Today in Labor History June 24, 1943: Otto Rühle (1874-1943), German Left communist of the Spartacist League, died in Mexico. Early in his life, Rühle trained and worked a school teacher. He created a socialist Sunday school and criticized traditional school in "Work and Education" (1904), "The Enlightenment of Children About Sexual Matters", (1907), and, "The Proletarian Child" (1911). In 1912, he was elected to the Reichstag as a Social Democrat.
However, he is much more well known for his role as a leader of the Council Communist movement, along with Anton Pannekoek. They opposed the state communism of the Soviet Union and advocated for Workers Councils and Council Democracy. Lenin attacked them in his pamphlet, “Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.” Rühle was also a comrade of Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and Franz Mehring and very active in the German Revolution. He opposed both World Wars and fascism.
