International Socialists

How workers stopped a war

Dougal McNeill

In the aftermath of Bush and Blair’s murderous war on Iraq, it’s easy to become demoralised at the state of the world. After all the protesting, all the millions of people coming out against this war, the hideous still happened, and the terrorist in the White House seems determined to try something similar again, and soon. That’s why the history of the German Revolution is so important and inspiring for us today. The lessons of 1918 show how ordinary working people can – and have – brought an end to war and slaughter. The successes and the failures of the German Revolution are vital lessons for anti-war activists today.

Perhaps for this very reason the German Revolution has been almost totally written out of history. The wonderful record of this revolution that ended World War I has been hidden from official histories and largely lost to radical traditions. But the German working class almost took power and – for a brief but important period – were central to the wave of revolutionary upheavals that swept across Europe.

Tragically the reasons for the failure of the revolution were caught up in events well before the rebellion itself had started. To understand these we need to look at some background to the situation in Germany.

Background
World War I did not come like a bolt from the blue – for many years the socialist movement had been speaking out against the rising militarism and competition between the big empires that ran the world. At this time, the German Social Democratic Party (SDP) was far and away the biggest and most important socialist party in the world. It had a million members, hundreds of clubs, associations, choirs, sports teams and societies for its members, something like 90 daily newspapers and hundreds of full time organisers and officials. The SDP was committed – in rhetoric at least – to a revolutionary, socialist and Marxist overthrow of the capitalist system. It was a force to be reckoned with.

Impressive as all this might seem, all was not well within the SDP. For many years currents had developed within it that, although they might mumble revolutionary phrases on May Day marches, were committed to maintaining the existing order. The SDP had become like a “state within a state” and increasingly, this elaborate party machine became more important than the goals of revolution itself.

There were genuine revolutionaries within the SDP – grouped around Rosa Luxemburg – but, unlike Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Russia, they did not try and build a separate, uncompromisingly revolutionary organisation. Luxemburg saw political arguments within the SDP (as the party of the working class) as the role of revolutionaries and, again unlike Lenin, she did not understand the importance of organisation: of gathering together the most class conscious, determined and political workers into their own party to fight reformism and nationalism within the workers’ movement. This misunderstanding would have tragic consequences for the German working class, and for Luxemburg herself.

Because, come August 1914, all the revolutionary pretensions of the SDP collapsed into the carnage of WWI. The SDP abandoned its commitment to the internationalism of the working class and supported Germany’s rulers in the war. The workers of Germany – like the workers of Britain, France, New Zealand and elsewhere – fell for their rulers’ nationalism and enlisted to fight in the trenches. SDP deputies in the Reichstag (the German Parliament) voted, with two courageous exceptions, to grant money and credits for war. Luxemburg and her tiny number of supporters were utterly isolated, trapped within a party now openly pro-war and with almost no means at their disposal to present socialist anti-war arguments.

After the initial burst of enthusiasm for nationalism, the sufferings ordinary Germans were forced to endure began to undermine the pro-war politics of both the SDP and the ruling parties. Anti-war demonstrations began to occur. Luxemburg captured the change brilliantly in a famous pamphlet:

The scene has thoroughly changed. The six weeks’ march to Paris has become world drama. Mass murder has become a monotonous task, and yet the final solution is not one step nearer. Capitalist rule is caught in its own trap, and cannot ban the spirit it has invoked. Gone is the mad delirium. Gone are the street demonstrations…

These first expressions of working class opposition to war stumbled, however, as there was no clear political organisation to provide leadership or an alternative. Luxemburg and the revolutionaries’ failure to build a party of their own was having terrible consequences. As the war dragged on and the pressure grew the SDP split. The anti-war opposition in the SDP was expelled in 1916 and went on later to build the Sparticist League. This process was painfully slow and difficult, with the official “foundation” not until November 1918. The experience of Luxemburg and her supporters is an important lesson for today: it is too late to start building a revolutionary organisation once a revolutionary situation has begun. It is vital to begin the process early and to be able to enter the situation with at least the embryonic form of such an organisation.

The war machine cracks…
Anti-war feelings amongst German troops were given a huge boost by the Russian Revolution of 1917. The October Revolution in Russia – which passed power into the hands of workers, peasants and soldiers – began dropping leaflets and newspapers to German soldiers on the Russian front. There was civil unrest against the continuing war as well, and in late January 1918 over one million workers in 50 different cities staged a general strike against the war. By March 3 Soviet Russia had signed peace with Germany.

The German military and ruling class were becoming desperate with the situation, both at home and in the war against the Allies. In November the navy at Kiel were ordered out on a suicidal mission against the British fleet… and the sailors refused to fight! The naval mutiny quickly spread and, within days, workers had taken control of Kiel and many other major German cities.

As is always the case with revolutions, the situation spread incredibly rapidly. By November 7 the Bavarian monarchy was overthrown, workers’ and soldiers’ councils controlled large sections of Germany and – on November 9th – the Kaiser was ousted. Two days later World War I was over. The revolution was triumphant.

Or was it? In the last days of the Kaiser’s reign the Sparticists had called for a general strike to further the revolution. November 10th saw hundreds of thousands of workers and soldiers streaming into Berlin shouting revolutionary slogans. The old rulers were desperate. In an attempt to try and keep some sort of control over the situation they replaced the Kaiser with Ebert, a leader of the SDP.

Ebert knew that to restore order he had to try and win some sort of breathing space from the crowds of workers in Berlin. Appearing at the Reichstag he announced the “German Republic.” Just metres away Karl Liebknecht, a leader of the Sparticists, was declaring the socialist republic of Germany a reality.

November 11 saw a wave of revolutionary enthusiasm throughout Germany. All the symbols of the old order were smashed and mass meetings, marches and workers’ assemblies debated the issues of the day. The red flag was flying, and an atmosphere of euphoria and power was everywhere.

Beneath the surface of the workers’ victory, however, were more complicated problems. These first moments of revolutionary enthusiasm were not to guarantee the decisive defeat of the old order. Most workers sitting on the factory councils, passing resolutions and marching in the streets were entering into politics for the first time and, despite the treacherous record of the Social Democrats during the war, they turned at first to the SPD for leadership. Again, because Luxemburg’s forces had not been building a revolutionary organisation in the years leading up to 1918, there was no coherent force of militants to offer leadership. So the SDP was in the position of keeping the revolution under control (with Ebert as head of government) and being seen as its leader!

Spartacus Days
The situation was volatile: the SDP government needed to restore order for German capitalism to function, but on the streets the Left’s control and influence was growing. There were mass uprisings, strikes and demonstrations throughout Germany and, on January 1st, the Sparticists merged with other revolutionary forces to found the German Communist Party (KPD).

When it was founded the KPD was tiny, with perhaps only a few hundred members and hardly any roots in the working class. But its growth and control seemed, in the first weeks of 1919 at least, unstoppable. The government knew they had to regain control and, sacking a police chief elected during the workers’ revolution, they managed to engineer a confrontation.

By sacking Eichorn (the police chief) the SPD provoked a massive response from Berlin’s workers. A general strike began and around 250,000 workers marched through central Berlin. It seemed as if a new, decisively socialist, phase of the revolution was about to begin. The workers had ended the war, would they end the government?

Tragically, January 1919 proved yet again the importance of organisation. Luxemburg knew the workers of Berlin were in no position to question state power for the whole of Germany – but the KPD and the Sparticists were too small and lacked the organisational credibility to be able to argue successfully against a premature uprising. There was nothing for them to do but join with the rebel workers of Berlin.

The uprising was easy for pro-government forces to crush. The Freikorps – a counter-revolutionary volunteer force who paved the way for the Nazi gangs – entered Berlin and used the failed insurrection as a pretext for a total offensive against the Left. On January 15 Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered, and the Freikorps unleashed a terror on the whole working population of Berlin.

The first phase of the German revolution had ended in defeat and the murder of two of its most brilliant leaders. But it would take German capitalism several years – and several further near revolutionary situations – to stablise to even a slight degree.

The 1918 Revolution is an example of both inspiration and warning. It is an inspiration, showing us how ordinary working people can end wars and bring hated governments crashing down. But it is also a warning. The failure of Luxemburg and other revolutionaries to even begin building a revolutionary organisation before a revolutionary situation had broken out left them isolated and the revolution in danger. The failures of 1918 left Russia alone, and indirectly facilitated the horrors of Stalinism and, with the failure of the revolutionary movements in Europe, the rise of Hitler. We need to learn from both the inspiration and the warning in our tasks today: working for a world without war, and building an organisation capable of winning it.

Further Reading
Obviously this is a very complex history, and I have only managed to give the barest of outlines. Chris Harman’s The Lost Revolution is an incredibly useful history and a good place to go for what happened after 1919. Also, Mary-Alice Waters has edited a collection of Rosa Luxemburg’s writings, Rosa Luxemburg Speaks. Luxemburg was one of the great Marxist thinkers, and her articles are still of enormous use. Recommended. Also, Tony Cliff’s Rosa Luxemburg is very helpful. Most of these books should be available at university or public libraries.