This is the revised and expanded version of a paper presented to the 51st Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, June 7, 1972, in Montreal. Terms such as “Social Democratic” have been capitalized only when they refer to a specific party.

1. The literature on this topic is as vast as the subject is complex and controversial. For some recent views, see Jacobs, Dan N., ed., The New Communisms (New York, 1969).Google Scholar A unique encyclopedic and bibliographical reference work is Die Kommunistischen Parteien der Welt, ed. Kernig, D. C., special volume of Sowjetsystem und Demokratische Gesellschaft (Freiburg, 1969).Google Scholar Polycentrism is defined and discussed in Laqueur, Walter and Labedz, Leopold, eds., Polycentrism: The New Factor in International Communism (New York, 1962).Google Scholar

2. Marx as early as 1844 in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts distinguished between communism as “the positive abolition of private property, of human self-alienation, and thus the real appropriation of human nature through and for man,” and certain ideas and practices termed “crude communism” which negate the personality of man. In his 1888 preface to the English edition of The Communist Manifesto, Engels stressed that “whatever portion of the working class had become convinced of the insufficiency of mere political revolutions, and proclaimed the necessity of total social change, called itself communist,” yet according to Section II of the Manifesto the communists aim at “the conquest of political power by the proletariat.” Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the term “communism” was chiefly used by syndicalists and anarchists in Western Europe and Russia, who contrasted Marx's political “state communism” to a nonpolitical cooperative type of anarchic communism. Lenin equated communism with “soviet rule plus electrification of the entire country” (speech at the Moscow provincial party conference, Nov. 21, 1920) and acceptance of the twenty-one conditions for admission to the Communist International. In spite of many, more recent works on international communism, the basic histories are still Borkenau, Franz, The Communist International (New York, 1939),Google Scholar and Seton-Watson, H., From Lenin to Khrushchev (New York, 1960).Google Scholar

3. This is clearly reflected in such works as Salvadori, Massimo, The Rise of Modern Communism (New York, 1952);Google ScholarAlmond, G. A., The Appeals of Communism (Princeton, 1954);CrossRefGoogle ScholarHunt, R. N. Carew, The Theory and Practice of Communism (New York, 1951).Google Scholar

4. See Lowenthal, Richard, World Communism: The Disintegration of a Secular Faith (London, 1964).Google Scholar

5. This is the whole point of the symposium on international communism, “Myths, Perceptions, Policy: ‘Monolithic’ vs. ‘Crumbling’ Communism,” Problems of Communism, XIX, no. 1 (01–02 1970), 1–27, and no. 2 (03–04 1970), 1–13.Google Scholar See even Djilas, M., The New Class (New York, 1957).Google Scholar

6. Daniels, R. V., ed., A Documentary History of Communism (New York, 1962), I, lxi f.Google Scholar

7. Meant is the APO of the 1960's whose spokesman was Rudi Dutschke, not the terrorist Baader-Meinhof group and its attempt to transfer Arab guerilla tactics to Germany. See Seeliger, Rolf, Die ausserparlamentarische Opposition (Munich, 1968);Google ScholarBergmann, U., Dutschke, R., et al. , Rebellion der Studenten oder die neue Opposition (Reinbek, 1968);Google ScholarEbert, T., Gewaltfreier Aufstand (Frankfurt, 1970);Google ScholarCohn-Bendit, Daniel, Le gauchisme—remède à la maladie sénile du communisme (Paris, 1968);Google ScholarClaassen, E.-M. and Peters, L.-F., Rebellion in Frankreich. Die Manifestation der europäischen Kulturrevolution 1968 (Munich, 1968).Google Scholar

8. The term “leftisme” was actually used by Cohn-Bendit, leader of the March 22nd Movement, himself; see his book (fn. 7); Grosser, A., “Die Romantik der Revolution” and Sartre, Jean-Paul, “Die Phantasie an der Macht,” in Die Zeit, no. 22 (North American ed.), 06 4, 1968;Google ScholarTourraine, A., Le movement de mai ou le communisme utopique (Paris, 1969);Google Scholar and most recently Gombin, R., Les origines du gauchisme (Paris, 1972).Google Scholar

9. Sartre, Jean-Paul, Literary and Philosophical Essays (London, 1955), ch. 13.Google Scholar

10. Among the many testimonies, the recently published memoirs of Retzlaw, Karl, Spartakus (Frankfurt, 1971), p. 49,Google Scholar are most revealing. Until many years after he had become a socialist and communist, he had not read one line of Marx and Engels, nor of Lenin and Trotsky. “In fact I knew nobody who in these years [1915] became a socialist through the study of Marx.”

11. Michels, Robert, Zur Soziologie des Parteiwesens in der modernen Demokratie. Untersuchungen über die oligarchischen Tendenzen des Gruppenlebens (Leipzig, 1911), pp. 40–44, 214, 259.Google Scholar

12. Liebknecht, Karl, Ausgewählte Reden und Schriften, I (Frankfurt, 1969), xxi, 56;Google ScholarSpartakusbriefe (Berlin, 1958), p. 426.Google Scholar

13. Dahrendorf, R., Gesellschaft und Demokratie in Deutschland (Munich, 1968), pp. 159–242.Google Scholar

14. “Versäumte Pflichten,” Die Rote Fahne, Jan. 8, 1919.

15. Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart (HSA), Bestand E 150, Bund 2051/III: Verhalten der Sozialdemokratie während des Krieges (1916–18), Nr. 444.

16. Schmitt, Carl, Verfassungslehre (Munich and Leipzig, 1928), p. 234.Google Scholar

17. See fnn. 140–43.

18. Radek, Karl, “Die Entwicklung des Sozialismus von der Wissenschaft zur Tat,” reprinted in Engels, F., Die Entwicklung des Sozialismus von der Utopie zur Wissenschaft (Berlin: Internationaler Arbeiterverlag, 1930), p. 58.Google Scholar On Radek's role, see Schüddekopf, O. E., “Karl Radek in Berlin,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, II (1962), 87–166,Google Scholar and Carr, E. H., “Radek's Political Salon in Berlin 1919,” Soviet Studies, III, no. 4 (1952), 411–30. See also fn. 101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. Liebknecht, Karl, “Trotz alledem!” Die Rote Fahne, Jan. 15, 1919.Google Scholar

20. Quoted from Camus, Albert, The Rebel (New York, 1956), Part 5.Google Scholar

21. For West Germany see mainly: Tormin, W., Zwischen Rätediktatur und sozialer Demokratie (Düsseldorf, 1954);Google ScholarKolb, E., Die Arbeiterräte in der deutschen Innenpolitik (Düsseldorf, 1962);Google Scholarvon Oertzen, P., Betriebsräte in der Novemberrevolution (Düsseldorf, 1963);Google ScholarMiller, S. et al. , eds., Die Regierung der Volksbeauftragten 1918/19, 2 vols. (Düsseldorf, 1969);Google ScholarKolb, E. and Rürup, R., eds., Der Zentralrat der Deutschen Sozialistischen Republik 19.12.1918–9.4.1919. Vom ersten zum zweiten Rätekongress, Quellen zur Geschichte der Rätebewegung in Deutschland 1918/19, I (Leiden, 1968);Google ScholarElben, W., Das Problem der Kontinuität in der deutschen Revolution 1918–1919 (Düsseldorf, 1965);Google ScholarRitter, G. A. and Miller, S., Die deutsch Revolution 1918–1919. Dokumente (Frankfurt, 1968).Google Scholar For East Germany, see primarily Dokumente und Materialien zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, Ser. II, vols. I, II, III, VII (Berlin, 1958, 1957, 1958, 1966);Google ScholarGeschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, III (Berlin, 1966);Google ScholarIllustrierte Geschichte der Novermberrevolution 1918 in Deutschland (Berlin, 1968);Google ScholarLindau, R., Revolutionäre Kämpfe 1918–19 (Berlin, 1960);Google ScholarOeckel, H., Die revolutionäre Volkswehr (Berlin, 1968); and many articles in Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung.Google Scholar

22. See, e.g., the introductions to the works of Rürup (fn. 34), Kolb, von Oertzen. East German historians have, of course, different reasons for their reassessment of the revolution. They were supported by Soviet Russian historians, as the noteworthy monograph by Drabkin, J. S., Die Novemberrevolution 1918 in Deutschland (Berlin, 1968), illustrates.Google Scholar Anglo-American historians, on the other hand, in spite of many publications on the Revolution of 1918–19, do not appear to have participated noticeably in this discussion. Thus the book by Ryder, A. J., The German Revolution of 1918. A Study of German Socialism in War and Revolt (Cambridge, 1968) reproduced the oft-repeated and somewhat dated thesis of the German Revolution as the mere culmination of the slowly maturing division of the German socialist and labor movement.Google ScholarComfort, Richard A., Revolutionary Hamburg. Labor Politics in the Early Weimar Republic (Stanford, 1966) operates on the assumption that it would probably be more meaningful to date Germany's major political revolution during 1914–1918 rather than 1918–1919.Google ScholarMishark, John W., The Road to Revolution. German Marxism and World War I, 1914–1919 (Detroit, 1967), is disappointing in many respects and barely mentions the council movement.Google Scholar

23. In the historical and public consciousness of the Weimar Republic, trying to suppress its counterrevolutionary origin, the notion of November 1918 as a “Zusammenbruch” found widespread acceptance. This was reflected, even in the title, in many works dealing with that episode until the 1950's.

24. The new West German historical school prefers the term “German Revolution of 1918–19” to the older notion of “Novemberrevolution” with all that this difference implies. Like the German communist leaders of 1918–19, this school distinguishes between two phases, von Oertzen (p. 66) even between three (the third one lasting until 1920). In the consciousness of most socialist-oriented contemporaries, the revolution was not over even by the end of 1919; see Block, H. and Seger, F., Zum ersten Jahrestag der deutschen Revolution vom 9. November 1918 (Leipzig: USPD, 1919), and many articles in the press.Google Scholar

25. Rürup, R. in Die Zeit, no. 17 (German ed.) of 04 26, 1968, p. 27.Google Scholar See also Grundmann, Elisabeth and Krohn, Claus Dieter, “Die Einführung des parlamentarischen Systems in Deutschland 1918,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, XII (1971), 25–40.Google Scholar

26. See, e.g., Erdmann, Karl Dietrich, “Die Zeit der Weltkriege,” Handbuch der Deutschen Geschichte, ed. Gebhardt, Bruno, IV, 8th ed. (Stuttgart, 1951), 85,Google Scholar and Eyck, E., Geschichte der Weimarer Republik, I (Zurich, 1956), 71ff.;Google Scholar also the naïve study by Lutz, R. H., The German Revolution 1918–1919 (Stanford, 1922) which was reprinted by the AMS Press (New York) in 1968.Google Scholar

27. This is a controversial issue not only between East and West German historians, but also between Matthias, Kolb, and Elben on the one hand and Tormin, von Oertzen, and Rürup on the other. Kolb views the councils as temporary “organs of integration of the new democratic-republican constitution” (Arbeiterräte, p. 11), while von Oertzen envisages them as a permanent feature of the economic order.

28. With the qualifications of the background discussed on pp. 251ff. of this paper and the frequently reported fact that the appearance of traveling Kiel sailors seemed to touch off the revolution as they fanned out all over Germany, except for Bavaria; see: Mitchell, A., Revolution in Bavaria 1918–1919 (Princeton, 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and War, Mutiny and Revolution in the German Navy. The World War I Diary of Seaman Richard Stumpf, ed. Horn, Daniel (New Brunswick, N.J., 1967).Google Scholar

29. Schoenberger, Franz, Confessions of a European Intellectual (New York, 1965), pp. 111–25,Google Scholar and Miesel, V. H., ed., Voices of German Expressionism (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1970), pp. 169–72, describe such councils of intellectual workers.Google Scholar

30. It should not be overlooked, however, that the structure of this revolutionary council movement was far from homogeneous. Its very spontaneity led to many farcical developments. Meyer-Leviné, Rosa, Leviné. Leben und Tod eines Revolutionärs (Munich, 1972), pp. 82, 281, reports that in many places councils were not elected but appointed jointly by SPD and USPD (Independent Social Democrats).Google ScholarHürten, Heinz, “Soldatenräte in der deutschen Novemberrevolution 1918,” Historisches Jahrbuch, xc, no. 2 (1970), 324, 327,Google Scholar discovered in his sources officers as members of soldiers' councils in such numbers that their election could not possibly have been an exception. Among the troops who helped suppress the Berlin sailors' rising in December 1918 and the Spartacist Uprising in Jan. 1919 there were apparently “regiments of soldiers' councils” who charged into battle with their elected leaders. See also Die Regierung der Volksbeauftragten, II, 90, fn. 56. According to Hahn, Paul, Erinnerungen aus der Revolution in Württemberg. “Der Rote Hahn, eine Revolutionserscheinung” (Stuttgart: Bergers Literarisches Büro, 1923), pp. 23–87,Google Scholar the soldiers' councils' central executive committee for Württemberg established companies of security guards protecting the government from various alleged Spartacist threats and forming the vanguard in the bloody destruction of the Bavarian Council Republic in April 1919. These security guards received moral and financial support from so-called Bürgerräte (citizen's councils) demanding “the reestablishment of constitutional conditions and the protection of the German economy from risky experiments” (HSA, E 130 I, Bund 133).

31. Kolb, E., “Rätewirklichkeit und Räte-Ideologie in der deutschen Revolution von 1918/19,” in Deutschland und die Russische Revolution, ed. Neubauer, H. (Stuttgart, 1968), p. 105.Google Scholar This fact is also stressed by Kolb and Rürup in Zentralrat, pp. xv–xxi; and the school of Tormin and von Oertzen. The first General Congress of the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils of Germany insisted that it claimed “the entire political power” even though it approved elections for the national assembly; its executive council (Zentralrat) effectively controlled the Prussian, and nominally the national government until Janunary 1919. See also Matthias's, E. introduction to Die Regierung der Volksbeauftragten, I, cx ff., and fn. 33 below.Google Scholar In his recent study Flemming, John, “Parlamentarische Kontrolle in der Novemberrevolution. Zur Rolle und Politik des Zentralrats zwischen ersten und zweiten Rätekongress (Dezember 1918 bis April 1919),” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, XI (1971), 69–139, criticizes Kolb's views and argues that the Central Executive Council of the German Republic (Zentralrat) never had any tangible influence on the conduct of the government of Ebert's Council of People's Commissars.Google Scholar

32. Rosenberg, Arthur, Geschichte der deutschen Republic (Karlsbad, 1935), pp. 21ff., 74.Google Scholar

33. The resolutions concerning “immediate socialization of all industries that are ready for it” and Kommandogewalt were adopted with a large majority and against the will of the government by the Allgemeiner Kongress der Arbeiter- und Soldatenräte Deutschlands. Vom 16. bis 21. Dezember 1918 im Abgeordnetenhause zu Berlin. Stenographische Berichte (Berlin: Zentralrat der sozialistischen Republik Deutschland, 1919), pp. 64ff., 156ff., 181f. The government, however, ignored these decisions.Google Scholar

34. Rürup, Reinhard, Probleme der Revolution in Deutschland 1918/19 (Wiesbaden, 1968), p. 50.Google Scholar

35. Griewank, Karl, Der neuzeitliche Revolutionsbegriff (Frankfurt, 1969),Google Scholar and Arendt, Hannah, On Revolution (New York, 1965), although much ignored, have suggested a historically more meaningful insight into the evolving phenomenon of modern revolution than is provided by the static and external criteria of Crane Brinton, and with him many social scientists.Google ScholarBrinton, Crane, The Anatomy of Revolution (New York, 1965).Google Scholar Like Waite, Robert G. L., Vanguard of Nazism (New York, 1952), pp. 1ff., many others have judged the German Revolution by such a “model” of revolution.Google Scholar

36. See Tormin, p. 65; also fn. 31.

37. The school of Matthias-Kolb-Elben (see fn. 27) considers the councils as copies of the Russian soviets that tried to prevent chaos after the “collapse” until the national assembly could be elected. This seems to be true primarily for the soldiers' councils. See Bericht den Abgeordneten des Feldheeres auf der Tagung aller A.- und S.-Räte in Berlin am 16. Dezember überreicht vom Vollzugsausschuss des Soldatenrates des Feldheeres bei der Obersten Heeresleitung (Wilhelmshöhe, 12.12.1918),Google Scholar and Denkschrift dem Vertretertag der Soldatenräte des Feldheeres am 1. Dezember 1918 in Bad Ems überreicht vom Soldatenrat bei der Obersten Heeresleitung (Wilhelmshöhe, 28.11.1918). See also the article by H. Hürten cited in fn. 30.Google Scholar

38. Ebert's speech at the General Congress of the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils of Germany, Allgemeiner Kongress, p. 145.

39. Besson, W., Friedrich Ebert: Verdienst und Grenze (Göttingen, 1963), pp. 68, 73;Google Scholar Tormin, p. 67. See also Buse, D. K., “Ebert and the German Crisis,” Central European History, v, no. 3 (1972), 234–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40. See especially Rosenberg, Arthur, Geschichte, pp. 23ff.Google Scholar; von Oertzen, Betriebsräte, pp. 77f.; Lindau, Revolutionäre Kämpfe, pp. 20, 45; Schneider, D., Kuda, R., Arbeiterräte in der Novemberrevolution (Frankfurt, 1968), pp. 34–43;Google Scholar Arendt, p. 262. This school considers, with Arendt (pp. 260–77), the councils (soviets) not as mere products of chaos but, since their appearance in the form of spontaneous clubs and societies in the French Revolution of 1791 and in the Paris Commune of 1871, as the embodiment of the social revolution and alternatives to the organization of modern life in parties, unions, parliaments, etc. Anweiler, O., Die Rätebewegung in Russland 1905–21 (Leiden, 1958) presented the first analytical distinction between the different origins, functions, and objectives of revolutionary soviets in Russia.Google Scholar The official German communist delegate Hugo Eberlein told the founding congress of the Communist International in March 1919 that the German worker' councils were in trouble because the Social Democrats, “who in questions of organization are far superior to the workers, have managed to sneak into the government…and subvert the councils”: Der I. Kongress der Kommunistischen Internationale: Protokoll der Verhandlungen in Moskau vom 2.-6. März 1919 (Hamburg: Hoym, 1920), p. 10.Google Scholar

41. See Kolb, E., “Rätewirklichkeit und Räte-Ideologie,” pp. 94, 104. Also Arendt, p. 324, fn. 66.Google Scholar

42. The recently published minutes of the cabinet meetings of Die Regierung der Volksbeauftragten 1918/19 (Düsseldorf, 1969) prove this beyond question.Google ScholarLösche, P., Der Bolschewismus im Urteil der deutschen Sozialdemokratie (Berlin, 1967), attributes the conservative policies of the SPD during the Revolution of 1918 to their obsession with a fear of bolshevism, i.e., of a repetition of the Russian revolutionary spectacle, rather than an imminent threat from the German communist movement.Google Scholar

43. This has been analyzed by Lösche though it had always been argued by East German and Soviet historians. See, e.g., Antikommunismus: Verbrechen ohne Chance (Berlin, 1967).Google Scholar Typical is a page-long declaration which appeared in the SPD party organ Vorwärts on Dec. 24, 1918, under the heading “Bolshevism, the militarism of the loafers.”

“Hunger has forced the Russian people into the yoke of militarism. Russia's workers strike, destroy the economic life by hasty socialization, deprive themselves of the possibility of existence by unattainable demands, and thereby sacrifice their freedom to militarism. Bolshevik militarism is the arbitrary rule of force of a clique, is the dictatorship of the idlers, the loafers.

Today Russia's army (the mass of the unemployed workers) is already engaged in a bloody war again.

“The Russian example may serve as a warning.

“Do we also want war again? Do we want terror or the bloody rule of a caste? NO!!

“…We want no militarism from either right or left. Bolshevism, the militarism of the loafers, knows no freedom and equality. It is the vandalism, the terror of a small group, which has claimed power for itself. Therefore do not follow Spartacus, the German Bolsheviks, if you do not want to destroy our economic life, our trade.

“The collapse of Germany's industry and trade will mean the ruin of the German people.

“Therefore no terror, no militarist rule of loafers and deserters. Not militarism, but FREEDOM!”

44. See Luxemburg's, Rosa article, “Ein Pyrrhussieg,” Die Rote Fahne, Dec. 21, 1918.Google ScholarWilde, Harry, Rosa Luxemburg. Ich war—ich bin—ich werde sein (Vienna, 1970), p. 162.Google Scholar

45. In the official perspective of Soviet Russian and East German historiography, German communism of 1918–19, though on the right way to becoming “a party of the new type,” is considered immature and inexperienced in relation to the Leninist model. Flechtheim, Ossip K., Die Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands in der Weimarer Republik (Offenbach, 1948), pp. 185f.,Google Scholar and Flechtheim, , “Die Rolle der KPD,” in Der Weg in die Diktatur 1918–1933 (Munich, 1962), pp. 121ff.,Google Scholar adopts the concept of the nascent German Communist Party as a Tochterpartei of the SPD “which could never completely discard important features of its ancestor” and which in 1918 was on its way toward an ultimate SPD-like institutionalization.

46. The similarities and differences between contemporary communism, syndicalism, and anarchism are elaborated on in: “Kommunisten und Syndikalisten,” Der Kampfruf, Organ der Allgemeinen Arbeiter–Union, no. 6 (1920);Google ScholarBarwich, Franz, Der Kommunistische Aufbau des Syndikalismus im Gegensatz zum Parteikommunismus und Staatssozialismus (das Rätesystem von unten auf) (Berlin: Der Syndikalist, n.d.);Google ScholarTobler, Max, Der revolutionäre Syndikalismus (Zurich: Vogt, 1919);Google ScholarBock, H. M., Syndikalismus und Linkskommunismus 1918–1923 (Meisenheim, 1969);Google ScholarLinse, U., “Die Transformation der Gesellschaft durch die anarchistische Weltanschauung. Zur Ideologie und Organisation anarchistischer Gruppen in der Weimarer Republik,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, XI (1971), 289–372.Google Scholar

47. The call for “all power to the councils” was not raised by any communist group in Germany until the mass strikes of January 1918. In her critical analysis of the Russian Revolution, written in the spring of 1918, Rosa Luxemburg envisaged a socialist republic with soviets as well as a constituent assembly. The Spartacus Letter of October 1918 still called for a Volksrepublik (democratic republic). The earliest known German leaflet demanding a soviet republic is reprinted in Dokumente und Materialien, ser. II, vol. II, pp. 137f.

A recently published letter of Levi, Paul to Rosa Luxemburg, dated Nov. 5, 1918, suggests that the Spartacists did not expect the rapid advent of the revolution and had therefore not discussed such questions as “soviets or constituent assembly, the dictatorship of the proletariat,” etc., sufficiently:Google ScholarLuban, Ottokar, “Zwei Schreiben der Spartakuszentrale an Rosa Luxemburg (Juni 1917; 5. November 1918),” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, XI (1971), 238–40.Google Scholar

48. Meyer, Ernst in Die Revolution, II (1924), 4.Google Scholar

49. Levi, Paul, Karl Liebknecht und Rosa Luxemburg zum Gedächtnis, herausgegeben von der KPD (1919).Google Scholar On Levi see the recent biography by Beradt, Charlotte, Paul Levi (Frankfurt, 1969), and his selected writings in:Google ScholarLevi, Paul, Zwischen Spartakus und Sozialdemokratie, ed. Beradt, C. (Frankfurt, 1969).Google Scholar

50. Liebknecht, Karl, Ausgewählte Reden und Schriften, I, xii and passim.Google ScholarBöhme, Karl, who introduced that volume in 1969, was the first West German historian who admitted that “Liebknecht's critique of the government, the military leadership, and the party from which he came, can from the historical–critical perspective of today not be judged as inappropriate” (p. xxiv)Google Scholar. Since then Liebknecht has also been rehabilitated as a theorist critical of Marxist materialism who “understands the political movement of the proletariat as the origin and belligerent expression of a new all-encompassing humanism.” On the basis of his posthumously published philosophical notes under the title Studien über die Bewegungsgesetze der gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung, ed. Dr.Morris, (Munich, 1922) and ignored by East German historians, Liebknecht appears “neither as an anarchistic propagandist, nor as a Leninist professional revolutionary,” but as “an advocate of a humanistic enlightenment who wanted to lead society to harmony with the universe.”Google Scholar He perceived his political activity as a calling, and not as a profession, and each political decision as a question of principle: Trotnow, Helmut in Die Zeit, no. 3 (German ed.) of Jan. 12, 1973, p. 32.Google Scholar The most intuitive and penetrating biography is still Schumann, Harry, Karl Liebknecht. Ein Stück unpolitischer Weltanschauung (Dresden, 1923).Google Scholar Some interesting details concerning Jogiches's personality and his conspiratorial and printing arrangements can be gleaned from a secret army report about this arrest on Apr. 7, 1918, in Berlin: HSA, E 150, Bund 2051/III, no. 698.

51. Quoted in Basso, Lelio, Rosa Luxemburgs Dialektik der Revolution (Frankfurt, 1969), p. 118.Google Scholar

52. Luxemburg, Rosa, Sozialreform oder Revolution? (Leipzig, 1899), pp. 13, 24, 26f., 63.Google Scholar

53. Luxemburg, , “Organisationsfragen der russischen Sozialdemokratie,” Die Neue Zeit, XXII, no. 2 (1904), 484–92, 529–35.Google Scholar

54. Luxemburg, , Massenstreik, Partei und Gewerkschaften (Hamburg, 1906).Google Scholar

55. Struthahn, A. [Karl Radek], Die Diktatur der Arbeiterklasse und die Kommunistische Partei (n. p.: KPD, 1919), p. 12.Google Scholar

56. HSA, E 150, Bund 2051/III, Nr. 448: a police report of 1917 listing cases in Berlin, Treptow, Stuttgart where “bourgeois courts” were used by the SPD to expropriate and disown the party opposition. No reliable membership figures are available. Frölich, Paul, Rosa Luxemburg: Gedanke und Tat (Hamburg, 1949), p. 327, mentions a few thousand;Google ScholarMüller, R., Der Bürgerkrieg in Deutschland: Geburtswehen der Republik (Berlin, 1925), p. 85, refers to not more than one thousand.Google Scholar

57. In her illegally distributed brochure under the pseudonym Junius, Die Krise der Sozialdemokratie (Bern: Unionsdruckerei, 1916), Rosa Luxemburg drives home this message.Google Scholar It appeared again in the program of the Spartakusbund of December 1918 and contrasts sharply with Lenin's deterministic revolutionary optimism.

58. Eberlein, Hugo in 12 1918: Bericht über den Gründungsparteitag der KPD (Spartakusbund) vom 30. Dezember 1918 bis 1. Januar 1919 (Berlin: KPD, 1919), p. 43.Google Scholar

59. Retzlaw, p. 99.

60. These two references appeared at the head of many Spartacus Letters. The entire platform was published in Junius, pp. 100ff.

61. Liebknecht, Karl, Politische Aufzeichnungen aus seinem Nachlass (Berlin: Aktion, 1921), p. 31.Google Scholar

62. This figure was given by Meyer, Ernst in 1927 to the 4. Untersuchungsausschuss des Deutschen Reichstags and is quoted in Kolb, Arbeiterräte, p. 49.Google Scholar

63. Karl Kautsky to Victor Adler in August 1916: Adler, Victor, Briefwechsel mit August Bebel und Karl Kautsky (Vienna, 1954), p. 630; Retzlaw, pp. 74f.;Google Scholar this is corroborated by reports of the Prussian war ministry: HSA, E 150, Bund 2051/III, Nr. 462, and Brüning, Heinrich, Memoiren 1918–1934, I (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1972), p. 25.Google Scholar

64. Spartakusbriefe, pp. xviii, 105ff.

65. Nettl, Paul, Rosa Luxemburg, I (London, 1966), 267f.Google Scholar

66. While some Spartacists, like Zetkin, Clara, met Lenin at the international Zimmerwald Conferences in 1915 and 1916, others like Paul Levi and Willi Münzenberg even lived near him:Google ScholarZetkin, Clara, Erinnerungen an Lenin (Berlin, 1961), p. 38; Beradt, Paul Levi, pp. 18–21;Google ScholarMünzenberg, Willi, Die Dritte Front: Aufzeichnungen aus 15 Jahren Proletarischer Jugendbewegung (Berlin: Neuer Deutscher Verlag, 1930), pp. 222–34. Other Spartacist activists like Retzlaw, Wiesner, and USPD leftists like Stoecker, Koenen, however, had not even heard Lenin's name until 1918: Retzlaw, p. 99;Google ScholarWiesner, Erich, Man nannte mich Ernst (Berlin, 1956), p. 47;Google ScholarStoecker, H., Walter Stoecker: Die Frühzeit eines deutschen Arbeiterführers 1891–1920 (Berlin, 1970), p. 136;Google ScholarKoenen, Wilhelm, Meine Begegnung mit Lenin (Berlin, 1957), p. 5.Google Scholar

67. van der Schalk, H. Roland-Holst, Rosa Luxemburg: Ihr Leben und Wirken (Zurich: Jean-Christophe, 1937), p. 221.Google Scholar

68. The activities of the Spartacists in Stuttgart and Württemberg are documented in HSA, E 150, Bund 2051/II and III. For the development on the national level see Wohlgemuth, Heinz, Die Entstehung der KPD (Berlin, 1968).Google Scholar

69. Protokoll über die Verhandlungen des Gründungsparteitages der USPD vom 6.–8. April 1917 in Gotha. Mit Anhang: Bericht über die gemeinsame Konferenz der Arbeitsgemeinschaft und der Spartakusgruppe vom 7. Januar 1917 in Berlin (Berlin: Seehof, 1921), pp. 22f.Google Scholar

70. Liebknecht's, Karl opening speech at the founding congress of the Communist Party: Der Gründungsparteitag der KPD, Protokoll und Materialien, ed. Weber, Hermann (Frankfurt, 1969), pp. 55f.Google Scholar

71. Meyer-Leviné, p. 91. A letter of Levi, Paul of Nov. 5, 1918, quoted earlier, testifies that on the eve of the revolution the Spartacist leadership did not appear to be interested in an independent organization: Luban, “Zwei Schreiben der Spartakuszentrale,” p. 237. A letter of Clara Zetkin to Rosa Luxemburg dated Nov. 17, 1918, however, reveals that there was probably no longer complete unanimity among Spartacists on this question. Her slogan, “with the USPD as long as it acts in a revolutionary manner, without it and against it when it refuses to do so,” expressed the growing uneasiness aptly:Google ScholarWeber, Hermann, “Zwischen kritischem und bürokratischem Kommunismus. Unbekannte Briefe von Clara Zetkin,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, XI (1971), 433.Google Scholar

72. Der Gründungsparteitag, ed. Weber, , p. 29.Google ScholarKüster, Heinz, “Die Rolle der ‘Roten Fahne’ bei der Vorbereitung und Gründung der KPD,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, XI, no. 8 (1963), 1468; Wohlgemuth, pp. 283ff.Google Scholar

73. Schüddekopf, “Karl Radek in Berlin,” p. 132.

74. Von Oertzen, Betriebsräte, p. 85; Meyer-Leviné, pp. 86f.

75. Meyer-Leviné, pp. 82–88. The “Bericht über den 1. Rätekongress” is reprinted there on p. 274. See also Leviné's speech at the founding congress fo the KPD in Der Gründungsparteitag, ed. Weber, , pp. 110ff.Google Scholar

76. “Der Anfang,” Die Rote Fahne of Nov. 18, 1918; “Was will der Spartakusbund?” Die Rote Fahne of Dec. 14, 1918; Retzlaw, p. 112.

77. Eberlein told Lenin at the first Comintern Congress in March 1919 that “the task of the Kommunistenbund was not just founding of a new party but mainly the education of the masses”: Der I. Kongress, p. 14.

78. Schneller, E., “Vom Trotzkismus in der deutschen Kommunistischen Bewegung,” Die internationale, VIII, no. 3 (1925), 124f.Google Scholar The phrase that the Spartakusbund is “der Mahner, der Dränger,…das sozialistische Gewissen der Revolution,”appears in the program of the Spartakusbund.

79. Retzlaw, pp. 119, 146, 150f.

80. Radek reports that he got that figure from Liebknecht or Levi: Schüddekopf, “Karl Radek in Berlin,” p. 132.

81. Kolb, Arbeiterräte, pp. 312ff.

82. Angress, Werner T., Stillborn Revolution: The Communist Bid for Power in Germany, 1921–1923 (Princeton, 1963), p. 20.Google Scholar Instead of always pointing to the wide gulf which allegedly separated the Spartacist leadership and its “street people” it should also be remembered that such communist rank and file, whether it was of a “lumpenproletarian” nature or not, appear to have become communists for similar reasons—or rather subconscious motives—as their leaders. Rosenberg, Geschichte, p. 29, hints at this when he writes: “they reject any kind of compromise with the existing condition. They don't want to know anything about the parliament and union, because both are allegedly only places where the proletariat is betrayed. They are in reality against any leadership and any organization.” In accordance with their principles, the Spartacist leaders were not necessarily eager to control and organize these “street people” in traditional SPD fashion. See also Kolb, Arbeiterräte, pp. 312–21; Flechtheim, Die Kommunistische Partei, p. 41.

83. HSA, E 150, Bund 2051/III, Nr. 798–810, including detailed police reports about the developments in Stuttgart and Friedrichshafen distributed by the “action committee” with slogans “for Liebknecht” and “ down with Kadavergehorsam.” Kolb, Arbeiterräte, pp. 324–58, examines these council republics.

84. Müller, Richard, Vom Kaiserreich zur Republik, I (Vienna, 1924), pp. 31, 55f.,Google Scholar and Barth, Emil, Aus der Werkstatt der deutschen Revolution (Berlin, 1919), pp. 11, 13.Google Scholar See also Opel, Fritz, Der deutsche Metallarbeiterverband während des ersten Weltkrieges und der Revolution (Hanover, 1962), pp. 38–54.Google Scholar

85. Der Gründungsparteitag, ed. Weber, , p. 278.Google Scholar

86. Müller, Vom Kaiserreich, pp. 48, 51, 53. Barthel, Walter, “Unbekannte Briefe an Karl Liebknecht anlässlich seiner Ablehnung der Kriegskredite im Deutschen Reichstag am 2. Dezember 1914,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, VIII, no. 3 (1959), 615.Google Scholar

87. Barth, p. 14; Müller, Vom Kaiserreich, p. 219; Ledebour vor den Geschworenen (Berlin: Freiheit, 1919), p. 9.Google Scholar

88. Müller, Vom Kaiserreich, pp. 83–88. Barth, p. 20.

89. Müller, Vom Kaiserreich, p. 109; von Oertzen, Betriebsräte, p. 76.

90. Tormin (p. 43) and von Oertzen (Betriebsräte, pp. 74ff.) argue that the Räte were not imported from Russia but have genuine roots in Germany as well.

91. The fact that some Revolutionary Shop Stewards, like Müller, R., rejected the label “communist” in 1918—Rosa Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches did not like it either, since it came to be considered a symbol of identification with the Bolsheviks, who in March 1918 had adopted this name—and refused to join the KPD in 1918 or 1919 does not exclude them from the ranks of German communism in 1918 any more than attempts by East German historians to ignore or play down their prominent revolutionary role. See Kolb, Arbeiterräte, pp. 410–14.Google Scholar

92. Müller, Vom Kaiserreich, p. 139.

93. This development has been examined carefully by Tormin, pp. 48–65; Kolb, Arbeiterräte, pp. 56–113; von Oertzen, Betriebsräte, pp. 51–78. Some new details about the ups and downs of the collaboration between Spartacists and Obleute on the eve of the revolution are contained in Luban, “Zwei Schreiben der Spartakuszentrale,” p. 239.

94. Eberlein at Der I. Kongress, p. 10; Lindau, Revolutionäre Kämpfe, p. 45; Bernstein, E., Die deutsche Revolution (Berlin, 1921), p. 45.Google Scholar A comprehensive documentation in Die Regierung der Volksbeauftragten 1918/19, pp. xxxviii, 18, 21, 31, according to which the USPD proposed Dittmann as replacement for Liebknecht, Barth for Ledebour. The latter had at that time the reputation as one of the most radical representatives of the Obleute. See also Kolb, Arbeiterräte, p. 115.

95. Kolb, Arbeiterräte, pp. 114–37; von Oertzen, Betriebsräte, pp. 78–82.

96. Müller, Der Bürgerkrieg, pp. 150ff.; von Oertzen, Betriebsräte, p. 85.

97. Däumig as cited in von Oertzen, Betriebsräte, pp. 89–99.

98. Ibid., p. 95.

99. The pioneering monograph by von Oertzen, Peter, Probleme der wirtschaftlichen Neuordnung und der Mitbestimmung in der Revolution von 1918, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Metallindustrie. Gutachten für den Vorstand der IG Metall (printed as a manuscript by Vorstand der IG Metall, 1962), is the only thorough study of an aspect of this development, so far.Google Scholar

100. This development is documented in Schwäbische Tagwacht of Mar. 10, 1917, p. 3, and by Bock, H. M., pp. 66–86.Google Scholar

101. Radek, Karl, In den Reihen der deutschen Revolution 1909–1919 (Munich, 1921).Google Scholar See also: Schüddekopf, O. E., “Der Revolution entgegen: Materialien und Dokumente zur Geschichte des linken Flügels der deutschen Sozialdemokratie vor dem ersten Weltkrieg,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, IX (1969), 451–97;Google ScholarLerner, Warren, Karl Radek. The Last Internationalist (Stanford, 1970).Google Scholar

102. Dokumente und Materialien, ser. II, vol. II, pp. 43–46.

103. See Wohlgemuth, pp. 219f.; Bock, pp. 84f.

104. “Klassenkampf—Massenkampf,” in Jugend-Internationale. Kampf und Propaganda Organ der Internationalen Verbindung sozialistischer Jugendorganisationen, no. 1 of 09 1, 1915, pp. 10f.Google Scholar

105. Lindau, Rudolf, “Einige Bemerkungen zur Herausbildung der KPD,” in Die Gründung der Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands (Berlin, 1959), pp. 73f.Google Scholar

106. Dr. Anton Pannekoek, a Dutch astronomer, and Dr. Herman Gorter, a noted Dutch poet, distinguished themselves by their writings on the mass strike and on imperialism as a unique Marxist school, centered around the Dutch journal De Tribune (since 1907). Expelled from the Dutch Socialist Party in 1909, they formed the first independent left-radical party in Europe. They were also active in the German socialist movement, where they contributed to the crystallization of a communist tendency in Germany. Their concept of organization may be summed up in Pannekoek's contention that “the essence of organization is not the external form but its spirit of organisation, the spirit of belonging together enabling workers everywhere to appear as a united mass.” Pannekoek, H. and Gorter, H., Organization und Taktik der proletarischen Revolution, with introduction by Bock, H. M. (Frankfurt, 1969), pp. 19f.Google Scholar See also Mergner, G., ed., Gruppe Internationale Kommunisten Hollands (Reinbek, 1971). These and other reprints of their writings (in different languages) attest to their actuality since 1968.Google Scholar

107. Laufenberg, Heinrich und Wolffheim, Fritz, Kommunismus gegen Spartakismus: Eine reinliche Scheidung (Hamburg, 1920), pp. 3f.Google Scholar

108. “An unsere Gesinnungsgenossen,” Arbeiterpolitik, no. 10 of 03 10, 1917.Google Scholar

109. Struthahn, A. [Karl Radek], p. 11.Google Scholar

110. Frölich, Paul, Zehn Jahre Krieg und Bürgerkrieg, I: Der Krieg (Berlin, 1924), pp. 155f.Google Scholar

111. “Wesen und Aufgabe der Arbeiter- und Soldatenräte,” Die Rote Fahne, Mitteilungsblatt des Arbeiterrates von Stuttgart und Württemberg, no. 5 of 11 19, 1918.Google Scholar

112. Quoted by Beradt, Paul Levi, p. 27.

113. Der Gründungsparteitag, ed. Weber, , pp. 31–35, 239–52.Google Scholar In a memorandum on the organization of the Munich KPD local Eugen Leviné wrote on Mar. 10, 1919: “The KPD Munich local is an immediate product of the revolutionary process of transformation in which the proletariat has been finding itself since the Revolution of November. …The Revolution is no time of organic developments…but must be a process full of illusions and errors…. During this flowing process there are no final and ideal forms without deficiencies…. Not the bickering about mistakes, deficiencies and errors is the expression of the revolutionary will, but the revolutionary experimentation with new methods and forms” (Meyer-Leviné, pp. 286f.).

114. Meyer-Leviné, , p. 96; Der Gründungsparteitag, ed. Weber, , pp. 109–13. See also fn. 82.Google Scholar

115. Luxemburg, Rosa to Clara Zetkin on Jan. 11, 1919, in Küster, p. 1480.Google Scholar

116. Der Gründungsparteitag, ed. Weber, , pp. 162ff.Google Scholar

117. Quotations from Beradt, Paul Levi, p. 43, and Schüddekopf, “Karl Radek in Berlin,” p. 136.

118. Der Gründungsparteitag, ed. Weber, , p. 38.Google Scholar

119. Eberlein, Hugo, “Spartakus und die Dritte Internationale,” Internationale Pressekorrespondenz of 02 29, 1924, pp. 306f.Google Scholar

120. Rosenberg, Geschichte, pp. 63f.; Müller, Der Bürgerkrieg, p. 89; Der Gründungsparteitag, ed. Weber, , pp. 270–83, 290f.: these discussions produce a revealing catalog of the entire range of often temporary differences between the Spartacists and the Revolutionary Shop Stewards; nevertheless the Kampfgemeinschaft between these two groups is also emphasized and reaffirmed. Eight Revolutionary Shop Stewards joined the newborn KPD. The list of the participants of the congress identifies five.Google Scholar

121. Der Gründungsparteitag, ed. Weber, , pp. 310–45.Google Scholar

122. Comparing the biographical comments attached to the minutes of the congress and the names mentioned in Luban's, Ottokar article “Die Auswirkungen der Jenaer Jugendkonferenz 1916 und die Beziehungen der Zentrale der revolutionären Arbeiter-jugend zur Führung der Spartakusgruppe,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, XI (1971), 185–223,Google Scholar the ten persons in question are F. Winguth, O. Triebel, O. Dattan, G. Handke, R. Gehrke, K. Becker, M. Naumann, K. Plättner, F. Tetens, F. Globig.

123. Luban, “Die Auswirkungen,” pp. 213–23.

124. Schüller, Richard, Von den Anfängen der proletarischen Jugendbewegung bis zur Gründung der KJI. Geschichte der Kommunistischen Jugendinternationale, I (Berlin: Verlag der Jugendinternationale, 1929), pp. 36–54.Google Scholar

125. Münzenberg, W., Die sozialistischen Jugendorganisationen vor und während des Krieges (Berlin: Verlag Junge Garde, 1919), pp. 57–67, 112–31,Google Scholar and Die dritte Front, pp. 30–88.

126. Luban, “Die Auswirkungen,” pp. 185–213. See also the figures given in Wiesner, pp. 39–42, 50; Schüller, pp. 195ff.; Münzenberg, Die dritte Front, pp. 154–286.

127. Wiesner, p. 61.

128. “Der erste Parteitag,” Die Rote Fahne of Jan. 3, 1919.

129. Luxemburg, to Zetkin, in Küster, , p. 1481. Der Gründungsparteitag, ed. Weber, , p. 221.Google Scholar

130. “Versäumte Pflichten,” Die Rote Fahne of Jan. 8, 1919.

131. Retzlaw, p. 198.

132. Müller, Der Bürgerkrieg, pp. 15ff. Waldman, Eric, The Spartacist Uprising (Milwaukee, 1958), p. 185,Google Scholar which, however, unfortunately did not make use of the crucial source of Der Ledebour Prozess. Gesamtdarstellung des Prozesses gegen Ledebour wegen Aufruhr etc. vor dem Geschworenengericht Berlin-Mitte vom 19. Mai bis 23. Juni 1919 auf Grund des amtlichen Stenogramms bearbeitet und mit einem Vorwort versehen von G. Ledebour (Berlin, 1919).Google Scholar

133. HSA, E 150, B2051/IV: “Linksradikale Bestrebungen, 1919–1920,” Nr. 876.

134. Retzlaw, pp. 182, 197, 207.

135. HSA, E 150, Bund 2051/IV, Nr. 821.

136. Bericht über den 2. Parteitag der KPD vom 20.–24. Oktober 1919 (Berlin, 1919), p. 25.Google Scholar

137. Lenin, V. I., “Left–Wing” Communism, an Infantile Disorder (New York, 1940).Google Scholar

138. See Lowenthal, R., “The Bolshevization of the Spartacus League,” International Communism, St. Anthony's Papers, no. 9 (London, 1960), pp. 23–71.Google ScholarWeber, Hermann, Die Wandlung des deutschen Kommunismus. Die Stalinisierung der KPD in der Weimarer Republik (Frankfurt/Main, 1969), however, argues that, in spite of the 21 conditions of the Communist International and its constant interference in the internal affairs of the KPD since 1920, there was no bolshevization on an organized basis prior to 1924. I disagree with him.Google Scholar

139. Struthahn, [Karl Radek], p. 11.Google Scholar

140. Albert, Max [Eberlein, H.], “Die Gründung der Komintern und der Spartakusbund,” Die Kommunistische Internationale, X, nos. 9, 10, 11 (1929), 675.Google Scholar

141. Luxemburg, Rosa, Politische Schriften, III, ed. Flechtheim, O. K. (Frankfurt, 1968), pp. 141, 146.Google Scholar

142. Ibid., p. 134. Retzlaw, pp. 69, 73, writes that Jogiches condemned the Bolshevik seizure of power, but expected the Russian to spark the German Revolution. Luban, “Zwei Schreiben,” pp. 228f., contends in accordance with the official East German and communist version that the experience of the Revolution of 1918–19 caused Spartacist leaders to bury most of their reservations toward the Bolsheviks.

143. Zimmer, Rudolf, Die Rolle der Organisation in der proletarischen Revolution (Berlin: Die Aktion, 1921);Google ScholarLaufenberg, H. and Wolffheim, Fritz, Moskau und die deutsche Revolution (Hamburg, 1920);Google ScholarGorter, H., The World Revolution (Glasgow: Socialist Information und Research Bureau, n.d., but written in 1918);Google ScholarGorter, H., Offener Brief an den Genossen Lenin (Berlin: KAPD, 1920);Google ScholarPannekoek, A., “Das Problem der westeuropäischen Revolution,” Kommunistische Arbeiter–Zeitung, no. 121 (1920);Google ScholarGorter, H., “Ein Brief des Genossen Pannekoek,” Kommunistische Arbeiter-Zeitung, no. 112 (1920);Google ScholarRühle, Otto, “Bericht über Moskau,” Die Aktion, x, no. 39/40 (1920), 553–59.Google Scholar

144. Gorter, Herman, Der historische Materialismus (Stuttgart, 1909), p. 127.Google Scholar

145. On his background and views see his article: Michels, Robert, “Eine syndikalistisch gerichtete Unterströmung im deutschen Sozialismus (1903–1907),” Festschrift für Carl Grünberg zum 70. Geburtstag (Leipzig, 1932), pp. 343–64.Google Scholar

146. Quoted from Michels, Robert, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies in Modern Democracy (New York, 1962), pp. 335–69, which is an English translation of a revised version of the work listed under fn. 11.Google Scholar

147. Die Zeit, no. 22 (North American ed.), of 06 4, 1968, pp. 3f.Google Scholar