Nothing to Lose but Your Chains! / a German Revolution TL

Introduction
  • Nothing to Lose but Your Chains!
    This is the reboot of my previous timeline The Communist International Becomes the Communist Interstellar? Like the previous timeline this will be inspired by the HOI4 Spartakus mod, where the point of divergence is the Communist Party of Germany being established as a merger of the Spartacists and other revolutionaries from the USPD, participating in the first parliamentary elections and from there the German Revolution spirals into a socialist Germany. However, this timeline will be written in a format similar to my Islam timeline where events will be recounted in a mostly chronological matter. Part of the reason for the reboot is so that I can craft a unique world without relying on the lore for Spartakus though there will undoubtedly be some overlap in the early years.

    I hope you enjoy, and feel free to comment.
     
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    Prologue
  • Prologue

    The Great War had driven the people of Europe to breaking point. Shortages in food and goods, authoritarian or undemocratic governance, competing ethnic and religious aspirations, and fatigue with the war all exerted pressure upon the population of Europe and elsewhere. The monarchy of the Russian Empire was overthrown in the February Revolution of 1917 which ushered in the period of ‘dual power’; the Provisional Government was a self-appointed cabinet of liberal and moderate socialist ministers deriving their legitimacy from the State Duma, from parties such as the Constitutional Democratic Party (Konstitutsionno-Demokraticheskaya Partiya/Kadet), the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (Partiya Sotsialisty Revolyutsionery/SR), and the Menshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Rossiyskaya Sotsial-Demokraticheskaya Rabochaya Partiya/RSDRP). The Provisional Government coexisted with a multitude of soviets (councils) which were comprised of elected representatives, arguably the most important of which was the Petrograd Soviet. The Provisional Government’s continued support for the unpopular war, combined with the worsening economic situation and the perceived collusion between some members of the Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional Government, further radicalised the working-classes of the former Russian Empire and increased support for the Bolshevik faction of the RSDRP and a newly emergent left-wing split from the SRs. In early November (late October in the Old Style/Julian calendar) the Bolsheviks and Left-SRs believed that they had the support of the proletariat to overthrow both the Provisional Government and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies; the latter had last been elected in early June and so was unrepresentative of the leftward shift of the electorate. The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic was founded and soon afterwards a civil war erupted, complicated further by national minorities seizing the opportunity for independence and then by the government of the RSFSR agreeing on a peace with the Central Powers in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

    The German Empire suffered from much the same problems as Russia did. The Entente naval blockade continued unabated after the indecisive Battle of Jutland in 1916 resulted in the German High Seas Fleet being confined to port for the remainder of the war. Severe shortages in food and raw materials for the war effort drastically reduced the people’s support for the war as well as their ability to sustain it. Meanwhile the working class’ primary representative, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands/SPD), split in 1917 over the party leadership’s support for the war; the anti-war centrists and leftists, somewhat reluctantly, founded the Independent Social Democratic Party (Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands/USPD). Among the USPD was the Spartacus League (Spartakusbund), the revolutionary leftist members of the SPD. After the split, the ultra-leftists rejected the USPD and formed their own group, the International Socialists of Germany (Internationale Sozialisten Deutschlands/ISD).

    Following a number of military failures the German military high command, who had become the de facto government, agreed to allow the civilian government to explore options for an armistice from late September 1918 onward. Arguably the intent of generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff was to transfer the blame of the country’s upcoming loss in the war onto the politicians, preferably those on the left. Kaiser Wilhelm II appointed Prince Maximilian of Baden to be the new Imperial Chancellor (Reichskanzler) on 3rd October; his cabinet included Gustav Bauer and Philipp Scheidemann from the SPD. To combat the rising militancy of the working class, the new government released hundreds of political prisoners in late October, including the leading Spartacist Karl Liebknecht. Demonstrations and strikes were carried out in support of the release of the political prisoners, and some workers’ councils were even established in Berlin, Stuttgart, and Friedrichshafen, but the police efficiently suppressed most of the unrest. The naval command disagreed with the new government’s desire for peace however, and instead on 24th October ordered the fleet to prepare for battle. The crews of the ships docked at Wilhelmshaven mutinied though, and the fleet was dispatched to Kiel. On 3rd November a demonstration of thousands of sailors and soldiers led by USPD member Karl Artelt was fired upon by loyalist soldiers. In the following days, the mutineers formed a council, seized control of the port, and called for a general strike with the support of the local SPD and USPD members. The prominent SPD politician Gustav Noske was appointed Governor of Kiel in order to halt the revolutionary outburst, a duty in which he believed himself to be successful. Over the next week or so however, mutinies and demonstrations spread first to the coastal cities, and then to the interior; councils of workers, soldiers, and sailors were formed, often with the aid of local SPD, USPD, and ISD members, and in some cases socialist republics were declared. The German Revolution had begun.

    Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-J0908-0600-002%2C_Novemberrevolution%2C_Matrosenaufstand.jpg

    The mutinous sailors at Kiel
     
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    Electoralism and Anti-Electoralism Among the German Left, Part 1
  • Electoralism and Anti-Electoralism Among the German Left, Part 1

    The USPD leadership dithered in the face of the revolution. On 2nd November, just before the Kiel mutiny, a meeting of the USPD leadership voted in support of an armed insurrection; Georg Ledebour’s date of 4th November was rejected in favour of Hugo Haase’s proposal for the 11th. Karl Liebknecht opposed the idea of any armed insurrection until the working class had been sufficiently mobilised and were ready to support a military action. As workers’ councils were formed across the country, the USPD leadership continued to hold out for their planned insurrection, much to the chagrin of Liebknecht. The SPD ministers, more cognisant of the increasing revolutionary fervour than their left-wing rivals, informed the emperor that they would be unable to control the masses if he didn’t abdicate. On 8th November the military leader of the USPD’s planned insurrection was arrested, as was USPD member Ernst Däumig who possessed the plans for the insurrection. The leadership of the USPD hesitated before deciding to bring the insurrection forward to the 9th; separately Liebknecht and the Spartacists did the same. Even the SPD leadership were dragged by their members into supporting the imminent insurrection.

    The next day tens of thousands marched through the streets of Berlin, calling for a general strike and demanding the establishment of a republic. The SPD leaders scrambled to make sure that loyalist soldiers didn’t fire on the revolutionaries, and thus tip the balance toward the radicals. At the headquarters of the SPD’s newspaper, Vorwärts, a council was assembled consisting of twelve factory workers, and the politicians: Friedrich Ebert, Otto Braun, Otto Wels, and Eugen Ernst. The politicians from the council presented the revolutionary demands to Chancellor Maximilian of Baden, who in turn announced the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm and the appointment of Ebert as the new Chancellor. In order to calm down the crowd outside of the Reichstag, Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed the founding of a new republic (an act for which Ebert criticised him); at about the same time Liebknecht declared a socialist republic at the Imperial Palace. An assembly of USPD members, as well as soldiers and workers, began the debate on whether to collaborate with the SPD government. Ledebour opposed any form of collaboration, but Liebknecht, Däumig, and Richard Müller proposed six prerequisites for collaboration:
    1. Proclamation of a socialist republic.
    2. Legislative, executive, and judicial power transferred to elected councils.
    3. No bourgeois ministers.
    4. Collaboration to last only for the time needed to negotiate an armistice.
    5. Technical ministries to be under the control of a purely political departmental staff.
    6. Equal representation of the socialist parties in the cabinet.
    The assembly supported these conditions and sent their offer to the SPD cabinet. The new government agreed only to the latter two conditions and stated its support for a universally-elected constituent assembly over any form of “class dictatorship”.

    Ausrufung_Republik_Scheidemann.jpg

    Philipp Scheidemann declaring a republic at the Reichstag

    The USPD response was, as was often the case, confused. Emil Barth and his allies organised the convocation of a congress of workers’ and soldiers’ councils of Berlin at Busch Circus for 10th November: one delegate elected per one thousand workers and one delegate per battalion. The congress would elect a new revolutionary government. However, Hugo Haase returned from Kiel and began negotiations for a compromise agreement with the SPD. The latter appeared to agree to the transfer of power to the councils and the postponement of a constituent assembly, but behind the scenes Otto Wels used his previous contacts with the soldiers of the Berlin garrison to ensure their loyalty to the SPD in the upcoming congress. Over 1,500 delegates were present at the congress, with Barth presiding as Chairman, Lieutenant Waltz (the leader of the USPD’s planned insurrection) as Vice-Chairman, and the SPD-supporting soldier Brutus Molkenbuhr as Secretary. Ebert and Haase presented their negotiated agreement to the delegates; Liebknecht criticised the agreement and charged the SPD with being counter-revolutionaries, for which the pro-SPD soldiers shouted him down and threatened him. The composition of this joint Executive Committee proved to be highly contentious. Emil Barth’s first proposal was for a committee of nine workers and nine soldiers. The soldiers and the SPD strongly demanded that there should be parity between the two parties, with the soldiers even threatening to leave and form their own Executive Committee. Because the SPD had less representation among the factory workers than the USPD, Barth proposed a compromise where the where the worker delegation was increased to twelve, three of those being from the SPD.[1] The soldiers however continued their obstruction, causing Barth to give in and propose a new configuration: twelve soldiers, all of whom would be pro-SPD, and twelve workers, six USPD and six SPD. Liebknecht and his fellow Spartacists Wilhelm Pieck and Rosa Luxemburg refused their places on the Executive Committee due to the coercive politicking the SPD and their armed soldiers had engaged in. The SPD had seemingly won this battle and now controlled both the official government and the revolutionary one.

    Throughout Germany similar scenes to those which occurred in Berlin played out in other city councils. Where SPD delegates were a minority, they demanded parity; when they were a majority, they did not. In some cities, there were even delegates from openly bourgeois parties and organisations; invariably they allied with the SPD delegates. Sometimes the SPD were successful in arguing for parity, but in other cases they weren’t. In the more revolutionary councils, such as the industrialised coastal cities, the councils went beyond political reorganisation (establishing workers’ militias, abolishing previous governmental structures, etc.) and began the process of seizing the means of production. The councils which were under SPD control though were considered to be merely transitional structures until the election of a constituent assembly. After the armistice was agreed with the Entente for the morning of the 11th November, the government(s) turned their attention to organising the election of the constituent assembly. On 16th November Ernst Däumig forwarded a motion in the Executive Committee of Berlin councils condemning the rapid convention of a constituent assembly and instead proposed the convention of an all-German congress of councils to act as a constituent assembly. The motion was narrowly defeated and Hermann Müller, an SPD delegate, amended the motion so that the constituent assembly would be established by this new all-German congress. In the confused atmosphere of the debate, the amended motion was narrowly passed because some USPD delegates believed it to be a compromise. Vorwärts and aligned newspapers immediately seized on the Executive Committee’s confused decision and began to publish various dates for the election to the constituent assembly. Two days later the congress of Berlin councils were recalled to Busch Circus to clarify the resolution that had been passed by the Executive Committee, and the USPD members reaffirmed their commitment to rule by the councils. The resolution was not put to a vote for the congress however, and the SPD-controlled government prevented telegraph companies from publicising the USPD’s proclamations.

    Discontent among the Spartacus League and other left-wing members of the USPD towards the ineffective leadership of the party was gradually increasing. The official government, which included the three USPD ministers Hugo Haase, Wilhelm Dittmann, and Emil Barth, set the 16th February as the date for the constituent assembly election. On 23rd November the revolutionary members of the USPD and their representatives from the factories in Berlin convened, and agreed on a program to demand the resignation of the three USPD ministers from the government and for an anti-parliamentarian electoral campaign to be organised. The need for a special party congress was overwhelmingly supported but the question of when was in debate, for the government had confirmed the convention of the First All-German Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils to take place on 16th December. Luxemburg, who still supported the position of the Spartacists remaining in the party, argued for the special congress to be held as soon as possible. Many others supported Luxemburg’s call for an immediate special party congress and voted in favour of the motion.[2] The meeting ended with the election of an action committee comprised of Georg Ledebour, Ernst Däumig, Karl Liebknecht, Wilhelm Pieck, and Paul Scholze. The alliance between the Spartacists and the non-Spartacist left of the USPD proved to be a potent one. The latter had a strong connection with the revolutionary shop stewards (minor trade union officials) and the factory workers, while the Spartacists were popular with the youth and the recently politicised.

    [1] So altogether that’s 13 for the SPD (including the soldiers’ delegates) and 9 for the USPD.
    [2] Finally the first PoD (everything up until this point has been the same as OTL). In OTL this meeting occurred on the 21st December.

    Dramatis Personae (OTL biographies)

    Georg Ledebour: One of the main leaders of the USPD and part of its left faction, Ledebour refused to participate in the founding of the KPD because of its alignment with the ultra-leftists. When the USPD split in 1920 over joining the Comintern Ledebour remained in the rump USPD, most of which eventually rejoined the SPD in 1922. Ledebour remained in the SPD until 1931 when he and other leftists split and formed the Socialist Workers' Party (SAPD). He escaped to Switzerland after the Nazis came to power, where he died in 1947.
    Ernst Däumig: Another leader of the USPD's left faction, Däumig opposed the establishment of the KPD for the same reasons as Ledebour but would go on to join the Communists along with the majority of the USPD in 1920. He became co-chairman but resigned the next year and soon after left the party to form the Communist Working Group, which rejoined the USPD in 1922. Däumig died shortly after.
    Richard Müller: Very similar career trajectory to Däumig, but Müller left politics after leaving the KPD and became an author, businessman, and harsh landlord. He died in 1943.
     
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    Electoralism and Anti-Electoralism Among the German Left, Part 2
  • Electoralism and Anti-Electoralism Among the German Left, Part 2

    The actions of the government continued to drive a wedge between the factions of the USPD. The Socialisation Commission, established by the government to advance economic reform, had achieved no tangible results. The support for ‘freedom of the press’ in reality meant support for corporations and anti-socialist organisations to incite violence against revolutionaries, and the censoring of the Berlin councils’ Executive Committee. The Executive Committee had previously attempted to establish a red guard; the pro-SPD soldiers’ delegates voted down the motion however. Friedrich Ebert’s cabinet criticised the Executive Committee for acting beyond its remit, but soon afterwards he approved Emil Barth’s proposition to create the government’s own militia unit, which Otto Wels named a ‘republican defence force’.

    At the next USPD conference in Berlin, held on the 27th November, Hugo Haase spoke in defence of both the party’s collaboration with the SPD in government and the convening of the constituent assembly, arguing that it was the democratic thing to do. Rosa Luxemburg predictably retorted that if Haase and the leadership supported democracy, they should call for a special party congress to decide the party’s future. Before the right could respond, the non-Spartacists Georg Ledebour and Richard Müller spoke in support of Luxemburg’s argument. Emboldened by the revolt of the party’s centre and left, many who were on the fence over the collaboration with the SPD jumped ship to the left. Emil Barth, though a minister in the government, had traditionally been on the left of the party; he remained curiously silent throughout the proceedings. In the end though the effort wasn’t enough, as Luxemburg’s motion for a special party congress was defeated. The vote was painfully close however; 329 in favour and 341 against. It is arguable that if Barth had spoken in favour of his erstwhile comrades, the motion would have carried and a split in the party may have been avoided. As it were, the left and centre departed the conference determined to establish a new revolutionary party. Upon hearing the news of the split the ultra-left ISD, since renamed International Communists, expressed interest in re-joining the Spartacists until they learned that they were still in league with the old ‘reformists’ of the USPD.[1] The USPD membership however were electrified by the developments in the capital. Many USPD-controlled councils throughout the country declared their support for the Spartacists and their allies.

    On the 2nd December, the splitters convened for what would become known as the Founding Congress of the Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands/KPD). The congress hosted 83 Spartacists and 42 non-Spartacists. Even at this stage there was still some concern over leaving the USPD from figures like Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches, who preferred to return the old party back to its revolutionary values. The presence of the fellow (non-Spartacist) revolutionaries quelled most of the opposition however and the vote to found a new party passed almost unanimously; Jogiches and Werner Hirsch abstained.[2] There was more debate over the name of the new party itself. The Zentrale, the central leadership, of the Spartacus League had already voted for ‘communist’ over ‘socialist’, but the debate was reopened at the insistence of some non-Spartacists. Luxemburg had argued that the new party should act as a bridge between the Bolsheviks and the western European socialists, so the name should remain ‘socialist’ so as to ease the process. Other Spartacists argued that naming themselves ‘communist’ would plainly state their intentions to establish a socialist republic of workers’ and soldiers’ councils. The non-Spartacists were more concerned with removing the exclusionary name of ‘Spartacus’ and its derivatives. The congress comfortably settled on Communist Party of Germany as its name.[3]

    The question of participation in the election for the constituent assembly was the most controversial topic of debate. All the delegates agreed that the bourgeois institution of the constituent assembly was incapable of delivering victory to the proletariat. Despite that caveat, leading Spartacist Paul Levi introduced the motion for the party standing in the election. This position was supported by the other members of the Spartacist leadership, but many of the newer members of the League held ultra-left views and so opposed the motion. The latter attempted to interrupt and shout down Levi’s speech, only to be responded to by the non-Spartacists. After a much-heated debate, Levi’s motion was put to a vote: 81 for and 33 against.[4] The rest of the congress was relatively sedate; trade union bureaucracies were condemned but, through the arguments of the non-Spartacists, activism in the unions was encouraged. The congress concluded by endorsing the party programme and electing a provisional Central Committee (Zentralausschuss) of: Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Paul Levi, Georg Ledebour, Ernst Däumig, and Richard Müller.

    In the weeks between the KPD’s Founding Congress on 2nd December and the First All-German Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils on the 16th, it is estimated that over half of the USPD membership joined the KPD. The rump USPD comprised the rightists, who were indistinguishable from the SPD left, the idealists who still believed that a socialist republic was possible through the constituent assembly, and those who remained ignorant or uninterested in internal party politics. The USPD retained its control of the party newspaper, Freiheit, but the Spartacist newspaper Die Rote Fahne was now able to compete due to the dramatic increase in readership and the resultant sales. Furthermore, the new party had its own paramilitary; the League of Red Soldiers had been established by the Spartacists on 15th November to combat the SPD’s overwhelming influence among soldiers. The League of Red Soldiers played an important role in the events of the 6th December which proved damaging to the Ebert government. The previous day, a delegation of soldiers marched to the Chancellery and announced their support for Ebert. The next day the garrison’s activities escalated: one unit occupied the headquarters of the Berlin councils’ Executive Committee and arrested its members; another went back to the Chancellery and declared Ebert to be President. The League of Red Soldiers led a demonstration against the apparent coup attempt and were fired upon. On the 7th, Liebknecht was arrested by soldiers while at the offices of Die Rote Fahne, leading to a demonstration of 100,000 workers the next day. Ebert was pressured by Paul von Hindenburg into accepting the movement of ten divisions from the front to Berlin in order to suppress the Revolution. Meanwhile Emil Eichhorn, left USPD member and Berlin chief of police, ordered an inquiry which uncovered evidence of a number of Ebert’s associates being involved in the planning of the abortive coup attempt. The right’s hopes were further dashed when the arriving divisions dispersed and returned home.

    The day of the First All-German Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils arrived: 489 delegates in all, 405 workers and 84 soldiers. The birth of the KPD had uprooted the USPD’s position in the councils, but the SPD were unaffected. As such, the SPD held a majority of 288 delegates against the KPD’s 77 and the USPD’s 13. Additionally there were 11 ‘united revolutionaries’ (the IKD), 25 liberals, and 75 independents. The KPD had expected the SPD to have a majority and so organised a demonstration of 250,000 workers outside the Congress. Due to the electoral process of the Berlin councils, Liebknecht and Luxemburg were not elected because they were neither factory workers nor soldiers. Ironically the councils of other cities not having such stringent rules is what allowed the SPD to have such a large delegation of intellectuals and other professionals.[5] Attempts to allow Liebknecht and Luxemburg to attend the Congress as consultative members were rejected out of hand. It is unsurprising then that Ebert’s directives were approved by a majority. The decision to hold elections for the constituent assembly were overwhelmingly approved, though the KPD abstained on the vote. The date of the elections were opened up for debate. The ‘united revolutionaries’ argued for 16th March but only won 50 votes. Ebert, cognisant of his lack of military control of Berlin and eager to keep the USPD on side after their split, had instructed his associates to support the original date of 16th February; this motion won an overwhelming majority of delegates, with the KPD once again abstaining. Afterwards Däumig pushed a motion calling for the councils to remain the supreme organ of legislative and executive authority, and to recall the Congress before a constitution was ratified. This last gasp for the councils was handily defeated. The only upset to Ebert’s agenda concerned the military. A number of measures aimed at reducing reactionary influence in the military, including the election of officers and transfer of military command to the soldiers’ councils, was approved by a majority which included pro-SPD soldiers. With the KPD’s defeat at the Congress, they began to focus on mobilising the working class in the councils and organising an anti-parliamentary election campaign.

    Group
    Delegates
    % of delegates
    Social Democratic Party​
    288​
    58.9​
    Communist Party​
    77​
    15.7​
    Independents​
    75​
    15.3​
    Liberals​
    25​
    5.1​
    Independent Social Democratic Party​
    13​
    2.7​
    United Revolutionaries​
    11​
    2.2​

    [1] OTL, the IKD merged with the Spartacists and together a majority voted in favour of ultra-left positions such as boycotting the constituent assembly elections. This in turn caused negotiations between the Spartacists and the other leftists of the USPD (including the shop stewards) to breakdown.
    [2] OTL, those two plus another voted against leaving the USPD.
    [3] The name adopted IOTL was Communist Party of Germany (Spartacus).
    [4] OTL there were 112 delegates (83 Spartacists, 29 IKD). The OTL vote was 23 for and 62 against. With the ultra-left IKD being replaced with the pro-electoral non-Spartacist USPD members, I reckon there would be a majority for participation in the election (with some abstentions also taken in to account).
    [5] There were 179 factory and office workers versus 71 intellectuals and 164 professionals, that is, journalists, career politicians, and party and trade union officials.

    Dramatis Personae (OTL biographies)

    Leo Jogiches: An old member of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, along with Rosa Luxemburg (the two also being long-term lovers), Jogiches was one of the main Spartacists. Opposed to the ultra-leftists, so much so that he advocated the Spartacists staying in the USPD and returning it to its revolutionary values. Jogiches was murdered in prison two months after the January (Spartacist) Uprising.
    Paul Levi: Historically maligned for being a rightist (and too bourgeois), Levi became leader of the KPD after the murders of other prominent Spartacists. He led the charge against the ultra-leftists, resulting in their expulsion (and the subsequent formation of the KAPD), but was arguably responsible for bringing in the majority of the USPD. Levi served as co-chairman alongside Ernst Däumig but was expelled after criticising the failed March Action of 1921, whereupon he formed the Communist Working Group, and from there rejoined the USPD and then the SPD. Levi died in 1930 during while afflicted with illness.
     
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    Political Violence in the Early German Republic, Part 1
  • Political Violence in the Early German Republic, Part 1

    The state of the Revolution outside of Berlin varied. In Munich a People’s State of Bavaria had been declared on 8th November by Kurt Eisner, a strongly pacifist USPD member. After the Founding Congress of the KPD, Eisner remained with the USPD but expressed support for the new party. Socialist rule was precarious in Bavaria though because Munich and other cities were an archipelago of urban, proletarian islands in a sea of rural, Catholic conservatives. Because of this, Eisner’s government attempted to maintain a balancing act between left and right which was doomed to fail: Eisner’s economic policies didn’t go far enough for the KPD and USPD; and his status as a Jewish non-Bavarian literary critic, who released official documents demonstrating Germany’s support for the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia, enflamed the right’s hatred against him. Eisner attempted to mitigate his diminishing support by supporting the convening of a Bavarian constituent assembly scheduled for 12th January.

    The consistent endorsements emanating from Berlin of an election to a federal constituent assembly encouraged other states to establish their own constituent assemblies. Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Strelitz elected their own constituent assemblies on 15th December. The local KPD members in Anhalt stood for election, but were more concerned about the local councils and the All-German Congress in Berlin. The KPD won 3 of the assembly’s 36 seats, against the SPD’s 19 and the 12 for the German Democratic Party (Deutsche Demokratische Partei/DDP).[1] On the other hand, the KPD in Mecklenburg-Strelitz boycotted the election in the traditionally conservative state. The election in Brunswick was important for the KPD however: on 8th November the Spartacists had taken the lead in forming the councils and had declared the state to be a ‘socialist republic’; the SPD had been defeated in its attempt to force equal representation on the councils’ executive committee. The SPD and their right-wing allies forged ahead with organising a constituent assembly election for the 22nd December. In response the local KPD campaigned for victory in a parliamentary body with a vigour which surprised even themselves; their campaign was bolstered with the arrival of Karl Artelt, famous leader of the Kiel mutiny who had since joined the new party. The KPD surged to victory with 18 of the assembly’s 60 seats; the SPD achieved 13, the DDP 13, and the German People’s Party (Deutsche Volkspartei/DVP) with 16.[2] The SPD leadership preferred a coalition government with the DDP and DVP, hoping to exploit the bourgeois fear of revolution into gaining seniority in the coalition. This tactic backfired however when this discussion was leaked and the party’s membership threatened to go on strike if a socialist coalition government wasn’t formed; the leaders caved in to the members’ demand. The KPD-SPD coalition of Brunswick was a promising consolation for the party’s loss at the All-German Congress.[3]

    The ‘Christmas crisis’ opened a new chapter in the direct confrontation between revolutionaries and the government. The People’s Navy Division, formed on 11th November from the sailors at Kiel, were stationed in Berlin at the order of Otto Wels, the SPD commander of the city’s military. Due to the Division’s revolutionary nature (they had refused to participate in the attempted coup of 6th December), they were mistrusted by the government and so Wels sought to reduce their influence by reducing their strength (1,000 men) by nearly half and moving them out of Berlin. To encourage the Division to comply, their pay was withheld; negotiations between them and the government apparently succeeded. On 23rd December the Division went to the Chancellery to turn over the keys to the Royal Stables (their barracks) in return for their payment. Emil Barth, still with the USPD, acted as a mediator but was referred by Wels to Chancellor Friedrich Ebert, who was conspicuously absent. Having had enough, the People’s Navy Division occupied the Chancellery, cut the telephone lines, and went to demand their wages whereupon they were attacked by loyalist soldiers. Three of the sailors died, and the rest, convinced that they had been drawn into a trap, arrested Wels and two of his associates. Ebert used a secret phone line to call the military high command for help, while the People’s Navy Division retreated to the Stables.

    The remnants of the ten divisions that were dispatched to Berlin prior to the First All-German Congress answered Ebert’s plea for aid and occupied the Chancellery in the evening. Following tense negotiations, the People’s Navy Division released the hostages, except for Wels, in the early hours of the next morning. A few hours later the loyalist soldiers, under the command of Captain Waldemar Pabst,[4] began their attack on the Royal Stables with a two-hour artillery barrage. A crowd of civilians, and later Emil Eichhorn’s police force, mobbed the rear guard of the army, disrupting the soldiers and giving time for the People’s Navy Division to successfully counterattack. Altogether there were eleven dead sailors and twenty-three dead soldiers. During the chaos of the battle, a group of pro-Spartacist workers seized control of the headquarters of Vorwärts and began printing their own issues of the newspaper demanding the Ebert government’s replacement with a Communist government; the non-Spartacists in the KPD criticised what they regarded as ‘adventurist’ behaviour.[5] As a result of the battle the army divisions were withdrawn from Berlin, the sailors received their pay, and Wels was forced to resign as Stadtkommandant. On 29th December the funerals for the sailors drew a large demonstration which declared the Ebert government to be murders, while a counter-demonstration organised by the SPD fulminated against a “bloody dictatorship of the Communists!” The rump USPD was struck with a crisis; Emil Barth resigned from the cabinet and urged Hugo Haase and Wilhelm Dittmann to do the same. The latter two were disgusted by the SPD’s repressive use of the military, but were also loath to lose their ostensibly mediating influence in the government. The party had been slowly haemorrhaging members to the KPD, so that the remainder still supported collaboration with the SPD government. Thus there was no immediate impetus from below for Haase and Dittmann to resign.[6]

    Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1976-067-30A%2C_Revolution_in_Berlin%2C_Soldaten_im_Kampf.jpg

    Sailors of the People's Navy Division

    The ‘Christmas crisis’ had clearly demonstrated that the government could no longer rely on the official military; Ebert would have to look elsewhere for protection against the Revolution. Fortunately for him, the military high command had been working on a new project, the Freikorps: volunteer soldiers recruited for their ideological beliefs, and receiving special pay and training for urban warfare. The generals had been building up the Freikorps since early December and by Christmas, the force numbered 4,000. Barth’s replacement in the cabinet, SPD parliamentarian Gustav Noske, was intimately involved in the creation of the Freikorps and took Ebert to a review of the force, where both men were impressed by the appearance of ‘real soldiers’ whose sole purpose was to defend the government from the Revolution. At the time of this review (4th January), the Freikorps numbered 80,000.

    Amidst the contortions that were afflicting the rest of Germany, there was also revolution in the Polish provinces. Workers’ and peasants’ councils materialised across the region while in Ostrów a Polish republic was declared on 10th November which narrowly avoided conflict with the local German soldiers’ council. The republic was formally disestablished on the 26th by the Supreme People’s Council (Naczelna Rada Ludowa/NRL), the premier Polish nationalist organisation, in favour of the Warsaw-based Republic of Poland. Around the same time as the establishment of the republic in Ostrów, the NRL and the underground Polish Military Organisation emerged and gradually took control of Posen/Poznań with the acquiescence of the German military. Following these events, the Polish government in Warsaw announced its intention to unify with Greater (or German) Poland, and on 15th December diplomatic relations between Poland and Germany were terminated. From the 27th the Polish Military Organisation launched a coordinated series of uprisings across the region, starting in Poznań. By the 4th January Polish forces had been so successful that the NRL were confident enough to elect Wojciech Trąmpczyński as governor of Greater Poland.

    [1] OTL, the USPD didn’t run but still managed to get 1 seat (likely a joint-list with the SPD) against the SPD’s 21.
    [2] OTL it was: SPD 17 versus USPD 14.
    [3] The OTL election resulted in a SPD-USPD coalition government led by USPD member Joseph Örter. The government did transition to a parliamentary system; Örter was later forced to resign and expelled from the party for embezzlement and may afterwards have joined the Nazis.
    [4] This was the man who OTL proudly ordered the execution of Luxemburg and Liebknecht.
    [5] OTL they published a declaration against the occupation in Die Rote Fahne, but as they’re all in the same party ITTL they don’t air their grievances in public as much.
    [6] OTL, all three resigned.

    Dramatis Personae (OTL biographies)

    Karl Artelt: One of the leaders of the Kiel Mutiny, Artelt was one of the USPD members who split to form the KPD. Until the Nazi seizure of power, he was a regional leader in the party. Artelt only survived under the Nazi regime because an officer who arrested him turned out to be a former comrade from the navy, though Artelt remained under strict surveillance and was subject to regular interrogation. After the war, Artelt resumed his role as a regional leader in the newly-founded SED and became famous as a travelling speaker. He died in 1981.
     
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    German State Elections in December 1918
  • German State Elections in December 1918

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Anhalt - 15th December

    Party
    Seats
    % of votes
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    19​
    52.8​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    12​
    33.3​
    Communist Party (KPD)​
    3​
    8.3​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    2​
    5.6​
    36

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Mecklenburg-Strelitz - 15th December

    Party
    Seats
    % of votes
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    21​
    50.2​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    18​
    40​
    Others/Independents​
    2​
    4.8​
    Farmers' League (MSBB)​
    1​
    5​
    42

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Brunswick - 22nd December

    Party
    Seats
    % of votes
    Communist Party (KPD)​
    18​
    30​
    People's Party (DVP)​
    16​
    26.7​
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    13​
    21.7​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    13​
    21.6​
    60
     
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    Political Violence in the Early German Republic, Part 2
  • Political Violence in the Early German Republic, Part 2

    For the First All-German Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils, the Bolsheviks had sent a delegation to act as observers. They had been turned back at the border on the orders of the SPD-dominated government, but a second delegation managed to covertly enter the country just in time for the New Year: Karl Radek was a veteran figure of the German and Polish socialist scene, but had been expelled from the national parties in a well-publicised scandal (Rosa Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches had both played a role in Radek’s expulsion); Nicholas Krebs, son of German migrant workers in Russia; and Ernst Reuter, a conscripted soldier from Schleswig-Holstein who was captured in Russia, joined the Bolsheviks, and became head of the Volga German Workers’ Commune. The latter two ambassadors thus had little to no familiarity with the rapidly shifting German socialist movement, which rendered them subordinate to Radek. The delegation congratulated their hosts on the founding of a new communist party, emphasizing the international nature of the revolution, while also speaking frankly about the Bolsheviks’ progress in the Russian Civil War. Radek also visited the leaders of the ultra-left IKD, such as Johann Knief. Knief still refused to join the KPD, believing Luxemburg and Jogiches to be anti-communist, but he promised not to hinder the revolutionary process. Collaboration between the left would prove vital in the coming days as the government was about to begin a serious engagement with the revolutionaries.

    Friedrich Ebert considered the Berlin police chief, Emil Eichhorn of the USPD, to be a major obstacle to his restoration of order in the capital. However, the SPD were still in coalition with the Independents and demanding the resignation of one of the latter party’s most popular members would have been nigh-impossible. Ebert and Gustav Noske tasked their agents with infiltrating the police force, while from New Year’s Day Vorwärts led a concerted propaganda campaign against Eichhorn, accusing him of all sorts, including: hoarding food, illegally stockpiling weapons, and being on the payroll of the Russian government (Eichhorn did actually work for ROSTA/Russian Telegraph Agency). On the 3rd he was summoned to the Prussian Ministry of the Interior and accused of a number of crimes such as theft and armed robbery. Ebert still held back from formal dismissal though, hoping that the cascade of events would force the police chief into resigning; it did not. Eichhorn had the overwhelming support of Berlin’s population and all of the left-wing parties, except for the SPD leadership. Ad-hoc demonstrations and strikes broke out in support of Eichhorn and the man himself decided to meet with the KPD leadership. Eichhorn was on the left of the USPD and his long dilemma of whether or not to join the Communists had apparently been decided for him. Emil Barth however, who was present at the meeting, argued that as long as Eichhorn remained with the USPD, Ebert would be unable to fire him without terminating the coalition government. Ernst Däumig and Richard Müller agreed with Barth, and the committee put forth the call for a demonstration to be held on the 5th.

    When the day arrived, the revolutionary leadership were shocked at the response to their directive. At least 200,000 workers, many of them armed, had turned out to the demonstration eager to show their solidarity with Eichhorn. The previous agenda of merely defending Eichhorn’s position was no longer sufficient; the revolutionaries had to achieve more for the proletariat. The revolutionary leaders, including Barth, secluded themselves and composed a list of demands to be presented to the government:
    1. The retention of Emil Eichhorn as Berlin’s chief of police and an end to the harassment against him.
    2. The disarmament of the Freikorps.
    3. The arming of the proletariat.
    4. A new congress of the Berlin councils, without the political interference of the previous congress.
    5. The establishment of a socialist republic of workers’ and soldiers’ councils.
    Ebert was hard-pressed; his fellow cabinet members Hugo Haase and Wilhelm Dittmann, as well as the other rightists in the USPD would support the first, second, and fourth demands. Officially they would also wax poetic about the final demand, but Ebert knew they were just as parliamentarian as himself. While the cabinet was occupied arguing over the KPD’s demands, a number of newspaper and publishing offices, including that of Vorwärts, were occupied again by pro-KPD workers. It would later turn out that some of these ‘workers’ were government infiltrators, but many others were examples of the ultra-left radicalism that the party still inspired.

    Noske independently decided to act. General Walther von Lüttwitz was granted police powers and was ordered by Noske to prepare a campaign against ‘KPD’-occupied positions; within a couple of days the Freikorps were ready to act. On the evening of the 7th, Freikorps units simultaneously reoccupied Anhalter train station, the railway administration building, and the government’s printing establishment. Soon afterwards they began the siege of the Vorwärts building and the occupation of the borough of Spandau, a strongly proletarian area. The speed with which the military acted caught the demonstrators and revolutionaries by surprise, and gave them the impression that the government had meticulously planned a final victory over the Revolution. In truth, Noske and his military allies hoped that the rapid suppression of the opposition would earn them the gratitude of the dithering government. The Vorwärts office was subject to a five hour artillery bombardment, which ended after the occupiers agreed to surrender. Most of those who were arrested, including IKD leader Werner Möller, were executed immediately by the Freikorps. The conduct of the soldiers was no less brutal in their other skirmishes with the working class. The League of Red Soldiers tried to organise some resistance against the Freikorps, but the shock of the attack led to a retreat on all fronts by the revolutionaries. Noske was firm in the belief that the Revolution had been crushed and was mentally preparing himself for a triumphant return.

    Berlin_Stra%C3%9Fenk%C3%A4mpfe.jpg

    Freikorps guarding a mortar emplacement

    The government cabinet was embroiled in pandemonium however. Upon hearing the reports of Noske’s rogue action, Haase and Dittmann furiously demanded the immediate sacking of Noske or they would resign and ally themselves with the Communists. Ebert doubted that the two would actually side with the KPD, but the situation was deteriorating rapidly and the presence of the USPD in the government was crucial to the appearance of socialist unity. The Chancellor agonised over the decision but acceded to the Independents’ demands. Haase and Dittmann weren’t finished yet though. The two ministers returned to the KPD’s list of demands and argued for the implementation of all of them. Once again Ebert was sceptical of his opposites’ sincerity of belief in the demands, but like him, they were also keen on presenting themselves as the true leaders of the working class as opposed to the Communists. Besides, there was enough leeway in the wording of some of the demands for the government to claim that they had fulfilled the word of the statements, if not the spirit of them. Thus on the 9th January the Ebert cabinet announced a new set of proclamations, while ignoring that they were KPD demands and instead making it look like they were original joint SPD-USPD initiatives.

    * Obviously this all turned out very differently IOTL. The sacking of Eichhorn and the arrival of massive crowds of demonstrators gave the revolutionaries (the KPD and the left-USPD) the false impression that the government was able to be overthrown at this point. The revolutionaries blindly charged ahead and so were unable to handle either their own weak military support or the coordinated response of the Freikorps. Luxemburg, Liebknecht, and others were murdered, and the party had to go underground for months.

    Dramatis Personae (OTL biographies)

    Ernst Reuter: After his return to Germany, Reuter joined the KPD and became a leader of the ultra-left faction in opposition to Paul Levi. Reuter was elected as General Secretary of the party in 1921 and then shifted to the right, for which he was expelled by the then dominant ultra-left faction in 1922. He followed the trajectory of the Communist Working Group into the USPD and then the SPD. Reuter worked on the Berlin city council and was responsible for innovations to the city's public transport. In 1931 he was elected mayor of Magdeburg, in which he remained until his arrest by the Nazis. Thereafter he was imprisoned in a concentration camp but was released in 1935 and eventually made his way to Turkey to work for the government and as a university lecturer. After the war Reuter returned to Berlin where he was elected mayor of West Berlin. He died in 1953.
     
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    Consolidation of the Opposing Forces in Germany, Part 1
  • Consolidation of the Opposing Forces in Germany, Part 1

    The near-disaster of the ‘Eichhorn affair’ demonstrated two unpalatable truths to the Communist Party: the German proletariat were not yet ready to take control; and the party had only a negligible military force. The apparent solution to the first problem was to organise in the factory councils and, at least according to the old centrists of the USPD, in the trade unions. The party program of a socialist republic governed by workers’ and soldiers’ councils was to be paramount in propagandising to the working class, the constituent assemblies and any succeeding parliaments were to be considered only temporary measures and ultimately unable to deliver a socialist republic. The main obstacle in achieving this mobilising work was the haphazard organisation of the party. The SPD had been relatively centralised, and as part of the rejection of reformism the new Communist Party had unofficially adopted a decentralised model of organisation. The subject of membership cards, subscriptions, and the position of local branches to the central party remained somewhat taboo to discuss. The party leadership decided that a Second Congress of the party would have to take place, though realistically it was unlikely to happen before the elections for the constituent assemblies in Bavaria and Württemberg scheduled for 12th January.

    Even though Kurt Eisner of the USPD was the Bavarian head of government, brought to power by workers’ and soldiers’ councils, he had conceded to the bourgeoisie’s demand for a constituent assembly. The Communists and the Independents, doubtful of their chances in the election, agreed to a coalition agreement. Eisner even extended the offer to the SPD but their local leadership haughtily refused, angering some of their members. The results were disappointing but not unexpected: 7 out of 180 seats for the KPD-USPD coalition against 57 for the SPD.[1] The right were the undisputed winners of the election, with the Bavarian People’s Party (Bayerische Volkspartei/BVP) getting 66 seats, the Democratic Party 25, and the other right-wing parties taking the remainder. Eisner refused to bow into pressure for an early opening of the constituent assembly, citing paramilitary violence as an excuse. Ironically, this only radicalised the right further and increased aforementioned violence. Consequently, Eisner had to retreat further into his support from the councils. The socialists in Württemberg were in a slightly more enviable position; at the beginning of the Revolution a broad coalition of socialists from the councils had come together and formed a government, though ultra-leftism at the time prevailed in the Spartacist leadership and so they ordered August Thalheimer and Albert Schreiner to resign from the cabinet. After the Communists split from the USPD, the SPD members in the cabinet were less inclined to share power with the more revolutionary parties and so used their allies in the police force to harass the KPD. This harassment, combined with a lack of cooperation between the KPD and the USPD, harmed both parties’ performance in the election to the benefit of the SPD. Out of 150 seats, the Communists won 3, the Independents only 1, and the SPD 52.[2] The right-wing parties, including a number of farmers’ associations, won the remaining seats.

    Bayern_-_K%C3%B6nig_Ludwig_III_-_5_Pf_-_1918_-_Volksstaat_Bayern.jpg

    A modified postage stamp from the People's State of Bavaria

    The poor showing of the party in the recent parliamentary elections coloured their perceptions going into the Second Congress of the Communist Party of Germany. A membership of approximately 115,000 was represented by 98 elected delegates meeting in Berlin on 15th January. Heinrich Laufenberg of the Hamburg International Communists requested permission for some members of his organisation to attend the Congress as observers; after some debate among the KPD leadership, permission was granted and Laufenberg, Karl Becker, and Paul Frölich attended the Congress. The Bolshevik ambassadors Karl Radek, Nicholas Krebs, and Ernst Reuter were also in attendance. After the opening proceedings and reports were dispensed with, Karl Schröder of the ultra-left tendency immediately raised the subject of bourgeois election participation. Believing their position to be vindicated by the party’s recent disappointing election results, the ultra-left delegates reiterated their previous argument of an exclusive focus on the councils, much to the approval of the IKD observers. Once again, Rosa Luxemburg, Paul Levi, and Georg Ledebour led the defence of electoralism as a potentially effective tactic. This time they could point to the party’s success in Brunswick as an example of how organising in the councils could lead to parliamentary representation and participation in governance, which in turn could be used to spread the message of a conciliar republic. After continued back and forth between the two sides, the delegates voted on Schröder’s motion: 69 against, 23 for, and 6 abstentions. With the matter of electoralism settled, the issue of the upcoming state elections was discussed; the bourgeoisie had managed to schedule elections for constituent assemblies in five states, all for 26th January. Both Saxe-Altenburg and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen had small, relatively industrialised populations and so were considered target areas. With industrial populations smaller relative to the rural population, Hesse, Lippe, and Mecklenburg-Schwerin were considered to be less of a priority, but the Congress endorsed running for those elections anyway.

    The next item of the Congressional agenda was the reorganisation of the party structure. The core of the leadership’s proposal was to divide local branches into twenty-seven economic regions rather than the old parliamentary constituencies, as a way of rationalising party organisation and improving the efficiency of propagandising in the workplace. Furthermore membership dues were to be set at 30 pfennigs, with a fifty percent reduction for women and the youth. Part of the proposal also affirmed democratic centralism, through the Congress and its Central Committee, as a guiding principle. The ultra-left delegates were torn; the reorganisation of the local branches was a clear move towards focusing on workers’ councils, but the proposal as a whole would result in the party becoming more centralised. On the other hand, more than a few of the non-Spartacists of the old USPD supported the centralisation but not the shift away from constituency-based organisation, leading to the peculiar situation of the ultra-left and some of the ‘reformists’ voting together against the proposal. Their efforts were in vain however; the reorganisation proposal passed with 54 votes against 42 (plus 2 abstentions). On the heels of the vote, Paul Eckert advanced a motion for the establishment of a trade union department to coordinate organising work within that sector; Eckert was mindful to condemn trade union bureaucracies in his speech. Apart from a handful of obstinate ultra-leftists, the proposal was almost unanimously passed, as was the appointment of Richard Müller as its head.

    The final subject of the Congress was the party’s military support. Up until that point, the KPD had relied on the ‘proletarian hundreds’ (ad-hoc groups of volunteer workers), the League of Red Soldiers, and elements of the People’s Navy Division; a real proletarian army was needed to compete with the Freikorps. Levi, on behalf of the Central Committee, proposed a bold plan: the amalgamation of the League of Red Soldiers and pro-KPD sailors of the People’s Navy Division into a new Red Guard (Rote Garde) unit, subordinate to the Central Committee. The ultra-leftists were furious; besides the perceived continuing centralising of power, the League of Red Soldiers was the primary organisation for the ultra-left and ‘adventurist’ sections of the party. As a result, the ultra-left delegates vociferously argued against the motion. In order to break the deadlock former lieutenant Heinrich Dorrenbach, commander of the People’s Navy Division and arguably the revolutionaries’ military coordinator, proposed an amendment in which the new Red Guard would still elect its officers while remaining subordinate to the Central Committee. This proposal mollified most of the ultra-leftists and was acceptable to the Zentrale. The amended motion was passed by 62 votes to 22 ‘no’ votes and 14 abstentions. The Congress concluded on 17th January with the election of the following delegates to the Central Committee: Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Georg Ledebour, Ernst Däumig, Paul Levi, Richard Müller, Clara Zetkin, Wilhelm Pieck, Otto Bachmann, Heinrich Brandler, Franz Dahlem, Herman Duncker, Käte Duncker, Hugo Eberlein, Paul Eckert, Curt Geyer, Leo Jogiches, Paul Neumann, August Thalheimer, and Paul Wegmann; Luxemburg and Liebknecht were appointed as co-Chairmen.

    [1] OTL, 3 for the USPD and 61 for the SPD.
    [2] OTL those 4 seats went to the USPD.

    Dramatis Personae (OTL biographies)

    August Thalheimer: One of the original Spartacists, Thalheimer was at the forefront of the KPD leadership after the failures of 1919. Generally being on the right of the party, Thalheimer spent most of his time engaged in factional battles with the ultra-left. In 1924 he was forced to flee to the USSR because of police pressure, where he worked as a lecturer in Moscow. He returned to Germany in 1928 and organised the Communist Party Opposition, which resulted in his expulsion from the Comintern in 1929. After the Nazis came to power, Thalheimer escaped to France and then to Cuba in 1941. He died there in 1948.
    Albert Schreiner: Another original Spartacist, Schreiner was an important KPD figure in Württemberg. In 1923 he was a leader of the party's Military Apparatus and was sent to Moscow for training. Schreiner was involved in the establishment of the Red Front Fighter League but was expelled from the party for investigating the corruption scandal surrounding Willy Leow; afterwards he joined the Communist Party Opposition. He very briefly rejoined the KPD before leaving again, fled to France after the Nazis' seizure of power, and permanently rejoined the KPD, for whom he was a commander in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. He spent the 1940s in exile in the USA before returning to (East) Germany in 1946 and joining the SED. Schreiner spent the remainder of his life as a historian and died in 1979.
    Heinrich Dorrenbach: A former office worker and SPD member, Dorrenbach volunteered for the army upon the outbreak of war and was eventually promoted to the rank of second lieutenant before being demoted and discharged in 1917 for the development of anti-war views. Dorrenbach helped to plan the abortive socialist insurrection of early November 1918 and from there rose in prominence among the People's Navy Division. His fame grew as a result of his leading role in the Christmas crisis over the People's Navy Division's pay, and so the revolutionaries believed his exaggerated claims of military support during the January Uprising. The failure of the uprising led to Dorrenbach being a fugitive; he was arrested a few times but escaped or was acquitted, before finally being caught and executed on 18th May 1919.
     
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    Post-German Civil War teaser
  • Here's a post I just made in the List of Alternate Political Parties thread. It's a bit of a teaser for Germany's political landscape after the civil war.

    Bit of a teaser/spoiler for my Nothing to Lose but Your Chains! timeline (subject to change of course):

    Free Socialist Republic of Germany/Freie Sozialistische Republik Deutschland (1st party period)

    Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands/KPD)
    Leader: Rosa Luxemburg
    Ideology: Orthodox Marxism, communism
    Political position (in the FSRD): Centre
    Description: The KPD are the dominant party in Germany and support the status-quo of socialist council democracy. The socialisation of the economy, including the agricultural sector, is their main concern in the aftermath of the German Civil War. The party supports the continuance of strong relations with the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the other Bolshevik-ruled socialist states. The KPD is a member of the Communist International.

    Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands/USPD)
    Leader: Emil Barth
    Ideology: Centrist Marxism, reformist socialism
    Political position (in the FSRD): Right
    Description: The USPD are regular coalition partners with the KPD and support the status-quo of socialist council democracy. There are some on the right of the party however (mostly former SPD members who joined during or after the civil war) who favour a return to a parliamentary system. In terms of the economy, the USPD advocate for the decentralising of economic planning and a reliance on worker cooperatives; some on the right argue for the introduction of limited marketisation. The party is unafraid of criticising the Bolsheviks when deemed appropriate, but is otherwise generally supportive of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the other Bolshevik-ruled socialist states. The USPD is a leading member of the International Working Union of Socialist Parties (2 1/2 International).

    Communist Workers' Party of Germany (Kommunistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands/KAPD)
    Leader: Heinrich Laufenberg
    Ideology: Marxism, left-communism/council communism
    Political position (in the FSRD): Left
    Description: The KAPD are the successors to the ultra-left International Communists of Germany. They are staunch defenders of socialist council democracy and so consider it to be their duty to criticise any perceived slide into bureaucratisation or undemocratic practices on the behalf of the government. The KAPD support rapid socialisation of the economy, but carried out through the decentralised planning of the councils rather than the central government. The party frequently criticises the Bolsheviks for perceived bureaucratisation, which gives them a tenuous position in the Communist International.

    Free Workers' Union of Germany (Freie Arbeiter Union Deutschlands/FAUD)
    Leader: Rudolf Rocker
    Ideology: anarcho-syndicalism
    Political position (in the FSRD): Left
    Description: The FAUD are the successors to the Free Association of German Trade Unions. They argue for a syndicalist system whereby revolutionary trade unions are the basis for both the political system and the economy. They often side with the KAPD in opposition to the perceived bureaucratisation of the KPD-USPD government. The FAUD helped establish the International Workers' Association after the German Civil War.
     
    Consolidation of the Opposing Forces in Germany, Part 2
  • Consolidation of the Opposing Forces in Germany, Part 2

    Besides the Marxist sections of the German socialist movement, there was also a notable anarcho-syndicalist movement. The Free Association of German Trade Unions (Freie Vereinigung Deutscher Gewerkschaften/FVdG) was originally established in 1897 as a reaction against the reformist and bureaucratic nature of the dominant trade unions and the SPD leadership. Before and during the war, the FVdG had gradually come under anarchist and syndicalist influence, and as such welcomed the outbreak of the November Revolution. At the Association’s Berlin conference of 26th and 27th December, attended by 33 delegates representing 43 local unions, the FVdG officially declared its opposition to parliamentarianism and participation in the constituent assemblies. Due to its anti-electoralism, the anarcho-syndicalist group worked well with the various ultra-left communists, especially in the Rhineland, Westphalia, and the Ruhr.

    After the government’s sacking of Gustav Noske he was replaced by his colleague Rudolf Wissell, who also supported Friedrich Ebert’s idea of a parliamentary republic. Though Wissell was obedient to Ebert’s orders, like Noske he regularly got into conflict with Hugo Haase and Wilhelm Dittman over the government’s recent proclamations. The decision to retain Emil Eichhorn as Berlin’s police chief was a sore point for the SPD, especially as his deputy Anton Grylewicz was openly a Communist. The SPD members of the cabinet secretly decided among themselves to continue their infiltration efforts in the Berlin police in the hope that there would be a future opportunity to depose Eichhorn. The issue of the paramilitaries was also in reality reneged upon. The proclamation of the Freikorps’ disarmament was unenforceable: Noske had sided with the military and officially the government had no means of imposing their authority. Unofficially though, Ebert remained in contact with Noske and instructed the former minister to have the Freikorps lay low and bide their time. On the other hand, the SPD ministers argued with their USPD counterparts that the People’s Navy Division and the various armed mobs of workers already fulfilled the proclamation of “arming the proletariat”. Haase and Dittman were wary of Communist influence among the armed sections of the working class and so didn’t push too hard for further armament. The Independents refused to budge on the congress of the Berlin councils however and the debate on the subject threatened to distract the government from the upcoming Paris Peace Conference. In exasperation, the SPD ministers agreed to allow the councils to reconvene on 20th January.

    Ahead of the slew of upcoming elections, the Communists campaigned vigorously in the councils and factory committees. In the states of Hesse, Lippe, and Mecklenburg-Schwerin the local KPD branches negotiated coalitions with the USPD, but the campaigns in Berlin, Saxe-Altenburg, and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen remained competitive. Once again there were over 1,500 delegates elected to the Berlin congress, though this time the meeting was less violent than the first congress. The Communist split from the USPD had done little to improve the SPD’s image among Berlin’s workers, and so the Communists and Independents together had a majority of delegates. Former minister Emil Barth presided as Chairman again; the Vice-Chairman was Ernst Däumig, and Hermann Müller of the SPD was Secretary. Much to the consternation of the SPD leadership, their delegates submitted a motion confirming the election of a federal constituent assembly for 16th February. They were right to be concerned as Communist delegates amended the motion to include a provision confirming the ultimate goal of the Revolution was a socialist republic of workers’ and soldiers’ councils. The amended motion was supported by all of the Communists and Independents as well as some SPD delegates. Herman Müller tried to claw back control by presenting a motion for the Second All-German Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils to take place after the federal election. Müller’s ploy backfired; immediately Communist delegates began to argue that the Congress should be held before the election. Soon enough delegates from the USPD and even the SPD joined the argument for an early Congress and, before Müller could attempt to intervene, Barth and Däumig called the session to a vote; the motion was overwhelmingly passed. To prevent any further embarrassment to the government Müller suggested that the congress conclude and elect an Executive Committee. The result was a disaster for the SPD; their influence over the soldiers’ councils had waned over the months since the first congress and so there was no way they could strong-arm the election like last time. The elected Executive Committee comprised 16 Communist members, 8 Independents, and 6 from the SPD; this time there was no disproportionate representation given to the soldiers.

    The revolutionaries’ victory in Berlin was down-played and misreported by Vorwärts and other counter-revolutionary newspapers in the city, thus diminishing the potential impact on the upcoming state elections. As agreed at the KPD’s Second Congress, Saxe-Altenburg and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen were target areas. Demonstrations and factory meetings were a commonplace tactic by all three socialist parties in the run-up to the elections and the results in both states delivered a clear majority to the socialists. Out of Saxe-Altenburg’s 40 seats the Communists won 11, the Independents 5, and 8 for the SPD.[1] In Schwarzburg-Sondershausen’s 16 seat assembly the results worked out to 7 for the KPD, 1 for the USPD, and 2 for the SPD.[2] In both states the three parties agreed to form a coalition government. In the other three states the KPD-USPD coalition respectively won: 2 seats (against the SPD’s 30) out of 70 in Hesse;[3] 1 seat (against the SPD’s 10) out of 21 in Lippe;[4] and 3 seats (against the SPD’s 29) out of 64 in Mecklenburg-Schwerin.[5] In all three states the Communists and Independents were shut out of bourgeois government, though together they held majorities in most of the local workers’ councils.

    With the Freikorps instructed to refrain from attacking socialist revolutionaries for the time being, the reactionary volunteers took it upon themselves to assist the German forces battling the Polish rebels in Greater Poland. By the time the Freikorps began their intervention on 10th January, the Polish Military Organisation had expanded its area of control and its air force had even bombed a military airfield in Frankfurt an der Oder. The Naczelna Rada Ludowa had also officially announced its assumption of power in Greater Poland and was beginning to replace German administrative officials with their own. Over the following couple of weeks the frontlines of the conflict moved back and forth, with frontier towns being lost and retaken multiple times. On 14th January the NRL appealed to the government of the Polish Republic to help negotiate a ceasefire with Germany. On the 21st, Polish delegates at the Paris Peace Conference appealed to the Entente for a military mission in return for aid against the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War. The Entente diplomats agreed but made clear their preference to facilitate a negotiated settlement between Germany and Poland. The undeclared war continued in the meantime, prompting Roman Dmowski (one of the Polish delegates at the Conference) to accuse the Germans of being duplicitous, concerning both their desire for peace and their census statistics of Poles in Germany. On the 2nd February negotiations between Poland and Germany commenced in Berlin, but the situation was slowly starting to deteriorate for the Polish Military Organisation.

    Powstanie_wielkopolskie_1919.jpg

    Soldiers of the Polish Military Organisation

    [1] OTL the SPD and USPD were in coalition, and the SPD got all 24 seats.
    [2] Again there was a coalition OTL, but the USPD got all 10 seats.
    [3] OTL, USPD = 1, SPD = 31.
    [4] OTL, USPD = 0, SPD = 11.
    [5] OTL, USPD = 0, SPD = 32.

    Dramatis Personae (OTL biographies)

    Anton Grylewicz: Following the usual path from the SPD into the USPD, Grylewicz fought in the war and afterwards became police chief Emil Eichhorn's deputy in Berlin. From there Grylewicz was elected as chairman of the USPD's Greater Berlin district and continued to hold an important organisational role after the USPD majority joined the KPD. On the left of the party, he had helped to plan the failed Hamburg uprising of 1923 but was elected to the party Zentrale in 1924. Grylewicz was expelled from the party in 1927 for Trotskyist sympathies, whereupon he founded the Lenin League. In 1933 he fled to Prague, then to Paris in 1937, and Cuba in 1941. In 1955 he returned to West Berlin and rejoined the SPD, while remaining a Trotskyist. Grylewicz died in 1971.
     
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    German State Elections in January 1919
  • German State Elections in January 1919

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Baden - 5th January

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Centre Party (Z)​
    39​
    36.6​
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    36​
    32.1​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    25​
    22.8​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    7​
    7​
    Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD)​
    0​
    1.5​
    107

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Bavaria - 12th January

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Bavarian People's Party (BVP)​
    66​
    35​
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    57​
    31.7​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    25​
    14​
    Bavarian Farmers' League (BBB)​
    16​
    9.1​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    9​
    5.8​
    Communist-Independent coalition (KPD-USPD)​
    7​
    4.4​
    180

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Württemberg - 12th January

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    52​
    34.4​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    38​
    25​
    Centre Party (Z)​
    31​
    20.8​
    Various farmers' associations (WBB/WWK/VLO)​
    14​
    8.9​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    11​
    7.4​
    Communist Party (KPD)​
    3​
    2​
    Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD)​
    1​
    1.5​
    150

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Hesse - 26th January

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    30​
    42.1​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    13​
    18.9​
    Centre Party (Z)​
    13​
    17.6​
    People's Party (DVP)​
    7​
    10.1​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    5​
    7.4​
    Communist-Independent coalition (KPD-USPD)​
    2​
    3.9​
    70

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Lippe - 26th January

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    10​
    47.7​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    5​
    22.3​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    4​
    19.8​
    Independents​
    1​
    7.7​
    Communist-Independent coalition (KPD-USPD)​
    1​
    2.5​
    21

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Mecklenburg-Schwerin - 26th January

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    29​
    40.4​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    17​
    27.3​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    10​
    13.1​
    Communist-Independent coalition (KPD-USPD)​
    3​
    7.5​
    Independents​
    3​
    7.4​
    People's Party (DVP)​
    2​
    4.3​
    64

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Saxe-Altenburg - 26th January

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Communist Party (KPD)​
    11​
    27.3​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    10​
    24.6​
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    8​
    20​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    6​
    16.8​
    Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD)​
    5​
    11.3​
    40

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen - 26th January

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Communist Party (KPD)​
    7​
    43​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    3​
    16​
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    2​
    15.8​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    2​
    15.3​
    Independents​
    1​
    5.8​
    Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD)​
    1​
    4.1​
    16
     
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    The Polish Question and Contentious Elections
  • The Polish Question and Contentious Elections

    The ongoing conflict with the Polish rebels in eastern Germany was growing in its unpopularity. The armistice with the Entente had given the German people the impression that the war was over, yet the Deutsches Heer (army) and divisions of Freikorps were engaged with an enemy force which was clearly an extension of the Republic of Poland. Negotiations for a ceasefire had begun on 2nd February but the fighting continued unabated. The Communists, and to a lesser extent the USPD, seized on the undeclared war, sharply criticising the SPD as being no different from the previous military dictatorship. It is difficult to discern whether this line of attack had much of an effect on the outcome of the three state elections of 2nd February; all three states (Saxony, Reuss-Gera, and Reuss-Greiz) were urban and industrialised. The KPD won 14 of Saxony’s 96 seats, against 40 for the SPD and 3 for the Independents.[1] In the two states of Reuss, Communist performance was much better: in Reuss-Gera, the KPD won 7 of the 21 seats available, while the SPD and USPD respectively won 2 and 4;[2] in Reuss-Greiz, the KPD won 5 out of 15 seats, and the SPD and USPD each received 2.[3]

    The day after the Polish-German talks began, a German offensive broke through on the northern front and began to push towards Gnesen/Gniezno.[4] The radical miners’ councils of the Ruhr and central Germany, who had effectively socialised their mines throughout January against the wishes of the SPD-led government, escalated their discussions for a coordinated general strike against the undeclared war. The Communists and Independents united in support of the miners and helped to facilitate the planning of the strike throughout the country. On 6th February the news of the German siege of Gniezno and the failure of armistice negotiations induced the miners to begin their strike immediately. Gustav Noske, acting as a secret liaison between Chancellor Ebert and the Freikorps, urged Ebert to redirect some Freikorps divisions from the Polish front to repress the miners’ strike. The Chancellor refused however, knowing that a repression of the miners would cause the collapse of his already fragile coalition between the SPD and the USPD. Instead Ebert pinned his hopes on quickly defeating the Polish rebellion and thus negating the primary justification for the strike. In both the Ruhr and central Germany combined a few hundred thousand workers had joined the strike; alongside their demand for an end to the war, they also demanded the imminent convention of the Second All-German Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils. Just prior to the elections in the states of Coburg and Lübeck on 9th February, Gniezno was taken by German forces and unorganised sympathy strikes were appearing across Germany, including in Coburg and Lübeck. In both states the Communists and Independents formed coalitions and went on the offensive against the SPD. Out of Lübeck’s 80 seats the KPD-USPD coalition won 11 seats against the SPD’s 29.[5] In Coburg’s small assembly of 11 seats the anti-war socialists won 2 seats, the SPD 5, and the DDP-led right-wing coalition 4 seats.[6]

    The Executive Committee of the Berlin councils heeded the call of the striking miners and, without consulting the government, declared the Second All-German Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils to be opened on 11th February. In comparison to the First Congress the organisation of the Second had little involvement from the SPD, who had since focused almost exclusively on the parliamentary elections. Additionally the workers’ councils throughout the country had become more confident in themselves and their proletarian character, and so sent considerably more delegates of working class background. Overall there were 582 delegates, 90 of whom were sent from the soldiers’ councils. The SPD had lost the majority they had won in the First Congress, falling to 229 delegates, while the Communists had soared to 211 delegates; with the USPD numbered at 84, they held a majority. The first issue on the agenda was the miners’ strike in relation to the Polish rebellion. Wilhelm Koenen, KPD delegate and one of the leaders of the strike in central Germany, delivered a strident speech castigating the government for continuing the war and arguing that the strike was a measured response to the situation. With the Communists and Independents in support of the strike, a vote to continue the stoppage until the government declared a ceasefire was easily passed. The question of extending the strike was disputed though; the Communists argued in favour of the workers of Berlin joining the strike, while the USPD countered with the claim that such an action would invite repression from the military, and the SPD accused the Communists of seeking to install a dictatorship. Support from the International Communists and the anarchists wasn’t enough to give the KPD a majority, so they relented on expanding the strike.

    The next day of the Congress began with a debate on the socialisation of the economy, an issue which all of the delegates of the socialist parties ostensibly agreed upon. The leadership of the SPD were discretely opposed to mass socialisation however and instead preferred gradual nationalisation. To this end they attempted to impress upon their delegates the need to oppose any economic initiatives proposed by the Communists or Independents; the party’s leadership were only partially successful. When Georg Ledebour called for the immediate nationalisation of natural resources and heavy industry, in conjunction with workplace democracy, the Congress reacted with thunderous applause, many of the SPD delegates included; the motion was passed comfortably. The following motion, presented by Heinrich Dorrenbach, concerned the democratisation of the military through the use of the soldiers’ and sailors’ councils. The subsequent debate gave Willi Budich, former leader of the League of Red Soldiers, the opportunity to condemn the government’s collaboration with the Freikorps, to whom Budich had lost an arm in the attempted coup of early December. The vote was passed almost unanimously.

    The final debate of the Congress, which consumed the third and final day, surrounded the federal constituent assembly election and the future of the republic. Karl Liebknecht reiterated the KPD’s support for the election and his party’s participation in it, but he plainly stated that the ultimate legislative and executive authority in Germany lay in the councils. His speech drew applause and jeers in equal measure. Max Cohen-Reuss, an SPD delegate who had presided over the First Congress, retorted that the role of the councils had served their purpose and power should be handed over to a constituent assembly forthwith before there was a danger of the councils being subverted by a Bolshevik-like dictatorship. To his surprise many of Cohen-Reuss’ fellow delegates from the SPD turned their ire upon him, angry at his inconsiderate dismissal of their work. The USPD delegate Oskar Cohn affirmed his and his party’s support for the conciliar republic, but argued that it needed to be imbued with the democratic legitimacy of the constituent assembly. However, Cohn’s left-wing colleague Emil Barth responded by pointing out that the participation of the workers in the councils provided all the democratic legitimacy that was necessary. The arguing went back and forth until the Congress’ presidium called for a vote on Liebknecht’s proposal. The vote passed with 362 delegates in favour; all of the Communists and approximately half of the USPD delegates were in support, but that alone fell short of a majority. Fortunately for the revolutionaries a substantial minority of SPD delegates joined their side. With the future of a socialist republic of councils seemingly secured, the Second All-German Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils concluded and the delegates returned home, many of them going on to continue their miners’ strike.

    Party
    Delegates
    % of delegates
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    229​
    39.3​
    Communist Party (KPD)​
    211​
    36.3​
    Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD)​
    84​
    14.4​
    International Communists (IKD)​
    32​
    5.5​
    Liberals​
    12​
    2.1​
    Anarchists​
    8​
    1.4​
    Independents​
    6​
    1​
    582

    Ebert’s government was dismayed at the overtly revolutionary decisions coming out of the Congress, but they were confident in their opinion that the councils would be irrelevant following the federal election on 16th February. Meanwhile, the suppression of the Polish rebellion was foremost in the minds of the cabinet. By the end of the Congress on 13th February German forces had retaken Ostrów, which had been held by Polish rebels since before the armistice with the Entente. Subsequently the Freikorps pursued the retreating rebels across the border into the Republic of Poland, where they engaged the Polish army. The Entente military mission that was present in Poland dispatched a strongly-worded ultimatum to the German government, demanding the immediate retreat from the Polish Republic’s territory or face the resumption of a state of war. To Ebert’s horror, the Freikorps involved were not under his control or that of Noske. When the USPD ministers Hugo Haase and Wilhelm Dittmann became aware of the dire situation they presented Ebert with an ultimatum of their own: outlaw the Freikorps and inform the Entente that they were rogue elements, or the USPD would withdraw from the coalition government. Philipp Scheidemann acted first and accepted the Independents’ demands, instructing the foreign ministry to relay the message to Joseph Noulens, chairman of the Entente mission in Poland. The mostly French forces counterattacked the Freikorps and by the 15th had expelled them from Poland; they remained at the border however and refused to advance towards Ostrów. Meanwhile, most of the soldiers’ councils of the Deutsches Heer on the Polish front had voted to refuse offensive orders from the high command, in effect engaging in a mass mutiny. Thus the German government was in crisis on the eve of the federal election.

    [1] OTL, USPD = 15, SPD = 42.
    [2] OTL the USPD and SPD were in coalition and the former got 11 seats and the latter got 2.
    [3] OTL, USPD = 7, SPD = 2.
    [4] This offensive was repulsed IOTL, but with the larger Freikorps presence ITTL it is a success.
    [5] OTL it was 42 seats for the SPD. I’ve reasoned that some of the rural anti-war votes shifted from the SPD to the DDP, who got 29 seats OTL.
    [6] OTL, 7 seats for the SPD.

    Dramatis Personae (OTL biographies)

    Wilhelm Koenen: One of the founders of the USPD, Koenen was a leader of the miners' strikes of central Germany in 1919. The next year he was one of the primary organisers of the USPD left's merger with the KPD and was elected to the party Zentrale. From then on he was regular delegate to Comintern congresses. As a centrist in the party Koenen was sidelined during the ultra-left's ascendancy, but gradually shifted to the left in response. In 1933 Koenen fled to France, then Czechoslovakia in 1935, and Britain in 1938. From 1940 to 1942 he was interned in Canada but would later go on to work for British intelligence's anti-Nazi propaganda apparatus. After the war, Koenen joined the SED, became its chairman in Saxony, and was a regular member of the Central Committee until his death in 1963.
    Willi Budich: One of the original Spartacists and an ally of Leo Jogiches, Budich organised the League of Red Soldiers. After from his injuries during the attempted coup of early December 1918, Budich moved to Munich where he was a leader of the council republic. Afterwards he fled to the USSR, returned to Germany in 1921, was arrested but escaped and returned to the USSR where worked as an agent of the Comintern and International Red Aid. Budich returned to Germany in 1929, joined the KPD Central Committee. He was arrested by the Gestapo after the Nazis came power and was interned in a concentration camp until an international campaign led to release. He returned to the USSR to continue his work in the International Red Aid until his arrest in 1936 and execution in 1938 during Stalin's purges.
    Oskar Cohn: A lawyer and SPD politician, Cohn was a founding member of the USPD. During the November Revolution Cohn acted as a legal advisor to the Soviet Russian embassy and accepted funds to start a revolution. He later worked in the Ministry of Justice during the SPD-USPD coalition government. Cohn opposed the USPD's potential entry into the Comintern and stayed with the rump of the party that rejoined the SPD. During the 1920s Cohn joined Poale Zion and became a staunch Zionist. After the Reichstag fire he moved to Paris and was involved in organising aid for Jewish refugees. Cohn died in Geneva in 1934.
     
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    The German Federal Election of 1919
  • The German Federal Election of 1919

    The Social Democratic Party had its share of problems going in to the federal constituent assembly election of 16th February. The crisis over the Polish insurrection had simmered down from its previous fever pitch, but a ceasefire was still out of the government’s reach and the re-ignition of the war with the Entente had been a very real possibility. The miners’ strike called in response to the undeclared war was also still ongoing, and the party’s coalition partner, the Independent Social Democratic Party, were proving themselves to be unreliable. On the other hand the SPD were still seen by a large portion of the working class, including an increasing amount of those in rural areas, to be the primary socialist party. To those who remained un-politicised, the SPD had brought universal suffrage, expansions to healthcare and welfare, and established the Socialisation Commission. Due to the party’s alliance with the right-wing political and media establishment, the government’s counter-revolutionary efforts (such as the utilisation of the Freikorps) were free from journalistic scrutiny and so their image remained untarnished outside of the industrialised cities. The party leaders Friedrich Ebert and Philipp Scheidemann were confident of their victory in the election and the subsequent establishment of a parliamentary liberal democratic republic.

    The working class who were politicised however, were split in their allegiance. When the Communist Party had split from the Independent Social Democratic Party, most of the revolutionary left and centre of the USPD joined the new party. Those who remained were reformists, like party leader Hugo Haase, or cautious revolutionaries like Emil Barth. The USPD proclaimed its loyalty to the revolution and the establishment of a socialist council republic, but their continued coalition with the Social Democrats in the federal government was problematic at best to many workers who had been on the receiving end of the government’s repressions. The division in the USPD which was displayed at the Second All-German Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils was also a decisive factor in dissuading proletarian voters from the party. The benefactor of the USPD’s weakness of course was the Communist Party. The split in the USPD had led to a number of famous figures of the left joining the new party: the stridently anti-war Spartacists Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg; leaders of the revolutionary shop stewards like Georg Ledebour and Richard Müller; and Willi Münzenberg, the leader of the Socialist Youth International. The congregation of such luminaries, combined with KPD’s uncompromising call for a socialist republic of workers’ and soldiers’ councils, acted as a magnet for those workers who considered the SPD to have betrayed their socialist principles for a grip on power.

    The centre-right liberal part of the spectrum was occupied by the Centre Party and the Democratic Party; both parties ostensibly supported the foundation of the republic and the accompanying political liberalisation. Zentrum’s political Catholicism was an important, but not uncontested, part of the party’s program; Heinrich Brauns’ attempt to transform the party into a broader Christian People’s Party failed, and the Bavarian branch of the party split off to establish its own, more conservative, Bavarian People’s Party. Meanwhile the newly-founded DDP had been closely involved with the government; prominent party member Hugo Preuss was given the task of drafting the new constitution by Ebert and the SPD ministers. The base of support for the two major liberal parties were the middle class, upwardly mobile white-collar workers, parts of the rural population, and of course Catholics for the Centre Party. Further to the right were the National People’s Party and the People’s Party. Like the DDP they were both recent reshufflings of older parties; unlike the DDP, the DNVP and the DVP were both strongly opposed to the revolution, the new republic it had created, and left-wing politics in general. Conservatism, monarchism, nationalism, and Christian values were the primary characteristics of these parties, as well as, to a lesser extent, anti-Semitism and völkische sentiment. The incredibly wealthy strata of the middle class (industrialists and bankers), the rural population, and the remnants of the nobility were the main source of the DNVP and DVP’s support; the four large banks, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Darmstädter Bank, and Disconto-Gesellschaft donated over thirty million marks to the centre-right and right-wing parties. There were other, regional, parties such as the aforementioned Bavarian People’s Party, the German-Hanoverian Party, and the Schleswig-Holstein Farmers’ and Farmworkers’ Democracy.

    The change from plurality single-member constituencies to proportional representation and multiple-member constituencies, as well as the introduction of universal suffrage and the lowering of the voting age to twenty, resulted in equal parts excitement and dread among contemporary observers of the election. The ongoing miners’ strike and the Polish insurrection only exacerbated such an atmosphere. Ebert and the other SPD leaders expected to win a majority or at least a strong plurality of seats; they were to be disappointed. In the Entente-occupied constituencies of the Rhineland the Centre Party gained the most seats, except in East Düsseldorf where the Communists and Independents edged out in front. In Lower Bavaria the Bavarian People’s Party took the most seats, but in Upper Bavaria and Franconia there was a more even split between the BVP and the SPD. Over in neighbouring Württemberg the SPD came first, but the Democratic Party and Zentrum shared most of the remainder between themselves; Baden was also split fairly equally between the SPD, DDP, and Zentrum. In the Palatinate the SPD received a plurality of votes but was outperformed by the parties to the right when combined; Hesse displayed similar results. The industrial belt stretching through Thuringia, Saxony, Potsdam, and Berlin saw the strongest results for the KPD, with the SPD and USPD close behind them. In the parts of Posen which German forces controlled, the National People’s Party, the People’s Party, and the DDP gained most of the seats. In Silesia, the SPD gained the most seats in Breslau and Liegnitz, but in Oppeln Zentrum edged out ahead. In Prussia proper, the SPD won a comfortable first in the East but were only just ahead of the DDP in the West. Neighbouring Pomerania was taken mostly by the SPD, with the DNVP not too far behind in seats. In Mecklenburg, Magdeburg-Anhalt, and Schleswig-Holstein, the SPD and DDP were dominant. In the constituencies of Hanover-Brunswick, Frankfurt an der Oder, and Hamburg-Bremen, the SPD and DDP gained the majority of seats, along with some for the German-Hanoverian Party in Hanover. The constituencies of Weser-Ems were split equally between the SPD, DDP, and Zentrum, while the rest of Westphalia was split between the SPD and Zentrum. The soldiers in the east gave both of their seats to the SPD.

    1919 german election.png

    The Social Democrats did not receive the majority that they had been hoping for. However, with the aid of the Centre Party and the Democratic Party the government would have a majority in support of their constitutional plans which would lead to the creation of a representative liberal democracy. The government had already decided to hold the assembly in the relatively quiet city of Weimar, away from the revolutionary fervour of Berlin; the assembly would convene on the 1st March. Until then Ebert and his cabinet had to end the miners’ strike, implement a ceasefire with the Polish insurrectionists, and negotiate a peace treaty with the Entente. Completion of these tasks would not be easy. The SPD’s coalition partners in the USPD were demoralised by their poor showing in the election; Emil Barth argued that the party’s alliance with the SPD government had ruined their reputation among the industrial workers. Even the party leader Hugo Haase had trouble justifying the party’s continued place in the government, but he and the other members of the USPD’s right still thought that coalition with the Communists was the greater evil. The party’s leadership was paralysed by the debate, while the Communists took the advantage to argue they were the true workers’ party and that the SPD had betrayed the revolution to side with the reactionary liberals and conservatives. Alongside the federal election was the election to the state constituent assembly of Schaumburg-Lippe: the SPD won 8 of the 15 seats while the rest went to the right-wing parties.

    * Compared to OTL, there is a leftward shift in the industrialised urban areas; mostly rural areas are generally the same as OTL. The BVP’s seats and votes have been grouped with Zentrum.
     
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    Post-Election Realignment
  • Post-Election Realignment

    The day of the federal election, 16th February, was also the date of the expiration for the second extension of the armistice with the Entente. Friedrich Ebert’s government devoted all of its efforts to secure another extension, but complications arose from French demands that the Polish rebels be classified as Entente forces. Accepting would be a tacit abandonment of Posen, but the alternative was a resumption of the war. The situation was out of the government’s hands anyway: most of the Deutsches Heer soldiers were mutinying, while the Freikorps who were still fighting had been declared outlaws. The government reluctantly agreed to the French demand and gained an armistice extension of eight months. Peace was not achieved however. Shortly after the ceasefire was signed the Freikorps began a southern offensive against Gostyn and Kosten, threatening Posen. Once those two towns were back under German control, the Freikorps decided to push on towards Posen from the south. Joseph Noulens, chairman of Poland’s Entente mission, unilaterally decided to retaliate and ordered a joint Franco-Polish army across the border to attack Ostrów. The Freikorps cancelled their offensive against Posen and diverted troops to defend Ostrów. A tough battle ensued, causing much damage to a city that had so far avoided a lot of the insurrection’s violence, and the Franco-Polish forces emerged victorious on 18th February. The government tried to downplay the escalation of the Polish rebellion by pointing to their success in negotiating a ceasefire and arguing that as such the strikers’ demand had been met. After twelve days of continuous striking the miners of the Ruhr and central Germany had been feeling the pinch of not working; the strike funds of the unions and donations from the local branches of the KPD and USPD were beginning to run out. Additionally the miners were convinced by the government’s claim that they had no control over the Freikorps. As a result the miners returned to work, but the majority of them had no illusions about the loyalties of the SPD or the leadership of the USPD.

    The internal debate in the USPD came to a head at a party conference held after the end of the miners’ strike. Convinced by the arguments of Emil Barth the delegates narrowly voted in favour of the party formally withdrawing from the government; Hugo Haase and Wilhelm Dittmann, the two cabinet ministers, were naturally annoyed but not surprised at the turn of events. A second vote demonstrated the USPD’s overly-optimistic view of their situation however; by a comfortable majority, the delegates voted against a formal alliance with the Communists. The right-wing leadership of the party used the vote as a justification to instruct the regional party branches to cease any alliance with the KPD. This action triggered a near-revolt; in both socialist strongholds and the rural regions where revolutionary power was precarious, local USPD branches loudly made their opposition to the directive known. Some branches defected to the KPD wholesale, while others demanded the convention of a special party congress to correct the leadership’s mistakes. Those who were on the left of the leadership, such as Emil Barth and Robert Dissmann, successfully drafted socialist veterans Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein into supporting the call for a special party congress; the latter two were both opposed to the Communists, but they were dismayed at the growing disunity in the party.

    arton2202-1000x600.jpg

    Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky, former stalwarts of the German (and international) left

    With the resignation of Haase and Dittmann from the government, the SPD ministers were finally free to pursue a political alliance which would better suit their liberal democratic interest. The Democrats were the obvious choice, as they were already intimately involved in the government. In order to maintain the pretence of still being a party for the workers, Ebert retained the cabinet’s revolutionary name Council of People’s Deputies (Rat der Volksbeauftragten) and held back from inviting the Centre Party into the government. Hugo Preuss, who was already an important member of the Ministry of the Interior, and DDP leader Friedrich von Payer, who had been the last Vice-Chancellor before the Revolution, were appointed by Ebert to the Council. The Executive Committee of the Berlin councils, where the Communists and Independents now had a majority, were understandably angry as it were they who appointed the revolutionary cabinet in the first place. The Executive Committee had no power to enforce its will however, as the federal election had clearly given its voice to such a centrist government and military action on behalf of the Executive Committee would likely be responded to with overwhelming force. As a result, the Executive Committee organised a demonstration in protest as well as a declaration that the current government was responsible solely to the workers’ and soldiers’ councils. The demonstration in Berlin on 20th February, which attracted well over two hundred thousand workers, was left unmolested by the police; this was the opportunity Ebert had been looking for to remove Emil Eichhorn as chief of police. Eichhorn, who was still with the USPD, had sent his police officers to protect the demonstrators from any recriminations from the government or lingering Freikorps. The Prussian Ministry of the Interior once again summoned the police chief and informed him of his immediate termination. To the surprise of the government Eichhorn accepted his sacking and instead addressed the demonstrators, stating that he was proud to no longer have to serve a reactionary, repressive regime; the crowd cheered him on and proclaimed Eichhorn a hero. SPD loyalist Eugen Ernst was appointed as the new police chief.

    The USPD special congress was held on 21st February, just after the demonstration in Berlin. The unity of the workers in the face of the government and Eichhorn’s triumphal arrival at the party congress made a great impression on the subsequent proceedings. 354 elected delegates from across Germany travelled to Berlin to decide the future of the party; some were elected by those who had already defected to the KPD. The central question of the congress was whether the party should cooperate with the Communists. To many of the delegates, the question was a strange one; throughout the country, Independents and Communists had been cooperating since the split. The collaboration had not always been smooth, but to many of the delegates and the members they represented they were under the impression that both parties had the same goal of a socialist republic of workers’ and soldiers’ councils. Some in the party were concerned with the news they heard from Russia and even fewer were worried that the German Communists would emulate the perceived tactics of the Bolsheviks, but they were confident that such events would not happen in Germany. Bernstein and Kautsky did their best to disabuse their colleagues of this complacent attitude, disputing the sincerity of the Bolsheviks’ commitment to socialism and warning of their corruptive influence. However, the prestige which the two veterans once held had waned in recent months as it appeared that they were out of touch with the Revolution which very clearly was occurring in Germany. Barth led the leftist counterattack and pressed Bernstein and Kautsky on their views towards the SPD government and its flirtations with the Freikorps and the right-wing parties. Kautsky condemned the SPD government but unconvincingly claimed that the Communists were just as bad, while Bernstein skirted around the question and claimed revolutionary action would just result in strengthening the reactionaries. Haase remained silent, cognisant of his central role in the party’s current distress and fearful that an intervention from himself would only worsen matters. Eichhorn joined in the criticism of the right, arguing that proletarian unity was essential at that time. A vote was finally called and cooperation with the Communists was supported by a majority of 211 delegates. Subsequently, the vote which Haase was dreading came: a leadership vote. Most of the delegates supported Eichhorn but he declined due to his age and gave his support to Barth, who was duly elected as leader.

    Dramatis Personae (OTL biographies)

    Robert Dissmann: A veteran trade unionist, Dissmann had unsuccessfully stood as the left's candidate for the SPD Executive in 1911 and 1913. His opposition to the war resulted in him joining the USPD upon its founding and being elected co-president of the German Metalworkers' Union in 1919. Dissmann was opposed to the USPD's entry to the Comintern and so remained with the rump of the party after the majority joined the KPD. However, alongside Paul Levi he led the attempt to prevent the USPD's reunification with SPD. Once Dissmann was back in the SPD he led the party's left wing until his death in 1926.
     
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    A United Front in Germany
  • A United Front in Germany

    The Independents’ official adoption of an alliance with the Communists arrived just on the eve of the election to the constituent assembly of Oldenburg on 23rd February. Of the 48 seats available, the KPD-USPD coalition won 4 against the SPD’s 12.[1] For the next election, in industrial Saxe-Gotha two days later, the United Front accelerated their campaigning in the workers’ councils and factory committees: they won 11 of the 19 seats. It was the first parliamentary election where the Social Democrats won no seats.[2] During this time, and immediately after the federal election, the Communist Central Committee had begun to prepare for what they assumed to be an inevitable military confrontation. Heinrich Dorrenbach and his subordinates in the Red Guard were ordered to establish gymnasiums, and youth and sports clubs in order to disguise their training activities from government and Freikorps spies. Other party members who had served in the military, for example Hans Kippenberger, Ernst Thälmann, Wilhelm Zaisser, Richard Sorge, Ernst Wollweber, and Erich Wollenberg were vital in the training of their fellow former soldiers and workers. To root out enemy spies and spread the party’s influence in the Deutsches Heer, the Central Committee created the Military Apparatus; commanded by Wilhelm Zaisser, the organisation and its membership was for the time being kept secret from the rest of the party and responded only to orders from the Zentrale.

    Throughout January and February the Russian Communist Party (Rossiskaya Kommunisticheskaya Partiya/RKPb) had been preparing for the foundation of a new, revolutionary Communist International to break away from the reformist and arguably reactionary Second International. It had been hoped that the first meeting would take place in Berlin on 1st February, but the SPD government’s hostility to the Bolsheviks precluded that plan. The new location and date was set for Moscow on the 15th of that same month but it was again postponed; this time to 2nd March. The German Communists accepted their invitation to the Congress even though Rosa Luxemburg thought that the founding of a new Communist International would be premature when there was only one country governed by a communist party. The Central Committee appointed Luxemburg and Hugo Eberlein as the delegates to the Congress, and narrowly decided that they were to vote against the founding of a new International if it was proposed. 52 delegates from across Europe, Asia, and North America were in attendance; of these, 18 were non-voting consultative delegates.[3] Before the beginning of the conference, Vladimir Lenin, who knew of the Germans’ opposition to founding the new International, tried to convince them otherwise; he failed and promised that if they were still opposed, the founding would be deferred. During the debates, Luxemburg and Eberlein iterated their argument of the Communist International being premature and argued instead for a provisional platform. However, the other delegates were swept up in powerful speeches delivered by the likes of Grigory Zinoviev (representing the RKPb), Karl Steinhardt (representing the Austrian Communist Party), and Christian Rakovsky (representing the Balkan Revolutionary Social Democratic Federation). As a result, Luxemburg and Eberlein abstained with their five votes and the Communist International was officially founded. The Comintern was to be governed by an Executive Committee comprised of representatives from the most important communist parties; in the meantime a Bureau of Zinoviev, Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Rakovsky, and Fritz Platten would oversee the Comintern until the Executive Committee was formed.

    The German National Assembly was convened in Weimar on 1st March. Eduard David of the SPD was elected the first President of the National Assembly and the day afterwards the assembly voted on a collection of laws which: confirmed supreme legislative power in the National Assembly; established the office of President; and established a second legislative chamber representing the states. The KPD-USPD coalition voted against the legislation while the DNVP and DVP deputies were a mixture of votes against and abstentions, but the combined votes of the SPD, DDP, and Zentrum were more than enough to produce a majority for the legislation. On 3rd March, the Assembly elected Friedrich Ebert as the first official President of the new Germany; he won 244 votes.[4] The only other contender was DNVP candidate and prominent pre-Revolution politician Arthur von Posadowsky-Wehner, who won 71 votes.[5] The United Front abstained on the vote rather than legitimise the institution of President by voting for their own candidate. Secure in his power, Ebert appointed Philipp Scheidemann as Chancellor and tasked him with forming a new government. Although the Scheidemann cabinet was understandably dominated by SPD ministers, including the return of Gustav Noske as Minister of Defence, a number of important ministries were given to right-wing figures such as: Hugo Preuss as Minister of the Interior (DDP); Eugen Schiffer as Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Finance (DDP); and Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau as Foreign Minister. Constantin Fehrenbach of Zentrum was elected as the new President of the National Assembly to replace Eduard David, who had joined the cabinet.

    Upon hearing the announcement of the new cabinet, miners in Thuringia engaged in unorganised wildcat strikes while the local United Front branches planned a demonstration to be held outside the National Theatre (the Assembly’s venue) in Weimar. A few hundred thousand miners and other workers from across central Germany, joined by KPD, USPD, and even some SPD deputies, gathered in Weimar on 5th March and demanded a government of all the socialist parties to be established; in other cities smaller demonstrations made the same demands. Having had enough of the constant revolutionary unrest a unit of Freikorps under the command of Captain Hermann Ehrhardt, comprised mostly of former sailors and stationed outside of Berlin, marched into Berlin with the aim of liquidating the Executive Committee of the Berlin workers’ and soldiers’ councils. One of the Freikorps soldiers however had forewarned their former colleague Hans Paasche, former naval officer and at that time a member of the Executive Committee. Though he was first elected by pro-SPD soldier delegates, Paasche had soon veered sharply towards revolutionary socialism and cooperated with both the Communists and Independents. Paasche dutifully informed his fellow Committee members and the local detachment of the Red Guard planned an ambush for the incoming Freikorps. The Ehrhardt Brigade, numbering 1,500 men, was ambushed during its entry into Berlin on 7th March by a Red Guard militia of approximately the same size. The Red Guard had chosen their ambush site to be the Spandau district, knowing that armed sections of the working class population would join them in repelling the reactionary soldiers. Their assumption was correct and the Freikorps suffered heavy casualties, including Captain Ehrhardt, before retreating while facing continued harassment from armed gangs of workers.

    Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1971-037-42%2C_Hermann_Ehrhardt%2C_Kapp-Putsch%2C_Berlin_crop.jpg

    Freikorps Captain Hermann Ehrhardt

    Hermann Ehrhardt and his brigade had been acting alone and without a plan, but the revolutionaries did not know this and assumed the action was the beginning of a military coup. The leaderships of the KPD, USPD, and IKD formed a joint council with the Executive Committee of the Berlin councils and began to formulate a response to the crisis. Furious debate ensued, with the SPD members of the Executive Committee arguing for restraint until the situation could be clarified. Everyone else however agreed that, at minimum, Berlin should be secured against further reactionary threat. In essence, this would entail the seizure of government buildings, press and communications offices, the arming of the proletariat, disarming of reactionary forces, and defence preparations undertaken by the Red Guard and the remaining non-Communist elements of the People’s Navy Division. Further action was more contentious though. A sizeable minority of those present argued for the immediate declaration of a socialist council republic and the overthrow of the Weimar-based government. Opposition to this scheme, even within the KPD, was strong; Ernst Däumig criticised the call for what he predicted would be a short-lived and isolated “Berlin Commune”, while Karl Liebknecht argued that the proposed plan could only work when it was coordinated and explicitly supported by a majority of the working class, and the SPD members threatened to withdraw if such ‘putschist’ actions were taken. The joint council voted against the declaration of a socialist council republic, and instead decided upon the demand for the immediate formation of a socialist unity government comprising the Communists and both the Social Democratic parties. Meanwhile, General Walther von Lüttwitz assured the government in Weimar that Ehrhardt had been acting alone. The general refrained from denouncing the Freikorps action though and afterwards secretly reached out to generals Georg Maercker and Erich Ludendorff to plot an end to the Bolshevik menace.

    [1] OTL the KPD/USPD didn’t run and the SPD got 16 seats.
    [2] OTL, USPD = 10, SPD = 1.
    [3] Same delegates as OTL plus Luxemburg.
    [4] OTL it was 277.
    [5] OTL it was 49. I figure that with the Communists in parliament, the right-wing anti-republican candidate would get a bit more support.

    Dramatis Personae (OTL biographies)

    Hans Kippenberger: Having served as a first lieutenant during the war, Kippenberger joined the USPD sometime during the November Revolution and afterwards was with the majority that merged with the KPD in 1920. He worked in the clandestine apparatus of the party and was involved in the failed 1923 Hamburg uprising, after which he went in exile to the USSR for further education. Kippenberger returned to Germany later in 1924 and continued his role in the clandestine apparatus, where he was involved in a few political assassinations, as well as being elected to the Reichstag in 1928. Due to factional disputes in the 1930s, Kippenberger was sent back to the USSR where he was arrested in 1936 and executed the next year.
    Richard Sorge: James Bond but real and communist.
    Erich Wollenberg: A soldier during the war and participant during the mutinies of early November 1918, Wollenberg joined the Spartacus League and relocated to Munich in early 1919, where he fought for the council republic. After its defeat, Wollenberg spent two years in prison and afterwards became a KPD organiser, and thus was one of the leaders of the 1923 uprising in the Ruhr. In 1924 he was sent to the USSR where he joined the Red Army and taught at university. Between then and 1932 Wollenberg moved back and forth between Germany and the USSR. In 1933, while in the USSR, his criticisms of the KPD leadership resulted in his expulsion from the party, after which Wollenberg successively escaped to Prague, Paris, and Casablanca. After the war had ended, he returned to (West) Germany where he worked as a freelance journalist until his death in 1973.
     
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    German State Elections in February 1919
  • German State Elections in February 1919

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Saxony - 2nd February

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    40​
    41.4​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    22​
    22.9​
    Communist Party (KPD)​
    14​
    14.5​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    13​
    14.3​
    People's Party (DVP)​
    4​
    3.9​
    Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD)​
    3​
    2​
    Centre Party (Z)​
    0​
    1​
    96

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Reuss-Gera - 2nd February

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Communist Party (KPD)​
    7​
    33.3​
    People's Party (DVP)​
    5​
    21​
    Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD)​
    4​
    19​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    3​
    16.8​
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    2​
    9.9​
    21

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Reuss-Greiz - 2nd February

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Communist Party (KPD)​
    5​
    33.3​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    4​
    22.7​
    Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD)​
    2​
    17​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    2​
    16.8​
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    2​
    10.2​
    15

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Coburg - 9th February

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    5​
    45​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    4​
    41.4​
    Communist-Independent coalition (KPD-USPD)​
    2​
    13.6​
    11

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Lübeck - 9th February

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    29​
    37​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    29​
    36.3​
    Communist-Independent coalition (KPD-USPD)​
    11​
    15.5​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    6​
    11.2​
    80

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Schaumburg-Lippe - 16th February

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    8​
    54.1​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    2​
    15.8​
    Independents​
    2​
    13.2​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    2​
    11​
    People's Party (DVP)​
    1​
    5.9​
    15

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Oldenburg - 23rd February

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    15​
    31.1​
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    12​
    25​
    Centre Party (Z)​
    11​
    22​
    People's Party (DVP)​
    5​
    11.4​
    Communist-Independent coalition (KPD-USPD)​
    4​
    8.4​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    1​
    2.1​
    48

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Saxe-Gotha - 25th February

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Communist-Independent coalition (KPD-USPD)​
    11​
    60.1​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    4​
    21​
    People's Party (DVP)​
    3​
    15​
    Farmers' representatives​
    1​
    3.9​
    19
     
    Dual Power in Germany
  • Dual Power in Germany

    On 8th March socialist militias in Berlin executed the orders given by the socialist unity action committee. Units of the Red Guard and People’s Navy Division occupied the Chancellery and the Reichstag; with the government having relocated to Weimar and the constituent assembly for Prussia not yet having been elected, there were only a few soldiers and civil servants present at the government premises. Neither group offered any resistance to the revolutionaries, and some of the soldiers even defected to the militias. Simultaneously, telegraph and newspaper offices were seized, often with the aid of the unionised employees. The crowds of workers who had emerged the previous day to help repel the Freikorps grew in size and joined the socialist militias in erecting barricades. The only real opposition to the seizure of power came from the police and even then the response was confused and ineffective. Emil Eichhorn’s replacement, Eugen Ernst of the SPD, had attempted to root out loyalists of the former but he wasn’t entirely successful. Hearing the news that his colleagues on the Executive Committee supported the apparent coup further delayed Ernst’s response;[1] eventually the police were ordered to fortify their headquarters at Alexanderplatz. Whether due to the order being given too late or because of their political loyalties, many officers failed to return to the Red Castle (the police headquarters) before a large crowd of protesters arrived, escorted by Red Guards and Volksmarines. Leading the revolutionaries was the Red Guard commander Heinrich Dorrenbach, who appealed to the police’s reason and tried to convince them that the aim of the uprising was only to establish an all-socialist government. After hours of waiting, Ernst finally exited the headquarters in the evening and relinquished control of the building to Dorrenbach.

    The following day, news finally reached Weimar of the insurrection along with the revolutionaries’ demand for a socialist unity government. The SPD leadership were staunchly opposed to a coalition with the Communists and were even wary of the Independents in light of recent developments. Yet they knew that a significant portion of the party’s membership, voters, and some deputies in the National Assembly would be in favour of such a government. On the other hand, the ominous presence of the military high command was clearly poised to end the brief experiment in German democracy if the threat of a socialist revolution grew too strong. Besides, Friedrich Ebert and Philipp Scheidemann had shifted to a liberal democratic mind-set where the parliamentary arithmetic for an SPD-KPD-USPD coalition failed to hold a majority of seats in the National Assembly; gone were the heady days of workers’ councils and dreams of democratising the military, in their opinion at least. Karl Legien, Chairman of the General Commission of Trade Unions (Generalkommission der Gewerkschaften Deutschlands/GdGD), infamous among the left for his anti-radicalism and cooperation with the employers, proposed a potential solution: the socialist parties would form an extra-parliamentary government until the threat from the military had subsided. Otto Wels supported Legien’s initiative and offered to negotiate with the Berlin committee. It would prove to be a wasted journey; Legien had already telegraphed the proposal to Berlin. Predictably, many of the SPD members of the committee approved of the proposal, while their opponents argued that an extra-parliamentary socialist government already existed in the form of the Executive Committee of the Berlin councils. KPD Central Committee member Heinrich Brandler declared that if the SPD leadership were serious about socialist unity, they would have to institute it in the branch of government they cared most about. Most of the action committee agreed with Brandler’s assertion and voted in favour of rejecting Legien’s offer while clarifying the previous demand for an all-socialist government. The committee’s decision and explanation was telegraphed back to Weimar.

    The socialist demonstration outside the National Assembly, which had begun on 5th March, was still ongoing during the brief back-and-forth negotiations between Weimar and Berlin. Paul Levi, recently elected as a deputy in the federal election, was the most senior Communist at the demonstration; since the beginning he had been labouring towards reaching a coalition agreement with the SPD deputies who were participating in the demonstration. Hermann Paul Reisshaus, the unofficial leader of the demonstrating SPD deputies, was a veteran socialist who had been present at the founding of the Second International and at the SPD’s adoption of the Erfurt Program. Even though Reisshaus had reluctantly voted in favour of war credits during the preceding years, he had been critical of the leadership’s expulsion of the anti-war members and so was open to working with the United Front to establish a socialist republic. In the negotiations Reisshaus unsurprisingly demanded that the SPD act as the senior party in the proposed all-socialist government, not only because of its larger size (in both membership and Assembly seats) but also due to its historic role in the labour movement. Levi conceded that the position of Chancellor would go to the SPD but it would have to be someone on the left of the party, a subtle hint towards Reisshaus. Furthermore Levi argued that the apportionment of ministers in the cabinet would have to be equal, as had been the case in numerous previous arrangements involving the three parties. Reisshaus bristled at the thinly-veiled criticism of the SPD’s previous conduct, but chose to let it go unanswered and acquiesced to the demand for parity. Other elements of the potential government were easier to agree: socialisation of the economy; disbandment of the Freikorps; soldiers’ councils to democratise the military; and the primacy of the workers’ councils (though Levi privately worried that Reisshaus’ view of the SPD’s relation to the councils was too paternalistic). Reisshaus presented the agreement to Scheidemann, though he shrewdly omitted the details concerning the selection of a new Chancellor. He was too late however, for Berlin’s rejection of Legien’s proposal had just arrived. Consequently, Scheidemann and Ebert had vowed to continue with their centrist parliamentary coalition.

    While the negotiations between the socialists had been occurring, as a consequence of which government control had been dissipating ever further, generals Walther von Lüttwitz, Georg Maercker, and Erich Ludendorff gathered outside of Weimar. They were shortly after joined by Prussian Minister of War General Walther Reinhardt and Major Kurt von Schleicher; generals Paul von Hindenburg and Hans von Seeckt were sympathetic to their plight but remained uninvolved, while Generalleutnant Wilhelm Groener reluctantly supported the Ebert-Scheidemann government. The gathered officers were unanimous in their belief that the socialists had been allowed to run loose for too long; retaking Berlin and liquidating the socialist leadership was paramount among their aims. Their ire was also directed towards the Weimar government, not just for their apparent collaboration with the revolutionaries but also for their capitulation to the Entente. Rumours about the peace treaty that was being negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference were scandalous to the reactionary officers; limits on troop numbers, territorial concessions, monetary reparations, and more. The latest news alleged that the German government would be obliged to allow Jozef Haller von Hallenburg’s Polish Army of the Western Front to transit through Germany to Poland. To the generals the notion of enabling their enemies to steal Germany’s eastern territories was inconceivable, yet the government appeared to be seriously considering the prospect. The planned action against the government would therefore have to take place before the politicians capitulated further to the Entente’s demands. On the other hand, the gathered generals recognised that they would need some civilian support in their restoration of responsible government. The DVP and DNVP were sure to be supportive, and many in the DDP and Zentrum could be convinced if a sufficient combination of pressure and emphasis on the dangers of Bolshevism were applied. The Social Democrats were more complicated however; Ebert and Scheidemann were the faces of the failure of liberal democracy, but they could perhaps serve a public role in smoothing the transition of power. Gustav Noske, and perhaps even Wels, had shown themselves to be amenable to the interests of the military, at least while the revolutionaries remained a threat and so could have a temporary role in the new government. The generals adjourned their meeting, agreeing on the date of 15th March as the moment of action.

    [1] ITTL Eugen Ernst did not win a seat in the federal election.

    Dramatis Personae (OTL biographies)

    Heinrich Brandler: One of the original Spartacists, Brandler was expelled from the SPD as early as 1915 and reluctantly joined the new USPD in 1917. After a brief exile from Germany, he created KPD's strongest organisation in Chemnitz and was eventually elected chairman of the party in 1921, succeeding Paul Levi. Brandler's key role in the failed March Action of that year resulted in his imprisonment, but he escaped to the USSR and worked for the Comintern. He returned to Germany in 1922 and became general secretary of the party, but the failure of further uprisings, his support for a united front with the SPD, and the rise of leftist opponents in the party resulted Brandler's recall to the USSR. He later returned to Germany and organised the Communist Party Opposition with August Thalheimer, for which he was expelled from the Comintern. In 1933 Brandler went to France and then to Cuba in 1941. He returned to (West) Germany after the war and worked as a journalist and activist until his death in 1967.
     
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    A Gathering Storm in Germany
  • A Gathering Storm in Germany

    Against the backdrop of the disintegration of governmental authority and a climate of fear and uncertainty over the military’s role in politics, four more elections were scheduled for the establishment of state assemblies in Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Bremen, and Waldeck on the 9th March. The local branches of the United Front in Waldeck decided to boycott the election and instead focused on preparing the proletariat in the small, rural state for the feared upcoming civil war; the SPD won 7 of the state’s 21 seats and so were outnumbered by the right-wing parties. On the other hand, Bremen was an important centre of the revolutionary movement, though to complicate matters, the ultra-leftist International Communists were the dominant group of socialists in the city-state. Despite their traditionally anti-electoral attitude, Johann Knief and Otto Rühle recognised the significance of the current circumstances and promised the IKD’s support for the KPD-USPD anti-parliamentary electoral campaign. Of the 200 seats up for election, the United Front won 64 against the SPD’s 56.[1] Even though Saxe-Meiningen and Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach would not ordinarily have been among the most militantly socialist states in central Germany, they had become the epicentre of the expanding strikes and demonstrations against the government. As a consequence the local working class had, by taking action into their own hands, been thoroughly radicalised by the experience and this was demonstrated in the elections in the two states. The United Front won 7 of the 24 available seats in Saxe-Meiningen, narrowly being beaten by the SPD’s 8.[2] The effect was predictably more pronounced in Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach: 13 seats for the United Front and 12 for the SPD, out of a total of 42 seats.[3] The Social Democrats’ claim to be the sole party of the workers was clearly faltering.

    General Walther von Lüttwitz’ clique faced challenges in the preparation of their coup. The war against the Polish rebels in eastern Germany showed no signs of abating; the military high command had to resort to secret lines of communication with the outlawed Freikorps units to maintain the pretence of a ceasefire. The withdrawal of divisions from that front would only lead to a weakening of the Germans’ position there but it was necessary because most of the regular units of the Deutsches Heer were proving too unreliable for the overtly political operation that was to come. Many soldiers were deserting while others were running their orders through councils before acting upon them. Meanwhile the coup plotters had decided to not inform their potential allies among the politicians until the operation was underway for fear of their plans being revealed. The redeployment of soldiers in the days following the elections was not too hard to miss, even with the effort to keep the movements secret. The attempts at maintaining secrecy were in vain however, for members of the Communist Military Apparatus embedded in the Deutsches Heer reported their findings to their comrades. On 13th March, the Apparatus’ commander Wilhelm Zaisser submitted his report, even though he was unsure of the exact details of the coup, to the party’s Zentrale, comprising: Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Wilhelm Pieck, Leo Jogiches, Paul Levi (who was still in Weimar), Hugo Eberlein, Georg Ledebour, Ernst Däumig, Richard Müller, and Paul Neumann. At the meeting, the Zentrale members unanimously agreed on warning as many branches as possible, especially Levi and the demonstration at Weimar. There was contention though when Luxemburg suggested informing the Scheidemann government of the coup as well. Ledebour strongly disagreed with the idea, arguing that doing so would just prolong the Weimar government’s existence and thus strengthen it at the expense of the revolutionaries; Liebknecht was inclined to agree. The proposal was put to a formal vote (with Zaisser standing in for Levi): three for, five against, and two abstentions.[4] Thus, the Communist Zentrale chose not to defend the liberal democracy which had tried so hard to halt the revolution.

    At midday of 15th March two Freikorps brigades and one Deutsches Heer brigade under the command of Major Kurt von Schleicher marched into Weimar. The socialist demonstration had mostly dispersed, through discrete warnings from the Communist Zentrale, and those who remained quickly fled when they saw the soldiers. The coup’s soldiers entered the National Theatre and detained the deputies, but the Communists, Independents, and some of the left Social Democrats were not present. Von Schleicher himself marched into Friedrich Ebert’s office and informed the President that he was to form a new emergency government and dissolve the National Assembly. Ebert knew that he had no choice and so meekly acquiesced to the military’s demands. Besides Gustav Noske, who was to be promoted to the position of Chancellor, there were no other SPD or centrist members in the military’s approved cabinet. Wolfgang Kapp was to be given the Vice-Chancellorship and the Ministry of Finance, while Kuno von Westarp was to be appointed Minister of Justice, and Traugott von Jagow to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The rest of the major cabinet positions were reserved for current or former military officers: Wilhelm Groener to the Ministry of Defence (as an incentive for him to support the coup); the Ministry of the Interior to the famous admiral Alfred von Tirpitz; and Werner von Fritsch to the Ministry of Labour. The retention of Ebert and Noske was designed to maintain the appearance of continuity and legitimacy for the new government, but in reality they were to be puppets of the military. The announcement of the new government, but not the dissolution of the National Assembly, was telegraphed to the rest of the country.

    A few hours earlier, two understrength Deutsches Heer divisions began their advance into Berlin; General Erich Ludendorff was in command, though he remained nearby in Dallgow-Döberitz. In all, approximately 19,000 soldiers, most of whom were expecting an effortless arrest of the revolutionary leadership, were involved in the operation. Their expectations were to be dashed however. In the short time since Zaisser’s report to the Zentrale, the Red Guard and People’s Navy Division had hastily established as many proletarian militias as they could. Even though they varied in quality and experience, there were 45,000 armed workers ready to defend Berlin upon the launch of the military coup. Due to the haste in which the militias were raised, there was no time to prepare a plan more complex than merely defending the city; Red Guard commander Heinrich Dorrenbach was unofficially in command of the nascent socialist army. Though the revolutionaries were dispersed around the city, Dorrenbach had given the order to appropriate all cars and trucks that were not being used for essential services. The Deutsches Heer soldiers were fired upon almost as soon as they entered the city proper, halting their advance. For an hour or so after first contact, the two sides traded gunfire until the Deutsches Heer brought their artillery into position. Once the reactionaries’ artillery commenced its bombardment, the socialist army responded with its own. By the early evening the resolve of most of the Deutsches Heer soldiers, completely unprepared for a drawn-out battle, broke and the invaders retreated to Dallgow-Döberitz. As soon as the Deutsches Heer attacked, the revolutionary coalition had dispatched a pre-prepared announcement across Germany:
    • The Free Socialist Republic was declared (for a second time) and the government in Weimar was to be considered obsolete.
    • A new Council of People’s Deputies, led by Hermann Paul Reisshaus, Karl Liebknecht, and Emil Barth, was to assume the mantle of government until a new All-German Congress of Worker’s and Soldiers’ Councils could be convened.
    • All members of the labouring classes, that is workers, poor farmers, and soldiers, were to arm themselves and prepare to defend the revolution from reactionary forces in conjunction with a general work stoppage.
    • The means of production were to be immediately brought into public ownership and to be administered by the labouring classes for equitable and productive use.

    [1] OTL the result was: KPD = 15, USPD = 38, SPD = 67. Notably the KPD actually ran in this election.
    [2] OTL, 2 for the USPD, 13 for the SPD.
    [3] OTL, 5 for the USPD, 16 for the SPD.
    [4] The vote was as follows: for – Luxemburg, Jogiches, Müller; against - Ledebour, Liebknecht, Pieck, Däumig, Zaisser; abstentions – Eberlein, Neumann.

    Dramatis Personae (OTL biographies)

    Otto Rühle: Originally a Spartacist, Rühle left the group when they joined the 'reformists' in creating the USPD. Rühle himself helped to establish the ISD/IKD and was partly responsible for them joining with the Spartacists to found the KPD. He was a leader of the ultra-left opposition within the party which was expelled by Paul Levi in 1920, following which Rühle co-founded the KAPD. As a delegate to the 2nd Comintern Congress Rühle rejected the Twenty One Conditions for membership and also vociferously criticised the Bolsheviks; because of this, he was expelled from the KAPD. Rühle helped establish the ultra-left General Workers' Union before coming into conflict there as well. In 1932 he moved to Prague and then to Mexico in 1936, where from he contributed to the Dewey Commission. Rühle died in 1943.
    Hugo Eberlein: One of the original Spartacists, Eberlein was a central member of the KPD throughout most of the 1920s and was a leader of the clandestine apparatus. Eberlein's downfall came in 1928 when he was involved in the investigation and dismissal of Thälmann in the wake of the embezzlement scandal. Eberlein was demoted and was then moved to Comintern work. He escaped to France in 1933 and worked towards the popular front strategy until his arrest in 1935 and exile to Switzerland the next year. Eberlein escaped to the USSR where Wilhelm Pieck tried to have him rehabilitated, but he was arrested in 1937 and eventually executed in 1941.
    Paul Neumann: One of the revolutionary shop stewards who split from the SPD into the USPD in 1917, Neumann was an influential leader in Berlin. He joined the majority of the USPD in merging with the KPD but left in 1922 to help form the Communist Working Group. Neumann followed the latter organisation into the rump USPD which rejoined the SPD. Neumann's later life is unknown.
     
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    German State Elections in March 1919
  • German State Elections in March 1919

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Waldeck - 9th March

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    7​
    30.4​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    6​
    23.2​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    4​
    21.2​
    Waldeckian People's League (WldVB)​
    3​
    13.6​
    People's Party (DVP)​
    1​
    8.7​
    Centre Party (Z)​
    0​
    2.9​
    21

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Saxe-Meiningen - 9th March

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    8​
    33.3​
    Communist-Independent coalition (KPD-USPD)​
    7​
    26.6​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    5​
    18.3​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    3​
    15.4​
    People's Party (DVP)​
    1​
    6.4​
    24

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach - 9th March

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Communist-Independent coalition (KPD-USPD)​
    13​
    30.5​
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    12​
    28.7​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    9​
    21.2​
    National People's Party (DNVP)​
    7​
    11.3​
    People's Party (DVP)​
    1​
    5.4​
    Centre Party (Z)​
    0​
    2.9​
    42

    Constituent Assembly of the State of Bremen - 9th March

    Party
    Seats
    % of vote
    Communist-Independent coalition (KPD-USPD)​
    64​
    32.8​
    Social Democratic Party (SPD)​
    56​
    26.9​
    Democratic Party (DDP)​
    39​
    19.9​
    People's Party (DVP)​
    27​
    12.9​
    Independent parties​
    11​
    5.8​
    Centre Party (Z)​
    3​
    1.7​
    200
     
    The Second Phase of the German Revolution Begins
  • The Second Phase of the German Revolution Begins

    The socialist call-to-arms rang like a clarion call throughout Germany. Appended to Berlin’s declaration was a hastily-written account of the Deutsches Heer’s attack on the city, thus the dreaded prospect of a military coup had suddenly become a stark reality and was chillingly confirmed shortly afterwards by Friedrich Ebert’s announcement of a new, transparently military, government. In Thuringia, most of the military-aged workers who had participated in the demonstration in Weimar withdrew to Erfurt under the command of Communist brothers Wilhelm and Bernhard Koenen, while the revolutionary leadership who had been present made haste towards Berlin. Leipzig and Chemnitz, the latter city represented almost unanimously by Communists within the revolutionary current, became the main centres for organisation in neighbouring Saxony under the leadership of Fritz Heckert. In the Ruhr, workers from all four socialist parties mobilised in Essen under Otto Brass, while Artur König was elected to organise the military efforts. Meanwhile, the Bavarian government of Kurt Eisner had already been engaged in a low-level war against Freikorps elements and rural militias, reducing its effective authority to Munich and a few other cities such as Nuremberg and Ingolstadt.[1] The dockworkers and partially demobilised sailors of the industrialised port cities of Bremen, Hamburg, and Wilhelmshaven swiftly asserted control and began efforts to coordinate between themselves. In the Entente-occupied areas of the Rhineland, the soldiers of the occupation forces maintained vigilance but ultimately remained passive as workers and former soldiers mobilised under Franz Dahlem.

    Rote_Ruhrarmee_1920.jpg

    Soldiers of the Red Guard in Dortmund

    The call to revolution also spread beyond German borders. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was accompanied by the proliferation of workers’ councils and militias much like in Germany. In the multicultural Czechoslovakia there were two major Marxist parties: the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Workers’ Party (Československá Sociálně Demokratická Strana Dělnická/ČSDSD) and the provincial branch of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Austria (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Österreichs/SDAPÖ). Like the pre-fractured SPD, both of these parties were riven with factionalism between revolutionaries, centrists, reformists, and social democrats. Moreover, in the previous year, the Czech National Social Party had absorbed the Kropotkinist Federation of Anarcho-Communists, dropped the ‘National’ from their name, and adopted a platform of non-Marxist reformism and so emerged as the Czechoslovak Socialist Party (Československá strana socialistická/ČSS). The ČSDSD and the ČSS were both members of the exclusively Czechoslovak (that is to say non-German) coalition government of President Tomáš Masaryk and Prime Minister Karel Kramář. The Prime Minister was a staunch anti-communist who saw the ideology as a German ploy against pan-Slavic unity and therefore was supportive of the Czechoslovak Legion’s pivotal role in the Russian Civil War. Masaryk, and his protégé Foreign Minister Edvard Beneš in Paris, on the other hand were in favour of withdrawing the Legion and following a more pragmatic foreign policy of looking toward the Entente; furthermore, they suspected Kramář of holding reactionary, Czech chauvinist views which would be detrimental to the establishment of Czechoslovakia as a functional state.

    Meanwhile in Austria, the pan-German, Marxist SDAPÖ had fell short of a majority of seats in the Constituent Assembly election which was held on the same day as its German counterpart.[2] As a result the party had established a fragile coalition with the conservative, Austrian nationalist Christian Social Party (Christlichsoziale Partei/CS) and a few assorted pan-German nationalists. The Communist Party of German-Austria (Kommunistische Partei Deutsch-Österreichs/KPDÖ) and the Federation of Revolutionary Socialists were both under the sway of their ultra-leftist factions, leading them to boycott the election. On the same day as the coup in Germany (15th March), the Austrian Constituent Assembly abolished its State Council, a triumvirate of Franz Dinghofer (from the Greater German Association), Johann Nepomuk Hauser (CS), and Karl Seitz (SDAPÖ), and replaced it with the position of President of the Constituent Assembly, which was given to Seitz. Simultaneously a new cabinet was elected, though it was just a reshuffling of SDAPÖ Chancellor Karl Renner’s previous coalition government. Though he was a prominent member of the moderate wing of the party, Renner was intensely interested in the ongoing revolutionary events in Germany as they perhaps represented the best opportunity for the unification of Austria with Germany. The Austrian government’s Foreign Minister Otto Bauer, who was on the left of the SDAPÖ, had already been engaged in secret negotiations with the German Weimar government concerning unification. For the moment though the situation was in its infancy, leading Renner to continue his support for the alliance with the CS.

    When the revolutionary politicians returned to Berlin from Weimar, they immediately set to work on establishing a revolutionary government. It had already been decided that Hermann Paul Reisshaus, Karl Liebknecht, and Emil Barth would be the three co-Chairmen of the new Council of People’s Deputies (Rat der Volksbeauftragten). The three men received additional responsibilities in the cabinet: Reisshaus the People’s Deputy for Trade; Liebknecht the People’s Deputy for Foreign Affairs; and Barth the People’s Deputy for Industry. Heinrich Dorrenbach was unsurprisingly appointed People’s Deputy of Defence, where he was to coordinate with People’s Deputy for Transport Anton Grylewicz and People’s Deputy for Communications Emil Eichhorn. As an overture to the USPD right, Oskar Cohn was appointed as the People’s Deputy of Justice and Luise Zietz as People’s Deputy for Education. Similarly for the SPD, Erich Zeigner was appointed People’s Deputy for Finance and Wilhelmine Eichler as People’s Deputy for Food and Agriculture. The position of People’s Deputy of Internal Affairs was given to Albert Schreiner, who was subsequently informed of the existence of the Communist Military Apparatus. As the People’s Deputy of Labour, Robert Dissmann was to work in close collaboration with Barth. Karl Radek, who had officially joined the KPD, was appointed People’s Deputy of Minority Affairs. The less pressing issues of Health, Welfare, and Culture were assigned, respectively, to Raphael Silberstein, Wilhelm Pieck, and Paul Levi. In terms of party composition there were seven Communists, four Social Democrats, and five Independents. A notable absence was Rosa Luxemburg, but her position as co-leader of the KPD and her general fame ensured that she had an unofficial measure of influence on the Council of People’s Deputies. Meanwhile, the Berlin branch of the ultra-left International Communists articulated their stance as a ‘loyal opposition’ to the new workers’ government.

    The first task of the Berlin-based Council of People’s Deputies was to consolidate the territory that had so far been brought under proletarian control and establish a unified military command structure. Once that was accomplished, a new All-German Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils would be safe to convene. The work would be difficult though as the nascent socialist army suffered from an understandable deficiency in higher ranked commissioned officers, in addition to governance over partially non-contiguous territory. The Hamburg Articles, which were introduced at the First All-German Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils, were adopted by the Council of People’s Deputies. Their overall purpose was to ensure democratic civilian control of the military through soldiers’ councils and prevent abuses of power by the officers. In accordance with the Hamburg Articles, and influenced by the Bolsheviks, the Council of People’s Deputies decreed that traditional ranks were abolished and a new simplified system of positional ranks would replace them. On 17th March, the notification of the organisational changes were telegraphed from Berlin to the areas of the country which were under firm socialist control. The same day People’s Deputy of Defence Dorrenbach ordered two reorganised divisions of Rote Garde, numbering 28,000 men under the command of Korpsführer Ernst Reuter, to Dallgow-Döberitz to extirpate General Erich Ludendorff’s reactionary contingent, but they had already retreated to Magdeburg by the time the Rote Garde arrived.

    In Weimar the coup’s military forces had established control and imprisoned many suspected revolutionaries, including some SPD deputies. The rest of the National Assembly deputies were released; those belonging to the DNVP were invited by Chancellor Gustav Noske to form an Emergency Advisory Council to serve as the basis for a new parliament. Generalleutnant Wilhelm Groener accepted his appointment to the Ministry of Defence as the coup plotters had foreseen, while Paul von Hindenburg and Hans von Seeckt recognised the coup as a fait accompli and so threw the full weight of their support behind the new government. Similarly to the Council of People’s Deputies, the immediate concern of the Weimar government was to establish its writ in as much territory as possible and to assess the reliability of the remaining military forces. Furthermore, Weimar itself was far too close to the hotbed of socialist activity in Thuringia, so the government would have to relocate. The non-contiguous industrial belt running through eastern, central, and western Germany was obviously unsuitable for a new headquarters, as was the western Rhineland due to the Entente occupation. On 17th March the generals decided to move northwest to Paderborn, where they would be able to make use of the nearby Senne training ground. On the way there they were joined by Ludendorff, who had ordered the remainder of his forces to hold Magdeburg against potential revolutionary incursions. At the same time, the junta ordered what was left of the 2nd Royal Bavarian Army Corps, numbering about 22,000 soldiers under the command of Generalleutnant Otto von Rauchenberger, to begin operations against the socialist government of Eisner in Munich.

    [1] Without the Spartacist Uprising of OTL, there is no wave of repressions by the Freikorps in the following months and so Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley doesn’t have the confidence to murder such an important socialist figure.
    [2] Same result as OTL: 72 for the SDAPÖ, 69 for the Christian Socials.

    Dramatis Personae (OTL biographies)

    Bernhard Koenen: After having served during the war, Koenen (like his brother) joined the USPD upon its foundation. He was a supporter of the USPD left's merger with the KPD and thereafter carried out work for the Comintern in France and Belgium, before being elected to the Central Committee in 1923. As a member of the party's centre faction, Koenen was demoted in 1929 and fled to the USSR in 1933. There he was imprisoned from 1937 to 1939 but rose to the KPD's leadership during the war. Koenen joined the SED's Central Committee after the war and was the ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1952 to 1958. He died in 1964.
    Fritz Heckert: One of the original Spartacists, Heckert was allied to Heinrich Brandler and the right of the KPD. By bringing the majority of the Chemnitz USPD into the new party, Heckert created the strongest branch of the KPD and was thus elected to the Central Committee (which he mostly retained until his death). Due to his trade union contacts and expertise, Heckert often worked in Moscow for the Profintern and Comintern and was at the forefront of the KPD's efforts in the trade union movement. He was also briefly the Economy Minister of Saxony in October 1923. From 1932, Heckert remained in Moscow where he died in 1936.
    Otto Brass: A member of the USPD's Central Committee, Brass joined the majority of the party in merging with the KPD in 1920. He was briefly elected to the new Zentrale but was expelled from the party in 1922, whereupon he followed the route of the Communist Working Group back into the USPD and then the SPD. During the 1930s Brass organised resistance against the Nazis for which he was imprisoned for the entirety of the war. After being liberated, Brass became a leader of the Free German Trade Union Federation and joined the SED. He died in 1950.
     
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