August Bebel
GermanyBiography of August Bebel
August Bebel was a prominent figure in the German and international labor movement, a social democrat, and the author of the famous book "Woman and Socialism." He was born on February 22, 1840, in a family of a non-commissioned officer who suffered from tuberculosis for many years. Bebel's father passed away when he was three years old, and the family faced difficult times. In order to improve their lives, Bebel's mother remarried, and her new husband was a prison warden. The family moved from the barracks, where they used to live, to reside in the prison. It is understandable that living in a barracks and prison is not the best environment for a happy childhood, and it is unlikely that such a childhood can be called happy.
However, August Bebel did not fall behind in life. He was accepted into a school for the less privileged, where he studied quite successfully. In 1853, his mother passed away, leaving him as an orphan without the opportunity to continue his education. At the age of fourteen, Bebel became an apprentice to a familiar turner. Life was difficult and did not promise to get any easier. However, August Bebel proved to be a resilient person. At the age of eighteen, he started attending meetings of socialist workers. At first, Bebel aligned with the liberal wing of the labor movement. Working diligently in various professional unions and associations, he began giving speeches against the socialists. In 1865, under the influence of Wilhelm Liebknecht (father of Karl), Bebel left the ranks of the liberals and became a conscious Marxist. He did not deviate from this path. Step by step, August Bebel formed himself as a political figure. He was the chairman of the educational workers' association, a member of the permanent council of trade unions, and later, the chairman of this council. In 1867, he was elected as the first workers' representative to the German parliament and was consistently re-elected until his death.
Becoming a convinced Marxist, Bebel openly declared war on bourgeois liberals at the Nuremberg Congress in 1868 and called on workers to free themselves from their patronage, become independent, and create their own party. This significant event took place the following year when Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht announced the creation of the Social Democratic Party at the congress in Eisenach. Marx's teachings became its foundation, and Bebel himself became its unwavering leader. No other party or revolutionary movement could now influence Bebel or divert him from the path outlined by Marx.
During the Franco-Prussian War, Bebel advocated "not for war, but for brotherhood among nations, not for enmity with French workers, but for unity with them." As a result, he was accused of treason and sentenced to two years in prison. However, even in prison, he did not waste his time and wrote his famous book, "Woman and Socialism." In a short time, this book became a bestseller of revolutionary literature.
One can only imagine how Bebel's uncompromising stance towards everything bourgeois influenced Russian socialists. In everything, including love, slogans of the sexual revolution in Soviet Russia in the 1920s were born from the theory developed by Bebel. The prominent revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai, approaching the issue creatively, put forward the theory of the "glass of water," according to which sexual desire is a normal physiological need, and sexual contact should be as easy and simple as the ability to drink a glass of water.
But the most faithful follower of this new doctrine, without a doubt, was the fighter for the happiness of the working people of the whole land, a member of the Caspian International Revolutionary Proletarian Regiment named after Comrade August Bebel, Red Army soldier Sukhov, the hero of the film "The White Sun of the Desert." He led his group of women through the desert, established the "1st Commune of Free Women of the East," and adorned it with slogans such as "Down with Prejudices! Woman is also a human being!" Surely Sukhov knew much more about the native of Cologne, Bebel, and his teachings than many of us.
