Otto Ruhle's Speech in the Reichstag

25th October 1918


In the name of those social democratic workers and soldiers who
attach themselves neither to the "governmental" socialists
party nor to the Independent Social Democrats, and who are
nevertheless numbered in thousands and thousands, in the name
of these men who demand the right to make this tribunal listen,
and to have their say in an important political and historical
situation, I want, very briefly, to give our point of view on
the problems which have been at the centre of the discussion
for the last few days.

We reject any peace which the bourgeois)capitalist governments
intend to, and are on the point of concluding, on the backs of
the people who have been bled white. In the epoch of
imperialism a compromise peace which can be in the interests of
the people, in the interests of the working class, is something
purely and simply impossible. Such an agreement can only be
reached at the expense of the people. For the political,
historic and economic contradiction which opposes capital to
labour, the bourgeoisie to labour, has not been overcome; it
continues to exist and even the war has only served to deepen
and enlarge it.

This proposed peace, about which we are concerned, is only
designed to save from catastrophe, which is menacing it, the
system of exploitation and enslavement of the peoples,
practised until now with all that this implies on the level of
the State, law, legislation and the economy.

For the labouring class there cannot exist a peace of
compromise on the basis of a capitalist regime. They demand a
peace founded on force, that is to say that their mortal enemy,
the bourgeoisie, should be defeated, the bourgeois)capitalist
government overthrown, militarism shattered. Thus will the
revolutionary proletariat impose its socialist peace on the
bourgeois regime which it will have defeated and overthrown.

In the second place we reject this supposed democracy, this
parliamentarism, which the bourgeois)capitalist regime is
offering to the German people at the very moment when it is no
longer possible to deny that militarism, which till now was the
firmest supporter of the ruling class, is crumbling
irresistibly, and when the high command itself is convinced
that the war is lost. This pseudo)democracy by the grace of
Hindenburg is nothing else but a fig)leaf, an illusion to
mislead opinion: in agreeing to phony reforms, reforms on
paper, you shield the essential heart of the capitalist system,
you act as its saviour by ensuring that it is not prosecuted in
front of the tribunal of the masses. The social)democrats are
called upon to takeupon themselves the role of saviour at the
last hour, to protect this bourgeois society which is visibly
cracking up: the masses look upon the attitude as a shameful
betrayal. They see themselves mocked by this social democracy,
which they are asked to take for a government of the people.

The masses, to feel themselves free, have need of something
else: democracy and socialism, the Republic founded on the
socialist revolution, and to this end, they demand in the first
place the abdication of the Emperor as the instigator of the
present war.

Finally we reject the so)called League of Nations, with the
help of which the bourgeois)capitalist governments, along with
certain Social Democrats, want to recover after the war. This
League of Nations, whatever its name, can be nothing else than
a coalition of powers hostile to the workers and enemies of
liberty; a Holy Alliance founded to crush the social revolution
which is daily gaining ground. We can see how the great
capitalist powers agree marvellously in order to accomplish
this infamy; to strangle the peoples revolution in Russia
towards which we hold a boundless sympathy. The working class
does not expect its liberty from a Society of Nations of the
Wilson)type or from any similar scheme attainable only under a
capitalist regime. It aspires to the fraternization of all
peoples in order to set up an association which will guarantee
a lasting peace and civilisation, under the banner of
triumphant socialism.

I call upon the entire working class, and in particular the
working class of Germany, to achieve this socialism by
Revolution. The time for action has come.

----- End Included Message -----

Otto Ruhle was a founder member of the Communist Workers Party of
Germany and attended the second congress of the Comintern as
a delegate from that organisation. The party, part of what was
called "left-communism", drew some of its ideas from the IWW and
was an outspoken opponent of Bolshevism.

In later years, Ruhle came to the conclusion all parties were
reactionary and came close to an anarcho-syndicalist position.
