ABSTRACT
Otto Ruhle's activity in the German Labour Movement was related to the work of small and restricted minorities within and outside of the official labour organisations. As violators of discipline K. Liebknecht and Ruhle were expelled from the social-democratic Reichstag faction. Together with 'ultra-left' groups in Dresden, Frankfurt am Main and other places, Otto Ruhle went one step beyond the anti-bolshevism of the Communist Workers' Party and its adherents in the General Labour Union. After 1923 the German 'ultra-left' movement ceased to be a serious political factor in the German labour movement. Although Otto Ruhle faced the second world war as uncompromisingly as he had faced the first, his attitude with regard to the labour movement was different from that of 1914. In Ruhle's opinion a proletarian revolution was possible only with the conscious and active participation of the broad proletarian masses.
