[Rezension zu] Alexander Täubler: Eine Verteidigung der Bolschewiki

Emil Lederer: Review of Alexander Täubler, Eine Verteidigung der Bolschewiki (1919)

Lederer’s brief review assesses Täubler’s defense of Bolshevism by distinguishing persuasive political advocacy from evidence about revolutionary Russia. He first establishes Täubler’s experience: a prisoner of war in Russia since autumn 1916, he worked, taught, and encountered bourgeois and proletarian circles before writing the articles in Brjansk in summer 1918. Their political purpose frames Lederer’s assessment:

Der Hauptzweck der Artikel war, eine Einigung sämtlicher russischen sozialistischen Parteigruppen herbeizuführen.

English translation: The chief purpose of the articles was to bring about a unification of all the Russian socialist party groups.

The review then reconstructs Täubler’s defense. Täubler attributes Bolshevism’s difficulties to a population demoralized by tsarism and war, denies that government methods were terrorist during the first eight months, and distinguishes revolutionaries’ reprisals after the attacks on Lenin from government action. Lederer reports these claims as Täubler’s arguments, while emphasizing the scarcity of factual information beyond food provision and efforts to create a disciplined army.

Es ist bedauerlich, daß Täubler nicht genauere Schilderungen des wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Lebens in der Provinz und der durch die Revolution horvorgeruenen tatsächlichen Veränderungen gibt.

English translation: It is regrettable that Täubler does not give more exact descriptions of economic and social life in the provinces and of the actual changes brought about by the revolution.

This demand for concrete accounts of provincial life and revolutionary change supplies the review’s critical standard. Lederer nevertheless finds the argument effective. His closing judgment separates the influence of vivid Bolshevik propaganda from direct governmental sponsorship: Täubler appears to borrow its rhetorical methods while writing from personal conviction and denying any commission. The review’s significance lies in this distinction between sincerity, persuasive force, and documentary value; the first two do not remedy the absence of detailed social and economic observation.