Workers councils in the German revolution, a discussion between Rudi Dutschke and Bernhard Reichenbach

 

Discussion and analysis with a member of the KAPD on the party and its activity.

Workers Councils
in the German Revolution
Introduction

The Kommunistische Arbeiter Party Deutschland (KAPD) originated in a split in the German Communist Party at the second congress in Heidelberg in October 1919. The majority of the Communist party were expelled for their opposition to parliamentary and Trade Union activity, and founded a new party the KAPD.
The interview below is with a founder member of the KAPD, who was active in the German revolution, and is part of the material we plan to us in the [unreadable] a pamphlet on the struggles for WORKERS COUNCILS in the German revolution.

The relevance of the struggle in Germany in 1918-23 has been heightened by the rise of SDS and the recent wave of unofficial strikes in the coal, steel and ship building industries. As in France and Italy the question of workers councils is now being debated.

AN ACTIVIST SPEAKS

This discussion between Rudi Dutschke and Bernhard Reichenbach took place in June 1969.

Rudi: Assuming your analysis of society was valid at the time, where do you locate your failures?

B.R: A valid social analysis is one thing, implementing it in reality is another matter. One should distinguish between the theories of the KAPD and the practise through which it attempted to implement them, although the two are obviously interrelated. Up to 1923 we based ourselves on the revolutionary activity of the working class which was widespread throughout Germany in the wake of the collapse of the Kaiser regime, its political, social, economic and ideological institutions, but from the defeat of the March 1921 and later 1923 insurrections it became evident that whereas during periods of political collapse, and economic misery the working class exhibits independent revolutionary initiative and readiness to sacrifice a lot for the creation of a new social order it does not sustain this type of activity during the prolonged periods between one political/economic crisis to the next.

Rudi: You said you had certain doubts concerning Marx’s theory, could you elaborate?

B.R.: We, who considered ourselves as Marxists at the time, laid too much stress on the “objective conditions” as well as on the role of material misery. We underestimated the role of the individuals, which in certain conditions – can become the decisive factor. I think that Marx’s stress on the main motivation for revolutionary activity is not always and everywhere valid, whereas his sociological insights still are.

Rudi: At the time you acted as an extra parliamentary opposition, do you consider this essential?

B.R.: Yes, because this educates people to act on their own political initiative, independently of any representative.

Rudi: For you at the time, this expressed itself not merely as extra-parliamentary opposition but as anti-parliamentary opposition. Did you consider it essential that the working class should struggle against the parliamentary institutions?

B.R.: Definitely. You must remember that during 1918 there was an actual revolutionary situation in Germany. Any partaking in parliamentary activity was considered as betrayal, because that parliament, amongst other things, was held responsible for the war. During 1919 almost all the left politics took place within the workers councils, not in the trade unions or parliament. These were consciously, extra and anti-parliamentary institutions. The trouble was that in those councils the Social Democrats were in the majority. This was very much due to their insistence on economistic rather than political, and reformistic rather than revolutionary demands. It is those factors that made us doubt the independent revolutionary initiative of the class. The Social Democrats did not impose their views, their majority reflected the will of the broad mass of workers inside the councils, and that even during such a revolutionary situation.

The conditions in Germany differed considerably from those of Russia. Russia emerged from centuries of autocratic rule and the whole social atmosphere was ripe for a fundamental change of political institutions, a tradition of government by elected representatives. Germany had a tradition of government by elected representatives, in such circumstances it is much harder to accomplish a political revolution because it appears as coercion against democratic representatives. Moreover, after all the years of a Rightist majority in parliament the victory of the Social Democrats appeared as a decisive victory for the left. It is true that the decisive arena of the struggle for political power was within the workers councils but, the reasons mentioned earlier, any action against the elected government was out of the question especially while those in government had a majority inside the councils.

Rudi: How many revolutionary parties existed then?

B.R.: In 1920 there were five parties aspiring to achieve socialism by revolution, all of them defining themselves as Marxist. Apart from this there were various Anarchist groups. The working class was torn by the mutual strife between those organisations and did not exhibit unified action vis-à-vis the Bourgeoisie.

Rudi: What could you tell us about the 1921 insurrection?

B.R.: At the time I was in Russia, as an observer on behalf of the KAPD in the session of the Third International. The German Communist party came out openly against that insurrection whereas our party actively supported it. Lenin declared the insurrection “Adventurist”, yet afterwards Paul Levi, the secretary of the party who was responsible for its policy was dismissed for his failure to support it. He was replaced by Clara Zetkin, who incidentally continued to carry out the political line of Paul Levi. A person was dismissed, the policies remained. Moreover, both Lenin and Trotsky endorsed Zetkins policies.

Rudi: Do you believe that there was any connection between the New Economic Policy of Lenin in 1921 and the policy of the Third International towards the March 1921 insurrection.

B.R.: There was no direct connection. However, one can discern some common underlying factors. The NEP was considered by Lenin as a fortification of the political revolution in Russia; he considered that revolution as a process which had already terminated. The Bolsheviks expected a revolution in Western Europe. This failed to occur. This created an ambiguous relationship between them, as a ruling party and the capitalist regime in Europe; on the one hand they wanted normal inter-state relations which would ensure peaceful borders on the west, on the other hand the revolutionary struggle inside those countries weakened those regimes. Once the disillusion with the revolution in the west sunk in they began to consider the revolutionary movements in the west mainly as an auxiliary tool of Russian foreign politics. This attitude of the Bolshevik politicians towards the revolutionary movements in the west did not start with Stalin, but with Lenin and Trotsky back in 1921.

Rudi: Could you describe the actual activity of the councils vis-à-vis the Unions and parties looked like?

B.R.: Independent councils based on factories rather then trades, as was common earlier, appeared spontaneously all over Germany. This was to a considerable extent a result of the economic chaos. When a factory came to a standstill due to the lack of fuel or raw materials there was no one to turn to help. Government, parties, unions, capitalists could do nothing to solve the basic problems of transportation, raw materials, fuel etc. Resolutions, orders, declarations, even paper money, were of little use. Under such circumstances the factory workers would form a factory council and set out to solve those basic problems by themselves. We of the KAPD believed that the traditional Trade-Unions were an obstacle to the creation of a new society, and that the main thing was to encourage direct action, independent of the unions.
Rudi: Why did the KAPD disband in 1923?

B.R: When the March 1921 insurrection failed, and later also the one in 1923, only a few hundred activists remained in the party. Originally we were a party of industrial militants, with only very few paid functionaries. When the direct activity of the industrial militants died down our party simply ceased to exist. It was not a matter of taking political resolution; when our militant workers ceased to be active all that was left to do was to acknowledge that fact and draw the conclusion. We the younger activists, decided to enter other political parties, simply because this was the only place where we could meet politically minded workers and try to win them over.

This interview provoked some critical comments in the following issue of Solidarity (Aberdeen)

K.a.p.d. and the german revolution
some comments

The interview in the last issue of Aberdeen “Solidarity” with a founder member of the K.A.P.D. threw interesting light on the policy of the Bolsheviks and the K.P.D. during the German Revolution, and also opened the way for a discussion of the reasons for its failure.

However, simply because the K.A.P.D broke away from the K.P.D. Over the latter favourable policy towards participating in Trades Union and Parliamentary activity, it would be wring to automatically assume that it is an organization with which Solidarists should retrospectively identify themselves.

In the first place, as is evident from the interview, the K.A.P.D. held an extremely mechanical conception of the socialist revolution, which was held to be possible only in times of economic collapse and misery. Socialist consciousness is the grumbling of an empty belly. This conception gripped the minds of the most libertarian of those who broke with German Social Democracy, eg, Luxembourg and Pannekoek, who in other respects such as insistence on the rule of Workers Councils and proletarian democracy we would endorse.

Similarly, the K.A.P.D. was permeated with elitist thinking. As Gorter, their leading thinker stated in his “Reply to Lenin”, '...most proletarians are ignoramuses. They repeatedly make mistakes.” From this he concluded that an elite party, based on quality was necessary to educate the masses and expose the reformist leaderships. There was always an ambiguity in the K.A.P.D. over whether they or the Workers Councils should rule, and they never fully identified themselves as the future dictatorship. In this respect, as in others we can possibly see resemblances between the K.A.P.D. and the “Workers Opposition” group in the Bolshevik Party. It is more than an accident that it was a K.A.P.D. member who brought Kollontai's text to the west.

Thirdly, it would be wrong to overestimate the hostility of the K.A.P.D. to the Third Internationl to which they adhered in a special status until they ceased to be a viable force in the German left after 1923 or so. Although Trotsky accused them, in the “First Five Years of the Communist International” of intending to establish a Fourth International, there is no real evidence for this. The K.A.P.D. even, on the instructions of Lenin, or 'advice', got rid of Ruehle, Laufenberg and others who were originally party members, but whose implacable hostility to Bolshevism Lenin could not tolerate.

If we are to look for historical progenitors in the area of ideology, the ideas of Ruhle need to be further examined. Ruehle voted as early as 1915 with Liebknecht against War Credits in the Reichstag, and maintained a consistent anti-war attitude afterwards. Almost alone of the ex-social democrats he broke with elitist thinking, holding the profoundly true idea that if the working class was too weak and stupid to achieve socialism by its own efforts, then no leadership can remedy this- the only alternative is permanent class society.

Similarly, at a time when socialism was held to be nationalisation and planning and a social democrat government, Ruehle developed his ideas on the meaning of socialism in advance of this. In 1924 he said: “ the nationalisation of the means of production which remains the programme of the social democracy as well as the communists, is not socialisation. Through nationalisation it will be possible to attain a strongly centralised State capitalism, which will perhaps have some superiority to private capitalism, but which none the less will be capitalism.”

Ruehle's brilliant critique of the entire Trades Union apparatus, published as the article “On German Trades Union” in Solidarity Scotland Vol.2 No.2. from his book 'From the bourgeois to the proletarian revolutions' (which still awaits translation), is one which all Solidarists would endorse. In it he stated: “The Trades unions … develop into auxiliary organs of capitalist organs of capitalist economic interest, exploitation and profit making. They have become the bourgeoisie's most loyal shield bearer … always and everywhere the unions stood at the side of capital ready to help; a praetorian guard always prepared to carry out the most common and revolting crimes, always against the emancipation and autonomy of the working class”.

As early as 1921, Ruehle, and the federation of factory organizations, AAUD-E (which eventually linked to the Syndicalist International), to which he belonged criticised the bureacratisation of the Russian Revolution and the suppression of the Kronstaft sailors. The refused to participate in the Central German rising of 1821 on the grounds that it was an attempt by the K.P.D. to cover up events in Kronsdadt at the same time.

Ruehle accused the K.A.P.D. of being only distinguishable from the K.P.D. by its rejection of the parliamentary activity, and its subsequent history confirmed his analysis.

Given its basic ideas, and the decline of the revolutionary wave in Germany after 1923, the return of most K.A.P.D. members to the folds of the S.P.D. or K.P.D., or their decline into inactivity was inevitable.

R.M.

1972 IWW convention keynote speech by Frank Cedervall

 

The transcript of a 1972 speech by Frank Cedervall, who was involved in the IWW during the 1930s-1950s.

Frank Cerdervall – Keynote Speech, IWW Convention 1972

September 7th

A man came into the IWW. And he began to interrogate the fellow worker. He said, “Nell, have you heard our speakers?” “No, me no hear the IWW speaker.” “Have you read the preamble?” “Me no hear the Preamble.” “What do you know of Karl Marx?” “Who is he, a tailor?” “Nell, why do you want to join the IWW?” he said “Because I heard the IWW fucks with the boss all the time.” This is the answer, a simple answer. That’s why the employing class has hated the IWW. And that’s why you young men and women in this organisation coming up, some of you may have been tempted by this Socialist Workers Party and these are the people who give you suave, intelligent, well educated people with five or six PHD degrees to lead you out of the wilderness. It’s going to take the dishwashers, the bricklayers, the carpenters and the wage workers to make the revolution. And once you get that in your head and understand that, we’ll get somewhere.

I’m going to take a little more time than I usually take, because brevity is the success of a speaker. The longer you talk, they say, “why won’t the asshole sit down?” There was a young man who came to my house through the good offices of fellow worker Thompson. A young fellow named Roy Wortman. He wanted to write a doctoral dissertation, and many of you are in the academic community, and know how hard it is to find something to write about that hasn’t been covered before. So the only way that you can really get somewhere at all is to try to look up some esoteric problem that hasn’t been dealt with deeply. And this fellow worker, this young man, stopped in to see Fred Thompson and he wanted to write about the Colorado strike. And Fred said “well, why don’t you go down to Cleveland and visit Frank Cedervall for awhile, and talk about the Cleveland IWW drive?”

He wrote a letter, the other day and he sent me a copy of a report that I never knew that I had ever written, because I don’t keep a file. And if I haven’t lost it, I brought it up here with me, somewhere. Now that would be the asshole of the world if I did that, that’s it. A lot of people say the world has changed, in thirty years things are different, it’s not the world of 1905. As long as capitalism exists, as long as one man exploits another at the point of production, things are the same. We have a system that needs to be destroyed and it can only be destroyed by organising on the job. And would you believe it or not from 1934 until 1952, that’s only 20 years ago, don’t look in the back of the history of the IWW, in 1952 there were 1,200 organised members of the IWW in the city of Cleveland. And there can be 1,200 hundred more members of the IWW, 12,000 members of the IWW. How simple it is. And I’m going to read, with your permission, “There is no doubt but what Cleveland and its 440 activities has caused widespread comment among IWW members throughout the country. No complete picture of our two years of activity has ever been drawn. And because such a picture is needed, I’m taking the liberty of attempting to present an outline of our achievements and failures that, will give you a conception of what has taken place in Cleveland and what can be hoped for in the future.” This is 1935, I just got this, now this is a strange thing I bring to the convention. Now this man, I don’t know, he must have researched his ass off to find it. How in the hell he dug it up I don’t know, he says, “The Cleveland drive began in late January of 34.” At that time the membership consisted of a well grounded group of Hungarians in the GRJ branch and a few Finnish fellow workers. We had no chartered branch, they were small in numbers, but they enthusiastically began to raise funds for a drive. That’s one thing we had to do- find out who in the hell believes in the revolution enough to dig down into your pocket to pull out a buck.

And these Hungarian fellow workers dug down and they dug up this money. The organisation spent most of its energy in January, February and March distributing mimeographed leaflets at various plants, just as the fellow workers in Portland are doing. You see how important it is? But very small results were obtained. But one of the moulders at the Buckeye Brass Company came over and mentioned that in one division of the Ohio Foundry there were workers who were dissatisfied and we leafleted that place, and we organised the workers and had them out on strike and 100% organised job control.

Now I want to talk to you about another problem, and I’m not going to read this whole thing. You might be interested, and I don’t want to lose your attention. We have what we call infantile leftism in the labor movement. This is a thing that Lenin spoke about, Super-radicals. And so in the height of McCarthy hysteria, the United States government passed a law stating that if you would not sing a non-communist affidavit you were not eligible for the services of the National Labor Relations Board. And I want you to mark this, and mark it well. We came here, we members of the IWW out of Cleveland, with job control, with action that we had fought and died for. One man spent years in the penitentiary, another fellow worker did three years in the pen. And men sat at the IWW convention in 1952 with AFL cards in their pocket. And they worked under AFL’s dictatorship, and said, “it’s alright for the AFL to sign the non-communist affidavit, but I’m not going to permit the IWW, my pure union to do so.” This is what is called leftism. Because the power of the working class is on the job, we have to get out into the industries.

Have you ever seen a picture like the one in England that occurred just a few weeks ago where those stevedores on the docks had the country in turmoil? For God’s sake they were dumping tomatoes all over the place. The government was distraught, frantic. And then the government and the leaders of the union in England conspired together. And when they made a settlement the police had to protect the leaders from the wrath and anger of the workers. This is the power, this is where its at, this is where we’ve got to go. And there are people in the IWW, if I didn’t know, if I hadn’t learned on this tour that I made through the West coast, that there were young men and women who understand this principle, I wouldn’t have wasted my time to come to your, to our convention.

There is jealousy or even worse, you can see it coming. How do you explain that you’re here? Why aren’t you over there with the Socialist Workers Party? Why aren’t you out there working for comrade McGovern? You’re here because you understand this simple principle. That when the organised power of the working class becomes stronger than the organised power of the capitalist class, then and only then will the workers rule the world. As one fellow worker, James P. Thompson said, everytime that he spoke he said it. He repeated time and time again. And read the pamphlet they turned out; it gives you the whole story.

Now in conclusion, I’m going to repeat a phrase I repeat time and time again. And I borrow the words from Peter Kropotkin, he said that we soldiers who blindly obey the commands of the generals, who are good enough to command us, we have but to make an about face to see a deathly pallor over their faces. And we peasants who mumble the chaff while the master eats the wheat, we too are a goodly number. And we workers who are like grains of sand, we overflow the streets and squares like a sea at full tide, when the factories clamour gives a moments repose. If we but had the will to do it, that very instant, justice will be done. This is the power. Here is what it is and keep your all your tomes, all your diplomas. Go back to Harvard and get six more degrees, I don’t give a shit where you go or how you go.

If you want a working class revolution you must build a union, a union that is not organised because our ideas are the same, because we cannot organise ourselves with similar ideas. We have certain needs. We organise for our need. And our needs are to grab control of the max of production, to build power to change the world where generals and politicians and prostitutes of various sorts are not going to ride our backs anymore. So, do not be discouraged fellow workers, get out there in the industries and build the IWW; build the one big union of the working class. This is the thing that I know that you’re talking about. We are old, our day is done. But we old timers are with you. And out of your group right here in this very convention there are people with the possibilities and the capabilities to do the job. I thank you very much.

Interview with Augusto Masetti from 1964 now translated into English

 

Awhile a go I discovered the late Stuart Christie's massive anarchist film archive and spent many hours digging through it. Unfortunately while its a great resource very few of the entries have explanations as to what they're about so if it isn't immediately clear from the film or you don't speak one of the dozens of languages the content is in some of them can be very strange and obscure.

For me one of those videos was a short 2 minute video called Augusto Masetti, its a short black and white interview with an elderly man in Italian. The only information was the year of recording 1964, searching the name I found multiple sources all in Italian, but my limited experience and machine translators I found out that in 1911 when the Italian army was about to send troops to occupy Libya Augusto Masetti shot and wounded his superior officer and when being detained and investigated it was found that he had an anti-militarist pamphlet on him and was an Anarchist. He became a sort of celebrity with defence committees setup across Italy to protest in support of him and rally opposition to the military adventures of the Italian state. 

I also found an upload of the video on youtube, and the uploader had some interesting things to say in the comments. 

Intervista del 1964 ad Augusto Masetti, l'anarchico che nel 1910 aveva sparato al suo colonnello inneggiando all'anarchia e contro la guerra di Libia. Durante i giorni della 'Settimana Rossa' del 1914 fu preso come simbolo della lotta antimilitarista. (Questo video - come gli altri sul tema settimana rossa - è stato recuperato da un'unica cassetta vhs (prima Betamax) lasciata da Sergio Zavoli alla biblioteca di Alfonsine, e mai usata dalla RAI. La cassetta era ormai abbandonata in biblioteca da 40 anni e a rischio smagnetizzazione. Su sollecitazione di Luciano Lucci fu riversata da Betamax a VHS, e poi il Lucci stesso ne fece una versione digitalizzata e messa su youtube.) 1964 interview with Augusto Masetti, the anarchist who in 1910 had shot his colonel in praise of anarchy and against the war in Libya. During the days of the 'Red Week' of 1914 it was taken as a symbol of the anti-militarist struggle. (This video - like the others on the red week theme - was recovered from a single vhs cassette (first Betamax) left by Sergio Zavoli at the Alfonsine library, and never used by RAI. The cassette had now been abandoned in the library for 40 years. and at risk of demagnetization. At the request of Luciano Lucci it was transferred from Betamax to VHS, and then Lucci himself made a digitized version of it and put on youtube.)

Which was interesting but didn't help me understand what the video was about. My very weak knowledge of Italian meant I was sure the first question at least was about his time as a soldier and the shooting of thee officer, but that was it apart from a few words about Professors and a song and family.

I turned to the subreddit r/translator for help, and within a few hours user Jordanj got in touch and gave me a transcript in Italian of the conversation and then an English translation.

So mystery solved, and in the interest of preservation I've used both to create subtitle tracks for the video and will reproduce them here as transcripts.

Video Link

Interviewer: Good morning, Mr. Masetti.

Masetti: Good morning.

I: Sorry to bother you.

M: No need.

I: Would you mind coming here a moment, on the balcony?

M: Sure.

I: Here under the light, so we can see you well.

M: But remember I don't want [money].

Me, I'm available for the [king].*

I: What happened at the Salvini barracks in Bologna? Can you tell us?

M: We were 300 soldiers, lined up in three rows, and 8 officers were on the stage, among which was the superior officer, the lieutenant colonel Stroppa, who was making the speech, where he said we all have family, girlfriends, and you know friends, but right this moment we only have our nation to defend... and at that moment, I put my [rifle] on the shoulders of the [second] - I was in the middle, in the middle row - and then I shot once. I was going to recharge, so they jumped on me... officers, and so on.

I: And the lieutenant colonel was only wounded...

M: Wounded, yes, till the shoulder, here. And the bullet deflected, and wounded an unlucky fellow of a soldier right under there.

I: Now, I'd like to ask you, Mr. Masetti. Yours was a an act of folly, but were you indeed crazy, like they were saying?

M:... there's 36 hours I have no recollection of. From the evening of the 29th till the 31 of the morning. Something I've always said and I'll have to always say, because it is so.

I: But, do you feel guilt for that act or not?

M: No, no! How can I feel guilty? Can you feel guilty for something you don't know about (/remember doing)? They were saying that to me In Reggio Emilia too, those professors. "Well, you must feel sorry for [???]." "Me? Why should I feel sorry?" "So you're proud of it?" "No to that too! I can't be proud of something I don't know I did!". And that's how things were, you know.

I: Were you aware that all over Italy, pro Masetti committees were being established?

M: ... Not right away, no, I didn't know right away. I learned it some days after, when the professor... Sacossi and Pedrassani, they were saying "There's a lot of support for you out there". And I said "I know nothing about it, [if there is,???] I know nothing, no one was bringing me anything. They only came the evening, some... middle-class people, you know, outside, to say hello from the window... and then they'd sing a song they made up themselves...

I: How did the song go?

M: Ah, they said "At the cell number 9 the soldier Masetti is being locked up", but then I don't remember anything else of all that stuff.

* I don't fully understand this but Masetti was making a pun the words he uses for King and money sound very similar. "Ma ricordatevi che non voglio [rei]!  Ci sono per [il re] io."

Interviewer: Buongiorno Signor Masetti.

Masetti: Buongiorno.

I: Scusi se la disturbiamo.

M: No.

I: Le dispiacerebbe venire qua un attimo, sul balcone?

M: Si.

I: Venga al sole, si faccia vedere.

M: Ma ricordatevi che non voglio [rei]!

Ci sono per [il re] io.

I: Come andarono le cose alla caserma Salvini di Bologna? Me lo vuole raccontare?

M: Eravamo in 300 soldati, sfilati in tre fila, e 8 ufficiali erano sul palco, il quale l'ufficiale superiore, che era il sergente colonello Stroppa, fece la morale, dove disse che tutti abbiamo la famiglia, abbiamo la fidanzata, abbiamo insomma gli amici, ma in questo momento qua non abbiamo altro che la patria da difendere... e io, in quel momento li', misi il fucile sulle spalle del secondo - ero in mezzo io, nella fila di mezzo - e poi sparai un colpo. Quando ritornai a caricare, allora mi saltarono addosso con... ufficiali, e cosi' via.

I: E il tenente colonnello rimase soltanto ferito...

M: Ferito, si, fino alla spalla qui. E la palla divio', e andette a ferire un disgraziato di un soldato che era li sotto.

I: Ora io vorrei chiederle, signor Masetti. Il suo fu un gesto folle, ma lei era pazzo come si disse, o no?

M: ...io ho 36 ore che non ricordo niente! Dalla sera del 29 fino al 31 della mattina. Cosa che ho sempre detto e che dovro' sempre dire, perche' e' cosi'.

I: Ma lei e' pentito di quel gesto o no?

M: No, no! Posso mica esser pentito? Come fate a esser pentito di una cosa che non sapete? A me lo dicevano anche a Reggio Emilia, i professori la'. "Beh ti dispiacera' pure della [comesono]..." "Io? Cosa vuole che mi dispiace?" "Allora hai piacere?" "Ma neanche! Non posso mica aver piacere di una cosa che non so di aver fatto". E cosi' andavano le cose, insomma.

I: Lei sapeva che in tutta Italia si stavano costituendo dei comitati pro Masetti?

M: ... Subito no, subito non lo seppi. Lo seppi qualche giorno dopo, quando il professore... Sacossi e Pedrassani, mi dicevano "c'e' un gran movimento per te fori". E io dissi "Non so niente", [gh'era la ren se gava] non sapevo niente, nessuno mi portava niente. venivano solo alla sera, dei... borghesi insomma, dal di fori, a salutarmi dalla finestra... E poi cantavano una canzone, che avevano inventato loro...

I: Come faceva questa canzone?

M: Ah, dicevano, "alla cella del numero 9 sta rinchiuso il soldato Masetti", ma io poi non mi ricordo piu' niente di quella roba li'.

1975: A Boy and His Dog

 

Video link

Don Johnson plays a young man in a post nuclear war world who has an interesting friend, a telepathic dog. The dog gives him an advantage in dealing with the barbaric world he lives in. When Johnson finds one place that has escaped the devastation of the war, he also finds some rather odd attitudes.

When I discovered a Boy and his Dog were listed in several collections of public domain works, I hardly believed it. Not only is it very recent, but it was an adaption of a novella by Harlan Ellison, who was actively involved in the film's promotion and reception. Ellison was notorious as a militant defender of author intellectual property rights, and wasn't shy about fighting against even the possibility of a violation of it. So to find out that no one on the production and distribution side of this movie bothered to officially register it is genuinely surprising. The earliest record of a copyright application is for the VHS release of the movie in the 1980s. So yes, the film is in the public domain, despite the attempts by Harlan and the studio to keep control of it, the film is out there and can be watched, edited, remixed parodied etc.

The film was released in 1975 which was just a few years before US copyright reforms made copyright automatic at the point of completion as in the rest of the world. Romero's Night of the Living Dead is a famous similar case, though Romero did register it for copyright, he forgot to attach the copyright notice to the film when he released it, which voided the copyright. There are quite a few American media projects that are in the public domain for similar reasons. And many works didn't have their copyright renewed for one reason or another. This is the first time I've encountered a major movie with serious backing that forgot to even submit the application.

As a result, the movie is easier to find than the original novella. The movie was a critical success but box office failure, but it did generate enough interest in the concept that Ellison launched several other spin offs. And like how sharing the Living Dead spurred on creative works involving zombies, a Boy and His Dog was very influential in apocalyptic science fiction, Mad Max and the Fallout franchise have clear connections to pick the most obvious. 

This poster owns.