The origins of the 1918-19 German Revolution, or the November Revolution, can be traced back to the face of hubris of the German hereditary system: Wilhelm II. A fierce arms race with Britain covered in German chauvinism threatened the might of the Royal Navy and escalated World War One into the global conflict that it was, whilst defeat in the Great War divided the Kaiser’s subjects. Plagued with mutinies and insubordination, contrasting with the pride of soldiers spouting the stab in the back myth, the First World War provided an intense battleground for an intense battle between democracy and autocracy that fundamentally transformed the German political society.
Tom Cowling explains.
Leftist soldiers during fighting in the Berlin City Palace in 1918 as part of the German Revolution. Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1976-067-30A / CC-BY-SA 3.0, available here.
World War One
Armed with 5 naval laws aimed at threatening British dominance of the seas, the Kaiser and his court were gearing up for war. Totalling hundreds of new ships, and an increase of 136,000 in the army in 1912 (1), the naval laws forced Britain and her allies into creating formal alliances in the face of German hostility. Britain had alliances with Japan, Russia, and France. War was inevitable. Victories in the east against a flailing Russian Empire proved irrelevant by the time the American Expeditionary Forces landed in Europe. With hundreds of thousands of men entering Europe each month from the US, the German army was simply awaiting its fate. On the domestic front, the origins of a revolutionary movement were brewing as it became evident that this war was one of imperialism, with Germany occupying vast swathes of Eastern Europe. A split in the SPD, which had initially supported the war effort, saw the establishment of the Independent Socialists, fundamentally opposed to war. Led by the far-left Spartacists, there was a wave of strikes in January 1918, forcing a declaration of martial law (1). The age of insubordination had begun, and a fierce sense of chaos had swept across Germany.
At President Wilson’s indirect request, Germany made itself a constitutional monarchy and kickstarted the Revolution from Above. Governmental positions were granted to members of the Reichstag rather than the Kaiser’s comrades (1). The chancellor was made responsible to the Reichstag, whilst war could not be declared without parliament’s approval (1). His abdication came in November, at the insistence of Wilson’s men (1). The empire had shifted from a feared titan in Europe to a republic at the mercy of democracy. Friedrich Ebert, moderate SPD politician, was named chancellor (1). Wilson and his 14 points had established upheaval in Germany.
The start
Indiscipline marked the beginning of the Revolution from below; the new republic’s first threat to its existence. The left had an insatiable appetite for dictatorship, authoritarianism and control – the gravity of the situation was profound. Orders for an arrogant, and unwinnable, attack on the Royal Navy inevitably culminated in mutinies, which spread unstoppably to numerous ports on the Baltic Sea. With the military refusing to accept orders of the state, revolution was imminent. Communists seized power in Bavaria and workers’ councils snatched control of fourteen cities within days (2). Germany was on the brink of collapse, and submission to the left. Masses gathered in the capital as Karl Liebknecht, a key antagonist of democracy and prominent figure in the Spartacist League, stood on the Reichstag balcony and unabashedly called for a socialist republic (2). In a flurry of panic, the Freikorps, a paramilitary group of veterans desensitised by the experiences of war with loyalties firmly resting on the Kaiser, were sent in by Ebert to quell such left-wing dissent (1). Spartacist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were executed for their revolutionary crimes (2). Their revolution had failed completely to build up the necessary foundations of an undemocratic, communist system. But efforts to change Germany into the ultra-democratic state it existed under in the Weimar Republic were successful enough that the political, governmental and constitutional framework of Germany was revolutionised following the events of 1918.
Success or failure?
From a Marxist perspective, the revolution was an abject failure. Capitalist institutions remained firmly in place, and the bourgeois tendencies of the army raged on. Democracy was entrenched in the new Weimar constitution, with proportional representation and universal suffrage (1). The results of 1918 were a far cry from Marx’s ideal of a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. Germany was well and truly a liberal state with institutional rejection of communist beliefs. Capitalism was central to the workings of Weimar democracy, with unions making agreements with industrialists not to cause disruption to production – the German workers were barred from seizing the means of production. Industrialists such as Hugo Stinnes presided over a huge amount of German industrial production in the new Germany, much to the dismay of Marxists. To the far-left in Germany, the events of 1918 served only to be scorned at as useless incremental change.
To the social democrats amongst the left in Germany, the revolution and its impact was a resounding success. They had swept away an antiquated system that kept people under the thumb of the monarch, and truly suppressed the will of the people that social democracy so desires. The left, in the form of the SPD, had power, with Ebert as chancellor, and the political extremes had been dealt with. The military system in Germany was committed to upholding democracy, having made deals with Ebert in return for the suppression of violent, extremist uprisings. The Freikorps were a reliable group to counteract left-wing rebellions, albeit through near insanity, but they would never let Germany fall to the communists, as they proved in the crushing of the rebellion that they contributed so significantly to. Democrats across Germany were undoubtedly intoxicated by the newfound democracy the new republic had in such abundance.
The right was naturally infuriated by the news of political change. The conservative doctrine couldn’t accept such sweeping changes, and such a rejection of ‘stability’. They had lost their deity in the form of the emperor, and had surrendered control and power to their natural enemy in the form of the centre-left. Despite this attack on the conservative order in Germany, they begrudgingly accepted the new political framework. They were protected from democratization of the army (1) which meant the most adored, to conservatives, institution was left alone from the transformation underwent in 1918. In spite of the rejection of nationalism by the new government, and the armistice, the conservative right more or less accepted the position they found themselves in.
Conclusion
To many aligning themselves with the political extremes, the revolution was something to look upon with great disdain. Marxists and conservatives alike were sworn enemies of democracy, and both looked upon the revolution as a ‘failure’. But the democrats won. They won democracy and they won freedom from the Kaiser, whilst winning power. To them, the revolution was a blessing, and saw them get what they wanted. As Marxists didn’t get enough change, and conservatives got far too much, social democrats in Germany were granted their wish of democracy and accountability as a direct result of the 1918 revolution.
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Bibliography
Kitchen, M. (2006) A History of Modern Germany 1800-2000. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing
Sewell, R. (2018) The German Revolution of 1918, In Defence of Marxism. Available at: https://www.marxist.com/the-german-revolution-of-1918.htm (Accessed: 24 July 2023)
