Chapter 10
TheRevolutionaryFantasyRevisited
Voice:Proletarians! (moaning)Proletarians!...
AllChoruses:Wearedefeated.
Voice:Whyare youdefeated?
All:Why?
Voice:Were youavanguard,bold and strong? Steeled, fireproof, one will, one idea?
Proletarians:No,we arenot yetastrong party,forgedofsteel, one will, one idea!
Voice:That’swhy youwere defeated,youbrave fighters.
QuestioningVoice:Do we always have to be defeated?
Voice:From defeatto struggle to victory.
AllProletarians:From defeatto struggle to victory.
Voice:Youmustguide theworking class in all dailybattles,you, the vanguard.Berta Lask,Leuna 1921InLeuna 1921(1927)byBerta Lask(1878–1967), the striking workersmust once
again accept thereality of defeat and deal with the contradictory emotions that
accompanysuch experiences:despair,shame, hopelessness, anger,and defi-
ance.¹And onceagain, the participation inyetanother fateful month of March
takes them straightto acompensatory fantasy of future victory.Not publiclyper-
formeduntil 1956,Lask’sso-called drama of facts was basedoninterviews with
participants in what is known asMärzunruhenorMärzkämpfe(MarchAction).
Other literary treatments of the MarchAction of 1921 followasimilar pattern
of emotionalization that promisesrelief from suffering through identification
with the Communist Party.Modelling this process, at the end of his own novel
aboutMärzstürme(1933,March Storms), Otto Gotsche,aplumber-turned-writer
arrested for participating in the uprisings, helpsayoung worker namedFritz
movebeyond morbid thoughts of death and affirm his belief in the revolutionary
workingclass. AsFritz learns, onlythe life-giving powers of the Party make self-
healing possible:
The hand reached for the heart.Had it stopped?Itpounded wildlyand eagerly. It beat like
the heart ofaseventeen-year-old beats,aheart that wants to live,that fearsahorrible,tor-
turousdeath, that desperatelyseeks the light and stumblesinendless darkness.[...]Good
Lord,Fritz!Youare not even seventeenyears old, areyou not ashamedto think of death?
Don’tberidiculous! Man can endure so much, much morethanyouthink. And if he desires
it,hewill survive everything. Willpower is everything. The road to victory is far;itisdiffi-Berta Lask,Leuna 1921(Münster:KommunistischeTexte, 1973), 142.