Otto Rühle

Otto Rülhe (October 23rd, 1874 - June 24th, 1943), writer and communist militant of councils.

Militant of the Marxist party German, SPD, it is elected appointed by it in 1912 (district of Pirna, in Saxony).

In August 1914, it belongs to the minority which is opposed to the reversal direction of the SPD, which approves the world war despite everything its former resolutions. It breaks with the internal discipline of the social democrat party by joining Karl Liebknecht in its vote at the Parliament against the appropriations of war on March 20th, 1915 (Liebknecht already had only voted against but, in December 1914).

It was with Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg one of the cofounders of the newspaper Die Internationale , whose single number appears in April 1915 and is immediately prohibited by the imperial censure. But these militants of the left of the SPD, which claims intransigent proletarian internationalism against the First World War, persist by publishing the Lettres of Spartakus , then by melting the League Spartakiste whose Otto Rülhe is member as of the beginning.

The whole of the opponents to the war, more or less radicals, are excluded from the SPD and found in April 1917 USPD (independent SPD). The spartakists are members but minority, and develop their own policy for it (leaflets, letters, etc - the whole being clandestine because of the censure).

In November 1918 bursts the German Révolution, to which largely to share the spartakists take. Otto Rülhe is not one of the most influential militants, who are Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Leo Jogiches and Paul Levi. At the end of December 1918 the league spartakist joint with other groups more reduced to create the Communist party of Germany (KPD). Rülhe is delegated to the congress, and it belongs to the majority which is favorable to the boycott of the elections to the constituent Assembly.

After the repression of the revolution and the assassination by capacity SPD of the principal leaders of the KPD (Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Leo Jogiches) in the first quarter 1919, the KPD proceeds in October 1919 other than the unparliamentary left wing. Otto Rülhe belongs to excluded, and takes part in the creation of KAPD (working Communist party of Germany) at the beginning of 1920.

The KAPD divides and Otto Rühle takes part in the creation of the AAUE (or AAUD-E) in 1921 (Unions which wants to be at the same time party and trade union). Rühle considers from now on that “the revolution is not a business of parties”. It becomes one of the figures of the Communisme of council S.

Constrained in the exile in 1933 because of the come to power of the Nazis, he dies in exile in Mexico in 1943.

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