International

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 3 looked at how privations in the war led to increased opposition and ultimately to the development of a revolutionary situation. Part 4 looks at the revolutionary actions of the sailors, soldiers and workers in 1918, the fall of the Kaiser, and the desperate attempts of the German establishment to save their system from being overthrown.

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The German General Staff launched a final major offensive on the Western Front on 21 March 1918, in the hope of breaking through enemy lines and blockading the seaports in northern France. Despite some initial successes, its failure – at the cost of an additional million dead and wounded – made Germany’s final defeat inevitable. Already in the middle of July, the General Staff was convinced of this. In the following weeks, the army, broken militarily and demoralised, began to dislocate. Without the conclusion of an immediate armistice, it was in danger of a complete collapse.

The General Staff aim to ward off the prospect of revolution

On 29 September, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, representing the General Staff, explained the situation in all its seriousness to the Kaiser. They argued that a way must be found to involve the “parliamentary” parties in the leadership of the country, so that they appear as the ones responsible for the economic and social consequences of the defeat. In concrete terms, this meant the formation of a new government with the participation of the Social Democrats. There was no other choice, in the minds of Hindenburg and Ludendorff. It was necessary to “democratise” the regime from above in order to avoid revolution from below.

This project became a reality on October 4, 1918. The new Chancellor was to be Prince Max of Baden, the Kaiser’s cousin. Matthias Ertzberger represented the Catholic Centre Party and Philip Scheidemann represented the SPD. The main aim of the new government was to fight against any possibility of revolution, and to preserve the monarchy at all costs. While the SPD was formally opposed to the monarchy, it now found itself being part of a government whose task it was to defend it.

The prospect of an armistice could only undermine what remained of the army’s military effectiveness. Why die for a war that is already lost? Several thousand soldiers had already surrendered. Many thousands of others simply fled. For the workers, angry and desperate, a failed regime is a weak and vulnerable regime. Spontaneous demonstrations broke out everywhere. Liebknecht was released on 23 October.

For a few weeks, the German authorities thought they could obtain an “honourable peace” with the Entente. But this was an illusion. France, above all, wanted to take advantage of Germany’s defeat to impose terrible punitive measures, seize part of its territory, plunder its economy and definitively break its status as a European power. The German General Staff refused to resign itself to this humiliation and thought – yet another illusion – that it could change the balance of forces by ordering new mobilisations on land and at sea.

The revolution begins

However, when the sailors of Wilhelmshaven received the order to go to sea towards the end of October, they responded by extinguishing the boilers. A new attack on the British navy, under the present circumstances, would be militarily futile and lead to nothing less than a senseless mass slaughter. The arrest of the mutineers did not have the same effect this time as in 1917. Within a few days, several thousand sailors marched through the streets of Kiel, weapons drawn, accompanied by workers from the port area.

The military authorities ordered the few units that were still reliable to open fire on the demonstrators, several of whom were killed. The sailors defended themselves, and the loyal units fled. This was November 3, 1918. The bloody events of that day mark the beginning of the German revolution. Barely one week later, the monarchy fell.

In Cuxhaven, a general strike broke out. A “Council of Workers and Sailors” was elected rapidly and became the sole authority in the city. The same thing happened in Wilhelmshaven. In Hamburg, the “moderation” of the USPD leaders almost derailed the revolt. On 5 November, the party called for the release of the marine prisoners, but rejected the creation of a Council of Workers, Soldiers and Sailors. But thanks to the audacity of sailor Friedrich Zeiler, the USPD leadership did not prevail.

Workers’ and soldiers’ movement in Hamburg spreads rapidly

At the head of one hundred men, Zeiler seized the union offices and called for a mass demonstration for the next day. A delegation was sent to the barracks to rally the soldiers. The next day, 40,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Hamburg, and a Council composed of delegates from the factories and barracks was elected. It was led by a revolutionary named Lauffenberg. For revolutionary soldiers and sailors, the outcome of the insurrection was a matter of life and death. They could not afford to lose. It was victory, or death by firing squad.

Within hours of the capture of Hamburg, the revolution had spread to the cities of the Northwest. On the 6th, the Councils took power in Bremen, Lockstedt and Rendsburg. On the 7th, the revolution spread to Cologne, Hanover and Munich. Chemnitz, Darmstadt, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Halle, Magdeburg, Leipzig, Nuremberg, and Oldenburg, with Rostock falling on the 8th.

For the moment, at least in appearance, Berlin was still firmly in the hands of the imperial forces. There was no mass strike or mutiny in the capital, and a heavy police presence ensured the protection of public buildings. The Berlin military authorities considered that any attempt at a revolutionary uprising could be quickly and easily crushed. And yet, despite appearances, the course of events would soon show that Berlin, also, was on the verge of revolution.

Debates on how to progress the revolutionary movement

The SPD leaders feared that if nothing seemed to change at the top, the revolt that was smouldering below would surely overrun the entire country. They came to the conclusion that the Kaiser should withdraw voluntarily. Not that they envisaged the establishment of a republic. They only wanted to replace the Kaiser with another member of the royal family. Turning to Prince Max of Baden, Ebert put the problem very succinctly: “If the Kaiser does not announce his abdication, a revolution is inevitable. But this is not what I want. I hate revolution. I hate it as I hate sin.”

The leaders of the USPD, the Revolutionary trade union delegates and the Spartacists could not agree on the timing of a revolutionary offensive. Everyone knew that if it was properly organised and led, it would happen soon, anyway. Liebknecht, for his part, feared that if the revolutionaries did not take the initiative, the SPD leaders might well do so in their place, with the aim of limiting the consequences of the uprising to a simple change of façade.

Haase, the leader of the USPD, wavered. He wanted above all to restore the unity of all the Social Democrats and to return to the pre-war situation, as if the rallying of the SPD leaders to the imperialist carnage had never existed. He refused to do anything that would inhibit this reunification. The Revolutionary trade union delegates were also undecided. They seemed to have been impressed by Haase’s arguments that a revolutionary uprising was not yet “technically” possible.

State forces attack and arrest some leaders of the movement

These disagreements paralysed the revolutionary movement. Meanwhile, the regime took every opportunity to deliver a decisive blow. On 6 November, the police arrested Däumig, one of the leaders of the union delegates. And on November 7, one year to the day after the revolutionaries took power in Russia, the police dispersed a commemorative rally. The counter-revolution was trying to provoke an unplanned, disorganised revolt, in order to crush mercilessly crush it.

Finally, Liebknecht decided it was time to act, with or without the others. On the 8^th, with his Spartacist comrade Ernst Meyer, he signed a leaflet calling for the immediate organisation of the revolution. The distribution of this leaflet in the capital coincided with the issuing of a similar leaflet produced in the name of union delegates and members of the USPD.

The General Staff, for its part, had obviously overestimated the strength of the forces at its disposal, because the following day, the soldiers of the regiment known as Kaiser Alexander came out of their barracks and fraternised with the people. The soldiers from one of the barracks did in fact open fire on a crowd, killing four people, including the worker Eric Habersaath, who had played a leading role in the youth organisation of the Spartacists. Meanwhile, in virtually all the factories, workers responded to the call for a strike. It was November 9, 1918, just six days after the outbreak of the revolution by the sailors of Kiel, and the seizure of power by the German working class seemed to be within reach.

Friedrich Ebert becomes head of the government

Now the question of the composition of the government had to be resolved. Prince Max of Baden gave way to Friedrich Ebert, who became the head of government seconded by Philip Scheidemann and Otto Braun. Ebert immediately proposed the inclusion of USPD representatives, in the hope that they would protect the left flank of the new government. It is with this same objective in mind that Ebert, when asked if he would accept Liebknecht’s participation, hinted that it might well prove useful. To give the impression that the SPD leaders and the government were on the side of the workers, Vorwärts launched a belated call for a general strike, pretending to ignore the fact that it had already been underway since the early hours of the day.

The leaders of the USPD did not all have the same position on the question of participation in the Ebert government. Dittman was in favour. Ledebour was vehemently against it. Ledebour had a lot of influence among union delegates. Given these differences, the party as such could not take a stand on the question.

Armed workers march on the Imperial Palace

Liebknecht joined the armed columns marching on the Imperial Palace. Emil Eichhorn, an activist to the left of the USPD, led a group of men to the Berlin police headquarters. The soldiers protecting this strategically important building passed their weapons to Eichhorn’s men, who took control of it without difficulty. Eichhorn thus became the chief of police of the capital. About 650 political prisoners were released, including the Spartacist leader Leo Jogiches. Rosa Luxemburg, released from Breslau prison, took over the editing of Die Rote Fahne.

Some attempts at counter-revolutionary resistance, notably in front of the university and the state library, were easily dispersed. Supporters of the SPD, the USPD, Spartacists and Revolutionary trade union delegates merged into a single compact mass. The workers had control of the city.

Outside the Reichstag, a huge crowd of demonstrators chanted their demands, waving weapons and red flags. Inside, Scheidemann, meanwhile, was eating soup in the dining room. MPs and civil servants, frightened by the commotion under their windows, implored him to say something to calm the situation. Not without some irritation, according to eyewitnesses, Scheidemann slammed down his spoon and went to the balcony. He pompously declared that “everything has changed”. Ebert was now head of government, Chancellor of the Reich. But seeing that these words had little or no effect on the crowd, he added, “Long live the Republic!” Ebert, upon learning what happened, was furious. Scheidemann had no right to proclaim the republic!

Liebknecht proclaims “the Free Socialist Republic of Germany”

As Scheidemann was speaking, Liebknecht arrived at the Imperial Palace, where he delivered a speech of his own, with a very different content: “The day of the revolution has arrived. We have imposed peace. The rule of the Hohenzollerns, who lived in this castle for centuries, is over. At this hour we proclaim the Free Socialist Republic of Germany. […] We must mobilise all forces to build the government of the workers and soldiers, to establish a new state, a new order of the proletariat, an order of peace, of happiness, of freedom for our brothers in Germany and for our brothers throughout the world. We reach out to them and call on them to bring about the world revolution.”

Ebert’s anger over Scheidemann’s “disloyal” statement was a worthless and pathetic comedy. The monarchy could not possibly have survived the revolutionary events underway, under any circumstances. He must have known that all too well. On the same day, Max of Baden announced the Kaiser’s abdication to Ebert, Scheidemann and Braun. The monarchy had fallen like a rotten fruit.

Part 5 will look at the period of ‘dual power’ that followed the revolutionary events of 9 November 1918 and the questions this posed for the way forward.