Urss

WAS SAHEN 58 DEUTSCHE ARBEITER IN RUSSLAND BERICHT DER DEUTSCHEN ARBEITER-DELEGATION ÜBER IHREN AUFENTHALT IN RUSSLAND VOM 14. JULI BIS ZUM 28. AUGUST 1925

1925 · 42907 — Berlin Neuer Deutscher Verlag 1925. 1st edition. Original 3-color printed wrappers 12mo 176 pages. Foreword by the Dutch trade union official Edo Fimmen 1882-1942. <br> Fimmen was committed to a workers’ united front and was chairman of the The International Federation of Trade Unions also known as the Amsterdam International from 1919 to 1923. He was also a member of International Workers' Aid and through his friendship with Willi Münzenberg an important supporter of the International Red Aid and the League against Imperialism and Colonial Oppression. <br> Widely-read among Anti-fascists in Germany in the years leading up to Hitler's win in the Reichstag this work includes numerous photo plates with travel impressions and a list of the delegation members. <br> In her recent history of East Germany “Beyond the Wall†historian Katia Hoyer discusses the importance of this book in building a positive image of the newly founded Soviet Union among German Communists including Jews who would soon begin to flee to the USSR in large numbers as the Nazi noose tightened.<br> She notes that “a 1925 brochure called ‘What Did 58 German Workers See in Russia’ became instrumental in creating a paradisiacal image of the Soviet Union. It was inspired by the communist Hermann Remmele who had led a group of his comrades on a grand tour of sorts through Russia. <br> The pamphlet was based on their reports and boasted of 'female workers who proudly talked of their equal treatment' and of wages that were '33 per cent higher' if one takes into account that workers lived rent-free and had excellent healthcare. All of this must have made the Soviet Union seem like the promised land to the unemployed and the destitute as well as to idealist intellectuals. <br> Having experienced the First World War and its appalling consequences older German communists wanted to believe there was a better alternative and saw the Soviet Union as a beacon of hope especially after the waves of arrests in Berlin in 1933. For most German political refugees who fled to the USSR after Hitler took power their time in Moscow began as a great adventure†page 15.<br> She notes that later however “Hermann Remmele the leader of the group that penned the propaganda brochure ‘What Did 58 German Workers See in Russia’ was to endure a fate that would stand in for many German communists. Once a darling of the Soviet political elite Grigory Zinoviev had called him 'the best and most precious asset of the German party. the gold of the proletariat' he was arrested in Russia in May 1937 on charges of spying and sabotage. Two years later he was sentenced to death and shot on the same day 7 March 1939.<br> His son Helmuth died on his way to a gulag in Siberia and his wife Anna would succumb to health problems caused by a horrific spell in Moscow's Butyrka prison†page 19.<br> SUBJECTS: Labor and laboring classes -- Soviet Union. Economic history. Labor – Working class -- Economic conditions -- 1917-1945. URSS -- Conditions e´conomiques -- 1917-1945. OCLC: 5918896. Cover rubbed with tear loss to one letter chip at base of spine and small chip at lower margin of front cover. Internally very good condition Good- Condition overall. B Holo2-162-27-XX-. Berlin, Neuer Deutscher Verlag unknown