The Spartacist Movement The German Detachment of International Communism In the aftermath of the November 1918 German revolution

n that brought the Social Democratic Party (SPD) to power, a movement known by the name Spartacist sought to deepen the German political revolution into a socialist workers revolution. Although operating within Germany, this Spartacist movement understood itself as working toward an international communist revolution which had began with the Bolshevik-led workers revolution in Russia. This essay is a short history of the German Spartacist movement. The history of the Spartacist movement begins with the history of the SPD from whose ranks it emerged. The SPD originated in the 1875 merger of Ferdinand Lassalles General German Workers Union and August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknechts Social Democratic Workers Party. The SPD rapidly grew in power as the industrialization of Germany entered into high gear. It was under the SPDs leadership that a powerful German trade union movement was built. Having to survive Bismarcks anti-socialist repression strengthened the revolutionary elements within the SPD.1 At the 1891 Erfurt Party Congress, the SPD codified important fundamental Marxist principles into its political program, many which had been missing at the time of the 1875 unification. In time as the SPD operated in less restrictive conditions and the government enacted social legislation, it rapidly grew in size by 1912 the SPD had 110 Reichstag members, making it the Reichstags largest faction.2 Quantity did not translate into quality, and while it was the biggest in the Reichstag, the SPD had also grown increasingly bureaucratic, and in 1912

Eric Waldman, The Spartacist Uprising of 1919. (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1958), p. 8. 2 Richard Watt, The Kings Depart: the Tragedy of Germany. (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 20001968), p. 113. 1

could no longer be called revolutionary.3 In 1905 this bureaucratic process had not been completed, so that, for example, when the1905 Russian Revolution showed the importance of the mass general strike as a political weapon of the working class, revolutionary Marxists SPD members Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht could still find an audience for their advocacy of the mass action tactics. Not only was Luxemburg able to defend it against the reformist-minded trade union leaders, but she managed to have these tactics sanctioned as a weapon of the SPD.4 Regardless of the internal bureaucratization, prior to WWI, not having external competitors, the SPD could still claim to be the undisputed voice of the German socialism of its great original theorists like Marx, Engels, August Babel, and Wilhelm Liebknecht.5 Nevertheless, the trend in favor of the bureaucratic reformist and nationalist elements continued. The trade union movement, with its privileged well-paid leadership became conservatized earlier and faster than the party, eventually obtaining organizational independence from the SPD. Predictably, these conservative trade unionists and their co-thinkers among the SPD were often quick to jump on the German imperialist bandwagon and support expansionist foreign policy. Against these nationalist inclinations, one of the last major obstacles was the internationalist nature of the Second International, of which the SPD formed the German section. The International had adopted resolutions at Stuttgart pledging to oppose any government actions toward European wars. Luxemburg unsatisfied with the extent of the declaration, drafted, together with Martov and Lenin in Russia, an amendment that went further. The amendment stated that in the eventuality that war could not be prevented by strikes and demonstrations, the
3

Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany. 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 140. 4 Waldman, The Spartacist, pp. 20-21. 5 Watt, The Kings Depart, p. 112. 2

respective national sections were committed to do everything within their power to turn the war into a social revolution for the overthrow of capitalism. But even this victory at the International level was short-lived because at the SPD party congresses of 1912 and 1913, the partys left wing suffered a defeat at the hands of the nationalists in socialist guise that managed a complete reversal of the Stuttgart resolution by a vote of 336 to 140. Certainly by 1913 and in the lead up to WWI, the SPD had completed its gradual transformation from a revolutionary workers party into a kind of liberal, working class party.6 So much had changed within the SPD in the years leading to WWI that on August 4, 1914, when the German Imperial Chancellor, Count von Bethmann-Hollweg, appealed to the Reichstag for war credits, the SPD Reichstag fraction, over the opposition of Hugo Haase, the factions chairman, was directed by the party to approve the request.7 This capitulation exposed to all the radical elements that the nationalist SPD elements and its nationalist ideology had succeeded in taking control of the party, which undermined the SPDs earlier Marxist proletarian internationalism, and isolated the radical left wing.8 9 Despite the observable changes of the SPD, it was still difficult for many radicals to accept how far the SPD had gone. In Russia, Lenin was so shocked that even after being shown a copy of the SPDs paper Vorwrts, he insisted that it had to be a government forgery.10 In Berlin, Luxemburg was even more shock at her own party committing such a huge betrayal of basic principle. The internal SPD conflict between the nationalists and internationalists was untenable. The partys outward appearance of discipline was soon disturbed. In December 1915, when a vote was taken in the Reichstag to approve further war funding, a break in discipline among the
6 7

Waldman, The Spartacist, pp. 24-28. Ibid., p. 33. 8 Watt, The Kings Depart, p. 118. 9 Waldman, The Spartacist, p. 31. 10 Watt, The Kings Depart, p. 119. 3

SPD Reichstag faction became evident as forty SPD delegates refused to vote along with the majority. By early 1917 the SPD consisted of three major internal divisions,11 which in April 1917 led to a sizable part of the membership splitting from the SPD to form the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD). The USPD benefited from the growing anti-war sentiment of the rank-and-file SPD members, rapidly becoming a mass contending Social Democratic Party.12 Hidden within the USPD ranks was a small group of committed internationalist Marxists, which in the beginning self-identified as the Gruppe Internationale. One of its leaders was the revolutionary Karl Liebknecht, lawyer and son of the highly venerated and one time intimate friend of Karl Marx, Wilhelm Liebknecht.13 Among his many distinctions, Karl Liebknecht was the first Socialist deputy of the Reichstag to refuse to vote for any additional war credits.14 And as early as May 1915, Liebknechts group, then still within the SPD, had put out the important underground leaflet The Main Enemy Is In Our own Country, which declared German imperialism, not the French and British army soldier-workers, the main enemy.15 Because his parliamentary immunity allowed him to speak openly, the government drafted him into the army in order to remove him from the public eye. The guiding principles, adopted at the 1 January 1916 meeting of Liebknechts group were written from prison by Luxemburg. Born in Poland where she was an active socialist, Luxemburg moved to Berlin in 1898 and joined the SPD where she was among its best writers, educators, and popular speakers. The guiding principles charged the SPD with nationalism and treason against international socialism. At the September 1915 Zimmerwald Conference, convened to regroup the entire anti-war internationalist Marxist movement, Lenin likewise
11 12

Waldman, The Spartacist, p. 39. Fulbrook, A Concise History, p. 152. 13 Watt, The Kings Depart, p. 123. 14 Ibid., p. 125. 15 Waldman, The Spartacist, p. 53. 4

accused the SPD and the USPD of nationalism and announced that for the Russian Bolsheviks, there exists the Liebknecht group only. As the guiding principle was being adopted, Liebknecht, writing under the pen name Spartacus after the 1st century gladiator leader of the Roman slave uprising began to circulate openly revolutionary leaflets. By then the group had changed its name to the Spartakusbund (Spartacus Union), and beside Liebknecht and Luxemburg, leaders included the well-known socialists Leo Jogiches, Clara Zetkin, August Thalheimer, Paul Levi, Wilhelm Pieck, Ernst Mayer, Hugo Eberlein, and Hermann and Kate Duncker.16 While there were differences of opinion within this group, the Spartacists were fundamentally Leninists who understood and studied the lessons of the Russian revolution.17 In April 1916, wanting to attract a real following, the Spartakusbund announced a mass meeting for 1 May to be held at the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. Around ten thousand people showed up. No sooner had Liebknecht addressed the crowd with shouts of Down with the war! Down with the government than he found himself arrested. He was stripped of his Reichstag seat, discharged from the army and sentenced to four years in prison.18 As unfortunate as this was he had won himself the broad sympathy of German workers. Of all the various small revolutionary groups that emerged during the same period as the SPD-USPD split, in addition to the Spartakusbund, only the Revolutionary Shop Stewards (Revolutionaere Obleute), which broke from the conservative union leadership, could claim any influence among the working class.19 Political repression like the kind that befell Liebknecht became more common as the military increased its control over society, which culminated in Germany being ruled by a military dictatorship headed by Ludendorff and his Supreme Command in July 1917.20
16 17

Watt, The Kings Depart, pp. 126-128. Ibid., pp. 220-221. 18 Ibid., p. 130. 19 Waldman, The Spartacist, p. 43. 20 Fulbrook, A Concise History, p. 152. 5

The military dictatorship was unable to halt the widening social unrest. Of the several strikes that broke out during war-time, the largest happened in January 1918. Significantly, on 28 January began a general strike of the Berlin armament industry. In Berlin worker participation was around 500,000, with control largely in USPD hands. The events were politically linked to the peace negotiations between the Russians and Germans at Brest-Litovsk, where Leon Trotsky as Soviet War Commissar headed the Russian side, and tried to stall as much as possible in the hope that the German workers would shift the balance of power and come to Soviet Russias aid. The official union leaders managed to seize control from the USPD and brought the strike movement to an end by 3 February.21 Around mid 1918, Spartacus propaganda was beginning to enter into the trenches where they increasingly influenced the restive soldiers who were clamoring for peace. Making matters worse for the Supreme Command, many of the German troops brought back from Russia after the March 1918 Brest-Litovsk peace treaty were already considered unreliable because they had been too exposed to Bolshevist propaganda while in Russia. By September 1918 Ludendorff had concluded that the war was lost. An alarmed Ludendorff turned to the SPD leaders of the Reichstag and asked how they could help. The population did not yet know the full disasterous extent of the military situation. October 1918 witnessed a spike of revolutionary activity throughout all of Germany. Reacting to this, on 7 October the Spartacists and equally small Left Radicals (a pro-Russian Revolution German group) held a conference in Berlin, which decided to follow the Russian example and encourage the formation of workers and soldiers councils.22 Meanwhile, in a desperate attempt to stem the rising tide, liberal-minded Prince Max von Baden was brought into
21 22

Waldman, The Spartacist, p. 63. Ibid., p. 59. 6

power. He introduced constitutional reforms as a sort of revolution from above designed to starve off a revolution from below.23 Prince Max had accepted the chancellery on the condition that the SPD joined his cabinet, which it did on 4 October.24 The SPD entered the government in what seemed like a last-minute attempt to save the monarchy. The reforms were not enough to counter the news of the military situation. When the army was demobilized and the German people realized it was because of defeat, they focused their hatred on the military leaders. Among the Berlin workers, the reaction against the army and the monarchy were particularly intense.25 But the first to take decisive action were sailors. A serious situation arose when some of the sailors of the High Seas Fleet were ordered to carry out a suicidal attack designed to prolong the war. Sailors unwilling to die fighting a lost war began a series of mutinies that culminated in the Kiel mutiny.26 By 4 November, red flags flew over every ship as sailors, together with a general strike of Kiel workers, obtained virtual control of the whole city by making the Kiel workers and soldiers council, modeled on the Russian Bolshevik soviet, the seat of power. The victorious sailors and workers sent delegates to the other ports in order to spread the revolt. Soon, ports like Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven, Rostock, Bremerhaven and Geestemunde were likewise flying red flags, and Dresden, Leipzig, Chemnitz, Magdeburg, Brunswick, Frankfurt, Cologne, Duesseldorf, Hanover, Nuremberg, and Stuttgart were under control of workers and soldiers councils by 7 and 8 November. And finally, on 9 November, the revolt reached Berlin.27 28 With the collapse of the state due to the military defeat, as well as the break down in
23 24

Fulbrook, A Concise History, p. 157. Waldman, The Spartacist, pp. 71-72. 25 Watt, The Kings Depart, pp. 156-157. 26 Ibid., pp. 161-162. 27 Ibid., p. 167. 28 Waldman, The Spartacist, pp. 82-83. 7

military discipline apparent in the creation of worker and sailor soviets throughout the German army, a revolutionary situation opened in which the politically organized workers class engendered conditions ripe for a classic Marxist revolution.29 The specter of Bolshevism was haunting Germany, and in order to exorcise it the nationalist socialist leadership of the SPD entered into an alliance with the capitalist parties and what was left of the old military establishment. On November 7, Ebert who had hoped it would be possible to keep the Kaiser as part of a constitutional monarchy, realized things were so extreme that the choice was between abdication and revolution. He warned Prince Max that without the Kaisers abdication the social revolution is inevitable, Philipp Scheidemann too had warned that the SPD had done all within our power to keep the masses in check.30 On the night of 8 November, the SPD became aware that the USPD and the Spartacists had called for a general strike to begin the next morning; they knew this meant it was the last night of Imperial Germany.31 On 9 November, governmental power fell to the SPD leader Friedrich Ebert, and in a moment of haste, without consulting with Ebert or the party, Scheidemann declared a republic.32 Also on 9 November the Spartacist began publishing the paper Die Rote Fahne, which in response to Scheidemanns proclamation of a German republic, demanded that the republics flag must be none other than the red flag of the Commune of 1871 and the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917.33 Lloyd George of Britain declared the great danger in the present situation was that Germany may throw her lot in with Bolshevism.34 The Russians also recognized the significance of what was happening, but welcomed it differently. Prominent Bolshevik Karl
29 30

Fulbrook, A Concise History, p. 158. Watt, The Kings Depart, p. 183. 31 Ibid., p. 192. 32 Ibid., p. 196. 33 Ibid., p. 213. 34 Ibid., p. 96. 8

Radek who would come to play a vital role in the German Spartacist events, was then still in Russia where he later recalled seeing Lenin appeared at a balcony window to address a crowd outside with the good news. Radek also recalled of the huge crowd: Tens of thousands of workers burst into wild cheering. Never have I seen anything like it again. Until late evening workers and Red Army soldiers were filing past. The world revolution had come.35 As part of the SPD taking over the government on 9 November, the Ebert-Groener pact, had been conducted in which the army supported Ebert if he committed himself to using the socialist credentials of the SPD to suppress the more radical council. The London Times observed, Ebert is suspected of being a mere tool of the old regime.36 There were two decisive factors preventing the extension of the political November revolution into a full social revolution. The pact, of which Eberts part was to disarm the workers and abolish the workers and soldiers councils, was one of them.37 For their part, the Spartacists, at this time still sheltered within the USPD, were determined that the revolution should not stop at the declaration of a republic. The Spartacists were committed to further deepening the revolution, in the same way that Lenin had done in Russia after his arrival in April 1917, transforming the initial February 1917 political revolution into the fully socialist social revolution of October. Liebknecht announced that Germany was pregnant with the social revolution.38 His direct, active participation into events was made possible by his release from prison on 23 October, as part of the general amnesty that proceeded the revolutionary November days. In the midst of the general turmoil of 9 November, at around four oclock in the
35 36

Ibid., p. 110. Ibid., p. 243. 37 Waldman, The Spartacist, p. 123. 38 Ibid., pp. 100-101. 9

afternoon Liebknecht snuck into the Stadtschloss, where a red flag already flew, and proclaimed a socialist republic of Germany, from the same window that Wilhelm II had made several famous speeches. He concluded the speech by calling for the world revolution. He then asked those in the crowd who to take an oath by raising their hand, which met with a great roar of applause and a sea of raised hands.39 Plenty of militant workers were ready to go further. Besides being small, the Spartacist had the even bigger obstacle that as of the November events they were still operating from within the USPD ranks. This tied into the second decisive factor. If the first factor was the Ebert-Groener pact, the second decisive factor was the creation of a USPD-SPD government coalition. The USPD lent much legitimacy to the increasingly discredited SPD, which sought to destroy the socialist threat under the guise of socialism, meanwhile closely working with German capitalists and nationalist military forces. The USPD aided the SPDs efforts by partaking in the initial Council of Peoples Representatives government cabinet. This executive council was set up in Berlin on 10 November, and confirmed through the nationwide German councils with support of the USPDs influence.40 The SPD was able to use its alliance with the USPD, as well as its majority within the Soviet body, to safeguard its Provisional Government from the Council competition, as well as to restrain the Spartacists and other revolutionary elements from transforming the Soviet into a real competitor for state power.41 The Spartacists had come out in favor of the taking over of the government by the Berlin Workers and Soldiers Council until a Workers and Soldiers Council representing the entire Reich can be formed. By 18 November, just as the Bolsheviks had done a year earlier in Russia with their call All Power to the Soviets, Luxemburg used the Rote Fahne to call for all power
39 40

Watt, The Kings Depart, pp. 197-198. Fulbrook, A Concise History, p. 159. 41 Waldman, The Spartacist, p. 97. 10

in the hands of the working masses, in the hands of the workers and soldiers councils. The proclamation also called for a Workers World Congress to meet immediately in Germany in order to emphasize distinctly and clearly the international character of the revolution.42 When in late November a huge strike movement broke out in Berlin, Upper Silesia and the Ruhr area, Luxemburg saw it as evidence that the political revolution of 9 November was threatening to spill over into the social realm, and that these strikes would become the spearhead of the revolution by opening up the period of direct activity on the part of the great masses.43 All the internationalist revolutionaries, Russian as well as German, placed great hope in the Berlin Council Congress that was scheduled to meet in December. On 5 December, Lenin appointed a five-man delegation consisting of Joffe (Soviet ambassador who had been expelled at the outbreak of the revolution), Radek, Bukharin, Rakovsky, and Ignatov to participate in the Berlin Council Congress. The SPD Provisional Government fearing the effect the advice and prestige of the Russian would exercise over the Council refused them entry into the country.44 For their part, the SPD and the right-wing elements within the USPD were determined to use their overwhelming number of worker and soldier delegates in the council to implode the council system. On 6 December an attempted right-wing coup dtat by members of the Foreign Office resulted in the arrest of the leadership of the Berlin workers and soldiers councils and the killing of protesting Spartacist soldiers and workers. This blotched attempt led a section of the USPD to break with the SPD and reestablish relations with the Spartacists that within days turned into a wholesale desertion of USPD members into the Spartacus Union.45 Similarly, 11 December,
42 43

Ibid., pp. 103-104. Ibid., pp. 130-131. 44 Ibid., p. 138. 45 Watt, The Kings Depart, pp. 225-226. 11

the field army began to march into Berlin. As it came into contact with effective Spartacist propaganda and the already established soldier councils the field army disintegrated, leaving behind nothing but a mob of men dressed in field gray46 Of the original 9 or 10 divisions, only about 1,400 men remained.47 The single largest armed force in Berlin now was the 3,000 strong Peoples Naval Division, which had arrived on 11 November with intentions of defending the revolution.48 Much to the consternation of Ebert and the military high ups, the sailors were sympathetic to Liebknecht. With the field army also evaporated the hopes of many officers that the army would be used to disarm the population. The military officers, bourgeoisie and outright reactionaries pinned their hopes on SPD success at the Council Congress. From 16 to 20 December, the highly anticipated and heavily SPD controlled (SPD had 300 out of the 488 delegates) National Congress of Workers and Soldiers Councils met in Berlin.49 The SPD used its control to push forward plans for a Constituent Assembly and the Spartacists became equally committed to preventing this in favor establishing the Councils themselves as the basis for a dictatorship of the proletariat. During this time Luxemburg warned that the Constituent Assembly had as its intention the creation of a bourgeois counter-weight to the representative body of the workers and soldiers, in order to shift the revolution onto the track of a bourgeois revolution.50 The choice, according to Luxemburg, was either the national assembly or complete power to the workers and soldiers councils.51 Nevertheless, the Spartacist were not calling for an uprising. They understood their revolutionary duty to be opening the eyes of German workers to the full extend of the SPD betrayal to make such an
46 47

Ibid., pp. 211-212. Waldman, The Spartacist, p. 124. 48 Watt, The Kings Depart, p. 213. 49 Ibid., pp. 227-228. 50 Waldman, The Spartacist, p. 106. 51 Ibid., p. 127. 12

uprising possible the Spartacists intended to educate the masses and win over a majority. Ernst Dumig, of the USPD left wing, saw his proposal for a German constitution based on the council system defeated, 344 to 98. He afterward observed that the Congress of Councils had committed suicide by voting against the council system, in favor of early elections to the national assembly.52 On the last day of the congress, 20 December, the USPD walked out in protest to the SPDs agenda. Two central USPD leaders, Wilhelm Dittman and Emil Barth, toured the Workers and Soldiers councils throughout Berlin warning that Ebert was collaborating with the officer corps for the destruction of the revolution. On Christmas Eve a critical situation transpired after a dispute between the SPD government and an armed group of sailors over pay exposed the vulnerability of the SPD government. A frighten Elbert called on the Supreme Command and reminded Major von Schleicher that he had promised to provide assistance if it were ever needed. The Supreme Command dispatched the Imperial Horse Guards into the capital, which confronted the Peoples Naval Division. SPD party leader and Minister of Defense Gustav Noske used his authority over the sailors councils to keep them neutral in the confrontation. At the last minute when the sailors had even raised a white flag and had been granted a 20-minute truce, the balance of power shifted radically due to the all-day street agitation of the Spartacist: suddenly a vast crowd, including armed people, descended on the Horse Guards. In addition to exposing the continued weaken of the government, the Christmas Eve situation led to the USPD quitting the provisional government in protest on 29 December. This was also the opening day of the national Spartacist conference. Bolshevik Karl Radek, the only one of the five Russian delegates that managed to make it into Germany after they were stopped

52

Ibid., p. 141. 13

at the border, was present.53 The USPD refused to convene a party conference knowing that it would face strong condemnation for its role in the government coalition as well as its actions at the Congress of Councils. Under pressure of the Bremen Left Radicals for an independent organization, the Spartacists agreed to a national conference to begin on 30 December. At the founding Congress on 30 December the general sentiment was that it was impossible to retain any organizational links to the USPD because the USPD had gone over to the counterrevolution by endorsing the national assembly. Liebknecht declared that it was no longer possible to have relations with [USPD moderate leaders] Haase, Barth, and Dittmann, and therefore a new party was in order.54 The conference declared that henceforth the group would be the German Communist Party or Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD) in German. From the SPD to the extreme right, the consensus was that if the National Assembly could be convened in January without incident, then the SPD-military alliance could be legitimized. Therefore, the SPD was determined to see the convention held, and equally determined to prevent, with brutal force if necessary, a repetition of the Russian situation where the Constitutional Assembly was preempted by the workers and soldiers soviets seizure of power. The solution to the SPDs troubles, and a future major determining factor in events to come all the way through to the fascist takeover of power, were presented to Ebert and Noske at the beginning of January. On 4 January Ebert and Noske were invited to a parade ground in a little garrison town some 35 miles from Berlin. They were shocked by what General von Maercker showcased for them: four thousand fully armed and disciplined troops, including machine-gunners. These were only the first of a new armed force that would go down in history as the Freikorps. This first unit
53 54

Watt, The Kings Depart, pp. 230-237. Waldman, The Spartacist, pp. 149-151. 14

was developed along the lines of the Sturmtruppen which the Germans had developed for combat during WWI and whose leading officer was given the title of Stosstruppfuhrer. These intensely nationalist, militarist and anti-communist forces, along with the Anti-Bolshevik League, bodied by upper middle class youth, often anti-semitic and espousing German folkishness, were financed with millions of marks from industrialists like Krupp, Kirdorff and Stinnes. Their political philosophy was undefined, but included, according to Richard Watt, the joy of crushing underfoot the rotten elements of German lifeproletarianism, Judaism and the November criminals who had stabbed Germany in the back and caused her to lose the war.55 In retrospect, the Freikorps with its undefined political program appears to be none other than the inception of German fascism, whose birth could therefore be traced to the day when Maercker, witnessing the dissolution of the field army, set out to construct the Freikorps 12 December, 1918.56 The first Freikorps were constructed just in time to play a historic role in combating Bolshevism. The pre-National Assembly uprising Eberts government so much dreaded was finally triggered by the SPDs attempt to rid itself of the threat posed by the Berlin chief of police Emil Eichhorn. Eichhorn was a left wing USPD Reichstag deputy who had taken over the role of Berlin Chief of Police with the approval of the Berlin workers and soldiers council after the November Revolution. Among the reasons Eichhorn was threatening to the SPD included the large number of left socialists he employed in his security force and his declared opposition to the coming national assembly.57 Eichhorns refusal to step down united the USPD, the Shop Stewards and the newly formed Spartacist-led KPD temporarily. A meeting of these three groups drafted a joint statement backing Eichhorn and calling
55 56

Watt, The Kings Depart, p. 338. Ibid., pp. 247-250, 296. 57 Waldman, The Spartacist, pp. 165-166. 15

for mass demonstrations in his support. On 5 January, Alexanderplatz was packed with a crowd of hundreds of thousands that seemed to extend in every direction along the Knigstrasse. The militant and massive crowd, with many among it armed in defiance of the Ebert government, astonishing even organizers. Eichhorns announcement to the sea of people that he would not leave his post was met with cheers and the speeches of the many revolutionaries were met with deafening clamor. The crowd remained listening to speeches till late at night. Officials of the three groups gathered in the Berlin police headquarters were so taken by the response that the decision was made to call a general strike and support an armed attack upon the SPD government that would place Germany in the vanguard of the international proletarian revolution.58 Only Liekbknecht and Wilhelm Pieck were there representing the Communists but under the encouraging mass demonstration, they were driven, without the knowledge or approval of the KPDs central committee, to support the move. The decision was opposed by every other member of the KPD Central, but they now felt obliged to meet the commitment Liebknecht and Pieck had forced them into.59 Thus began the week of the Spartacist Uprising that ended with the murder of Liebknecht and Luxemburg at the hands of the SPD-led Freikorps.60 In preparation for the general strike of 6 January, the night before the Revolutionary Committee (composed of the USPD, Shop Stewards and the KPD) distributed arms to the workers. On 6 January some 200,000 workers paraded through the Berlin streets and others seized important government buildings, such as the printing offices, and most of the railroad stations. In German cities like Brunswick, Dusseldorf, Dortmund, Nuremberg and Hamburg revolutionary workers seized newspaper offices of the major papers, while in Bremen a soviet republic was declared. By 8 January the SPD government controlled only a few of the major
58 59

Watt, The Kings Depart, pp. 255-256. Waldman, The Spartacist, p. 185. 60 Fulbrook, A Concise History, p. 160. 16

public buildings in Berlin. One of the few buildings still controlled by the SPD was the Reich Chancellery, inside which Ebert and his government sat holed up depressed and practically helpless. Only a couple of thousand SPD supporters outside the building stood between the Berlin working class uprising and what was left of SPD government authority. But on the first day of the strike Noske had fled Berlin seeking support. He found himself in Dahlem, a suburb near Berlin, organizing an army to retake Berlin, for which the Cabinet gave him a carte blanche.61 Although cornered at the time, the SPD government put out a statement that it would take all measures necessary to destroy this rule of terror. Its threat ended with the words, the hour of reckoning is near!62 Maercker was called upon to march on the capital with his Freikorps. They came fully equipped with trench mortars, howitzers, hand grenades, flamethrowers and tanks. All of which were used on behalf of the SPD government against the insurrectionary Berlin working class. This ruthless, brutal force which often went on killing regardless of whether people surrendered was led by former officers like Maercker who returned for a chance at vengeance when Noskes call for help went out. Noske later wrote: I sought out, one by one, the former officers and former officials, beaten and spat upon as they were, and it is with their help that I averted the worst. The Freikorps demolished the massive but poorly organized working class resistance. The Revolutionary Committee, which supposedly led the workers, was in turn led by three coequal presidents, one for the USPD, the Shop Stewards, and the Spartacist, making rapid decisions impossible. This Revolutionary Committee, as Watt noted, was a far cry from the tightly knit Military Revolutionary Committee over which Lenin and Trotsky had presided at Petrograd in 1917. There was no small, cohesive revolutionary group in Berlin which could give
61 62

Watt, The Kings Depart, pp. 257-260. Waldman, The Spartacist, p. 182. 17

instant orders to trained cadres leading the Red Guards in the streets. After 10 January, the Revolutionary Committee wasnt even meeting. Under the ferocious brutality unleashed by the Freikorps, the more right-wing elements of the USPD even returned to the SPD, while even the most left-wing within the USPD were trying to privately negotiation a compromise with the SPD government. The KPD, although differing in that they were committed to continuing the revolution, felt it had been dragged into a premature uprising by Karl Liebknechts actions at the original 5 January conference. In fact, the other major leaders like Luxemburg, Jogiches and Radek had been appalled by the news that Liebknecht caught up in the enthusiasm of the 5 January massive demonstration, entered the KPD into a life-and-death agreement with the USPD and the Shop Stewards without first consulting anyone. By the night of 11 January, Noske personally led about 3,000 Freikorps, who had entered inner Berlin, from the south to north.63 After much setup they began major operations on 13 January, which included going through the city, block by block, searching buildings and flushing out revolutionaries. Machine guns were set up in all the central squares and armored cars were sent in every direction to break down even the smallest formation of protesters. The city was rapidly coming under Freikorps control, and that same night the Shop Stewards called off the general strike, while the Spartacists, now being hunted down by the Freikorps and abandoned by their partners, held out until midnight of 15 January when Berlin came under a virtual lockdown. Spartacist leaders Leo Jogiches and Hugo Eberlein were captured in a raid on the KPD headquarters, but Luxemburg, Liebknecht and Pieck had at first managed to escape only to be caught together on 15 January hiding in the apartment of one of Liebknechts relatives. The three famous revolutionaries were brought to Freikorps headquarters where they were questioned and beaten, Pieck was eventually released but Liebknecht and Luxemburg were
63

Watt, The Kings Depart, pp. 262-267. 18

taken to secluded areas and executed. Luxemburgs lifeless body was thrown off the Liechtenstein Bridge into the Landwehr Canal. German Bolshevism had just been deprived of its most authentic leaders. A devastating news reached Lenin in the form of a one-sentence telegram from KPD leader Leo Jogiches (who himself would be murdered in two months time during the March Berlin uprising): Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht have carried out their ultimate revolutionary duty.64 In conclusion, this essay has outlined some of the important highlights and issues facing the Spartacist movement that culminated in the Spartacist uprising of January 1919. The focused was on Berlin despite the fact that related and important events occurred throughout all of Germany during this period, such as Kurt Eisners Soviet Bavaria and the Bremen Soviet Republic. The focus was on Berlin because of its central importance in being the seat of the Reich government, as well as that of the Central Council of the nationwide workers and soldiers councils. The Berlin Central Council, much like the Petrograd Soviet in Russia of 1917, exercised a disproportional influence by virtue of the concentration of the working class and most politicized soldiers and sailors in the capitals of Germany and Russia respectively. Additionally, although Spartacist members continued to play a central role in German Bolshevism as leaders of the KPD, the choice was made to end the historical account of the Spartacist movement with the political assassinations of Luxemburg and Liebknecht because they were the outstanding leaders of the Spartacist movement that had emerged as the revolutionary Marxist wing of the old SPD. And despite their legacy being continued by the KPD, it is the opinion of this essay that the moment of their executions marked the point where Spartacist history ended and KPD history proper begins. This leads us to ask that one last important question: what was the legacy of the Spartacist movement?
64

Ibid., pp. 269-272. 19

In Germany, the Spartacist movement was the most authentic expression of the Marxist communist program, which had been falsely claimed by the SPD the better to deceive workers into supporting an imperialist war that was not in their class interest. Furthermore, disguised as socialists, the SPD was able to limit the subsequent workers revolution that sprung from the ruinous war, by pursuing, in alliance with the capitalist class and old military generals, policies that did not go beyond capitalism and by murdering the forces representing true internationalist Marxism.

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Bibliography Fulbrook, Mary. A Concise History of Germany. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Waldman, Eric. The Spartacist Uprising of 1919 and the Crisis of the German Socialist Movement. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1958. Watt, Richard. The Kings Depart: the Tragedy of Germany: Versailles and the German Revolution. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 20001968.

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