: a Debate—Schlageter was a German nationalist killed by the French during the occupation of the Ruhr). This contained articles by Radek, Frölich, Reventlow and the neo-conservative Moeller van den Bruck.

The Badische Anilin- und Soda Fabrik, a major chemical company.

André Marty (1886-1956) led a mutiny of French sailors in the Black Sea during anti-Bolshevik action. A leading member of the French Communist Party until purged in 1952.

The paper of the French SFIO.

The year of his advance on, and disastrous retreat from, Moscow.

Noske later claimed he had refused repeated requests from Ehrhardt to become dictator.

On September 13, 1923, Primo de Rivera, captain general of Catalonia, had declared martial law and taken over the administration of the province of Barcelona, dispossessing the governor. This initiated a period of military dictatorship in Spain.

Serge is probably thinking of L-O Frossard and those associated with him, who left the French Communist Party at the beginning of 1923 and returned to the SFIO.

Karl Radek (1875-1939) of the Russian Communist Party and Alfred Rosmer (1877-1964) of the French Communist Party both held leading positions in the Comintern and were involved in giving support to the KPD in its response to the Ruhr invasion.

Léon Daudet (1867-1942), right wing anti-Semitic writer and one of the founders of the
Action française.

That is, at least twice what a French newspaper would have cost at the same time.

Influential conservative French newspaper (1861-1942); after 1929 it became the paper of the heavy industry employers' organization.

The term was deliberately reminiscent of the Directory established in France (1795-99) after the overthrow of Robespierre.

He was overthrown by the February Revolution in 1917.

Suburbs of Paris. Serge is attacking ultra-lefts in or around the French Communist Party.

Wolfgang Kapp was the leader of an attempted right wing putsch in March 1920, blocked by workers' action.

A long-standing class issue in Germany. One of Marx's earliest political articles (October 1842) was on the “Debate on the Law on Thefts of Wood” in the Rhine Province Assembly.

A Prussian aristocratic landowner.

Bismarck was known as the “Iron Chancellor.” Serge is also thinking of Stinnes's links with the employers in the iron and steel industry.

A leading Ruhr industrialist.

General Kornilov attempted a right wing coup against Kerensky in August 1917.

The opposition from both left and right.

A steel magnate belonging to the DNVP.

That is, like the personal guard of a Roman emperor.

Brandler was KPD president at the time of the March Action, though he did not bear the main responsibility for it. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment.

The Halle Congress of the USPD in October 1920 voted to merge with the KPD.

A
ukase
was a Tsarist decree.

Formerly known as Stettin.

Acting head of the French government at the time.

Prussian victories over Austria at Sadowa (1866) and France at Sedan (1870) led to the establishment of a united Germany (1871) of which Bismarck was the first chancellor.

At the time of writing Serge may have been aware the KPD had decided to retreat from its plan for a general strike leading to insurrection, but obviously he could not yet discuss this in public.

The DVP.

This was set up secretly by von Seeckt and Severing in 1923 to bolster the official armed forces which were restricted in size by the Versailles Treaty.

The
Sokol
(Czech for falcon) was a Czech nationalist gymnastic organisation.

A district in Southern Berlin.

That is, the “red battle standard” rather than the “red flag.”

The upper house of parliament, with representatives from the various states of the Reich.

The principle whereby each state in a federation governs itself without regard to the interests of the rest of the federation.

In fact the Hamburg rising was planned by the KPD as part of a national movement; orders cancelling the action failed to reach Hamburg. Serge was doubtless aware of this, but could not say so in the public press in a near civil war situation.

Temporary currency (November 1923 to August 1924) replacing marks made worthless by inflation.

The post-Robespierre government in France, 1795-99.

The conference had been called by KPD and SPD ministers to discuss the economic situation, and was attended by delegates from unions and factory councils as well as the KPD and SPD.

Allgemeiner freier Angestelltenbund, the union federation organizing office workers.

October 28 was in fact a Sunday.

Vereinigte Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands: the official name of the SPD after the merger with the USPD in 1922.

The Bund Bayern und Reich, a monarchist, Christian, anti-Semitic organization with 30,000 armed men.

A railway station in the eastern part of Berlin.

Almanac of the Oderberg District, Dortmund, quoted by the
Vossische Zeitung
(Voss Gazette) of November 4). [Serge's note.]

The
Zentrale
was a committee smaller than the Central Committee, which looked after the day-to-day running of the KPD.

A square in central Berlin.

Police headquarters.

Hitler was born in Austria, and his paintings were mainly postcard-sized copies which were hawked around pubs. Serge's account shows just how little known Hitler still was in 1923.

Disappointingly, this is not the sociologist Max Weber, who died in 1920, but probably Dr Friedrich Weber, head of the Bund Oberland, who worked closely with Hitler at this time.

Trade in bills or stocks on different markets to take advantage of different prices.

Karl Korsch (1886-1961), now best known for his philosophical writings.

Sealed orders whereby the pre-Revolutionary French king could order imprisonment without trial.

The charges were later dropped. [
Serge's note
.]

The Wittelsbach were the Bavarian royal family; the Hohenzollern, formerly the Prussian royal family, had been emperors of united Germany from 1871 to 1918.

A legendary monster associated with the small French town of Tarascon (Bouches-du-Rhône). A model of the monster is brought out for local festivals.

Later Hitler's economics minister (1934-37), but then interned by the Nazis; acquitted at Nuremberg.

Before the outbreak of war in 1914, engineering workers in Paris earned around 1.20 francs
per hour
.

According to his
Memoirs,
Serge had already left Berlin for Prague by this date. His article often carried false place names to fool the authorities.