Talk:Three Arrows

Nazism/Antisemitism

If of significance: The symbol can also be seen as part of the "Jewish world conspiracy" in an image of the extremely obscene anti-Semitic exhibition "Le Juife et la France" (1940), about which no English wiki article exists so far. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-2004-0211-500%2C_Frankreich%2C_Antisemitismus%2C_Ausstellung.jpg https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Juif_et_la_France — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8109:B40:2258:C136:9963:CC43:A5C8 (talk) 15:47, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

1. Interesting, thanks.

2. Why obscene? See WP:

An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin obscēnus, obscaenus, "boding ill; disgusting; indecent..

It was not disgusting back then.

3. The EN article exists now:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Juif_et_la_France Zezen (talk) 10:48, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

The image should probably be included in the article Le Juif et la France, since it shows a picture from the exhibition. (The article currently only shows a banner promoting it.) TucanHolmes (talk) 11:28, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Current usage

I have seen it used in 2015-2019 during leftist demos in CEE countries. Not sure if it has the same meaning nowadays. Zezen (talk) 10:50, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Image caption

Regarding the famous SPD poster "Gegen Papen, Hitler, Thälmann" TucanHolmes keeps adding the moniker "Soviet" to the image caption ([1]). I find this wording objectionable. Without going deep into OR, it's pretty clear that the poster signals KPD (by explicitly naming Thälmann and by displaying the KPD symbol) as the intended enemy - at no point is the USSR, Stalin or Comintern mentioned or flagged in the poster. In a similar vein, not sure if the description of the Papen followers as 'reactionary' is helpful to the reader. --Soman (talk) 17:10, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

The KPD at the time advanced a model of communism basically copy-pasted from that of the Soviet union (and would have, in all likelihood, created some sort of Soviet republic). We can change it to Marxism-Leninism, or Stalinism if you insist, but the point is that the KPD this poster is referring to differed radically from its post-WWI politics. Communism encompasses a wide range of thought and beliefs, as does conservatism, which is why it's important to be specific. "Helpful to the reader"? I mean, of course the text should be digestible, but this is an encyclopedic article, and the current of politics this poster is talking about is called reactionary conservatism ("return to a previous political state of society"), to distinguish it from, e.g. the conservatism of parties like the German People's Party. TucanHolmes (talk) 10:10, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

I think "opposition towards Nazism, Stalinism and reactionary conservatism" would be the best terminology in the lead. Communism (especially in its small-c form) is too heterogeneous to be the object of the hammer and sickle (many self-described communists are anti-Stalinist). I think the more specific "reactionary conservatism" is sensible for the reason TucanHolmes gives. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:23, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

The distinction between communists and communists is politically meaningless, and changing 'communism' to 'Stalinism' is historical revisionism based on contemporary political taste. KPD was the German communist party, the symbolism of the SPD breaking the red star in pieces is essentially an expression of anti-communism. --Soman (talk) 12:26, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

True. I guess we can shorten it to communism; I will check available sources one last time to make sure they don't specifically call it 'Soviet communism' or something like that, but otherwise I would be fine with that change. TucanHolmes (talk) 16:29, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with the "historical revisioinism" point. We are writing an encyclopedia in the 2020s not the 1930s and tersm change their meaning over time. Stalinism is the best term for what the KPD and the hammer and sickle represented. If we go with Communism, I would strongly argue for Communism with a capital C to show we are specifically talking about Communist parties and the states they rule as this is what the hammer and sickle meant. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:51, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

SPD/KPD animosity didn't begin with Stalin. At the point that the majority SPD turned against revolution in Germany and the Spartacists were executed, there was no 'Stalinism' in play. --Soman (talk) 16:01, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Not sure if it's relevant that the animosity existed earlier. By the time of the three arrows (1930s), according to our KPD article, it was thoroughly Stalinist. The image in dispiute says "Gegen Thälmann": Thälmann was leader from 1925, i.e. after Stalin's control of the Comintern. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:35, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

The actual icons

The variant of the Three Arrows we are currently using. I propose removing the circle.

The iconized version of the Three Arrows we are currently displaying is misleading, since it contains them in a circle (the actual Three Arrows didn't have to feature in this sort of outline), so we should probably do something about that.

Additionally, we should split their presentation, into

1. A plain icon of the Three Arrows.
2. An idealized diagram showing the arrows superimposed over a swastika, since
   • The caption already reads "The anti-fascist Iron Front used the Three Arrows to deface the Nazi swastika."
   • It would be useful to have a visual proof of the claim in Three Arrows § Weimar Republic that "[...] the Three Arrows and the swastika would always appear as if the three lines were imposed over the swastika rather than the other way around."

Any thoughts or objections? Otherwise I will go ahead with these changes. TucanHolmes (talk) 18:28, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

"Communism" vs. "Marxism–Leninism"

@Soman As far as I can tell, there is no evidence that the Three Arrows originated with the intention of targeting libertarian communists or council communists, for instance, who had very similar criticisms of totalitarianism that the Iron Front highlighted. In fact, the Iron Front page points out that the group's targets were authoritarians, and on the far-left end of that target were the KPD and, as the second image on the Three Arrows page specifically mentions, Ernst Thälmann, leader of the KPD. The KPD's ideology under Thälmann (leader 1925-1933) and when the Three Arrows symbolism began in 1932, without question, was loyalty to the Soviet Union and Marxism–Leninism. This is the form of communist ideology that the Iron Front page mentions specifically as well. I find this specificity of what they targeted in this messaging particularly useful for understanding why socialists, including anarchists and Marxists, have historically and to this day used the symbolism against authoritarianism despite its creation by a social democratic party. Bryce Springfield (talk) 05:31, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

You're doing a backwards reconstruction of history to your own convenience. The Three Arrows emerged as a social democratic symbol. Its creators never intended it as common symbol for 'socialists, including anarchists and Marxists'. It was hardly an anti-authoritarian symbol, on the contrary it was a way for the SPD to adapt to the increasingly militaristic political language of the early 1930s. The fact that you have, decades later, left-liberal Americans who want to appropriate the symbol is different issue, but that doesn't change its original meaning. And giving weight to rather obscure usages today as opposed to the period when it was a symbol of mass parties across Europe is undue. Looking at references, we have,

• "Drei Pfeile, die den Kampf gegen Reaktion, Nationalsozialismus und Kommunismus symbolisierten." (Die Arbeiterschaft im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert)
• "Die von Carlo Mierendorff und Sergej Tschachotin entworfenen Drei Pfeile standen für die drei Pfeiler der Arbeiterbewegung: Die Partei, die Gewerkschaft und das Reichsbanner als Symbole der politischen, wirtschaftlichen und physischen Kraft der Eisernen Front. Nach einer anderen Lesart deuteten die Drei Pfeile auf die drei Gegner der Demokratie, die Monarchie, den Kommunismus und den Nationalsozialismus." (Zwischen Kreuz und Regenbogen)
• "Nach einer weiteren Lesart markierten die drei Pfeile die Adelskamarilla , die National- sozialisten und die Kommunisten als die Gegner der Sozialdemokratie und standen für solch sozialistische Grundprinzipien wie proletarische Einigkeit , erwachte Aktivität und eiserne Disziplin ." (Archiv für die Geschichte des Widerstandes und der Arbeit, Issue 17)-
• "Als Symbol wählte sie indessen am 05.07.1932 drei Pfeile . Sie richteten sich gegen Faschismus , Monarchismus und Kommunismus ." (Blick in den Abgrund das Ende der Weimarer Republik im Spiegel zeitgenössischer Berichte und Interpretationen).

Now, there is really no indication that SPD would have differentiated between KPD and KAPD for example, SPD supported repression of the Spartacists well before (including the killing of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg) well before Marxism-Leninism was articulated. But by 1932 the dissident left groups in Germany were marginalized. -Soman (talk) 12:51, 24 June 2023 (UTC)