Proletarians of all countries, unite!
100 Years of Hamburg Uprising – Red Hamburg is alive!
100 years ago, on October 23rd 1923, the working class in Hamburg arose, took the police by surprise, disarmed them and held them at bay for several days despite their military inferiority. Especially in Barmbek, Eilbek and Schiffbek, but also in other parts i.e. working-class neighborhoods of Hamburg, they demonstrated their determination to fight and to defeat the rotten, oppressive ruling system. The situation of the workers at that time in Hamburg and all over Germany was mainly characterized by hunger and poverty, caused by a deep economic and political crisis of capitalism in its highest and final phase. Today we can see that in the 100 years since the workers rose up in Hamburg, there has been no significant change in the ruling system – it still stands for crisis, hunger, misery, war and death. So there is still struggle and resistance against this very system, and as a song about the Hamburg Uprising says: “The old barricades are still alive…”
100 years of the Hamburg Uprising are part of the revolutionary history of our class. Therefore, those cannot be left to the bourgeoisie’s falsifiers of history. The commemoration of the uprising in Hamburg 100 years ago is not a simple history lesson, but a living experience of great importance for the working class. Against the ideological and political campaigns of the class enemy, our history must be defended again and again, theoretically and practically: Defend revolutionary history!
It is impossible to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Hamburg Uprising without highliting Ernst Thälmann. Later to become the Chairman of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), Thälmann played an important role in the leadership of the uprising. Not only did he provide military leadership, but he also visited the fighters at the barricades to boost their morale and he also rejected all those who wanted to call off the uprising prematurely. Thälmann was a defender of the Marxism of his time and a fighter for the Communist International holding high the banner of proletarian internationalism. That is why the history of the working class in this country is inseparably linked with his name: Ernst Thälmann is alive in us!
Today, as then, the working class in this country and in the rest of the world faces the task of taking power, smashing the ruling system and building a new world without exploitation and oppression. All over the world, the working class, together with its closest allies, is preparing for a new onslaught to power, new revolutions are being prepared in many countries, which will unite in a great storm in the future: Long live proletarian internationalism!
100 years of the Hamburg Uprising are a reason to celebrate, a reason to learn and a reason to go forward even more determined in the struggle for a new world: Raise the red flag higher: For a bright red future!
Roter Bund
September 2023
Demonstration:
23rd of October | 18:00 | Bert-Kaempfert-Platz (in front of “Museum der Arbeit”) | U/S Barmbek