WI: German Revolution of 1918-1919

I'm reading a book on the rise of the 3rd Reich and in one of the first few chapters on the history of Germany after WWI I started to think. In November of 1918 until August 1919 there was a German Revolution and for a short time a Soviet Congress was in control in Berlin. What is the possibility of the Congress staying in power and Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebkneuht are not executed but remain in control of the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands thus forming a Communist Germany? Discuss.
 
In all honesty, thier control would not hold beyond the walls of Berlin, or Brandenberg if they're very lucky. Germany was very unstable at the time, and I imagine it might just collapse if something like this happened. Back to 1815, lads.
 
People said the same thing about the Bolsheviks.

In fact, the reason the German Revolution failed was not lack of enthusiasm but lack of proletarian coordination. There were risings in Hamburg, Munich, Berlin etc, but not a the same time. And when they happened there wasn't a leadership ready to exploit it. For example, the Kiel Soviet was defused without a bullet fired.

What the working-class needed to triumph was, simply put, more Bolsheviks. The social-democrats did everything they could to hinder the social revolution. They lied, promised and, when nothing else worked, sent in proto-fascists to kill the workers.

Thus, if you want a German revolution, what is necessary is an earlier splintering of the Social democrats, and thus a more well-organized opposition.
 

Larrikin

Banned
Communists succeeding

What enable the Bolsheviks in St Petersburg to succeed was the presence of large numbers of sailors and soldiers on the spot, as St Petersburg was a garrison city.

This wasn't the case with Berlin, and the German Army was fervently anti-communist. As soon as the troops started coming home from the front they were going to roll right over the communists, as they did, because the considered them traitors.
 
What enable the Bolsheviks in St Petersburg to succeed was the presence of large numbers of sailors and soldiers on the spot, as St Petersburg was a garrison city.

This wasn't the case with Berlin, and the German Army was fervently anti-communist. As soon as the troops started coming home from the front they were going to roll right over the communists, as they did, because the considered them traitors.

There's an assumption on this forum, curiously unfounded in reality, that there's nothing the ordinary folks like as much as a good war of conquest.

In fact, there's nothing to suggest that the German soldiers liked the war any more then anyone else. In fact, logically, they should be even more anti-war then the workers, since they were the cannon-fodder of the pointless carnage. The action of the soldiers and the sailors during the Kiel mutiny, suggests this is true.

As for the Freikorps, they numbered a quarter of a million at their height, which is something like 5 % of the wartime German forces. They were a small group of extremists, and not in anyway representative of the general German soldier.
 

Cook

Banned
Given the chaos and instability across not only Germany but much of Europe I’d say it was a 50 – 50 thing in Germany in 1919.
 
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