Nepthys

anime le site imago mundi + chercheuse en histoire et culture des pays de langue allemande + solaviste

  • Un vrai communiste : Werner Scholem
    Le livre que lui a consacré le spécialiste de la révolution (allemande) de Novembre (1918/19), Ralf Hoffrogge, est disponible en anglais. Pour celles et ceux qui se sont toujours demandé ce que pouvait bien être cette révolution allemande et qui était le frère rebelle de Gershom Scholem.

    Ralf Hoffroge, A Jewish Communist in Weimar Germany: The Life of Werner Scholem (1895-1940)

    Merilyn Moos reviews a new biography of Werner Scholem: an implacable opponent of any accommodation with the far right, and an uncompromising critic of Soviet state capitalism.

    Werner Scholem is a figure rarely heard of in the UK. That he fell out with the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in the direction of Trotskyism has not helped. This new biography uses Scholem’s life to reveal the long-term impact of the revolutionary days of 1918-19 in Munich and Berlin on both the left and hard right in Germany and the isolation of the Russian Revolution after the failure of the German revolution. It also exposes how early the KPD leadership saw its task as to appeal to members of the ultra-right, rather than to defeat them.

    This 600-page book requires a strong interest in revolutionary politics in Germany in the early 1920s. For those who persevere, the author presents much detail on the period 1919-1926, drawing on a remarkable number of original sources about Scholem’s personal and political life, although not always providing a full analysis of the material it presents.

    Despite the book’s title, the ‘Jewish’ aspect is brief. Scholem was originally a part of a Zionist youth group, Jung Juda. Zionism of the time was secular and had broken with traditional Judaism and with the prevalent assimilationist perspective. Although the book does not suggest this, maybe this involvement encouraged Scholem’s later resilience and refusal to bow to instruction. He soon fell out with Zionism, criticising its ‘war objectives’, which would end up with the occupation of Syria and parts of the Sinai Peninsula.

    [...]

    https://www.rs21.org.uk/2019/10/18/review-a-jewish-communist-in-weimar-germany

    #Werner_Scholem #révolution_de_novembre #révolution_allemande_de_1918 #république_de_Weimar #communisme #parti_communiste_allemand #KPD #Buchenwald