MLPD, 17.02.2020

 

On 14 March 2020, the Russian revolutionary, Marxist working-class theorist and leader of the October Revolution of 1917 will come to Gelsenkirchen. 150 years after his birthday he will move permanently into Gelsenkirchen-Horst: In the form of an over two meter tall, artfully shaped cast-iron statue in front of the Horster Mitte – the federal headquarters of the MLPD.

 

"This will also be the start of a nationwide movement 'Don't give anti-communism a chance'", says Gabi Fechtner, the chairwoman of the MLPD. "In times where monuments of the great communist thinkers and revolutionaries are still being torn down, where more and more right-wing governments, as in Hungary, ban communist symbols, we are consciously setting an example against anti-communism, which is also the state religion in Germany. The scandal in Thuringia, where a minister-president was elected with votes from the AfD (see 1 below - eds.), shows where anti-communism is leading. To direct the main thrust against communists and Marxist-Leninists, to equate right and left, to give anti-communism a legitimacy as an ideological justification of fascism – all this has only been made possible by the rightward development in society. We are therefore pleased to erect the first such monument in West Germany, and one of the westernmost in Europe, as a signal against this unspeakable anti-communism."

 

The MLPD succeeded in acquiring an original Lenin statue from the 1930s, which was cast in the Soviet Union. Worldwide there were and are only a handful of statues from this mold. "This gives Gelsenkirchen a real rarity, which is not only a political signal, but is also of cultural and touristic importance," says the chairwoman of the MLPD. Some people may see this as a provocation, others as a courageous sign against the rightward development. Like so much in the current social discussion, this event will polarize. "We welcome and want especially a broad discussion about questions that are often taboo in the bourgeois media: against anticommunism, about the merits of Lenin and the socialist construction in the Soviet Union, and also about the conclusions that can be drawn from the betrayal of socialism and from crimes in its name."

 

In the weeks before, we will do broad public relations work in Gelsenkirchen so that the population learns even more about this revolutionary and why it is important to erect a monument to him. Particularly in times when capitalism is once again quite rightly coming into disrepute: as an exploitative and oppressive society that produces, inherently in the system, wars and environmental destruction.

 

The ceremonial unveiling will take place on 14 March between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. at the intersection of Schmalhorststrasse/An der Rennbahn. It is part of the celebrations of "100 Years of the Red Ruhr Army" (see 2 below - eds.), which will take place in many cities of the Ruhr area that weekend. We expect international guests. The press will be invited nationwide.

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(1)  The AfD or Alternative for Germany is an extreme right-wing political party founded in 2013. It became the third-largest party in the Bundestag after the 2017 elections.  It is anti-immigrant, anti-Communist, anti-homosexual, anti-Semitic (but pro-Israel) and climate change denialist.  It stands for German nationalism, German imperialism, is reviving the concept of the German “volk”, and wants to reintroduce conscription for men over the age of 18. 

 

(2)  The Red Ruhr Army was an armed force of up to 80,000 workers from the industrial Ruhr Valley. On 14 March 1920 it called a general strike. Government attempts to break the strike led to an armed uprising supported by 300,000 mine workers. The right-wing Freikorps, a forerunner of Hitler’s Nazi thugs, helped to crush the uprising with extreme brutality and the summary executions of around 1000 workers.