Biography

You were born in 1857 as Clara Eissner in Wiederau, a rural village in Saxony. Your working-class father, Gottfried Eissner, was a schoolmaster, church organist, and devout Protestant, while your mother, Josephine Vitale Eissner, came from a middle-class family from Leipzig and was highly educated. Indeed, the family moved to the large city of Leipzig specifically to give you and your siblings more educational opportunities. Your mother especially raised you from the cradle to be engaged with new bourgeois feminist movement.

Having studied to become a teacher, you cultivated your connections with the women’s movement and the labor movement beginning in 1874. In 1878 you joined the Socialist Workers’ Party (Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei).

This party had been founded in 1875 by merging two previous parties: the ADAV formed by Ferdinand Lassalle and the SDAP of August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht. In 1890 its name was changed to its modern version, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

Because of the ban placed on socialist activity in Germany by Bismarck in 1878, you left for Zurich, Switzerland in 1882 and then went into exile in Paris. During your time in Paris, you played an important role in the foundation of the Second International. You also adopted the name of your partner, the Russian leftist Ossip Zetkin, with whom you have two sons, Kostja and Maxim. Ossip died in 1889, but in keeping with your radical rejection of traditional norms, you never married. Later, however, you married the artist Georg Friedrich Zundel, eighteen years your junior. Again, and despite having married, in 1928 you separated—a step still considered just as radical as living with a partner outside of marriage. Bourgeois morality be damned.

In the SPD, you, along with Rosa Luxemburg, your close friend and confidante, were one of the main figures of the far-left wing of the party. In the debate on revisionism around 1900, both of you attacked the reformist theses of Eduard Bernstein, who argued that no revolution was necessary to achieve socialism; instead, a series of reforms could gradually and peacefully replace capitalism. If nothing else, historical events have shown how flawed that idea is—the capitalists as well feudal lords never give up power peacefully. They may allow some reforms, but only in a desperate effort to fend of revolution. And they are more than willing to launch brutal wars of imperialism, to engage in terror and assassination, and use all of their resources to crush the working poor.

You won that formal debate, but you also saw how the SPD was already infected with a creeping accommodation of bourgeois republicanism.

While you fight for social justice on all fronts, you are especially interested in women’s politics, including the fight for equal opportunities and women’s suffrage. As much as anyone else, you developed the social-democratic women’s movement in Germany: from 1891 to 1917 you edited the SPD women’s newspaper Die Gleichheit [Equality]; in 1907 you became the leader of the SPD’s newly founded Women’s Office; and you started the first International Women’s Day on 8 March 1910, launching the idea in Copenhagen.

During the world war you, along with Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and other influential SPD politicians, rejected the party’s policy of Burgfrieden (wartime truce between the political parties). Among other anti-war activities, you organized an international socialist women’s anti-war conference in Berlin in 1915. Because of your opinions, you were arrested several times during the war.

The protracted nature of the war only radicalized you further as the mainstream of the SPD doggedly remained faithful to its indefensible pro-war position. In 1916 you were one of the co-founders of the Spartacus League and the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), which split off from the SPD in 1917 in protest at its pro-war stance.

In January 1919, after the German Revolution in November 1918 and the refusal of the mainstream SPD to break with the bourgeois state and its embrace of the Reichswehr, you had had enough. When the KPD was founded, you joined and have represented the party since 1920 in the Reichstag.

You now look to the Bolshevik Revolution for inspiration and you have met Lenin personally several times, interviewing him on the Women’s Question in 1920.

You are, since the murder of Rosa Luxemburg in 1919 by right-wing paramilitaries (with the toleration of the SPD), arguably the most well-known leader of the KPD. Until 1924 you were a member of the KPD’s central office; from 1927 to 1929 you were a member of the party’s central committee. You have also been a member of the executive committee of the Comintern since 1921. In 1925 you were elected president of the German left-wing solidarity organization Rote Hilfe (Red Aide). At this point in your life you are actually formally chair of the Reichstag by seniority, and you have the ceremonial right to address the Reichstag at the opening of each new session after an election. You may be seventy-two, but you have lost none of your passion for fighting for the rights and livelihoods of workers, women, children, and the oppressed everywhere.

Within your party, though, you chafe somewhat under the leadership of Ernst Thälmann. You described him once as “uninformed and not educated in theory” and as caught in “uncritical self-deception and self-infatuation [which] borders on megalomania.” He seems to be more of a sycophant than anything else, craving personal power and clinging on to it by blindingly doing Moscow’s bidding. Still, he is the leader of the party; he simply needs to listen to you more.

Objectives

The Constitution and the Republic

The government must be overthrown. It is neither democratic nor socialist but instead a veneer for the continued domination of the capitalists, the remnants of the feudal Junker class, and militarists, propped up by the SPD.

The goal is simple—Germany must finish what was started in November 1918. Germany must follow the example of the Russian Revolution and have a second revolution that sweeps away all of the rubbish of the old order—aristocrats, military elites, capitalists. The threat has grown more severe since the rise of fascism. Mussolini has shown in Italy what fascists do in power; this must not be repeated in Germany. Thus, your primary enemy is the NSDAP. How is this done? Every speech on every issue must serve the purpose of denouncing the NSDAP and promoting revolution. The KPD paramilitary, the Red Front, must defend itself in the street battles against the NSDAP.

However, you are just as opposed to the SPD on almost every issue. After all, the SPD were the ones who sided with the conservatives in 1919 to slaughter workers in the streets, including assassinating party founders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. The SPD is functionally no different from the NSDAP. Instead, they are a form of social fascism—deliberately misleading workers and paving the way for compromises with capitalism that will only lead to the victory of the political fascists. Therefore, there can be no talk of an alliance with the SPD, no United Front that would only undermine the resolve of young communists. Indeed, there may even be times when you would vote with the NSDAP against the SPD; after all, the SPD is worse in its betrayal.

However, the rank and file members of the SPD share the basic goals of the KPD, and even if the leadership is smitten with the allure of liberal power, the common members are still comrades who must be convinced to leave the SPD.

In fact, it may be preferable to vote tactically with the NSDAP in opposing the SPD. This is not an alliance with the fascists—they will be dealt with later. But occasionally voting with them to defeat the pro-Republican forces is a means to an ends—those ends being the communist revolution.

Some Reichstag members have been discussing the possibility of rule by presidential decree. You are aware of its inherently authoritarian nature. It would be absurd to think that a militarist Junker such as von Hindenburg can be trusted to defend the interests of workers, and no such arrangement can be tolerated. Indeed, the KPD should plan on winning the Reich presidency in the next election.

Others have talked about banning a particular party; naturally banning the NSDAP would be acceptable, but what would prevent this same tactic from being turned on the KPD? After all, it was not that long ago that the German state attempted to destroy socialism with the Anti-Socialist Laws and there is little love for the KPD in any of the other parties.

Of course, once in power you will not hesitate to ban any parties that oppose socialism—after all, it is not a matter of the principle of civil liberties but of the situational tactics necessary to secure the socialist revolution.

Regarding the NSDAP, the NSDAP is merely using its Legality Strategy as a fig leaf to cover its real intentions of seizing power and establishing a right-wing dictatorship. That the judiciary refuses to prosecute conservatives engaged in open calls for sedition exposes the need for a thorough revolution to finish what was begun in 1918.

Foreign Relations (Foreign Ministry)

Freedom Law and Young Plan

German foreign policy today is still about imperialism. Your top priority is to defend the interests of the USSR as the only truly socialist government in the world. The KPD leadership therefore just adopted the following stance specifically in regards to the Young Plan and the Treaty of Versailles generally:

“The complete annulment of all debts, the Bolshevik liquidation of the Versailles Treaty and the Young Plan through the overthrow of the bourgeois [state], the setting up of a socialist, Soviet Germany and an alliance with the Soviet Union and the revolutionary workers of all countries.”

In effect, all international treaties conducted by imperialist powers are illegitimate—a revolution is the only answer.

The Young Plan is nothing more than a plot to promote fascism. The SPD supports it, and that in itself reveals that it is a betrayal of the working classes. Why should workers be expected to suffer the burdens of war reparations when it was the capitalists and Junkers who caused the war? War reparations will only be paid on the backs of workers through their taxes. The Young Plan only benefits international creditors and banks. It should be defeated. However, you do not want to end up voting with the NSDAP. A boycott of the vote is therefore an option. With the Freedom Law as well, it is best to abstain rather than side with the right wing.

The Treaty of Versailles embodies imperialist interests. The Young Plan is simply part of that policy.

Liquidation Treaty with Poland

You oppose the Liquidation Treaty. There is no reason whatsoever to trust the intentions of either the current government or that in Poland.

Why, in a time of austerity, should Germany pay one billion RM for citizens in another state? Further, any reconciliation between Poland and Germany only allows Germany greater freedom to try to remilitarize for another war. First must come a proletarian revolution then borders can be addressed in a spirit of proletarian solidarity.

Military Affairs (Defense Ministry)

The question of the autonomy of the Reichswehr needs resolution. In order to preserve the Republic in its early years, the SPD made a compromise with the Reichswehr that the government would not interfere in the military in exchange for military support. That was a fatal decision that showed the true colors of the SPD. The Reichswehr has shown nothing but contempt for workers. It should be completely reinvented as an institution subordinate to the working class, be purged of its undemocratic officer corps, and be opened to becoming a people’s army.

Naval Bill

The proposal for naval expansion to build armored cruisers is an abomination. More money for aristocratic imperialists in the military?

How absurd—especially at a time of economic disaster when the clear choice should be to spend money on the needs of citizens, not feudal elites seeking to start another war! The hypocrites in the SPD ran just one year ago in 1928 on a platform of “Food for children, not armored cruisers!” Now they talk of compromise? They are again showing how they are class traitors and social fascists—you must expose their duplicity if they support the funding now.

Paramilitaries

The paramilitary of the NSDAP, the SA, should be banned. They are nothing more than remnants of the death squads and Freikorps that have put down every workers’ insurrection in Germany. They consist of little more than street thugs who murder workers. At the same time, the recently banned Red Front paramilitary is an essential guardian of the workers against these forces, especially given the hostility of the Reichswehr. Therefore, there should be no generalized ban on paramilitaries, just on those working against workers.

Importantly, since you see the Republic as illegitimate, defending workers against SA attacks is an essential tactic to fight fascism, to show the broad base of support for your party, to win over working-class members of the passive SPD, to show that the Republic cannot or will not defend workers, and, if necessary, to fight against right-wing coup attempts and to prepare for the revolution. The Red Front must be allowed to operate and the ban lifted.

Eugenics and Sexuality (Justice Ministry)

Sterilization

Regarding race hygiene (eugenics), you champion welfare for mothers and children, healthcare, and improved maternity benefits for working women, and your support of motherhood. You support increased availability of birth control options, which should be subsidized and available to all.

You believe that policies should focus on improving the quality of life of working-class women and their families—and large families born into poverty only increases misery. You draw support from Principles of Communism when it rails against the capitalist use of the wife as a “mere instrument of production.” Women have a right to self-determination. You support the National Association for Birth Control and Sexual Hygiene, founded in 1928. This body sees birth control as a way of showing responsibility for the genetic soundness of the nation and the working class. The goal is healthier, sounder children and women. Lecture titles include “Race Hygiene, Eugenics, and Sterilization” and “The Extermination of Unfit Life.” However, you do not support the idea that sterilization should be mandatory under capitalism—after all, the current state would only use it to discipline and punish the working classes, whom they already deem unfit based on their class alone. Sterilization now is wrong, but perfectly acceptable in a communist state where working people will make decisions.

Mothers’ Day

Motherhood as it is currently defined embodies bourgeois exploitation of the proletariat. Motherhood under capitalism is a sham foisted upon proletarian women to force them to bear the full costs of raising the next generation of workers. It only serves to subsidize the profits of the bourgeoisie. This so-called Mothers’ Day is a con job by the florist industry to sell more flowers; it has also been hijacked by right-wing eugenicist to force women into a race-based patriarchal slavery. You oppose Mothers’ Day in this context. If a bourgeois Mothers’ Day is proposed, you must counter with a proposal to make 8 March a national holiday as International Women’s Day.

Race and Culture (Interior Ministry)

Jews (Antisemitism Option)

Jews are entitled to all rights as citizens. Antisemitism is a political ploy of the capitalists to divide people and thus keep them fighting amongst themselves. People must be judged on their politics and class allegiance, not their religion, race, or nationality.

Censorship

Regarding All Quiet on the Western Front, as a communist, you can identify with the culture of front comradeship of Paul and his comrades within your party and paramilitary organization. But you cannot agree with Paul’s passivity. You might echo virtually every critique in the novel, but you rail against Remarque for stripping his protagonist of any political consciousness that involves action. You agree that the old elites betrayed Germany and that the war was a crime. But now the soldiers need to come home and smash that old order that had sent them to the slaughter for the interests of international capital and feudal Junkers. Because Remarque failed to take the next step and make Paul aware that the only solution was a communist revolution, the book and movie only reinforce the pacifist and compromising ideas of liberals and social democrats. Fascists and nationalists call for censorship of art.

Perhaps this debate should be taken up, but turned on its head. It should be the fascists and social-fascists, with their war-mongering hate speech, who are censored!

Industrial Relations (Economic Ministry)

Austerity

The growing severity of the economic crisis means that austerity at the expense of social spending will only hurt German workers and their families. Instead of austerity, grain tariffs should be ended, the military budget slashed, and taxes raised on the wealthy. Under no circumstances should unemployment benefits be cut—rather, it must be expanded. No austerity—that is nothing but class warfare against workers. The coziness of the SPD leadership with business and agricultural elites is truly disturbing.

Nationalization

Nationalization of banks and key industries is necessary to place the economy in the people’s hands. Private property is the root of all economic injustice; nationalization, assuming the nation is in the hands of the people as in the USSR, is an essential step towards ending capitalism and human misery.

Agricultural Affairs (Food Ministry)

Marxism is quite clear that feudal agrarian society is an outmoded means of production doomed to wither away with the advance of industrial capitalism. Neither the Junker elite nor the poor peasantry will shape tomorrow. They are both reactionary classes tied to the conservative past.

Agrarian Tariffs

Protectionist agrarian tariffs do nothing to address the underlying problems (Germany’s agriculture has to modernize). Further, agrarian tariffs mean higher food prices for workers. In the end, only wealthy Junkers benefit and workers’ families suffer. You oppose agrarian tariffs as a relic of the Kaiserreich and its support for the feudal elite.

Small Farmers’ Relief

As for land reform (redistribution), that can be used as a class weapon.

It might bring some of the peasantry to support the KPD and create work for many of Germany’s workers. Why not throw the aristocratic Junkers off their hereditary estates and redistribute it to the working masses of the countryside? The landed exploiters have sucked the life-blood out of the peasantry long enough. You support land reform.

Debt relief, on the other hand, only prolongs the inevitable decline of the agrarian classes. Agriculture has to modernize, and inefficient farms should be allowed to go under. The future will then be efficient state and collective farms rather than either small peasant holdings or exploitative large estates. You oppose debt relief.

Other Issues

Special Note on Noble Names

Several characters have the title of “von” or “zu” in their family names and often insist on its usage. You see no need to continue any such recognition of aristocratic privilege!

Stability Index

Desiring, as you do, the demise of the Republic, the lower the Stability Index (-50 or lower) the more victory points you will be awarded.

Presidential Election in 1932

You will support KPD leader Thälmann.

Committees of Inquiry

The parliamentary system is a sham in any event. Of course you should investigate corruption and violence since it is always done by the elite against the workers. Most of the victims have been Marxists, after all.

The committees should be used as a forum to expose the pernicious influence of the Reichswehr and the national conservatives and their National Socialist allies who murder workers in the streets and bribe their way to power.

Responsibilities

Coordinate with members of your faction to determine party positions/votes ahead of time.

Represent the interests of the Soviet Union.

Denounce capitalism on every issue and link it to militarism and imperialism.

Denounce the SPD as social fascists on every issue.

Represent the interests of women.

Powers

Right of First Address

As the eldest member of the Reichstag, after any election you have the traditional right to make a first speech on any topic you desire.

Party Discipline

The KPD is a highly organized and disciplined party. As a result, at any time you may call for a vote in the party demanding that all members vote as a block on a specific issue. A simple majority is required.

If a member then votes against the party line in the Reichstag, they may face internal discipline. Such discipline is again determined by a majority vote of the party and may include any or all of the following (in increasing severity):

Verbal reprimand

Removal from all party offices (head of the RGO, head of the Red Front, cabinet position)

Reduced influence in party (up to one third of a member’s member of the Reichstag may be removed and distributed to other members of the KPD as determined by the non-sanctioned members)

Expulsion from the party

Any of these options carries some danger to the party, though, in that the sanctioned member may decide to leave the party and possibly take other members with him. Expulsion will inevitably have this effect.

However, the party can only operate well if loyalty to the core identity of the party is maintained.

Appeal to Comintern

If a member of the KPD is deviating from communist orthodoxy, you may appeal to the Comintern for intervention. You write a letter to the Comintern (the GM) explaining your concerns and requesting a course of action. The Comintern may call for any of the actions listed under Party Discipline. Keep in mind, though, that the Comintern may disagree with you and instead forward your letter to the party member you seek to discipline—giving them a chance to attack you. Nonetheless, if the party is obviously deviating from communist policies, this power can serve as the only way to correct deviationism.

Communist Revolution: see addendum

Victory Goals Summary

Note: The Victory Points system is part of the full game and is not used in this course’s abridged three-session simulation.

NB: Faction and personal victory goals may conflict.

FACTIONAL VICTORY GOALS

Absolute Victory: The Republic is overthrown; KPD establishes a Soviet state.

Absolute Defeat: SPD or NSDAP is in cabinet or in power in any way; OR KPD ceases to exist.

Stability Index Goal = LOW (-50 or lower)

Presidential Election = Thälmann (or highest-ranking KPD member)

Type of Government = a soviet-style workers’ state

Indeterminates/Splinters = convince to join your faction

Mandatory Agenda Items

PERSONAL VICTORY GOALS

Absolute Victory: Austerity defeated; nationalization passed; agrarian tariffs defeated; International Women’s Day passed.

Absolute Defeat: Austerity passed; nationalization defeated; OR agrarian tariffs passed; OR KPD has cooperated in any way with SPD.

Stability Index Goal = LOW (-50 or lower)

Discretionary Agenda Issues

Censorship No censorship