Theodor Bergmann: A revolutionary communist since 1927
- By Heiko Khoo
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E-mail China.org.cn, March 17, 2014
In 1935, Theodor came back to Europe to work with the German resistance in Czechoslovakia. They kept up contact with communists still operating inside Germany. But the Nazi state machine worked tirelessly to identify communist resistance cells still operating in Germany. In 1938 Britain made a deal to hand over Czechoslovakia to Hitler and Theodor fled to Sweden where he worked as a farmer during the war years.
In 1946, Theodor returned to Germany and settled in Stuttgart, which was located in what was to become the Federal Republic of (West) Germany. Theodor's Communist Party mentors had warned him that although the East German state would offer him good employment prospects, critically minded communists would soon face repression in Eastern Germany.
Theodor eventually applied his knowledge of farming to research on agricultural questions and he became a Professor of Agronomy. In an environment that was fiercely anti-communist, Theodor worked tirelessly to support communist activities in the academic environment. In the 1960s there was a wave of radical student unrest in Germany, France, Italy and other countries. Theodor tried to explain to the student activists that they needed to unite with the working class and that they could not independently instigate a revolution. This was something many student "revolutionaries" did not want to hear.
When Gorbachev came to power, in 1985, Theodor travelled to the USSR and met with the widow of Nikolai Bukharin, one of the leaders of the Russian Revolution who had been executed by Stalin in 1938. Theodor was shocked by the growth of reactionary forces and asked fellow comrades: "Where is the communist resistance?" He was dismayed when they told him "the party is dead." Therefore, although he was deeply saddened by the collapse of the USSR and the (East) German Democratic Republic, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he was not taken by surprise.
Theodor has published 50 books on a wide range of subjects, including agriculture, Marxism, the history and ideology of communism, China and Israel. He is currently working on a book on reform and reformers in communist history.
Theodor points out with relish that Cuba and China have defied predictions of collapse for 25 years. As his speech at the meeting in Vienna came to a close he explained that the path to communism is painful and difficult. But he emanates an unflinching belief in the communist cause when debating vital questions of revolutionary ideology and practice. Criticisms and arguments engage his lively brain, and although he joined the communist movement 87 years ago, his eyes still light up when participating in the discussion.
The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://china.org.cn/opinion/heikokhoo.htm
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