The German Revolution and
Political Theory
Gaard Kets and James Muldoon
London: Palgrave, 2019
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Department of Political Science at the
Radboud University Nijmegen for the translation of Yohan Dubigeon’s “A Theory of Council
Democracy.” We also thank Olivier Ruchet for his excellent translation of this chapter.
We are also grateful for permission to republish material from the following works:
Stephen Eric Bronner, “Persistent Memories of the German Revolution: The Jewish Activists of 1919,”
New Politics (1995) 5 (2).
Ralf Hoffrogge, Working Class Politics in the German Revolution: Richard Müller, the Revolutionary
Shop Stewards and the Origins of the Council Movement (London: Brill, 2014).
CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Gaard Kets and James Muldoon, “The “Forgotten” German Revolution: A Conceptual
Map”
Section 1. Rethinking the Revolution
Chapter 2. Helen Boak, “Women in the German Revolution”
Chapter 3. Robert Heynen, “The German Revolution and the Radical Right”
Chapter 4. Donny Gluckstein, “Revolutionary Berlin – Fulcrum of the Twentieth Century”
Chapter 5. Gaard Kets, “Working Class Politics in the Bremen Council Republic”
Chapter 6. Nicholas Vrousalis, “Revolutionary Principles and Strategy in the November
Revolution: The Case of the USPD”
Section 2. Political Theorists of the German Revolution
Chapter 7. Marius Ostrowski, “Eduard Bernstein and the Lessons of the German Revolution”
Chapter 8. Michael J. Thompson, “Karl Kautsky and the Theory of Socialist Republicanism”
Chapter 9. Mayra Cotta, “Democracy and Dictatorship: Rosa Luxemburg’s Path to Revolution”
Chapter 10. Ralf Hoffrogge, “Richard Müller, Ernst Däumig and the “Pure” Council System”
Chapter 11. Christian Bartolf and Dominique Miething, “Gustav Landauer and the Revolutionary
Principle of Non-Violent Non-Cooperation”
Chapter 12. Stephen Eric Bronner, “Persistent Memories: Jewish Activists in the German
Revolution”
Section 3. The German Revolution in Contemporary Political Theory
Chapter 13. Yohan Dubigeon, “A Theory of Council Democracy”
Chapter 14. Paul Mazzocchi, “Insurgent Democracy and the German Councils”
Chapter 15. Shmuel Lederman, “Forgotten Uprisings and Silent Dialogues: Hannah Arendt and
the German Revolution”
Chapter 16. Paulina Tambakaki, “Rosa Luxemburg on the Dialectic of Spontaneous and Party
Politics”
Chapter 17. James Muldoon, “The Birth of Council Communism”
List of Figures and Tables
Table 6.1— USPD positions on the national assembly.
Figure 3.1— Propaganda poster for the Association for Combatting Bolshevism (1919). The text reads:
"Down with Bolshevism. Bolshevism brings war and ruin, hunger and death."
Figure 10.1— Outline of a pure council system.
The “Forgotten” German Revolution: A Conceptual Map
Gaard Kets and James Muldoon
1
The German Revolution of 1918-1919 marks an important turning point in European
politics, yet it remains neglected in historical scholarship. This oversight is surprising given
its significant impact on the history of Europe and indeed the world. The revolution led to the
end of the First World War, transformed the German Kaiserreich into a fledgling democratic
republic, and created a spiral of conflict and violence that ultimately contributed to the rise of
Nazism (Jones 2016, p. 4). The lack of popular memory of this historic event led a recent
editor to name this political transformation of Germany the “Forgotten Revolution” (Gallus
2010). Older German textbooks often mention the defeat of Germany in the war and the
establishment of the Weimar Republic without reference to the period of upheavals and
political contestation that occurred in between (Pelz 2018, p. xix). What remains neglected is
the key role a mass movement of soldiers and workers played in challenging the German
Admiralty and bringing an end to the war. It was primarily through the political agency of
ordinary people that Germany was transformed from an autocratic and deeply hierarchical
society into a democratic republic with universal suffrage and social rights. However, the
revolution was immediately overshadowed by the seismic events of the rise of Nazism and the
Second World War. The centenary anniversary of the revolution offers an opportunity to
reflect on this important event and to take stock of the significance of the revolution on the
development of political thought.
This book aims to examine the political theorists and actors of the German Revolution
in order to assess their contribution to the history of political thought and to contemporary
debates in political theory. The intention is to fill the current lacuna in historical knowledge of
the political thought of this period. We claim that the German Revolution was a decisive
event that challenged many of the assumptions of socialist thought and led to a wide range of
new political strategies, theoretical insights and institutional proposals. Returning to the
political events of the German Revolution enables a more nuanced understanding of the
2
development of political thought during this era. It sheds light on important developments as
they unfolded in Europe following the collapse of the Second International and the growing
division of international socialist thought. It also broadens the terms of debate from a
canonical set of socialist theorists (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky) to other important
contributors to left-wing political thought. In geographic terms, it expands the focus of
political analysis from the Russian Revolution to consider the widespread revolutionary
struggles occurring across Europe from 1917-1923. Important political debates were
occurring in Berlin, Bremen, Munich, Hamburg, Amsterdam and Vienna, which were all
closely connected to political events as they unfolded in Germany and neighbouring states. It
also challenges the view of “Orthodox Marxism” as a fixed and stable ideology characterised
by economic determinism and teleological development. Re-examining debates between Karl
Kautsky, Eduard Bernstein and Rosa Luxemburg, among others, calls into question the view
that the Second International had a single official doctrine that was widely accepted within the
European socialist parties.
In the early twentieth century, socialists across Europe expected Germany to
spearhead the international revolution. With the largest and most organised industrial working
class in the world, Germany had been anticipated by Marx and Engels in The Communist
Manifesto to be the most likely starting point for a proletarian revolution. Germany was, in
both strategic and symbolic terms, the centrepiece of socialist plans for ushering in an age of
world revolution. Lenin (1965, p. 72) famously noted that “without revolution in Germany we
shall perish.” Trotsky (1964, p. 140) also considered that “[o]nly the victory of the proletariat
in the West would protect Russia from bourgeois restoration and ensure the establishment of
socialism.”
The establishment of a democratic republic in Germany created a political order that
was more democratic than any previous system in Germany. Yet the failure to achieve a
3
socialist society had dramatic effects on the course of the Russian Revolution and the
possibilities of the international spread of socialism. Arguably it was the defeat of the German
Revolution rather than the success of the Russian that proved more influential over the
development of Western Marxism, initiating a “dialectic of defeat” that generated a variety of
alternative Marxisms (Jacoby 2002). From Antonio Gramsci to Karl Korsch, Georg Lukács
and the Frankfurt School, the need to explain why socialist revolution had failed in Europe
occupied a central position in their political analyses. The German Revolution was an
unstable and contradictory period in which hopes for political transformation were
intermingled with fears of violence and a longing for peace and stability. This book returns to
this important event in order to examine its impact on the development of political thought.
Historical Introduction
The extended suffering created by the First World War placed enormous pressure on
the legitimacy of state governments, which eventually led to the fall of the Russian Tsar in
February 1917. The rise of Bolshevism sent out shockwaves across Europe and threatened the
military elite which had been governing Germany throughout the war. The year of 1918
witnessed a rapid intensification of political and social tensions in Germany that divided
German society and led to increased pressure to end the war. While emperor Wilhelm II had
appointed liberal aristocrat, Prince Max von Baden, as the new Chancellor to lead peace
negotiations with the Allied Powers, the German Admiralty was vehemently opposed to an
unconditional surrender. On 24 October 1918, Reinhardt Scheer, Chief of Naval Staff, issued
an order for the navy fleet in Kiel to engage in a final Todesfahrt [suicide mission] against the
superior British Royal Navy. The sailors in Kiel refused and mutinied against their officers,
and were soon accompanied by revolutionary soldiers and workers. By the evening of 4
November 1918, the city of Kiel had been taken by the revolutionaries.
4
What started as a localised mutiny quickly spread across the country through workers’
and soldiers’ councils and led to the abdication of the Kaiser and the declaration of a republic
on 9 November 1918. Indicative of the divided nature of the revolutionary forces, two
separate declarations were announced on the same day. The first was by Philipp Scheidemann
of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD)
who pronounced Germany a republic from a window of the Reichstag in Berlin, against the
wishes of politically conservative SPD party leader, Friedrich Ebert, who held hopes that the
monarchy might still be preserved (Jones 2016, p. 13). The second declaration was by
revolutionary socialist and member of the Spartacus League, Karl Liebknecht, who declared
Germany a free socialist republic from the Royal Palace in the same city (Kuhn 2012, p. 27).
The revolution took both the authorities and revolutionaries by surprise, leaving
established political parties and trade unions struggling to come to terms with the rapid pace
of unfolding events. It was initially met with praise by liberals and progressives, although
there were also fears about the potential for violence and bloodshed. Theodor Wolff, liberal
editor of the Berliner Tageblatt, wrote:
The greatest of all revolutions, like a suddenly rising storm, has crushed the Imperial regime with
everything that belonged to it, above and below. It can be called the greatest of all revolutions, because
never has such a sturdily built, solidly walled Bastille been taken in such a siege. Only a week ago there
was a military and civil administrative apparatus that was so branched, so interlinked, so deeply
ingrained that it seemed to have secured its rule beyond the changing of times. The grey cars of the
officers were speeding through the streets of Berlin, in the squares stood policemen like the pillars of
power, a giant military organization seemed to embrace everything, a seemingly invincible bureaucracy
sat enthroned in the offices and ministries. Yesterday morning, at least in Berlin, everything was still
there. Yesterday afternoon, none of it existed anymore (Wolff 1918).
Soldiers and workers had spontaneously formed councils, which held de facto power
across the country during the initial weeks of the revolution. The day after the declaration of
the republic, elections were held in the Circus Busch assembly hall, which led to the creation
5
of two new institutions. The first was a Council of People’s Deputies, consisting of six
deputies, which acted as a provisional government. The second was the Executive Council of
the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils, which was chaired by Revolutionary Shop Steward
Richard Müller, and represented the power that had developed within the council movements.
The Executive Council had the authority to appoint and dismiss the six People’s Deputies and
the right to supervise the operation of the ministries, but in practice, the Council of People’s
Deputies assumed governmental functions and often disregarded resolutions made in the
Executive Council. The growing discord between the moderate People’s Deputies, largely
controlled by the SPD, and the more radical leaning Executive Council was the source of
ongoing political tension.
The primary political division of the progressive forces was between the SPD
leadership, led by Friedrich Ebert, who sought to prevent the development of a more radical
revolution along the lines of the Bolshevist model, and radical council delegates, who pushed
for the democratisation and socialisation of the country. The SPD were influenced by the
threat of a Bolshevisation of the German Revolution and a descent into what they called
“Russian conditions” of violence and scarcity. On 9 November 1918, Ebert made a secret pact
with General Groener to prevent more radical reforms in exchange for Ebert’s protection of
the privileged position of the armed services. This deal was to prove decisive in the struggle
over the future form of the German state and the relationship between the council movements
and existing state authorities. Friedrich Ebert issued a statement on 10 November 1918 for all
government officials to remain at their posts. In practice, various compromises were reached
in different local settings between workers’ councils and local authorities, with the vast
majority of officials remaining in place and many councils exercising only “control” functions
over their activities. This meant that while the councils retained the right of a final say in the
6
activities of government officials, in practice, these officials continued to carry out their work
as before.
The SPD and the radicals were divided over plans for the future German state. The
Ebert leadership argued for the creation of a parliamentary republic without significant
changes to the economic system or military. The radical delegates, on the other hand,
advocated for power to be placed in a council system controlled by worker delegates with
imperative mandates subject to immediate recall. They considered that more thoroughgoing
measures of democratisation to the civil service, army and workplaces would be necessary to
ensure the creation of a socialist republic. This question of “National Assembly or Council
System” was to be decided at the First German Congress of Workers and Soldiers’ Councils,
which commenced on 16 December 1918. The weeks between the start of the revolution in
November 1918 and the National Congress in December 1918 are often characterised as the
first phase of the German Revolution.
When representatives from the councils met at the Congress, a large majority
supported the Social Democrats’ policy of organising elections for a national parliament
which were to take place on 19 January 1919. The provisional government had been divided
between delegates of the majority faction SPD and a minor party, the Independent Socialist
Party of Germany (Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, USPD), which
had split from the SPD during the war. Growing disputes between the SPD and USPD led to
the USPD leaving the joint provisional government, which increased instability and led to
more anti-government demonstrations in early January. The outcome of the Congress
outraged radicals who thought that the revolution had been betrayed by the SPD leadership. In
January 1919, many left radicals united in the newly founded German Communist Party
(Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, KPD) and decided to boycott the upcoming
parliamentary elections. This second phase of the revolution was characterised by bloody
7
confrontations between the central government and revolutionaries. As part of the “Spartacus
Uprisings” in January 1919, the Social Democrats’ newspaper office was occupied by armed
workers leading Ebert’s government to issue orders to crush the rebellion with force. Several
days later Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were arrested and killed by far right
paramilitary Freikorps that cooperated with government troops. It remains disputed the extent
to which the SPD ordered or approved of these specific executions.
In the National Assembly on 19 January 1919 a majority of voters supported nonsocialist parties, although the SPD achieved the highest vote of any party with 163 seats and
37.9% of the vote. The assembly sat in Weimar to avoid the revolutionary tumult of Berlin
and drafted a Constitution which came into effect in August 1919. The communists regarded
the revolution as derailed and betrayed and were dismayed by the role of the Social
Democratic Party. The Social Democrats, on the other hand, also distanced themselves from
the revolutionary origins of their government, in order to present themselves as a serious,
mature governing party. Illustrative of this contested legacy of the German Revolution,
Germany’s founding was never celebrated on the 9 November, but with a national
Verfassungstag [Constitution Day] on 11 August, commemorating the day President Friedrich
Ebert signed the new constitution in 1919 (Gallus 2010, p. 17).
Political Parties during the Revolution
The political ideologies of participants in the German Revolution have not been
unpacked with the same rigour and insight as other key historical eras. While differences
between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks or the Federalists and anti-Federalists are well
known in political theory, the same could not be said about the strategic and ideological
differences between political parties and groups – the SPD, USPD, Spartacus League and
Revolutionary Shop Stewards – who played significant roles in the German Revolution.
8
The largest socialist party in Germany, the SPD, had split in 1916 over ongoing
conflicts about the war in April 1914 into a majority group (the SPD) and a minority group
(the USPD, founded in 1917). The USPD contained members who represented a broad
constellation of radical political ideologies. At one end, the International Group (renamed
Spartacus League on 11 November 1918) and left-wing radicals (Linksradikalen) from
Bremen and Hamburg were formally members of the USPD, although they frequently
organised independently of the party and split from the party on 31 December 1918 to form
the Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschland, KPD). The
Revolutionary Shop Stewards were a group of organised labourers in Berlin, probably
numbering 80-100, who were formally members of the USPD, but also acted independently.
We identify six main ideological formations during the first weeks of the Revolution:
1. The pro-Russian Spartacus Group with the Bremen and Hamburg radicals
2. The Revolutionary Shop Stewards (left-wing USPD)
3. The Marxist “centre” of Karl Kautsky and Hugo Haase (right-wing USPD)
4. The Ebert-Scheidemann-led SPD
5. Liberal and progressive political parties
6. Conservative and restorative forces in support of the old Empire
The Spartacus League, whose most notable members included Rosa Luxemburg, Karl
Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, Paul Levi and Leo Jogiches, were a radical faction within the USPD
who had opposed the war and organised anti-war protests and strikes. Their goal during the
revolution was to create a council republic along the lines of the Bolshevik model. They
called for the “replacement of all political organs and authorities of the former regime by
delegates of the workers’ and soldiers’ councils” (Luxemburg 1918). Their program at the
outset of the revolution was to empower workers’ councils and act with haste to destroy the
power base of the old elite. They believed that the realisation of socialism required
9
widespread social and political transformation carried out by the masses. For this reason, they
opposed the establishment of a national assembly as an attempt by the bourgeoisie to limit the
ongoing spread of the revolution and hinder efforts to transform Germany into a socialist
republic. On 20 November, The newspaper of the Spartacus League, Die Rote Fahne,
published the following:
The national assembly is a means to rob the proletariat of its power, to paralyze its class dynamics, and
to let its socialist objective evaporate in blue haze. The alternative is to put all power into the hands of
the proletariat, to turn the revolution into a decisive class struggle, and to pave the way for a socialist
society. For this purpose, the political rule of the great masses of the workers, the dictatorship of the
workers’ and soldiers’ councils, has to be established. One is either for or against socialism, for or
against the national assembly—there is no in between (Quoted in Kuhn 2012, p. 71).
In contrast to the Spartacists, the left-wing radicals in Hamburg and Bremen had
remained outside the USPD and in fact opposed the Spartacists who did join. The radicals
organised around the journal Arbeiterpolitik (Workers’ Politics, founded in the summer of
1916). Its editor was Johann Knief who published articles of theorists such as Anton
Pannekoek and Karl Radek. As a result, the radicals were weary of disciplined and centralised
party leadership and instead advocated independent, bottom-up working class action and
thought. Instead of party and union, the International Communists of Germany (Internationale
Kommunisten Deutschlands, IKD), as the group called itself from 10 November 1918
onwards) called for the creation of ‘unity organisations’ that combined party and union in one.
During the first month of the revolution, this led to a distance between the Spartacists and
radicals, until they finally decided to merge in the final days of 1918 (Engel 2017).
The Revolutionary Shop Stewards held a similar position to the Spartacus League
insofar as they also advocated for the establishment of a council republic, but there were
differences in their approach to tactics and strategy. Karl Liebknecht criticised the Stewards
for meeting secretly, acting as an underground group and failing to publicise their
10
revolutionary activities. In turn, the Stewards argued that they had an organised base of
workers who they could turn out to protests, whereas the Spartacus League lacked a strong
following amongst the workers and consistently failed to mobilise large numbers of workers
(Müller 2012, p. 78; Jones 2016, p. 82). The Revolutionary Shop Stewards were strongly
rooted in the factory floors and amongst an organised and skilled section of the workers,
particularly metal workers, who had proved significant in revolutionary actions in Berlin.
With notable members including Richard Müller, Ernst Däumig and Emil Barth, the Stewards
held one seat on the Council of People’s Delegates (Barth) and the chair of the Executive
Council (Müller).
They issued their political program on 17 November 1918, which set out the following
guidelines for the revolution:
Workers and soldiers have removed the old governmental system. In the revolutionary organization of
the workers’ and soldiers’ councils the new state power is taking shape. This power must be secured
and expanded so that the achievements of the revolution will benefit the entire working class. This
cannot happen by transforming the German state into a bourgeois democratic republic. The German
state has to become a proletarian republic on the grounds of a socialist economy. The wish of the
bourgeoisie to elect and install a national assembly as soon as possible is destined to rob the workers of
the fruits of the revolution (Müller 2012b, p. 33).
While the Spartacus League never developed institutional designs of a council system,
Müller and Däumig produced a number of models during 1919 for a “pure” council system,
which they published in their journal, Der Arbeiter-Rat (The Workers’ Council) among other
publications (Hoffrogge 2014, p. 109). The council system was intended to replace liberal
parliamentary institutions with a dual system of economic and political councils that would be
organised in a pyramidal scheme. They argued that the current revolutionary workers’
councils could become state institutions which would only be open to workers and would
represent the dominance of the working class.
The USPD contained another faction represented by Hugo Haase, Karl Kautsky, and
11
Rudolf Hilferding. This right-wing faction with the USPD split with the SPD, but did not
support the establishment of a full council system. They supported a national assembly, but
also saw a role for the workers’ councils in a parliamentary republic. Hilferding argued that a
continuation of a council system would exclude other classes from participation in
government and was not a superior alternative to universal suffrage and parliamentary
democracy. The council system suffered from problems of democratic exclusion with
peasants, the unemployed, women engaged in unpaid labour and some professions excluded
from decision-making. He also argued that in strategic terms it would likely lead to terror and
civil war. In “National Assembly and Council Assembly,” Karl Kautsky also argued for the
benefits of elections with universal suffrage to a national assembly, but saw an ongoing role
for workers’ councils in a parliamentary republic:
it is no less important that the popular masses energetically participate in this activity, strengthening the
power of the representatives in parliament and spurring on their zeal with constant pressure from
without. ... Moreover, the workers councils are uniquely competent to safeguard proletariat class
interests ... the actual workers’ councils would retain important political functions. … Therefore it is not
a question of either national assembly or workers councils, but both (Kautsky 1986, pp. 100-101).
Kautsky believed that workers’ councils would establish an important basis for
institutionalised pressure from below on parliamentary institutions in addition to advocating
for the interests of workers. The right-wing USPD supported socialisation, but argued for a
more cautious approach than the Spartacus League and emphasised the need for careful
planning and an increase in overall levels of production. Yet during the revolution, this group
exercised little influence as they were isolated between moderates and radicals with only a
limited connection to organised workers.
The party that exercised the most decisive influence over the course of the revolution
was the SPD. Led by Friedrich Ebert and Philipp Scheidemann, the SPD controlled three of
the seats of the Council of People’s Deputies and a majority of delegates who attended the
12
National Congress in December 1918. The following pamphlet details their support for
elections to a national assembly:
Every day that delays the constituent national assembly also delays peace, prolongs the occupation of
German territory, and deepens the food crisis. If we want bread, we need peace. If we want peace, we
need the constituent national assembly and freely elected representatives of the German people. Peace,
freedom, and bread were the goals of the proletarian uprising of November 9. Peace, freedom, and bread
were the demands that brought victory. Those who prevent the constituent national assembly from
forming rob the workers of peace, freedom, and bread; they take away the immediate fruits of the
revolution; they are counterrevolutionaries (Quoted in Kuhn 2012, p. 66).
Their goal was for the return to peace and order through a parliamentary democracy
supported by independent trade unions, but with little change to the army, civil service of
workplaces. They sought to avoid comprehensive structural reforms and opted instead for
limited social reforms such as an 8-hour workday, unemployment benefits and increased
protections for labourers. The SPD strove to direct the election away from revolutionary
transformation and “as rapidly as possible into the calmer channel of an election campaign”
(Kolb 1988, p. 11).
The SPD were supported by the liberal and progressive parties of the middles class
who saw the SPD as the best vehicle to deliver parliamentary elections and to avoid more
thorough-going economic reforms. There were a number of liberal and progressive parties
who changed their name immediately after the revolution. Parts of the National Liberal Party
and the Progressive People’s Party combined to form the German People’s Party, while other
members of these groups formed the German Democratic Party. The liberal parties all
supported calls for a national election and opposed the continuation of the workers’ councils.
Richard Müller noted that “they demanded quiet, order, security, individual freedom, freedom
of conscience, protection of private property, protection of the middle class, etc.” (Müller
2012b, p. 72).
13
There was a strong influence of neo-Kantian philosophy amongst liberals as well as
social democrats, which had developed in academic circles. According to this ideology,
workers were new citizens that were given control over their lives through new rights of selfgovernment. The Weimar Republic was based on the enlightenment ideals associated with
this body of thought, which conceived of citizens as endowed with certain rights and
responsibilities. Carl Lindow wrote in Vorwärts on 22 December 1918 of the “Revolution
Verpflichtet!” [duty-bound Revolution]: “Restrictions, to which one voluntary decides, bear
only half the weight of forced ones. Therefore be moderate with wage demands!” (Lindow
1918). There was an expectation amongst liberals that workers would become new citizens
able to participate in a system of self-governance and self-control (Föllmer 2018). One
strategy of the liberal bourgeoisie was to develop councils, committees and interest groups
that mimicked the revolutionary forms of organisation of the working class. Although the
main aim of most of these organisations was to steer the revolution towards a national
assembly and to resist the power of the radical workers’ councils, there were groups of
liberals and democrats that were genuinely concerned with democratising German politics and
saw a future for councils in the new German state (Bieber 1992).
Other centrist and right-leaning parties also stood for election to the National
Assembly. The SPD joined into a coalition with the German Democratic Party and the
German Centre Party to form the first government of the Weimar era. Richard Müller argued
that there was a degree of opportunism in the actions of many of the liberal and centrist
parties at the time:
Only four weeks before the revolution, these people still opposed general, equal, and secret
suffrage. Suddenly, their love for equal rights and democracy—the ‘fundamental rights of the
people’—knew no boundaries. This, of course, included dramatic demands to respect their
own rights as “equals”; after all, each citizen had a right to express his opinion in speech and
writing (Müller 2012b, p. 72).
14
Finally, there were still groups within Germany that held restorative ambitions and
supported the monarchy and the old institutions and values of the German Empire. The
German National People’s Party drew supporters from rural populations but also conservative
forces in Germany’s eastern provinces. It was supported by the large industrialists and
Junkers and also catered to anti-Semitic sentiment in the middle classes. Although it
outwardly supported a parliamentary republic in 1918, during 1919 it quickly cemented into
an anti-Weimar party.
Historiography of the German Revolution
There are a number of early German studies on the councils dating from the 1920s (Bernstein
1921; Gutmann 1922; Müller 1924-1925). However, after the 1920s, studies of the German
Revolution suffered a significant decline. In the years up to and immediately following the
Second World War, the revolution in Germany remained a largely neglected topic of research
for historians. Walter Tormin’s (1954) excellent study remains an exception. He argued that
the takeover of power by Bolsheviks had never been a serious danger in Germany and that the
councils were actually an attempt to radically democratise German society. In the 1960s,
historians such as Kolb (1962), Oertzen (1963) and Rürup (1968) began to demonstrate that
the German revolutionaries were animated not by a desire to follow the example of the
Russian Revolution, but to democratise authority structures and increase citizen control over
social institutions. The wave of publications in the 1960s coincided with the fiftieth
anniversary of the councils and was inspired by the growth of the student and democratic
movements at the time. These publications sought new interpretations of the revolutionary
movements as a way of exploring different possibilities for democratic socialist politics.
However, after this short burst of publications, there was again a decline in historical
scholarship.
15
With the exception of a few important studies by Ulrich Kluge (1975), Wolfgang
Mommsen (1978) and Heinrich August Winkler (1984), there has only been a recent revival
of historical interest in the German Revolution (Niess 2013, Führer et al 2013). Ralf
Hoffrogge (2014) published a groundbreaking study of Richard Müller and the Revolutionary
Shop Stewards. Mark Jones (2016) examined the role of fear and violence in the German
Revolution, with a meticulous study of newspapers and egodocuments written during the
events. William A. Pelz (2018) highlighted the important role played by ordinary citizens in
the uprising and has stressed that the council movements were animated by the passions and
desires of everyday workers. With the centenary of the revolution in 2018, the revolutionary
events of 1918-1919 will inevitably be viewed from a new historical lens. Some interesting
new pathways for historical research are the issue of gender and the revolutionary subject,
questions of media and communications, and questions of culture, symbolism and rhetoric in
the revolution (Stalmann 2016). However, little of this historical research on the German
Revolution has focussed specifically on the political theories of the Revolution or examined
its contribution to contemporary debates.
Structure of the Book
The book is divided into three sections reflecting different thematic concerns. The first
section contains chapters that offer a new historical perspective on the revolution, seeking to
open new issues up to theoretical analysis. The chapters in this section analyse topics and
areas traditionally overlooked within the historiography. For example, the German Revolution
is often told (by men) as a tale of a male revolutionary subject, which overlooks women’s
important contribution to revolutionary events. In the first chapter, Helen Boak seeks to divert
attention away from the focus on male revolutionary leaders and politicians by examining the
crucial role of women in revolutionary events. The chapter investigates the role of activist
women in Berlin, Munich, Brunswick; as well as women in the Spartacus Group, later the
16
German Communist Party, and the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany. It also
considers women’s action as part of large street protests and in middle-class women’s
associations. The overall objective is to provide women with a more prominent place in the
historical narrative of the German Revolution.
Robert Heynen contends that the German Revolution gave rise to new forms of
organising on the radical right through the role of right-wing paramilitary units (Freikorps) in
suppressing the revolutionary socialists. The political violence which followed from this event
was shaped by the homosocial and profoundly misogynist culture of the right, which had roots
in a longer colonial history. German colonialist narratives were bound up with anti-socialist
discourse and found powerful expression in the revolutionary period of 1918-21. With many
of the Freikorps having served in colonial wars, the radical right movements adopted quasiexterminationist political economic and biopolitical strategies towards the left, while at the
same time attempting to form a new “socialism” for the right.
The significance of the German Revolution is also often downplayed as a betrayed
revolution which failed to have a significant influence on world events. Donny Gluckstein
argues that the German Revolution had a decisive impact on twentieth century European
politics and should also be given a greater prominence in the development of socialist
political thought. At the centre of the German Revolution, he argues, was organised
metalworkers in Berlin. He returns to events as they unfolded in factories in Berlin and
examines the role of Revolutionary Shop Stewards in organising workers and the striving
towards a council republic. Gluckstein claims that it was the defeat of the so-called
“Spartacist putsch” involving communists against the Social Democratic-backed military
forces that sealed the fate of Germany’s revolution.
Political narratives of the revolution also focus on events in Berlin without adequate
examination of other political struggles that occurred outside the capital, which were shaped
17
by their own local histories and political divisions. Gaard Kets analyses the minutes of
meetings of councils in Bremen in addition to eyewitness accounts and newspaper coverage to
examine the early experiences of council delegates and their self-conceptualisation of their
political activities. Kets demonstrates that the development of council communist ideology
emerged along three sets of political questions: firstly, how should the councils function,
particularly in relation to other political institutions? Secondly, how should the demos be
constituted? Thirdly, what should be the structure of a post-revolutionary society? The chapter
shows that initially workers and soldiers came to their own conclusions with only limited
influence from party theorists and intellectuals.
The political conflict that occurred between the SPD leadership and the Spartacus
Group is well known, but more research is needed on the politics of the USPD, whose
factions and political conflicts have received far less attention within the scholarship.
Nicholas Vrousalis undertakes a reassessment of the principles and strategies of the USPD
during the revolution. Following Arthur Rosenberg, he argues that a third option outside of
the “national assembly versus council republic” debate was possible in November 1918,
which he labels “council Erfurtianism.” This consisted of a parliament sitting alongside
workers councils with universal suffrage, an eight-hour day and protections of civil rights.
The right-wing of the USPD (Haase, Hilferding, Kautsky) supported such a program and did
not hold as many substantive differences of principle with the left-wing of the USPD, as has
usually been assumed. Vrousalis contends that such differences were mainly over political
strategy rather than a vision of a post-capitalist society. In addition, he argues that USPD Left
and Right shared a conception of revolutionary principles which differentiated them both
from the Bolsheviks. The historical contextualisation of the political experiences of the early
council movements that occurs in the first section of the book serves as a valuable building
block for the later theoretical chapters.
18
The second section of the book analyses the theoretical contribution of key socialist
theorists in Germany with a particular focus on their writings during and around the German
Revolution. In the cases of Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky, the issue is that their
contributions to the politics of the German Revolution have been overlooked even while both
are recognised as important political figures within the socialist movement. Bernstein has
traditionally been seen to have said little of originality or significance after the “reform or
revolution” debates of the 1890s, while Kautsky has been dismissed by revolutionary
socialists as a “renegade” and liberal by the time of the German Revolution. Both of these
assumptions are challenged. In this section, we also republish an important contribution
analysing the overlooked political group, the Revolutionary Shop Stewards, and their
theorisation of a council system during the German Revolution. Rosa Luxemburg’s writings
are mined for her insights into revolutionary strategy based on an analysis of her writings on
the Russian and German revolutions. Gustav Landauer and other Jewish intellectuals also
receive treatment in this section for their role as leading political theorists of the revolution.
Marius Ostrowski demonstrates that Eduard Bernstein played a central role in the
German Revolution, which re-ignited old questions of “reform or revolution” that had split
the social democratic movement since the 1890s. Bernstein was a treasury minister in the
interim Council of People’s Deputies during the early days of the revolution and published
several theoretical and historical works after the revolution reflecting on its consequences.
Ostrowski argues that Bernstein made several advances on his early reformism but maintained
a consistent position of opposition to violent revolution and preference for a gradualist
approach to social and political reform. The chapter outlines Bernstein’s (highly prophetic)
admonitory comments regarding the threats facing the Republic, and suggests that similar
concerns continue to confront progressive politics today.
19
Michael J. Thompson returns to Karl Kautsky’s theory of a socialist republic
developed in a number of texts during the German Revolution. He defends Kautsky’s vision
of a socialist republic and compares it to contemporary theories of radical democracy, finding
Kautsky’s theory a more robust and compelling alternative. He also defends Kautsky’s idea of
the “democratic-proletarian method” as a means for social transformation and the
democratisation of society and state. The chapter ends with a critique of postmodern theories
of radical democracy and defends a return to class as a means to re-animate socialist political
theory.
Mayra Cotta argues that Luxemburg’s central theoretical contribution during the
German Revolution was to outline a method of revolutionary transformation in which the
socialist revolution was understood not merely as a struggle for institutional power, but as the
construction of a new way of life and new cultural understandings which would guarantee the
liberation of a people’s “spirit.” Rather than envisaging the revolution as a single act,
Luxemburg imagined a long process of economic and social change in which an active and
mobilised population would overthrow the bourgeois social order and create new institutional
and cultural forms for a post-capitalist society. For this process not to collapse into civil war
or counter-revolution, it was essential for Luxemburg that it be carried out by a majority of
workers with a commitment to basic political freedoms and democratic socialist institutions.
Ralf Hoffrogge offers an overview of the activities of the Revolutionary Shop
Stewards within the council movements and reconstructs the theoretical model of council
socialism outlined by Richard Müller and Ernst Däumig in their newspaper, Der Arbeiter-Rat
[The Workers’ Council], established in February 1919. Hoffrogge explores their writings on a
“pure council system” which were developed out of the practices of the workers’ councils.
These writings constitute the first attempt to sketch a lasting institutionalisation of the council
system as an alternative to parliamentary democracy.
20
Christian Bartolf and Dominique Miething examine a long tradition of non-violent
non-cooperation which stretches back to Étienne de La Boétie’s conceptualisation of the
problem of “voluntary servitude” and which finds expression in Kurt Eisner’s organising
efforts for the Bavarian Revolution of 1918 and in Gustav Landauer’s leading role in the
Munich Council Republic of April 1919. In addition to analysing its influence over
revolutionary events in southern Germany, Bartolf and Miething trace the evolution of the
concept and the strong impact it had on the “No-More-War” movement in the early 1920s,
particularly through Carl von Ossietzky and Kurt Tucholsky’s activities and the writings of
Ernst Toller and Erich Mühsam.
Stephen Eric Bronner analyses the role of Jewish writers and activists in the
revolutionary events of 1918-1919, including Rosa Luxemburg, Leo Jogiches, Paul Levi,
Gustav Landauer, Erich Mühsam, Ernst Toller and Eugen Leviné. The visibility of these
Jewish intellectuals during the revolution prompted right-wing ideas of a “Jewish-Bolshevik”
conspiracy and the association of the Weimar regime with a “Jew Republic.” Bronner
contends that the German Revolution and its direct aftermath was a catalyst for the
intensification of anti-Semitism in Germany. This chapter traces the contributions of Jewish
intellectuals in this contested and increasingly violent environment.
The third and final section attempts to connect the theories and practices of political
groups in the German Revolution to contemporary debates in political theory with a particular
focus on the political experience of workers’ councils. Chapters examine the influence of
insurgent democratic practices of the council movements on subsequent political thinkers.
The section also contains analysis of the development of forms of council communism based
on thinkers inspired by the workers’ and soldiers’ councils.
Yohan Dubigeon identifies three constitutive levels of a theoretical model of council
democracy drawn from the experiences of councilist forms of politics. The chapter first
21
addresses the political dimension of the organisation of the councils as they arose in Germany
and Russia. It then reflects on the strategic reasons for the collapse of councils, arguing for
three different grounds in a fetishism of the form (Paris Commune), instrumentalisation
(Russian soviets) and institutionalisation (German councils). Finally, the legacy of the
councils of the German Revolution raises the problem of organisation and the shifting
articulation between substitutionism and spontaneity in the relation between a revolutionary
movement and its political organisations.
Paul Mazzocchi interprets the German Revolution through Miguel Abensour’s theory
of insurgent democracy, and in the context of two major criticisms of radical democratic
theory. Insurgent democracy posits a radical version of democracy that exists against the state
and is founded in the emergence of a subject (the demos) asserting its political capacity. But
two persistent and interlinked criticisms are levelled against this type of vision of democracy:
it is inattentive to institutions and it lacks a mechanism for maintaining its radical or insurgent
nature. Mazzocchi claims that Abensour responds to these criticisms through a
reconceptualisation of institution and an exploration of the possibility of an institutional right
to insurrection. Drawing on these insights, this chapter reflects on the German Revolution
from the perspective of an “insurgent institution” which, by producing a sens (meaning and
direction) to revolt, acts as the condition of possibility of revolutionary action.
Shmuel Lederman examines the distinctive influence of the German Revolution on
Arendt through various personal and intellectual connections. He suggests that despite its
relative absence in Arendt’s writings, it constituted an important part of a broader “silent
dialogue” Arendt had with the European socialist left. Through interaction with a number of
historical sources, Arendt implicitly incorporated various aspects of socialist and councilist
thought into her reflections on modern revolutions while reframing them to fit her own
political theory.
22
Paulina Tambakaki places Rosa Luxemburg in dialogue with contemporary theorists
of radical democracy. She distinguishes between two approaches to spontaneous politics, as
moment and as beginning, and identifies their limits. She argues that whereas the first
approach (exemplified in the work of Wolin and Rancière) empties spontaneous politics of its
creative potential, the second approach (exemplified in the work of Hardt and Negri) asserts
the creativity of spontaneous politics, yet reduces it to one form: self activity. Seeking to
escape the narrowness of these two projections of radical democracy, the paper turns to Rosa
Luxemburg’s work. It argues that in the synthesis she draws between spontaneity and
organisation, reform and revolution, there is a compelling third option for radical politics.
In the final chapter, James Muldoon demonstrates the pivotal importance of the
German Revolution on the development of council communist thought, which retains a small
but persistent influence over radical political theory. The chapter claims that differences
between the Bolsehviks and “left” or “council” communists emerged initially through
questions of revolutionary strategy for Europe and only later through a critique of the
centralisation and bureaucratisation of the Russian Revolution. This chapter also traces a shift
in theorists’ understanding of workers’ councils during and after the German Revolution. It
argues that while participants in the revolution such as the Revolutionary Shop Stewards were
more inclined to view the councils as the initial structures of a post-capitalist society, this
shifted in the later council communist ideology towards a more open principle of workers’
self-emancipation.
Contributors to this volume all seek to rejuvenate interest in the German Revolution
and its influence on the development of political thought. While there are disagreements
between authors on the importance of particular political strategies and the causes of political
divisions, there is a general consensus on the value of returning to the partially forgotten
political debates of this period. The volume shows that the German Revolution functioned as
23
a catalyst for the development of innovative political thought and practice and remains an
important touchstone for certain political projects today. The notable research presented in the
following chapters serves not only as proof of the value of the German Revolution for
political theory over the past hundred years, but will hopefully open up pathways for further
research.
24
References
Beiser, Frederick. 2013. Weimar Philosophy and the Fate of Neo-Kantianism. In Weimar
Thought: A Contested Legacy, eds. Peter E. Gordon and John P. McCormick, 115-132. Berlin,
Boston: Princeton University Press.
Bernstein, Eduard. 1921. Die deutsche Revolution von 1918/19. Geschichte der Entstehung und
ersten Arbeitsperiode der deutschen Republik. Berlin: Verlag für Gesellschaft und Erziehung.
Bieber, Hans-Joachim. 1992. Bürgertum in der Revolution: Bürgerräte und Bürgerstreiks in
Deutschland 1918-1920. Hamburg: Christians.
Engel, Gerhard. 2017. The International Communists of Germany, 1916-1919. In Weimar
Communism as Mass Movement 1918-1932. Eds. Ralf Hoffrogge and Norman LaPorte, 2544. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Föllmer, Moritz. 2018. The Unscripted Revolution. Male Subjectivities in Germany, 1918/19.
Past & Present, 241.
Führer, Karl Christian, Jürgen Mittag, Axel Schildt and Klaus Tenfelde. eds. 2013. Revolution
und Arbeiterbewegung in Deutschland 1918–1920. Essen: Klartext.
Gallus, Alexander. ed. 2010. Die vergessene Revolution von 1918/19 - Erinnerung und Deutung
im Wandel. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Gutmann, Franz. 1922. Das Rätesystem: Seine Verfechter und seine Probleme. München: Drei
Masken Verlag.
Haffner, Sebastian. 1969. Die Verratene Revolution - Deutschland 1918/19. Hamburg: SternBuch.
Hoffrogge, Ralf. 2014. Working-Class Politics in the German Revolution: Richard Müller, the
Revolutionary Shop Stewards and the Origins of the Council Movements. Leiden: Brill.
Jacoby, Russell. 2002. Dialectic of Defeat: Contours of Western Marxism. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Jones, Mark. 2016. Founding Weimar: Violence and the German Revolution of 1918-1919.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kautsky, Karl. 1986. National Assembly and Council Assembly. In The German Revolution and
the Debate on Soviet Power, ed. John Riddell, 94-107. New York: Anchor Foundation.
25
Kluge, Ulrich. 1975. Soldatenräte und Revolution. Studien zur Militärpolitik in Deutschland
1918/19. Göttingen.
Kolb, Eberhard. 1962. Die Arbeiterräte in Der Deutschen Innenpolitik, 1918-1919. Düsseldorf:
Kommission für Geschichte des Parlamentarismus und der politischen Parteien.
Kolb, Eberhard. 1988. The Weimar Republic. London: Routledge.
Kuhn, Gabriel. ed. 2012. All Power to the Councils! A Documentary History of the German
Revolution of 1918–1919. Oakland, CA: PM Press.
Lenin, Vladimir I. 1965. Collected Works, Vol. 27, February-July 1918. Moscow: Progress
Publishers.
Lindow, Carl. 1918. Revolution Verpflichtet! Vorwärts 35, 351, 22 December 1918.
Luxemburg, Rosa. 1918. What does the Spartacus League Want, accessed at
https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/12/14.htm.
Mommsen, Wolfgang J. 1978. Die Deutsche Revolution 1918/19. Geschichte und Gesellschaft 4
(3): 362-391.
Müller, Richard. 1924-1925. Vom Kaiserreich zur Republik. Wien: Malik.
Müller, Richard. 2012. Revolutionary Gymnastics. In All Power to the Councils!, ed. Gabriel
Kuhn. Oakland, CA: PM Press.
Müller, Richard, 2012b. Report by the Executive Council of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils
of Great Berlin. In All Power to the Councils!, ed. Gabriel Kuhn. Oakland, CA: PM Press.
Niess, Wolfgang. 2013. Die Revolution Von 1918/19 in Der Deutschen Geschichtsschreibung.
Deutungen Von Der Weimarer Republik Bis Ins 21. Jahrhundert. Berlin, Boston: Gruyter.
Oertzen, Peter von. 1963. Betriebsräte in Der Novemberrevolution. Eine Politikwissenschaftliche
Untersuchung Über Ideengehalt Und Struktur Der Betrieblichen Und Wirtschaftlichen
Arbeiterräte in Der Deutschen Revolution 1918/19. Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag.
Pelz, William A. 2018. A People’s History of the German Revolution. London: Pluto Press.
Riddell, John. ed. 1986. The German Revolution and the Debate on Soviet Power. New York:
Anchor Foundation.
Rürup, Reinhard. 1968. Probleme Der Revolution in Deutschland 1918/19. Wiesbaden: Steiner.
26
Schildt, Axel. 2010. Der Lange November - Zur Historisierung Einer Deutschen Revolution. In:
Die vergessene Revolution von 1918/19 - Erinnerung und Deutung im Wandel, ed. Alexander
Gallus, 223-244. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Stalmann, Volker. 2016. Die Wiederentdeckung Der Revolution Von 1918/19: Forschungsstand
Und Forschungsperspektiven. Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 64 (6): 521-41.
Tormin, Walter. 1954. Zwischen Rätediktatur Und Sozialer Demokratie: Die Geschichte Der
Rätebewegung in Der Deutschen Revolution 1918/19. Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag.
Winkler, Heinrich August. 1984. Von der Revolution zur Stabilisierung. Arbeiter und
Arbeiterbewegung in der Weimar Republik 1918 bis 1924. Berlin/Bonn.
Wolff, Theodor. 1918. Der Erfolg Der Revolution. Berliner Tageblatt und Handels-Zeitung 47,
576, 10 November 1918.
27