German Red Prince

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Where do so many beautiful fairy tales come from? Isn't it because the world is too cruel, and people need some stories to comfort themselves?

"There's still a long way to go!"

Thorne watched as the child's body was carried out of the factory, presumably to be buried somewhere dark and shady.

O flame, may you burn in everyone's heart.

Chapter Sixty-Seven Vanguard Regiment

Time flies, but Thorne felt like every day in the factory was an eternity.

You say it's slow? Thorne has already been in Mstadt for over a month and has been working at the Rheinmetall plant for a month.

During this month, Thorne worked and learned in the factory with Thallman and Holman. He learned a lot and understood a lot during this month.

Here, he personally experienced the lives of the workers and deeply felt the hardship and difficulties faced by frontline workers.

Workers' basic rights are not guaranteed. The Rhineland Workers' Rights Protection Act seems to be a piece of waste paper in Darmstadt. The situation here is the same as in Berlin, and I guess it's similar in Bavaria. These three are indeed brothers.

Working conditions, food, health insurance, and basic salary—these are rights that workers should have rightfully received, but now they have become the goals they have to strive for. Factory owners proclaim that good days require hard work, that good days are ahead, and that as long as they work hard, they will definitely be able to live a happy life.

The good days are yet to come, in the future. But when will those be? It's like cutting a knife on a rice bowl—it's already 99.9% done, hope seems to be just ahead, just one more cut, one more cut, one more cut...

For the sake of a vague and unattainable goal, capitalists have never given workers any real benefits. They have drained the workers dry with just a lie. These rights are what they should have and deserve, but capitalists have twisted the concept and made them their goal, an unattainable future.

Capital is inhumane; this profit-driven beast can only smell the scent of profit.

The dead are quickly forgotten by others because no one has time to mourn them. The workers are too busy to think; they need to work non-stop.

The workers have all become machines, alienated by capital. When they work, they have no expression and just mechanically repeat the same actions.

As one person dies, another will join. Germany has no shortage of workers; if you don't do it, someone else will. These newcomers will soon become cogs in the assembly line, working on it until they follow in the footsteps of their predecessors, die, and are forgotten.

Thorne recorded everything he had seen and heard in his "Report on an Investigation of the German Working Class." He had to record that these workers and these people were the foundation of the Rhine Kingdom and the basis of its strength.

The backbone of the Rhine Kingdom has never been any royal family or nobles. Charlemagne himself acknowledged that it was the people of the Rhine who lifted him onto the throne, that they elevated the Rhine Kingdom to the status of a powerful nation, and that they were the ones who gave the Rhine Kingdom the confidence and strength to face other European powers. They are the true backbone of the Rhine Kingdom.

But now the foundations of these kingdoms' strength are barely surviving at the bottom. They are bound by heavy shackles and have to carry the burden of the princes and nobles. They are praised when they need them, but despised when they don't.

They make the oxen run but don't feed them, urging them to work hard so that the kingdom will prosper, and then they blame them for not working hard enough. After all, it's better to blame others than to change yourself. These people never look for problems within themselves because they are always right.

Thorne must always remember the lives of the lower classes, understand their needs, and how they are doing.

He who wins the hearts of the people wins the world. Even if you win the world, you must continue to win the hearts of the people. Managing a country is not about completing tasks. The people are not tools. Throughout history, feudal dynasties gained the world by winning the hearts of the people, and they lost the world when they began to treat the people as tools.

A socialist country, a country established for the benefit of the people, must remember this even more. Thorne will never forget that in his time, the Soviets founded by Lenin did not fall under the iron heel of the White Army, nor under the tank torrent of the Third Reich. They did not fail in the face of foreign enemies. Who could have imagined that the Soviets would ultimately be defeated by themselves?

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union established Soviet power when it had 200 members, defeated Nazi Germany and defended its power when it had 2000 million members, but lost power when it had 20 million members.

This nation, built on ideals, this powerful red nation, terrifies its enemies not with its weapons, but with its beliefs.

When filthy and sordid desires corrupted this ideal, turning it back into a vulgar state machine, the Soviet no longer represented the people, but merely protected the interests of a small group of people at the top. The people abandoned it, and the Soviet disappeared as if it had never existed.

Although the Soviets failed, their mentor had already submitted his paper and was now at rest. But Thorne was still taking his exam; he still had to submit his paper. He couldn't rest; he had to give it his all.

Thorne now faces many challenges, the most important being how to unite the workers and gain their support. Although Germany has universal compulsory education, these workers are not highly educated. If you ask them about work-related knowledge, they may be able to answer fluently and eloquently, but if you ask them about class or struggle, they know nothing.

Ultimately, it was because the workers' minds had not been enlightened. They didn't have time to learn, they weren't fully awakened, and they didn't fight for their rights. At most, they would just strike. Goebbels gave lectures to the workers in Berlin every day to awaken them and ignite the flame of revolution in their hearts.

Thorne's primary task now is to help workers awaken. The weapon of criticism can never replace the criticism of weapons, but first we must master the weapon of criticism in order to make the criticism of weapons meaningful.

Without correct ideals and firm beliefs, even the strongest force is illusory. Even with powerful weapons, they are just a mob. Without the guidance of a unified ideology, they will soon fall into infighting, disorder, and chaos.

Having gained a preliminary understanding of the workers' needs and what they want, the next step is to encourage them to fight for and reclaim their rights.

Thorne will give the workers whatever they lack. Now they lack ideas and enlightenment, so Thorne will enlighten them and awaken them!

Thorne didn't know what the future held, but he knew it would be anything but peaceful. This was just the beginning; he had a lot to do and many unknowns to explore.

Of course, we can't rush things now; the time isn't right yet. He can't rashly start a revolution.

If he were to start a revolution now, it would inevitably fail, without a doubt. Their strength is still very weak, and they have not yet fully gained the trust of the workers.

To awaken them, Thorne took action. He wanted to organize the workers to study, but the difficulty was how to organize them to study. The workers had no time or energy to study. This place was even more tiring than the factories in Berlin. At least in Berlin, people didn't get off work at 8 p.m.

The workers had no energy left to do anything else; work had drained them. Thorne had to find another way. This place wasn't suitable for holding a book club, so he had to find another method to help the workers awaken.

During lunch break that day, the workers gathered together as usual. They had a 30-minute break every day at noon, which was the only time they could control while working.

Thorne pulled out his radio, and the others looked at the small device with some confusion, wondering what it was.

“What is this?” Williams asked Thorne.

“This is a radio,” Thorne said, turning it on.

“A radio? So small?” Williams found it somewhat unbelievable.

The radio was turned on, and the program began to broadcast.

“Our break time seems a bit boring, so I brought a radio to play some broadcasts,” Thorne said to everyone with a smile.

"Let's start a club here. We can exchange ideas and learn from each other during our breaks."

"Great idea!" Emmanuel agreed. It's good for everyone to exchange experiences and learn from each other to improve work efficiency.

"Our club needs a name, let's call it the Vanguard Team, to bravely strive to be the vanguard."

Everyone agreed to Thorne's suggestion, finding no problem with it, and thus the Vanguard Group's first training session began.

The radio was turned on, first emitting a buzzing sound, then clear sound came through, and a group of workers gathered around the radio and listened quietly.

Chapter Sixty-Eight: The Gravediggers of the Bourgeoisie

"Charlemagne's house is at the far end of the village. Two small gates face the Rhine River to the north. Between the moss-covered, gray-green chalk boulders is a long ramp leading down to the riverbank..."

The story being told on the radio was Thorne's adaptation of Sholokhov's novel "And Quiet Flows the Don," which he embellished and modified.

This book mainly tells the story of how Charlemagne unified the entire Rhineland from a small state, how he led the German people to resist Napoleon's rule and achieve independence, and how he developed the Kingdom of the Rhine into a powerful kingdom in fifteen years.

Thorne portrays Charlemagne in the book as a revolutionary who dares to rebel and fight to the end against powerful enemies, and there is a reason why Thorne included this story.

If you play those serious revolutionary theories, not to mention whether the workers can understand them or have the patience to listen, the foremen will definitely come back to cause trouble. This is like slaying dragons, and you're just playing them openly in the factory.

I'm talking about the old Emperor Charlemagne, is that alright? Can you say there's something wrong with the old emperor?

Thorne intended to plant the seeds of resistance in the hearts of these workers through these stories, gradually instilling in them a spirit of resistance and enabling them to resonate with the characters in the books. For example, when these workers heard that Napoleon was forcibly requisitioning grain from the peasants, they would curse and grumble, and when they heard that someone was rising up in resistance, they would cheer and even shout.

He wanted to gradually train these workers into qualified revolutionary fighters, teaching them to feel and to think.

At the same time, Thorne also gave Thallman a task, after all, he used to be a revolutionary, and it would be a waste for him to do nothing here.

"You need to build good relationships with the workers around you, get to know them, have more contact with them, become friends with them, unite their strength, and eventually they can trust us and spontaneously resist oppression."

“Of course.” Thallman nodded; uniting the workers was his forte.

He increasingly felt that Thorne was a truly enlightened intellectual and a member of the royal family with faith, and that every plan and idea Thorne offered was genuinely aimed at understanding and helping the workers.

“Do you know?” Thorne looked at Talman. “Marx once said that the proletariat is the gravedigger of the bourgeoisie. Those awakened individuals who have emerged from the ranks of the bourgeoisie are the ones who awaken these gravediggers. That’s what I need to do: help more people awaken and break this old era!”

Thorne, now a beneficiary of the existing system, has not tried to maintain these benefits, but instead has been working to break the current situation and re-establish a new social order.

Thallman is now completely convinced of Thorne's abilities, which is why he has been following him around to help him carry out his plans.

Thallman was indeed in this line of work; he had natural leadership skills, was eloquent and approachable, and exuded personal charm. He quickly became familiar with the workers, and those who got close to him soon became his friends.

Thorne was not idle either. He actively exchanged experiences with the workers here, asked them questions, and helped them with whatever he could.

Through his efforts, he also made many worker friends. Thorne could talk to these workers from time to time, learn about the situation in the factory, and understand their true thoughts.

These workers gradually revealed their true feelings about Thorne, cursing the working conditions and meager wages. The emotions they had been suppressing were slowly released. They would shed tears for their dead colleagues and grieve for their own situation.

They lamented the injustices, had no hope for the ever-present good days to come, and they were burning with passion, awakening.

Thorne could sense that these workers would soon take up arms and begin to fight for their rights and against oppression.

"Young man, bring me the wrench." Emmanuel waved to Thorne.

"Here you go." Thorne jogged over.

"Thanks." Emmanuel smiled at Thorne and got back to work.

"Master, how's business lately?" Thorne asked as he moved things around.

"How's it going?" Emmanuel paused for a moment, then replied, "Pretty good. I'm an eight-year veteran. Let me tell you, I even went to Frankfurt to receive an award back then."

Emmanuel began recounting his glorious history again, and once he started talking about those glorious days, he couldn't stop. Thorne just stood there listening quietly.

“But I’ve been having some worries lately,” Emmanuel sighed. “I still don’t understand what happened not long ago, and it’s really bothering me.”

Emmanron scratched his head. "I've been a skilled worker for eight years. I can tell if there's a problem with what I make just by touching it. I've never made a mistake in all this time. But guess what?"

"What's wrong?" Thorne stopped what he was doing and asked.

"Not long ago, the inspector actually sent me a list of so many defective products that month! How could this be! I couldn't have produced so many defective products even with my eyes closed. It's really strange."

"And normally, the inspectors would return the defective products and make us write a report, but that time they didn't return them, and they didn't deduct my wages. I just felt something was wrong. They could have deducted all my money for producing so many defective products, but they were so kind as to not deduct a single penny from me. It's really strange."

Emmanuel was still muttering to himself, saying that it was impossible for him to produce so many defective products. It was a matter of his dignity as a mechanic, and he was very concerned about his reputation. If he could, he would rather deduct all the money than fail to find out what went wrong with those defective products.

"You got a ticket, but no money deducted from your account?" Thorne asked after thinking for a moment.

"Well, you could say that. I really don't understand. Could they have used it for embezzlement? They're just making up losses here," Emmanuel joked.

"Embezzlement?" Thorne frowned. It didn't seem impossible, but could it be more serious than embezzlement? After all, this machinery factory was a military enterprise. Embezzlement seemed a bit too small a scale. Could there be a bigger conspiracy?

"What are you doing? Get to work!" the foreman shouted from a distance. Thorne was annoyed by his loud voice and wished he could slap him twice and curse him behind his back to make him stumble and fall as soon as he left the house.

After get off work, Thorne and his team walked down the street and began to discuss their work that day and share what they had learned.

“It’s strange. I received a note today saying that some of the things I made before were defective. But I know my own work best. How could there be defective products? I trust my own hands,” Holman said.

"You received the order too?" Thorne asked Holman.

"Yes, Your Highness."

"Suspicious, very suspicious." Thorne was becoming increasingly convinced that there was a big conspiracy going on here.

"And you?" Thorne lit a cigarette and took a puff.

“I’ve met quite a few workers, and they’re almost awakening to their current situation,” Thaler said slowly.

“Very good, now we need to calm these workers down and reassure them first.”

"Why not incite them to strike?" Thaler was puzzled. Thorne seemed to be very resistant to strikes, even though he was already mobilizing the workers. The awakened workers would definitely fight against the capitalists who oppressed them.

"And then?" Thorne asked, exhaling a puff of smoke.

"Then these workers will win and reclaim all the power that belongs to them."

"And then?" Thorne asked.

“Then, then…” Thallman was speechless for a moment, unable to answer.

“Those foremen will run far away, and then the army will come, kill those who should be killed, arrest those who should be arrested. After all these troublemakers are caught, the foremen will come back and treat the remaining workers even more harshly,” Thorne answered for him.

“Every step of the revolution must be taken very carefully, or it will be destroyed if we are not careful. We must be extremely cautious and patient. The strike can only achieve a short-term victory now. What we want is a long-term victory so that these workers can truly benefit.”

Thorne looked ahead. "The workers' anger is burning. We just need to wait for the right moment to let that anger explode!"

"What we are doing now is guiding them, making these workers fully realize that they are the true gravediggers of the bourgeoisie, and they will bury the entire old era!"

Chapter Sixty-Nine: Formalism

Thorne and Thaler returned home and found someone loitering near their house. Thorne was startled and then saw the person walking towards them.

"Your Highness."

The man bowed to Thorne and produced his identification.

"What's going on lately? Has something happened?" Thorne asked, taking the man's identification and looking at it.

"Your Highness, we have news from Minister Thomas. They have gathered some clues through their investigation," the man said respectfully.

“Hmm.” Thorne nodded, glancing around. “Nobody’s following you, is they?”

"No, Your Highness, I have already observed it."

“Let’s talk inside.” Thorne opened the door and led the Stasi agent into the house.

The Stasi agent who entered the room suddenly became alert. His body tensed up immediately, and he quickly scanned his surroundings. His expression turned serious. He sensed that there were other people in the room, hiding in the shadows.

"Your Highness, there are other people in the room." The agent stared intently ahead, reaching into the inside pocket of his coat to pull out his gun.