From: curtis price <cansv-AT-igc.apc.org>
Date:          Mon, 12 Feb 1996 23:46:40 +0000
Subject:       Re: OTTO RUHLE'S BIO OF MARX



> On Sun, 11 Feb 1996, Ralph Dumain wrote:
> 
> > Recently I ran into a copy of an old biography of Karl Marx by
> > Otto Ruhle.  I imagine the book is still gathering dust on the
> > shelves.  Can anyone comment on the quality of this biography?
> > 

I replied privately to Ralph but this is the essence of what I said:

Ruhle's biography is a popular work, intended to introduce Marx 
politically  to a wider non-political audience. He intersperses standard biographical
information with material  discussing the social and economic climate 
Marx was reacting to and then includes long passages from Marx's own 
writings to illustrate these points. i don't know how it compares to 
other biographys of Marx since it is the only one I have read 
(outside of Alex Callinicos's book).

Ruhle's political history is much more interesting than his marx 
biography. He was on the German ultra-left and was one of the first
militants to openly declare that the Russian revolution had 
degenerated into a state-cap dictatorship. Ruhle gravitated to
the wing of the German KAPD (Communist Workers Party) which 
repudiated the need for a party advocating instead factory-based 
organizations which combined qualities of both union and party.
This split at one point in the early twenty's had several tens of 
thousands of members. He also wrote a number of popular
pamphlets arguing that the whole party concept was bourgeoius.
Ruhle later rejoined the SPD after the initial revolutionary wave 
died down and ended up in the 30's around the council communist 
movement, which had grown out of the experience of the German 
ultra-left.
He also served on the Dewey commission's  inquiry on Trotsky
and after emigrating to Mexico he became a painter under a pseudonym
 and acheived some reknown in the art world.
Ruhle had a long-term interest in psychological issues which roughly
paralleled the same sort of concerns Reich addressed. His Marx 
biography was criticized at the time with-in the ultra-left because 
he incorporated some of this interest in his assessment of Marx.
Unfortunatley, very little of his work has been translated into 
English (although a couple articles are available on-line at the 
Spunk Press anarchist archives.)
Probably the best and most accessible assessment of Ruhle in English can be 
found in a chapter devoted to Ruhle in Paul Mattick's 
"Anti-Bolshevist Communism."

-- Curtis Price 


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