Paul Frölich: In the Radical Camp

Paul Frölich was a key figure in the formative years of German Communism. From a working-class family, he was active in the Social Democratic Party from the late 1890s, a left radical opposed to the First World War, and a founder member of the German Communist Party (KPD). His previously unpublished memoir, only recently discovered, casts valuable new light on a key period, particularly the intervention by the Communist International that led to the disastrous 'March action' of 1921.

Publication date: August 10, 2021

Introduction: Paul Frölich’s uncompleted memoirs
Reiner Tosstorff

Political Autobiography 1890–1921
Preface

1 Leipzig
A party worker from the time of the anti-socialist law
Leipzig hotchpotch
‘Bolshevism’ among the Leipzig Social Democrats
Other times
‘Socialism as a Commodity’

2 Hamburg
A cockfight
The ‘mammoth’
Old and young
Anecdotes

3 The War
Bremen
4 August
With the army
The conflict in the party
Kiental
The Arbeiterpolitik
Spartacus and the left radicals
General strike in Bremen
Army experiences, 1916–17
The wanderings of a soldier

4 November 1918
The revolutionary shop stewards
The Hamburg left in the war
6 November 1918
Revolutionary politics in Hamburg

5 Foundation of the Communist Party (Spartacus League)
Conference of the left radicals
The merger with the Spartacus League
January to March 1919
Leo Jogiches as party leader

6 Munich 1919
Polemical interlude

7 The Split in the Party

8 The Kapp Putsch

9 From the Kapp Putsch to the March Action

10 The March Action of 1921

Appendices
Karl Radek to the Central Committee of the KPD, 9 January 1919
Paul Levi to the Central Committee of the KPD, 16 March 1920

Selected Biographies