The People's Front #5
The demands were clear: halt austerity measures, introduce equal suffrage, and hold general elections.
“It feels strange just sitting around waiting for something to happen.”
From the moment of its founding, the People's Front had presented its five-point reform program to the government and then waited once more.
“Are you sure the Social Democrats aren’t up to something again?”
“I told you they’re not. Stop being so suspicious, Thälmann.”
Thälmann’s paranoia, which oddly resembled Comrade Stalin’s, seemed to be growing worse by the day.
“Of course the Social Democrats are more inclined toward reform than revolution, but right now we need to set revolution aside for a moment and focus on reform. That’s what Comrade Luxemburg taught us. She said a workers’ revolution can only truly bloom on the foundation of a reformed system.”
“Even so… it’s already been several weeks with no word at all. That’s too much.”
“It’s classic stalling tactics.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to seize factories directly, starting with the Rhineland and Bohemia?”
“That might provoke the Social Democrats.”
Workers seizing the means of production was, in essence, the beginning of revolution. While that outcome was inevitable in the long run, if the Social Democrats refused to stand with us, the government would not hesitate to deploy police and military forces. That would only strengthen the conservatives. At a time when we had not yet secured the organizational power to shake all of Germany, direct worker action was premature.
“But we can’t just keep waiting forever!”
“Hmm…”
We had fallen into a classic impasse. Waiting felt like a waste of time, yet acting felt too risky.
“That’s it!”
A good idea suddenly came to me.
“Contact the Comintern and have them purchase every abandoned factory in Germany that isn’t currently operating.”
Two weeks later, the incident occurred: a single account under one name had bought up a staggering number of factories.
Because the nominal owner was listed as a British citizen, German, British, French, and American capitalists—who were short on cash to pay wages and restart operations—sold them without much suspicion at rock-bottom prices of tens of thousands of marks, pounds, francs, and dollars. Naturally, these were all perfectly legal financial transactions, so the press paid them almost no attention. The former factory owners and businessmen probably thought, Some rich Englishman living abroad must have been bored. But every single one of those purchased factories had its location carefully noted and the documents forwarded to me.
“What on earth is all this…?”
Bels, who had no direct ties to the Comintern and therefore knew none of the details, stared at the documents in shock.
“We bought up every factory that capitalists had abandoned because they had no intention of paying wages.”
“Do the Communist Party and the Labor Party even have that kind of money? It’s more than the Social Democrats could afford.”
“Moscow’s funds are effectively unlimited.”
Because Russia was a communist state that operated entirely on the principle of distribution according to need, this fact was often overlooked. But if one converted the goods produced and distributed by the Soviets over a single year into Western capitalist currency, the value came to roughly 38 billion pounds. In marks, that was 780 billion. In U.S. dollars, 184 billion. In terms of the Korean won from the era I came from—adjusting for inflation—it was approximately 5,200 trillion won. Even with the Great Depression now more than a year old, this sum was nearly twice the entire GDP of the United States. Naturally, once every citizen across that vast land had received what they needed, an enormous, overwhelming surplus remained.
“Buying a few hundred factories through shell companies is nothing to them.”
“My God…”
“This is the power of a socialist economy.”
“To think Russia’s revolutionary economy has already developed to this extent… it’s astonishing.”
“When everyone does what they are capable of and goods are distributed so that all may live in equal abundance, surplus production is inevitable. Progress is unavoidable in such conditions.”
In reality, comparing Russia’s industrial capacity right after the November 1917 revolution to January 1931 showed nearly sixfold growth. However, because the very concept of “currency” was so weak in a communist society, measuring that growth externally was difficult.
“So why exactly did you buy those factories?”
“I intend to reproduce this model, at least partially, here in Germany.”
The project known as the Worker’s Factory began in earnest under my leadership, backed by the formidable support of the Comintern.
On Sunday, February 1, two hundred unemployed workers wearing shabby coats gathered at an ironworks near Koblenz on the Rhine after seeing the propaganda: The People’s Front needs workers to rebuild Germany.
“Here. This is the document proving ownership of the factory… and these are the master keys to every door inside. Each key has a name written on it, so there shouldn’t be any confusion.”
“Um… what exactly is this?”
“I already told you. Proof of factory ownership and the master keys.”
“I understand that much, but why are you giving them to us?”
“Because you are now the owners of this factory.”
The workers looked back and forth between the papers and me as if they couldn’t comprehend what I was saying.
“From now on, the owner of this factory is neither a capitalist, nor the state, nor me. This building, every machine inside it, and every product made with those machines—all of it belongs to you.”
“Is… is that even possible?”
“In principle, no. But if the nominal owner is an individual who takes no part in running the factory, there’s no problem. A Social Democratic assemblyman holds the nominal ownership, and he has agreed to have absolutely no involvement in operations or revenue.”
Capitalism originally allowed only one person to own a factory, but clever loopholes made it easy to circumvent that rule.
With a heavy clank, Wilhelm took the master key and opened the massive factory door with his own hands. The building had been abandoned for about half a year after its previous owner walked away from the business. It greeted us exactly as it had been left—old, cold, and covered in rust.
“Uh…”
The workers hesitated before stepping through the open doorway. The structure of “workers only work, managers only manage, capitalists only own” was so deeply ingrained as common sense that, with no one giving orders, they didn’t know what to do.
“…What should we do now?”
“Is there something we’re supposed to make? How much? Who’s going to set the quotas?”
“Why are you asking me? I told you—the owners of this factory are you. How many hours you work each day, what you repair first, where and how much you sell—you decide all of that. I will only help ensure that whatever plans you make are legally sound.”
The important thing was to prevent them from thinking, Someone else owns the rights to my labor. Everyone had to feel that they were the true master of their own work.
“Well then… let’s start by cleaning up a bit.”
The first thing the workers did after taking over the factory was tidy it up.
“Start cleaning from here. Hey, you! Stop standing around and help!”
Cleaning the factory took surprisingly little time.
“Just how badly was this place neglected, Assemblywoman Heinz?”
“I don’t know exactly, but it looks like at least six months.”
I pitched in too, clearing thick spiderwebs, organizing tools, and sorting scattered equipment and materials.
“There are no raw materials, and it looks like the electricity’s been cut off. What are we supposed to do? The old managers must not have placed any orders.”
“Didn’t I say you are the managers now? You’ll have to write the orders yourselves. The Comintern provided 100,000 marks in initial operating funds. The ledgers are in the office. Someone will need to look at them and calculate costs. Is there anyone here good with numbers?”
“I’m fairly good at calculations.”
A bespectacled worker named Johann stepped forward. From this point on, I needed to step back.
“Then I’ll handle the numbers… but do you have any plans for what to produce?”
“It’s an ironworks, so shouldn’t we make tools?”
“Then we’ll need steel first.”
“Won’t we need lumber and rubber too?”
“What about electricity and oil to run the machines?”
“We’ll have to draw electricity from the city lines. That means contacting the city hall.”
“Right. And we’ll need to buy oil.”
“What about the broken machines?”
“I can fix some of them.”
After that, the factory began to come to life without any further intervention from me. The accounting worker wrote down the necessary materials, which were purchased from markets around the area. With those supplies secured, the factory was ready to operate.
In an ideal world—like in Russia or Spain—raw materials would not be bought on an autonomous market. Instead, the center would simply provide whatever was needed. But reality required compromise.
“We can’t rely on party funds forever, can we?”
“No, we can’t.”
“Shouldn’t we start by making parts we can sell right away to generate revenue?”
“No, we need to repair the machines first so the factory can actually run. Fixing them should be the priority. We still have some funds left.”
“Still, we should get a feel for selling things from the beginning if we want to run a proper business later.”
“Both points are valid. Let’s do both!”
There was no reason to choose only one.
“For example, we can divide into teams—a repair team and a production team. But the teams can’t operate completely separately, so we’ll need to share decisions. Let’s meet every afternoon to discuss what we need, how much, and how far along the work is.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea!”
Thus, the first factory council was born.
“Let’s start with two teams for now. One to repair the factory, and one to make small items. Personally, I’d like to join the repair team. Anyone else want to join it?”
“Me! I want to repair things.”
“I’d rather make things.”
The team assignments went surprisingly smoothly. In no time, all two hundred workers were divided evenly between the cleanup team and the production team, with no one left out.
“These aren’t permanent teams, so don’t worry. We’ll start like this for now, and we can change things anytime later.”
And so the workers began their labor.
As for me… I wasn’t very good at making things, so I picked up a broom.
“You’re working too, Assemblywoman Heinz?”
“Well, you’ve all done much harder work than this, haven’t you?”
“Ah, right. You said you came from a working-class background, didn’t you?”
I had spent years doing far more grueling labor than this. Sweeping was nothing. I wanted to help even if I wouldn’t participate in decision-making, but everyone insisted I shouldn’t work, so I eventually stepped aside.
The sense of “this is our factory” was finally beginning to take root. From now on, they wouldn’t be able to walk past even a single small item or a bolt on the floor without noticing.
Around six o’clock, a metallic clanging rang out.
“Everyone! Let’s call it a day here!”
Paul from the cleanup team banged a wrench to get everyone’s attention and walked toward the production line.
“Already finished?”
“Should we stop here for today? We can’t make more just by forcing ourselves to keep going right now.”
It was just after sunset. Georg from the production team came out carrying a box full of the parts they had made.
“You made quite a lot.”
“Right? If we sell these, we should get a decent amount of money!”
“Now that I think about it… wages…”
The workers instinctively looked around for the person who would “give them their pay,” then realized the truth.
“That’s right. We decide that too, don’t we?”
“I suppose so?”
“Since this is the first day and everyone worked the same amount, let’s divide it equally. How does that sound?”
“Agreed!”
Now even wages had to be decided by themselves, as a matter of course. Honestly, if nothing special happened, they would probably distribute pay according to hours worked.
“Assemblywoman Heinz!”
Valter from the production team called out to me where I had been watching from a distance.
“Where should we take these to sell?”
“That’s something you’ll have to decide too.”
“To be honest, I’d rather die than see these tools end up in the hands of other factory owners.”
“Well, we don’t have to sell them today. Let’s decide tomorrow.”
“Are we only working until six from now on?”
“Why, do you want to work longer?”
“Ah, no. Six is fine.”
The workers had labored for only six hours today, not counting lunch—two hours less than the eight-hour workday set by the Social Democrats.
“Now that you’ve run the factory yourselves for a full day, what do you think?”
“Honestly, it went better than I expected. I’m surprised.”
“Right now the scale is small, so you can discuss everything and listen to every person’s opinion. But if the factory grows larger, you’ll need an organized yet horizontal decision-making committee.”
“Should we vote on it?”
“What exactly does ‘decision-making’ involve?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. What to make and sell, how long to work, how to divide the profits.”
“Wait, isn’t that the same thing a factory owner does?”
“No. Because the people doing it will be chosen from among you.”
It was important to break down the boundary between workers and managers. Since management positions literally only involved “managing,” they could be replaced anytime if the workers wanted.
“Then… how about electing about ten people and rotating them every week?”
“Ah, I didn’t mean you need one right now. This is still a small factory of just two hundred people, so everyone’s opinion can be reflected equally. I only meant that if the business grows, you’ll need coordinators.”
“Then we don’t need them yet. Does everyone agree?”
“We didn’t feel any inconvenience today.”
And so it was decided that no representatives—or managers—would be elected for now. Selling the tools and distributing the revenue would happen the next day. All of these events were recorded in The Red Flag, and the workers and I left the factory together.