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As most on this board will know, the Spartacist Revolt was an attempt by German communists under Karl Liebknicht to overthrow the teetering postwar government of Germany. It failed spectacularly when the demobilized veteran brigades known as Freikorps stormed Munich and killed the revolters.

Now, most of the KPD leadership considered Liebknicht's plan to be a bad one, but still went along with it. This has had repercussions echoing into the century since, so I'm interested in the opposite. What if Rosa Luxembourg and the rest of the KPD leadership was able to convince Karl to hold off?

The most immediate change I can think of is averting (or lessening) the split between social democrats and communists. The SPD's decision to ally with the conservative militarist against the communists has created a wound that's never truly healed. Even today, Rosa's death is a bloody shirt that gets pulled out and waved when tensions flare between left factions.

The question is, can it be sustained? It's often cited that if the SPD and KPD had more cooperative, they might have stopped the Nazis. But there's plenty of room for second order counterfactuals to put things back on track. So, here's a few scenarios for discussion, and I would be interested in hearing thoughts on their likelihood, or alternatives:

1. More or less same as OTL: The SPD and KPD find something else to squabble about and history proceeds generally the same as it did. The DDR might have a few of the KPD members who didn't die running it after the war, with long term butterflies.

2. Peace in our time: SPD-KPD cooperation gets them through the 20s and the great depression in government by the skin of their teeth, using make work programs to revitalize the economy. The Nazis fade into the background once the economic crisis passes. Conservative government returns to Germany in the 40s with the rise of the Christian Democrats, but it has little of the old military aristocracy in it.

3. Red Dawn: The KPD consistently increases in power, and manages to radicalize a large swathe of the returning veterans and SPD membership. When the depression hits in 29, they decide the time is ripe and launch a revolution, overthrowing the government and forming a communist Germany closely allied with the Soviet union. The old Entente are furious but unwilling to directly intervene.

Thoughts? Opinions? Hateful screeds?
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