In November 1918, soldiers and workers rose up against the imperial government of Wilhelm, Kaiser of Germany. After four years of brutal war which killed over two million German soldiers, the army of the Kaiser had enough. They looked towards the Social-democratic Party of Germany (SPD) to lead them into revolution. But the revolutionary workers and soldiers were betrayed, because the SPD had abandoned the idea of revolution. By 1918, the social democrats only wanted to reform the capitalist state not abolishing it. They betrayed the ideas of socialism on which the social democratic party was originally build. In the end over 5.000 workers were killed to save German capitalism, this was the first of many betrayals of social democracy in Europe!
The Social-democratic Party of Germany was founded in 1863, as the General German Workers Association. It fused with another socialist party in 1875, to form the Socialist Workers Party of Germany (SAPD). The ruling class of the German-Empire feared the party and its revolutionary potential, so the conservative government of Otto von Bismarck proclaimed the anti-socialist laws. Despite these undemocratic laws the party grew in strength and after Bismarck was fired by Kaiser Wilhelm, the anti-socialist laws were not renewed. In 1890, the SAPD changed its name to Social-democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the present name of the party!
Like many other labour parties, the SPD was instrumental in building personal freedoms in Germany. The ruling class did not liked that, freedom for the individual to reject or criticize the Kaiser, God and Country. German conservatives hated liberal values and emperor Wilhelm (unlike his father) was a conservative monarch. The monarchy wanted to keep themselves in power and used their political puppets to hinder any movement towards liberalization. Inside the SPD a debate grew between revolutionaries and moderates. Those who favored a revolutionary road to socialism faced off against those who wanted to work with the liberal bourgeoisie (ruling class) in building a democratic parliamentary monarchy. The right-wing of the party also became nationalist, rejecting the internationalist values of Marxism!
In August 1914, all political parties in the German Reichstag (parliament) needed to vote on the war credentials of emperor Wilhelm. The Kaiser wanted war and needed the approval of the Reichstag. Inside the SPD the right-wing won the debate and the party became chauvinist. Because of party discipline, all elected members were forced to vote as one. Only one member refused to vote YES, this was Karl Liebknecht. He was the son of Wilhelm Liebknecht, who was a founder of the early Communist League (1847-1852) and a friend of Karl Marx. Karl Liebknecht rejected the nationalist majority as they betrayed the founding principals that workers should never fight other workers. German workers were told by the social-democratic party to be patriotic and join the Imperial Germany Army. For God, Kaiser and Fatherland, the SPD joined the ruling class and their militarism!
Liebknecht was unable to stop the war and for his opposition to German imperialism, he was arrested and forced to join the army. The SPD was not the only European workers party who betrayed its socialist program, by supporting the imperialist war. British and French workers were also told by their labour parties to enlist into their national armies to fight each other. The man in Germany who led the SPD into the war was Friedrich Ebert. This right-wing social democrat had been elected party leader in 1913 and used his position to move the SPD away from international socialism. Ebert is hailed today by the ruling class and social democracy as a true ”democrat” despite his support for the war and his role in destroying the German revolution!
In 1916, the Social-democratic Party of Germany decided to expel all anti-war members, this meant that the left-wing of the party was purged. Karl Liebknecht decided to set up a new anti-militarist revolutionary party called the Spartacus League. His supporters included Rosa Luxemburg, Leo Jogiches, Paul Levi, Ernest Meyer, Franz Mehring and Clara Zetkin. In December 1915, new war credentials had to be approved by the Reichstag again. By now it was clear that the war would not end quickly. The Imperial German Army was stuck in Belgium and fighting a bloody trench-war. This time more SPD representatives rejected the war and for that they were expelled by Friedrich Ebert. With the help from Liebknecht they set up the Independent Social-democratic Party of Germany (USPD). This USPD rejected the nationalist mother-party and called for an end to the fighting. German conservatives and nationalists branded them enemies of the state and many were arrested!
A year later it became clear that the war was going nowhere. Still the Kaiser and his generals believed in victory. Meanwhile the working class was suffering. British ships blocked German harbors preventing food from arriving. Germany could not feed its population on its own. By 1917, shortages were more and more common. The ruling class could keep itself fat, but for ordinary workers the prices for food rose each month. Kaiser Wilhelm agreed in April of that year to transport the leaders of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers Party from Switzerland to Russia. Although Russian social democracy was also divided between those who supported the war (Mensheviks) and those who opposed it (Bolsheviks), the Kaiser hoped that if the anti-war social democrats could take power, they would end the war on the Eastern Front. Germany needed to move troops towards the west if they wanted to defeat the western allied forces. In April 1917, the Kaiser allowed the Bolsheviks to travel through Germany. A few months later they had won the majority in the Soviet of Petrograd (Russian capital). After the October Revolution, the new socialist government of Vladimir Lenin started peace talks with Imperial Germany!
After the peace talks resulted in a treaty between the German Empire and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Kaiser could transfer troops to the western front. However this did not result in a German victory. By August 1918, the allied offensive had retaken much terrain and the Imperial Germany Army was about to collapse. General field marshal Paul von Hindenburg understood that the war was lost. However he could not persuade the Kaiser from ending the conflict. Wilhelm was an arrogant leader who could not accept defeat. Then on 29 October 1918, German sailors refused the order to sail out. They were the first who rebelled against the Kaiser. Navy units opened fire on the striking sailors, killing 7 and wounding over 25. This was the spark and within days the whole Imperial German Navy rebelled. Sailors lowered the Imperial War Banner and raised the red flag of revolution. By early November the naval port of Kiel was under revolutionary control!
Workers also rebelled as they had enough. Together with soldiers and sailors they set up soviets (revolutionary councils) across Germany. Now the bourgeoisie was in a state of full panic. In desperation they demanded that all German kings abducted which all did by the end of November. To keep the workers in line the SPD was needed to save the capitalist state. Friedrich Ebert knew that his time had come. As the ruling class panicked, he was appointed to become the next head of state. Wilhelm had fled to the Netherlands and Paul von Hindenburg promised to put the army at the disposal of the right-wing social democrat. Meanwhile the Spartacus League led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg demanded a socialist democracy. As the Reichstag was informed about the plan of Liebknecht to proclaim a socialist republic in Germany, SPD representative Philipp Scheidemann decided to proclaim the German Republic from the balcony of the Reichstag. Hours later Karl Liebknecht did proclaim the Free Socialist Republic of Germany!
By 8 November 1918, there were two forces at work. One tried to save the ruling class and the capitalist system, the other tried to overthrow it. The capitalist media portrayed the soviets as ”Jewish Bolsheviks” who had to be crushed. Inside the soviets many representatives from the SPD did their best to sabotage the democratic process. They never believed in a socialist democracy and only got themselves elected to prevent the revolutionary socialists from taking over. Few workers had realized how far the SPD had betrayed them. Many were still under the general idea that the SPD was a workers party, fighting for socialism. After all, they had done so since 1863. The minor Spartacus League lacked the numbers and influence of the larger social-democratic party. Since they were suppressed by the former imperial government, few workers knew of the revolutionary party. Also we must not forget that Karl Liebknecht was not a leader like Vladimir Lenin. The SPD still controlled the majority of support from workers!
Red flags were flying over government buildings in Berlin, Leipzig, Hamburg, Bremen, Chemnitz and Gotha. The former imperial army was ordered to move into these cities and end ”Bolshevik” rule. Many soviets surrendered as the SPD representatives told workers that the future of Germany was in parliamentary democracy. However many soldiers lacked the will to fight actual armed workers. Troop moral was very low and the High Command realized that the army would not crush a revolutionary uprising if this happened. Therefore it was decided to set up far-right paramilitary units called the Free Regiments. These regiments would then be used to destroy those soviets who did not surrendered to Friedrich Ebert and his government in Berlin. However the new head of the German Republic soon had to flee his office after a mob of angry soldiers marched in. They look control of the chancellery and cut off communication. Had these soldiers been under revolutionary leadership then capitalist rule would have ended on 25 December 1918, it did not. They never took the government ministers and allowed for Ebert to resume his work after Christmas!
By now the Spartacus League understood that they needed to be the revolutionary vanguard of the revolution. On 4 January 1919, they renamed themselves into Communist Party of Germany. The new KPD and USPD rallied their supporters to overthrow Ebert and his capitalist government. However it was too late as soldiers loyal to Paul von Hindenburg had entered the capital. In bloody street fights that lasted 11 days, over 3.000 revolutionaries were killed by far-right: Free Regiment units. They captured Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg on 15 January. There was never a order from Ebert to executed the two communist leaders. However the Free Regiments did not care. The KPD leaders were tortured for hours and then executed as ”Jewish Bolshevik rats”. Waldemar Pabst claimed that he killed Liebknecht and Luxemburg. For this crime the far-right murderer was never punished by the Ebert government. With the execution of their top leaders the KPD was weakened, but not yet defeated. Friedrich Ebert may had crushed the socialist revolution, but his new republic would be far from stable!
In the city of Weimar, the SPD and the bourgeoisie founded their parliamentary republic. On paper the state was still called Das Deutsche Reich (the German Realm). In the history books it became known as the Weimar Republic, named after the city. Friedrich Ebert was elected first president. Social democrats and liberals then introduced the black-red-gold banner of 1848 as the new state flag, replacing the black-white-red flag of Imperial Germany. As conservatives and nationalists never accepted democracy in general, they rejected the new Weimar flag. The KPD also refused this republican flag and kept the red banner as their symbol. It is ironic that after 1945, the KPD wanted to use the imperial colors for their Stalinist state, only for Ebert’s son to call for the Weimar flag to be used in East Germany. In the Reichswehr the new colors were never accepted. Army units kept the imperial war flag as their symbol. Merchant ships also kept using the colors of the old German Empire, this meant that the republican colors were only used by the government inside Germany!
On 13 March 1920, the new state faced another crisis. Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz tried overthrow Friedrich Ebert with support from the Reichswehr. Both men were far-right nationalists and hated the Weimar Republic. Ebert called for a general strike as workers refused to accept the far-right. In the Ruhr the KPD and USPD organized an army of 50.000 revolutionary workers to fight the Reichswehr. After only a few days the coup failed, Kapp and Lüttwitz fled. Those who supported them however were not punished. Ebert and his government wanted to forget this incident and did not call for harsh punishment of those soldiers who had tried to destroy the bourgeois-democracy. Angered by this the Red Army of the Ruhr refused to disband. They had defeated many Reichswehr & Free Regiments and soviets had been created to replace bourgeois rule. Berlin ordered the army and far-right to go into the Ruhr and kill off any rebel they could find. Over 1.000 revolutionaries were killed and executed. Again the SPD used the army and far-right to save their capitalist state!
The pro-revolutionary USPD joined with the Communist Party of Germany in December 1920. But a large minority (45%) rejected the fusion as did 3/4 of all elected officials of the USPD. They kept the party alive while the majority entered the communist party. Future KPD leader Ernst Thälmann was a USPD member. The Independent Social-democratic Party of Germany moved to the right by allying itself with the very party they had opposed during the first world war. In July 1922, the SPD en USPD had become friendly and talked about reunification of the two social democratic parties. A small faction refused the merger and kept the party’s name after the USPD merged with the SPD to form the United Social-democratic Party of Germany in September. The old name was restored however in 1924. Under the leadership of Georg Ledebour and Theodor Liebknecht (brother of Karl Liebknecht) the USPD stayed alive until it merged with other leftists in 1931, to form the Socialist Workers Party of Germany. This party tried to bridge the gap between the now Stalinist KPD and openly capitalist SPD!
In 1928, the Stalinist leaders of the Communist International demanded that all communist parties viewed the social democrats as ”social-fascists”. This sectarian position resulted in the fact that no united front against fascism was build until 1932. By the time Stalin called for unity against that Austrian corporal and his far-right Nazi Party it was too late. In March 1933, the Social-democratic Party of Germany was banned and could not operate freely until May 1945. After the war the SPD choose to abandoned Marxist socialism altogether, to show their ultimate loyalty to capitalism. This was done in 1959 when the party adopted a new program, that did not mentioned Marxism anymore. At the end of the 1980’s, the social democratic party accepted neoliberalism and austerity as their new gods!
The KPD degenerated into a Stalinist party and was forced to fuse with the East-German SPD in 1945 to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). From 1948 until 1990, this SED ruled East Germany with an iron fist. Their German Democratic Republic was build on the same parliamentary model as the Weimar Republic. There was nothing socialist about this Stalinist state. Today in 2018, the SPD is still regarded as left-wing by the capitalist media. Some workers still have the illusion that the party is (center) leftist. But even this is not true as in any coalition with the right-wing conservatives, the SPD has acted as a typical bourgeois party. In fact it has never worked to build socialism since that first betrayal in August 1914. The party that was build to lead the German workers into a socialist society betrayed the revolution. Today we see the results of that betrayal as the SPD is neither a workers party nor a socialist party!
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