By Greg Oxley
In this multi-part article, Greg Oxley looks in depth at the revolutionary period of 1917-1919 in Germany, and draws out some of the key lessons for the workers’ movement today. Part 5 looked at the period of ‘dual power’ that followed the revolutionary events of 9 November 1918 and the questions that posed for the way forward. Part 6 (the penultimate part) looks at how the government colluded with the Army to suppress the revolution and what led the revolutionary leaders to establish the communist party (KPD).
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The prevalent political tendencies in the councils varied considerably from city to city. At first, through inexperience, soldiers could not always figure out who, among all those who spoke out in favour of peace, were serious and reliable representatives and who were simply fine talkers, looking out for themselves. In some places the leading positions were occupied by Ebert’s supporters, in others, by Spartacists and, elsewhere, by half-mad adventurers. It even happened that some councils elected high-ranking army officers or bourgeois notables to represent them.
In Berlin, the USPD’s base was above all in the factories; that of the SPD among the soldiers, especially those who had just returned from the front. But the mood and ideas of the soldiers, like those of the workers, changed from day to day. The army was falling apart. Many soldiers left their barracks – taking their weapons with them – to find work. For large numbers of them, there was no work to be found. They were hungry and desperate. The SPD-dominated councils began to lose the support of the soldiers. Demonstrations and rallies organised by the Spartacists and the League of Red Soldiers attracted more and more soldiers.
The government, which had intended to set soldiers against the factories, realised that this was not working out. It sought to retain control of the councils. When the national congress of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils met in mid-December, its composition indicated that it was remote from the rank-and-file. Out of 499 delegates, only 179 were workers, whereas 235 were intellectuals, journalists, SPD officials and members of various liberal professions. The USPD was supported by 90 delegates, the Spartacists by 21. Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were not even allowed to enter the hall.
Ebert relies on help from the wartime military dictator, Hindenburg
Ebert and the SPD leaders understood that the radicalisation of workers and soldiers was undermining the position of the government. To protect themselves, they needed the support of an armed force. During the war, Hindenburg was the head of a military dictatorship at home, on behalf of the Kaiser. Now, Ebert hoped that Hindenburg would do the same for him, and help him root out the “Bolshevik” threat. The USPD commissioners supported this policy.
Thus, Ebert’s “socialist” government relied on the military High Command set up by the Kaiser to put an end to the revolution – the same High Command that, 14 years later, would appoint Adolph Hitler as Chancellor. The plan drawn up by Hindenburg and General Groener, and fully approved by Ebert, was quite clear. It was to use the troops returning from the fronts to crush the revolution. In a tribunal, in 1925, Groener outlined the essence of this plan: “Ten divisions were to march on Berlin, in order to put an end to the power of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils. Ebert agreed with that. The independents (USPD) had asked that the soldiers have no ammunition, but Ebert wanted them to be fully equipped with ammunition. We drew up a programme for cleaning out Berlin and the disarming the Spartacists. These agreements were made to eliminate the danger of Bolshevism and the council system.”
Unfortunatelyfor Hindenburg, Groener and the Ebert government, the plan failed. The relatively disciplined behaviour of the soldiers coming back from the front evaporated as soon as they got to the towns. Observing discipline was a way to return home as soon as possible. Once they arrived, however, they immediately fraternised with the workers and joined the revolution.
Another coup attempt on 6 December 1918
Another counter-revolutionary attempt took place on December 6. On that day, three senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led by Count Matushka, attempted a coup d’état, the aim of which was to eliminate the USPD from the government. They gathered several hundred soldiers in front of the Chancellery before going to Ebert’s house to proclaim him “president” of the country. Ebert, surprised, not knowing what to say, retreated to his office, saying that he needed to consult his colleagues. Already, several leaders of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council were in the hands of Matushka’s men. The office of Die Rote Fahne was occupied at the same time and in the street, another unit involved in the putsch opened fire on a Spartacist demonstration, killing sixteen people and wounding a dozen others.
But the operation, due to insufficient support, rapidly faded out. This failure forced Ebert, who had done nothing to thwart the operation, to distance himself from the fleeing putschists. But could not dispel the impression, in the minds of most of the workers, that he had let the putschhappen and abandoned its instigators only when it failed.
Liebknecht leads a massive rally against the government
The day after the military coup, Liebknecht organised a massive rally to denounce the involvement of the government. Surrounded by trucks armed with machine guns to protect the crowd, Liebknecht demanded the resignation of Ebert, Scheidemann, and Wels. On December 8, he came before the Chancellery at the head of a huge procession of 30,000 workers and soldiers, joined on the spot by 100,000 more.
Inside, the six commissars, three from the SPD and three from the USPD, stood in a room without lighting – so as not to be seen from the outside – and listened to Liebknecht address the crowd: “There they are, the traitors, the social-patriots. We have shown that we are able to find them all, but tonight I only ask to hear you say with me, long live the Social Revolution! Long live the World Revolution! Convinced that something had to be done, the commissioners sent Emil Barth, from the USPD, the most left-wing of the group, to speak from the balcony. His attempt to restore calm failed. Over the following days, USPD militants joined the Spartacists by the thousands.
The radicalisation of the soldiers and the disintegration of the army convinced the government of the need to create a special corps upon which it could rely for counter-revolutionary purposes. In the wake of the Kiel mutiny, Gustav Noske had been able to take over the leadership of the Navy Division and now wanted to turn it into a strike force at the disposal of the government. However, in the days following the failed putsch of 6 December, in which Noske’s sailors were involved, they had become reluctant to get involved. In the same way, the Republican Soldiers’ Corps, set up by Otto Wels, also showed that it could not be counted on.
The counter-revolution could not rely on ordinary soldiers and sailors
It became clear that any military units created from rank-and-file soldiers would never be a strong and reliable counter-revolutionary force. Hence the creation, on December 22, of an army of hand-picked reactionary mercenaries – the Freikorps – whose explicit mission was to drown the revolution in blood.
Within the army, there were monarchist and ultra-reactionary elements who were totally hostile to the revolution. Many professional soldiers had a mentality and political ideas close to those of the aristocracy. They had everything to lose from a revolutionary upheaval. The elite troops – or Sturmtruppen – were also a special category of military personnel. Their prestigious status and privileges made them implacably opposed to the revolution. The Freikorps were recruited from among these counter-revolutionary elements. When Noske saw the first parade of these shock troops, on January 4, 1919, he turned to Ebert and said, “We can calm down now. Everything will work out fine!”
Big battle with the sailors at Christmas 1918
From Wikimedia Commons. Attribution: Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1971-038-54 / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Their anxiety probably came from the events that occurred in the capital during the Christmas holidays. The Marine Division, under Noske’s leadership, had been entrusted with the protection of the Imperial Palace. The government, losing confidence in the reliability of the division, feared that it would turn against the government. To convince the sailors to disperse, he withheld their pay. In response to this provocation, the sailors took Otto Wels hostage on 23 December. When the sailors received their pay, they said, Wels would be released, but not before.
The government used this kidnapping as a pretext to try to disband the Navy Division. On the 24th, it sent a regiment of cavalry, led by General Lequis, against the sailors. The general ordered the sailors to disarm and surrender within two hours, but before that time expired, an artillery battery opened fire on the sailors. The sailors fought back, and were soon joined by the Republican Soldiers’ Corps which had been created by Otto Wels himself a fortnight earlier! The Security Force – the former imperial police force that has been under the leadership of Emil Eichhorn since 9 November – also came to the aid of the sailors. With 56 dead on their side, against 11 on the side of the sailors, the attackers ended up throwing away their weapons and arresting their own officers.
That same evening, the Executive Committee of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils, despite being dominated by the SPD, condemned the cavalry attack on the sailors. Several thousand revolutionary demonstrators seized the headquarters of Vorwärts, without encountering the slightest resistance. A few days later, the USPD commissioners resigned. The ground was giving way under the feet of the government. Its only hope for survival now lay in the Freikorps.
The need to create a Communist Party in Germany (the KPD)
It was against this background that the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was created on 30 December 1918.
In the tumultuous events of the German revolution, in which so many crucial political, strategic and organisational questions had come to the fore, the activity of the most clear-sighted revolutionaries had been hampered by the absence of a coherent structure with a well-defined policy, endowed with a certain internal discipline and capable, therefore, of effectively connecting with the mass of the workers.
Initiative and militant enthusiasm, alone, could not overcome the political and military obstacles facing the revolution. It is one thing for exceptional revolutionaries such as Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Leo Jogiches, Paul Frölich, Franz Mehring, or Eugen Levine to feel supported by a growing number of workers, soldiers and sailors. But it is quite another to be able to forge, from this turbulent mass, a force capable of dealing a decisive – that is to say mortal – blow to the capitalist order and laying the foundations of a socialist society.
A remarkable propagandist like Liebknecht might have had the impression, during the great days of November and December 1918, that he was in control of the “street”. He had plenty of acclaim and devotion, from cheering crowds, but, in reality, he did not even control his own organisation. The same was true of Rosa Luxemburg and her comrades. Since its beginnings, from the loose grouping around the International, the Spartacist League never showed any real political and organisational cohesion, and this seriously hindered its development. According to Paul Frölich, even after the events of 9 November, it had little more than 3,000 or 4,000 real members, scattered in a large number of local groups throughout the country, each acting more or less autonomously.
Delegates convene to create the KPD
Rosa Luxemburg finally opted for the creation of a new party after the USPD refused to convene an extraordinary conference to resolve the issues facing the party. The relatively large growth in the Spartacists‘ membership from mid-December onwards, and the expectation of an inniment and possibly decisive confrontation with the government, only increased the urgency of a firmer political and organisational foundation for the struggle.
Four days after the armed conflict at the Imperial Palace, 112 delegates, mostly Spartacists, but also from other revolutionary groupings such as the one in Bremen around Johann Knief, came together from all over the country to launch the KPD. Karl Radek represented the Bolsheviks at the congress. However, the gathering was to reveal the persistence of divergent views between the Spartacists and the other groups, on the one hand, and even among the Spartacists themselves.
Luxemburg, Jogiches, Levi and Radek argued that the party should not allow itself to get carried away by the apparent weakness of the government, to the point of seeing the seizure of power as an immediate practical task. For a seizure of power to take place, they argued, it would take much more than the support of more or less organised workers to various slogans and ideas. Rosa Luxemburg starkly warned the congress participants against premature action. True, Ebert, Scheidemann, and Noske were weakened and discredited, she said, but the masses were still far from having understood the Spartacist programme and wanting to fight actively for its realisation. She insisted that any attempt to overthrow the government, without the support of a massive and consciously revolutionary movement, would inevitably end in disaster.
Support for Luxemburg’s position
Jogiches, Levi and Radek spoke along the same lines: a “political” upheaval at the top, without the active support of a conscious revolutionary struggle, waged by the workers and soldiers in every factory, through the organisation of strikes, in every neighbourhood, in the barracks, would be doomed to failure, with catastrophic consequences for the revolution. We should not so much turn our eyes upwards, Radek said, towards the governmental sphere. Rather, it is necessary to pay attention to what is really happening at the base of the movement, to convince the ranks of the programme and objectives of the revolutionaries, and to provide them with the appropriate organisational forms, in order to put the seizure of power on solid foundations.
Rosa Luxemburg’s speech, in particular, elicited thunderous applause, and a resolution summarising her position was widely adopted by the congress. Nevertheless, for the most part, the delegates did not clearly understand or accept the implications of her position, as was shown by the discussion on the question of participation in the elections to the National Assembly. Everyone at the congress was conscious of the reactionary conspiracy behind the elections. The National Assembly would be used as a counterweight to the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils and would provide a “legitimate” rallying point for counter-revolutionary forces.
Differences over participation in elections and the Assembly
From Wikimedia Commons.
None of the Spartacists accepted the reformist illusion that it would be possible to build socialism by parliamentary means. But there were differences on the attitude to be adopted with regard to elections and participation in the Assembly. Rosa Luxemburg said the elections should be used as a means of propaganda to convince the workers of the ideas of communism and to strengthen the revolutionary movement. In a text she presented to the congress, she wrote: “We must use the elections and the platform of the Assembly […] to expose the deception and machinations of the Assembly itself, to help the masses understand its counter-revolutionary activities and, finally, to call upon them to take action for themselves.”
Paul Levi’s intervention supported Rosa Luxemburg’s arguments. He explained that revolutionaries could only refuse to participate in the National Assembly if they were able to overthrow it, which was far from being the case in the country as a whole: “Think for a moment. The Assembly will be set up. You can’t prevent it. For months now, this issue has been a central part of the country’s political life. You can’t stop people from being interested in what’s going on there. It will be present in the consciousness of the German workers, and yet you want to stay out of the Assembly and act only from the outside.”
The delegates, for the most part, were not convinced by these arguments. They were still under the spell of the events of the previous week, marked by the humiliating defeat of the Ebert government, and found it difficult to believe that the convening of the National Assembly could significantly strengthen its position. The elections were two weeks away, and some delegates even thought that the government could be overthrown before then. For others, much more numerous, the Assembly would be nothing more than a diversion, a new “political corpse” to use Franz Mehring’s expression.
Revolutionary impatience and ultra-leftism
The debates and the general atmosphere of the congress were marked by revolutionary impatience and the ultra-leftism that stemmed from it. Thus, many delegates endorsed the idea of leaving the trade union organisations, considering that they were intrinsically reformist. This ultra-leftism and the fear of “putschist” behaviour led to the departure of the Revolutionary trade union delegates, who had initially planned to join the new party. This was a serious reversal, and meant that the KPD had to engage in its activities without the direct collaboration of some of the best and most influential elements of the working class.
Part 7 will look at how the government carefully engineered a provocation of the movement in January 2019 which they followed through with the murder of many workers as well as Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.
