Council of the People's Deputies
123-397: [REDACTED] Communist Party of Germany The Spartacist uprising (German: Spartakusaufstand ), also known as the January uprising ( Januaraufstand ) or, more rarely, Bloody Week , was an armed uprising that took place in Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919. It occurred in connection with the German revolution that broke out just before the end of World War I . The uprising
246-596: A Marxist-Leninist fighting party and created a crucial prerequisite for the victory of the proletarian revolution; in this respect, the KPD's foundation was one of the decisive turning points in the history of the German workers' movement. This interpretation exaggerated the strength of the Spartacus League and its influence and glossed over its failed tactics. Since the 1990 German reunification , historical scholarship has evaluated
369-488: A quorum of two-thirds of the entire Reichstag had to be present in order to formally call up the bill. Leaving nothing to chance, Reichstag President Hermann Göring did not count the KPD seats for purposes of obtaining the required quorum. This led historian Richard J. Evans to contend that the Enabling Act had been passed in a manner contrary to law. The Nazis did not need to count the KPD deputies for purposes of getting
492-548: A soviet republic in Germany. After the defeat of the uprising, and the murder of KPD leaders Rosa Luxemburg , Karl Liebknecht and Leo Jogiches , the party temporarily steered a more moderate, parliamentarian course under the leadership of Paul Levi . During the Weimar Republic period, the KPD usually polled between 10 and 15 percent of the vote and was represented in the national Reichstag and in state parliaments. Under
615-594: A German court in 1933, it was decided that van der Lubbe had acted alone, as he claimed to have done. The following day, Hitler persuaded Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree . It used the provisions of Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution to suspend key civil liberties, ostensibly to deal with Communist acts of violence. Repression began within hours of the fire, when police arrested dozens of communists. Although Hitler could have formally banned
738-679: A Trotskyist group in 1986 to form the Unified Socialist Party (VSP), which failed to gain any influence and dissolved in the early 1990s. However, multiple tiny splinter groups originating from the KPD/ML still exist, several of which claim the name of KPD. Another party claiming the KPD name was formed in 1990 in East Berlin by several hard line communists who had been expelled from the PDS, including Erich Honecker . The KPD (Bolshevik) split off from
861-647: A coup d'état in Prussia , the KPD issued a call for all workers to support a general strike under its own leadership, which only resulted in limited local action. The statement was added with a short call on the GGTUF , the SPD and the General Federation of Free Employees to join in, but the KPD's belief that social democrats would have to be 'coerced by the masses' meant that their leaders were never approached directly. The KPD tried
984-601: A demonstration on the following day. The 5 January demonstration took on a scale that exceeded all their expectations. During its course, armed demonstrators occupied the printing plants of the Social Democratic newspaper Vorwärts and the Berliner Tageblatt , as well as several publishing houses' buildings, a printing plant and a telegraph office. The leading members of the Revolutionary Stewards,
1107-607: A few days, he said, it would become clear "that things will get serious for them, too". On the evening of 15 January, Luxemburg and Liebknecht were found in the apartment of a friend, Dr. Markussohn, in Berlin- Wilmersdorf by the Wilmersdorf Citizens' Militia, arrested and taken to the Eden Hotel. Their whereabouts had probably become known through the telephone surveillance that Noske had ordered. Waldemar Pabst had
1230-597: A forest [of social democrats]". Critics of the KPD accused it of having pursued a sectarian policy. For example, the Social Democratic Party criticized the KPD's thesis of "social fascism", and both Leon Trotsky from the Comintern 's Left Opposition and August Thalheimer of the Right Opposition continued to argue for a united front. Critics believed that the KPD's sectarianism scuttled any possibility of
1353-425: A mass base and was, according to historian Heinrich August Winkler , only an "attempted coup by a radical minority". Its rapid suppression therefore was no surprise. It was probably also inevitable, since without it, the result would probably have been a civil war throughout Germany and military intervention by the victorious powers . After the uprising was quashed, Ebert could continue on the path towards establishing
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#17328440504631476-470: A national constituent assembly which would democratically determine Germany's future form of government. The USPD, the Revolutionary Stewards and parts of the working class wanted to continue working towards their revolutionary goals of nationalizing property, stripping power from the military and establishing a council republic . On 1 January 1919, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht founded
1599-456: A non-military special court because they feared suppression of evidence. It was not until May 1919 that some of the perpetrators – including Otto Runge and Kurt Vogel – were brought before a military field court of their own division. The main trial took place from 8 to 14 May 1919. There was repeated testimony that a "ministry aiding the MSPD" had offered a bounty of 100,000 marks for the capture of
1722-532: A parliament. On 19 January 1919 elections for the National Assembly were held. The Assembly finalized the Weimar Constitution on 11 August and created the first national German democracy, the Weimar Republic . The bloody suppression of the uprising left the MSPD under a heavy burden. In the elections to the National Assembly, it received 37.9 percent of the vote, while the USPD received 7.6 percent, with
1845-430: A result of the murders. Some briefly considered resigning. Noske, on the other hand, in a 1923 retrospect described the people who had been murdered as the main culprits in the revolution's degeneration into civil war. Thousands had asked beforehand "if no one would render the troublemakers harmless". Leo Jogiches , Luxemburg's former companion, took over the leadership of the KPD after her death and tried to shed light on
1968-638: A result, the KPD under Thälmann had a hostile, confrontational attitude toward the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) as defenders of the capitalist status quo. Their perception was reinforced by the explicit anti-Communist views of numerous SPD politicians in the German and Prussian governments, including Chancellor Hermann Müller , Interior Minister Carl Severing , Prussian Minister President Otto Braun , Prussian Interior Minister Albert Grzesinski and Berlin Police chief Karl Zörgiebel. In
2091-441: A result, the uprising remained largely without direction. The government responded with military force, including several paramilitary Freikorps units, retook the buildings that had been occupied and violently suppressed the uprising. The death toll was roughly 150–200, mostly among the insurgents. The most prominent deaths were those of Liebknecht and Luxemburg, who were executed extrajudicially on 15 January, almost certainly with
2214-510: A splinter Communist Party Opposition in 1928. The leadership of the German Communist party had requested that Moscow send Leon Trotsky to Germany to direct the 1923 insurrection . However, this proposal was rejected by the Politburo which was controlled by Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev who decided to send a commission of lower-ranking Russian Communist party members. During the years of
2337-567: A super-majority of two-thirds of those deputies present and voting. However, Evans argued, not counting the KPD deputies for purposes of a quorum amounted to "refusing to recognize their existence", and was thus "an illegal act". The KPD was efficiently suppressed by the Nazis. The most senior KPD leaders were Wilhelm Pieck and Walter Ulbricht , who went into exile in the Soviet Union. The KPD maintained an underground organisation in Germany throughout
2460-557: A united front with the SPD against the rising power of the National Socialists . Thälmann claimed that the right-wing leadership of the SPD rejected and actively worked against the KPD's efforts to form a united front against fascism. The party itself, however, continued to publicly clash with the SPD and the General German Trade Union Federation well into 1932. A brawl between Nazi and KPD lawmakers in
2583-723: A visit to Pabst on 12 January he had "requested the murders from him" and that Pabst told him later who had carried them out. Pabst also indicated that he had been in contact with Noske. In 1959 Pabst had a conversation with Günther Nollau, later vice president of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, who recorded what Pabst said: "During that time, he [Pabst] had heard Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg speak in Berlin. Wearing civilian clothes, he mingled with
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#17328440504632706-528: Is cancelled. The press is suppressed, traffic is paralysed. Parts of Berlin are the scene of bloody battles. ... Violence can only be fought with violence. The organised violence of the people will put an end to oppression and anarchy. ... The hour of reckoning is approaching! On 9 January the central executive committee of the Berlin USPD and the KPD issued a joint appeal demanding a fight against "the Judases in
2829-435: Is clear that I could not have carried out the action without Noske's approval – with Ebert in the background – and that I also had to protect my officers. But very few people have understood why I was never questioned or brought up on charges. As a man of honor, I responded to the behavior of the MSPD by keeping my mouth shut for 50 years about our cooperation." Noske always denied the conversation overheard by Pabst in which he
2952-635: The 1928 Reichstag election , the KPD with 54 seats remained one of the largest and most politically potent Communist parties in Europe. Led now by Thälmann, who supported a close alignment with the Soviet Union and the Communist International (Comintern). At the time, the Comintern held the position that social democracy was social fascism and that it frustrated rather than helped the proletariat . As
3075-448: The 1931 Prussian Landtag referendum , an unsuccessful attempt launched by the far-right Stahlhelm to bring down the social democrat state government of Prussia by means of a plebiscite; the KPD referred to some within the SA as "working people's comrades" during this campaign. The KPD maintained a solid electoral performance, usually polling more than 10% of the vote. It gained 100 deputies in
3198-541: The Bolsheviks in Russia. The government's forces were victorious in the fighting. The uprising began with mass demonstrations and strikes called by the parties of the radical left to protest the dismissal of Berlin's chief of police. Taken by surprise at the size of the turnout and the protestors' spontaneous occupation of newspaper buildings and printing companies, the leaders of the left were unable to agree on how to proceed. As
3321-661: The Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Because of the unhappiness of many workers with the course of the November Revolution , other left-socialist groups joined in the party's foundation. The Revolutionary Stewards , however, after deliberations with the Spartacists, decided to remain in the USPD. Luxemburg presented her founding program on 31 December 1918. In it she noted that the Communists could never take power without
3444-670: The Council of the People's Deputies under the co-leadership of Friedrich Ebert of the Majority Social Democratic Party (MSPD) and Hugo Haase of the more left-wing Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) was formed as a provisional government following the collapse of the German Empire at the end of World War I . It had three representatives each from the MSPD and USPD. The Supreme Army Command (OHL) implicitly recognized
3567-512: The German Communist Party (DKP). Following German reunification many DKP members joined the new Party of Democratic Socialism , formed out of the remains of the SED. In 1968, another self-described successor to the KPD was formed, the Communist Party of Germany/Marxists–Leninists (KPD/ML), which followed Maoist and later Hoxhaist ideas. It went through multiple splits and united with
3690-461: The Landtag of Prussia led to the creation of Antifa – short Antifaschistische Aktion , which the party itself described as a "red united front under the leadership of the only anti-fascist party, the KPD". Thälmann, however, reiterated that there was still a ‘principal fight’ to be led against the SPD and that there would be no ‘unity at all costs’. After Franz von Papen 's government carried out
3813-468: The Marxist Spartacus League ( Spartakusbund ), which Luxemburg and Liebknecht founded in 1914. When the KPD was established on 1 January 1919, the Spartacus League became part of it. Some historians, such as Heinrich August Winkler and Sebastian Haffner , consider the name to be misleading because the Spartacists (KPD) had not wanted, planned or led the revolt. On 10 November 1918,
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3936-552: The November 1932 elections , getting 16% of the vote and coming third. In the presidential election of the same year , its candidate Thälmann took 13.2% of the vote, compared to Hitler's 30.1%. In this period, while also opposed to the Nazis, the KPD regarded the Nazi Party as a less sophisticated and thus less dangerous fascist party than the SPD, and KPD leader Ernst Thälmann declared that "some Nazi trees must not be allowed to overshadow
4059-750: The Soviet Union , but merely a system of government. The earliest known examples of workers' councils on a smaller scale occurred during the Russian Revolution of 1905 , including the Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland (1905–1907) , which spread throughout the lands of the Russian Empire ; early soviets were active particularly in Central Russia and Congress Poland , where workers took over factories, districts, and sometimes even entire towns or regions before
4182-468: The Weimar Republic , the KPD was the largest communist party in Europe and seen as the "leading party" of the communist movement outside of the Soviet Union. The party abandoned the goal of immediate revolution, and from 1924 onwards contested Reichstag elections, with some success. A new KPD leadership more favorable to the Soviet Union was elected in 1923. The party's left around Ruth Fischer , Arkadi Maslow and Werner Scholem took leadership of
4305-673: The civil war period. Others such as the Ukrainian Soviet Republic and the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia later became union republics of the Soviet Union and are now independent states. Still others such as the Kuban Soviet Republic and the Bukharan People's Soviet Republic were absorbed into other polities and no longer formally exist under those names. In the turmoil following World War I,
4428-437: The workers' councils agreed to Ebert's wish to dismiss Police Chief Eichhorn, whom he now considered unreliable, but the USPD and KPD interpreted Eichhorn's dismissal as an attack on the revolution. This became the immediate trigger of the uprising. On 4 January, the day Eichhorn was dismissed and replaced by Eugen Ernst of the MSPD, the executive committee of the Berlin USPD and the Revolutionary Stewards decided to hold
4551-511: The Berlin Tiergarten , Liebknecht was forced out then shot in the back as a "fugitive". His body was handed over to a Berlin police station as the "corpse of an unknown man". KPD leader Wilhelm Pieck was able to obtain an order to have himself transferred to a prison and escaped en route. On 16 January the Berlin press reported that Liebknecht had been shot while fleeing authorities and Luxemburg lynched by an angry crowd. The basis for
4674-553: The Berlin USPD and KPD had failed the uprising, which was "entirely the spontaneous work of the masses of Berlin workers who had made the November Revolution; the masses were overwhelmingly Social Democrats, not Spartacists or Communists, and their January uprising was no different than their November revolution had been." On 10 January the Freikorps Reinhard Brigade, led by Colonel Wilhelm Reinhard , attacked
4797-520: The Bolshevik ringleaders to be found and handed over to the military. A high reward was offered. One leaflet that circulated in large numbers proclaimed: The Fatherland is close to ruin. Save it! It is not threatened from outside, but from within: from the Spartacus League . Strike their leaders dead! Kill Liebknecht! Then you will have peace, work and bread. –The frontline soldiers. After the uprising
4920-510: The Council the same day in the secret Ebert-Groener Pact in which Wilhelm Groener , Quartermaster General of the German Army, assured Chancellor Ebert of the loyalty of the armed forces. In return, Ebert promised to take prompt action against leftist uprisings and leave military command with the officer corps. The MSPD leadership sought a rapid return to "orderly conditions" by means of elections to
5043-595: The East German KPD in 2005, bringing the total number of active KPDs to at least five (more or less). The Left , formed out of a merger between the PDS and Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative in 2007, claims to be the historical successor of the KPD (by way of the PDS). In the early 1920s, the party operated under the principle of democratic centralism , whereby different tendencies could confront each other and vote on different programmes and candidates that
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5166-870: The KPD considered all other parties in the Weimar Republic to be " fascists ". The KPD was banned in the Weimar Republic one day after the Nazi Party emerged triumphant in the German elections in 1933. It maintained an underground organization in Nazi Germany, and the KPD and groups associated with it led the internal resistance to the Nazi regime, with a focus on distributing anti-Nazi literature. The KPD suffered heavy losses between 1933 and 1939, with 30,000 communists executed and 150,000 sent to Nazi concentration camps . According to historian Eric D. Weitz , 60% of German exiles in
5289-625: The KPD in 1924; Ernst Thälmann was allied to this faction and became a member of the politburo and was appointed KPD vice-chairman in January 1924. Stalin engineered the Fischer leadership's removal in August 1925, and installed Thälmann as party chairman. From 1923 to 1928, the KPD broadly followed the united front policy developed in the early 1920s of working with other working class and socialist parties to contest elections, pursue social struggles and fight
5412-523: The KPD in turn began aligning with the Comintern's ultra-left Third Period , under the slogan "Class against class", the KPD turned to viewing the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) as its main adversary. The term social fascism was introduced to the German Communist Party shortly after the Hamburg Uprising of 1923 and gradually became ever more influential in the party; by 1929 it
5535-531: The KPD was "outlawed" on the day the Reichstag Fire Decree was issued, and "completely banned" as of 6 March, the day after the election. Shortly after the election, the Nazis pushed through the Enabling Act , which allowed the cabinet–in practice, Hitler–to enact laws without the involvement of the Reichstag, effectively giving Hitler dictatorial powers. Since the bill was effectively a constitutional amendment ,
5658-730: The KPD, against Luxemburg's advice, "gave in to a putschist current that sought to unleash a German civil war by means of the Berlin January uprising". Sönke Neitzel calls the uprising a "spontaneous, leaderless action". Irish historian Mark Jones makes a similar judgment, characterizing the uprising as an "improvised coup attempt with very little real chance of success". Communist Party of Germany Former parties Former parties Former parties The Communist Party of Germany ( German : Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands , pronounced [kɔmuˈnɪstɪʃə paʁˈtaɪ ˈdɔʏtʃlants] ; KPD [ˌkaːpeːˈdeː] )
5781-564: The KPD, he did not do so right away. Not only was he reluctant to chance a violent uprising, but he believed the KPD could siphon off SPD votes and split the left. However, most judges held the KPD responsible for the fire, and took the line that KPD membership was in and of itself a treasonous act. At the March 1933 election , the KPD elected 81 deputies. However, it was an open secret that they would never be allowed to take up their seats; they were all arrested in short order. For all intents and purposes,
5904-443: The KPD, were killed, 200 injured, and over a thousand people taken into police custody, many of whom were also not involved in the initial KPD rallies. Only 66 of those arrested were charged and 44 convicted. The events of Blutmai deepened the split between the SPD and KPD, the two major left-wing parties of the Weimar Republic, making a united stand against the growing strength of far-right parties more difficult. Tensions soured,
6027-552: The KPD. The Revolutionary Shop Stewards , a network of dissenting socialist trade unionists centered in Berlin, were also invited to the congress, but ultimately did not join the KPD because they deemed the founding congress too syndicalist -leaning. The Party's first Central Committee consisted of Hermann Duncker , Käte Duncker , Hugo Eberlein , Paul Frölich , Leo Jogiches , Paul Lange , Paul Levi , Karl Liebknecht , Rosa Luxemburg , Ernst Meyer , Wilhelm Pieck , and August Thalheimer . There were seven main reports given at
6150-568: The Nazi period, but the loss of many core members severely weakened the Party's infrastructure. A number of senior KPD leaders in exile were caught up in Joseph Stalin 's Great Purge of 1937–1938 and executed, among them Hugo Eberlein , Heinz Neumann , Hermann Remmele , Hans Kippenberger , Fritz Schulte and Hermann Schubert , or sent to the gulag , like Margarete Buber-Neumann . Still others, like Gustav von Wangenheim and Erich Mielke (later
6273-589: The Netherlands by car. Canaris was never prosecuted for the action. Representatives of the KPD and USPD, along with some from the MSPD and the liberals, regarded the military trial and verdicts as a judicial scandal. Attempts to challenge the verdict and reopen the trial in a higher court were put off. All the remaining members of the Revolutionary Committee were imprisoned but later released for lack of evidence showing that they were planning an armed coup. It
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#17328440504636396-414: The PDS subsequently merged with the SPD splinter faction WASG to form Die Linke . Before the First World War the Social Democratic Party (SPD) was the largest party in Germany and the world's most successful socialist party. Although still officially claiming to be a Marxist party, by 1914 it had become in practice a reformist party. In 1914 the SPD members of the Reichstag voted in favour of
6519-447: The People's Navy Division in what came to be known as the 1918 Christmas crisis . Wels was freed, but eleven men from the People's Marine Division and 56 from the Army were killed. On 29 December, the three USPD representatives on the Council resigned in protest. The MSPD representatives then appointed two MSPD members to replace them. After that the USPD no longer saw the Council as a legitimate interim government. MSPD majorities in
6642-432: The Republic and with imperial regiments, some loyal but most hostile to the Republic. Immediately after Noske's appointment, he ordered that all members of the Revolutionary Committee be monitored so that they could be arrested later. To this end, 50 officers were posted in all Berlin post offices. On 8 January the Council of People's Deputies called on the population to resist the insurgents and their intended takeover of
6765-447: The Revolutionary Stewards, Richard Müller and Ernst Däumig , spoke out against the course of action. While both in principle supported a second revolution against the Council of People's Deputies, they considered the timing premature and tactically unwise; they voted only for a general strike. A provisional revolutionary committee to overthrow the government and take power was decided on by about 70 of those present against 6 no votes from
6888-423: The Russian example inspired the formation of Soviet republics in other areas of Europe including Hungary , Bavaria , Slovakia and Bremen . Soviets also appeared within towns throughout Poland, known as rady delegatów robotniczych (councils of workers' delegates), mostly throughout 1918 and 1919. One year later a Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee was created under the patronage of Soviet Russia with
7011-419: The SED to form a small branch in West Berlin , the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin . The KPD reorganised in the western part of Germany, and received 5.7 percent of the vote in the first Bundestag election in 1949. But the onset of the Cold War and the subsequent widespread repression of the far-left soon caused a collapse in the party's support. The reputation of the party had also been damaged by
7134-415: The Soviet Union had been liquidated during the Stalinist terror and a higher proportion of the KPD Politburo membership had died in the Soviet Union than in Nazi Germany. Weitz also noted that hundreds of German citizens, the majority of whom were communists, had been handed over to the Gestapo from Stalin's administration. The party was revived in divided postwar West and East Germany and won seats in
7257-477: The Spartacist headquarters in Spandau . On 11 January Noske gave the order for action against those occupying the Vorwärts newspaper building. The attackers, armed with military weapons, far outgunned their opponents. The Potsdam Freikorps captured the building with flame throwers, machine guns, mortars and artillery. Other occupied buildings and streets in the newspaper district were also taken over by 12 January. There were no organized battles because
7380-430: The Spartacus leaders. Wilhelm Pieck was one of the most important witnesses of the incidents at the hotel that led up to the murders. He and a number of employees of the hotel had been aware of the mistreatment that took place before the murders and overheard telephone calls between officers and their superiors. Pieck testified that he saw "an officer, addressed by the others as 'captain' walking around offering cigarettes to
7503-505: The USPD and the KPD met on the evening of 5 January to decide how to proceed. Most of those present supported the occupation of the Berlin newspaper district and were in favor of taking up the fight against the Social Democratic government. Liebknecht had been "whipped into a state of revolutionary euphoria" by the size of the demonstration and the false report that all regiments in and around Berlin were on their side, whereas Luxemburg continued to oppose these actions. Only two spokesmen for
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#17328440504637626-502: The Zentrale. The other group was also elected at the Congress, but was nominated from the districts they represented who represented the wider party. In 1920, the Zentrale (mirroring its Russian counterpart) split itself into two bodies: a Political Bureau ( Politburo ) and an Organization Bureau (Orgburo). Elected figures were subject to recall by the bodies that elected them. The KPD employed around about 200 full-timers during its early years of existence, and as Broue notes "They received
7749-410: The account was a document that Pabst had written on the evening of the murders and had published as an official report from his division. After knowledge of the murders became public, the government called a special meeting at which Ebert is said to have expressed his shock at the murders of the former SPD party comrades he had known for decades. MSPD representatives feared an expansion of the uprisings as
7872-424: The at least tacit approval of the MSPD-led government. The party's involvement hampered its position throughout the life of the Weimar Republic , although quashing the uprising allowed elections for the National Assembly to take place as scheduled on 19 January 1919. The Assembly went on to write the Weimar Constitution that created the first national German democracy. The uprising took its popular name from
7995-441: The clear support of the majority of the people. On 1 January she again urged that the KPD participate in the planned elections for a constituent assembly, but she was outvoted. The majority hoped to gain power by continued agitation in the factories and pressure from the streets. On 23 December, a dispute arose over back pay owed to the People's Marine Division ( Volksmarinedivision ), which had been assigned to protect
8118-455: The conduct of the Red Army during its occupation of eastern Germany , which included looting , political repression, and mass rape . On orders from Joseph Stalin, the Communist deputies to the Parlamentarischer Rat refused to sign West Germany's Basic Law to avoid recognizing the political legitimacy of West Germany. At the 1953 election the KPD only won 2.2 percent of the total votes and lost all of its seats, never to return. The party
8241-411: The crowd. His observations led him to the conclusion that the two were extraordinarily dangerous and that there was no one on their side to counter them. He therefore decided to get rid of them." In 1962 Pabst stated in an interview with Der Spiegel that Noske had permitted the murders and afterwards covered up the lack of prosecutions. In 1970 a letter was found in Pabst's estate in which he wrote: "It
8364-432: The days that followed, nor were they joined by the strike leaders, although they were ready to disarm the soldiers, as they had been on 9 November. Some of their placards and banners bore the same slogans as at the beginning of the November Revolution: "Peace and Unity", but there were also fliers such as the one issued by the "revolutionary workforce of Greater Berlin": Workers! Comrades! Soldiers! The hour has come when
8487-407: The democratically elected Russian Constituent Assembly in January 1918, Liebknecht and his followers wanted to prevent formation of a republican and parliamentary system even before the elections to the National Assembly. Historian Henning Köhler characterizes the uprising as "blind action", a "struggle for power … corresponding to the Bolshevik model". Hans-Ulrich Wehler was of the opinion that
8610-465: The dictatorship of the proletariat! Long live the revolution! Over the next two days, the Revolutionary Committee could not agree on how to proceed. Some representatives called for armed insurrection while others pleaded for negotiations with Ebert. The Committee was in particular unable to signal to the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators who were waiting for direction in the streets and squares what they should do. Because of that they went home again on
8733-400: The entire party would then follow. The leading body of the party was the Congress , meeting at least once a year. Between Congresses, leadership of the party resided in the Central Committee , which was made up of people elected at the Congress in two different ways. One group of people was elected directly by the Congress and had to live where the leadership was resident; these members formed
8856-422: The evenings of both 5 and 6 January without having accomplished anything. KPD leader Liebknecht, initially against the advice of Luxemburg, supported the plan to unleash a civil war. The Council of People's Deputies was to be overthrown by force of arms and the elections to the National Assembly scheduled for 19 January prevented. Liebknecht feared that the KPD might otherwise isolate itself too much from
8979-534: The fall of the monarchy, was vehemently opposed to a socialist revolution. With the new regime terrified of a Bolshevik Revolution in Germany, Defense Minister Gustav Noske recruited former right-wing military officers and demobilized veterans and formed various Freikorps and anti-communist paramilitaries to violently suppress all revolutionary activity. During the failed Spartacist uprising in Berlin of January 1919, Liebknecht and Luxemburg, who had not initiated
9102-548: The first Bundestag (West German Parliament) elections in 1949. The KPD was banned as extremist in West Germany in 1956 by the Federal Constitutional Court . In 1969, some of its former members founded an even smaller fringe party, the German Communist Party (DKP), which remains legal, and multiple tiny splinter groups claiming to be the successor to the KPD have also subsequently been formed. In East Germany,
9225-589: The founding congress: These reports were given by leading figures of the Spartacist League, but members of the International Communists of Germany also took part in the discussions. Under the leadership of Liebknecht and Luxemburg, the KPD was committed to a revolution in Germany, and attempts to bring down the interim government and create a revolutionary situation continued during 1919 and 1920. Germany's SPD leadership, which had come to power after
9348-921: The goal to establish a Soviet republic within Poland (it was later dissolved following the Red Army 's defeat in the Polish–Soviet War ). Short-lived Irish Soviets also briefly emerged during the Irish War of Independence , most notably the Limerick Soviet . Soviet republics, most notably the Chinese Soviet Republic (Jiangxi Soviet), later appeared in China during the early stages of the Chinese Civil War . Other than these cases, "soviet republic" typically refers to
9471-431: The government and published a leaflet in which they announced they would meet violence with violence: Spartacus fights for all the power. The government, which wants to bring about the people's free decision on their own fate within ten days, is to be overthrown by force. The people will not be allowed to speak, their voice will be suppressed. You have seen the results! Where Spartacus rules, all personal freedom and security
9594-530: The government is formed of soviets ( workers' councils ) and politics are based on soviet democracy . During the Revolutions of 1917–1923 , various revolutionary workers' movements across Europe declared independence or otherwise formed governments as soviet republics. Although the term is usually associated with the Republics of the Soviet Union , it was not initially used to represent the political organisation of
9717-499: The government. ... They belong in the penitentiary, on the scaffold. ... Use weapons against your mortal enemies." The mass of the working class followed the call for a general strike to prevent a counterrevolution, but it did not want to have anything to do with military struggles. On the contrary, they continued to demand the unity of the socialist forces and, at a large meeting in the Humboldthain Park on 9 January, demanded
9840-733: The head of the Stasi in East Germany), denounced their fellow exiles to the NKVD . In East Germany , the Soviet Military Administration in Germany forced the eastern branch of the SPD to merge with the KPD (led by Pieck and Ulbricht) to form the Socialist Unity Party (SED) in April 1946. Although nominally a union of equals, the SED quickly fell under communist domination, and most of
9963-538: The insurgents were not prepared for them; in many cases they surrendered voluntarily. The military nevertheless shot over a hundred insurgents and an unknown number of uninvolved civilians in the area. On 11 January, for example, seven men who wanted to negotiate with the government troops for a surrender of the Vorwärts building were taken to the Berlin Dragoon Barracks and shot. An investigative committee of
10086-646: The lead-up to the 1929 celebration of International Workers' Day , SPD Minister Grzesinski threatened to ban the KPD and its organizations if they acted in defiance of a ban on public gatherings in Berlin ordered by the city's police chief Karl Zörgiebel of the SPD. The attempted banning galvanized the KPD, who responded by exhorting workers to defy the ban and organize peacefully, but to be prepared to strike on May 2 "if Zörgiebel dares to spill workers' blood". The KPD proceeded with May Day marches in Berlin. The Berlin Police responded with an immediate, harsh, and disproportionate crackdown. Often without regard to whether
10209-466: The leadership of Ernst Thälmann from 1925 the party became thoroughly Stalinist and loyal to the leadership of the Soviet Union , and from 1928 it was largely controlled and funded by the Comintern in Moscow. Under Thälmann's leadership the party directed most of its attacks against the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which it regarded as its main adversary and referred to as " social fascists ";
10332-416: The middle class, rallied behind Ebert's government, heeding its call to strike and to act as living shields to secure government buildings. On 6 January the Revolutionary Committee began negotiating with Ebert through the mediation of USPD leadership. The negotiations failed on 7 January due to the unwillingness of either side to compromise. The Council of People's Deputies demanded the evacuation of
10455-541: The more recalcitrant members from the SPD side of the merger were pushed out in short order. By the time of the formal formation of the East German state in 1949, the SED was a full-fledged Communist party, and developed along lines similar to other Soviet-bloc communist parties. It was the ruling party in East Germany from its formation in 1949 until 1989. The SPD managed to preserve its independence in East Berlin , forcing
10578-556: The murders. In an article in the party's Die Rote Fahne ( The Red Flag ) newspaper on 12 February 1919, he revealed the names of some of those his own research led him to suspect of being involved. He was arrested in March 1919 during additional Freikorps operations against left-wing workers' leaders and murdered in prison. Criminal proceedings against alleged perpetrators were not instigated right away. On 16 February 1919, KPD members began demanding an independent investigation by
10701-520: The occupied newspaper buildings, while the insurgents insisted on Eichhorn's reinstatement. The chance for a nonviolent settlement of the conflict was thus lost. On the same day, Ebert gave Gustav Noske (MSPD) command of the troops in and around Berlin, and calls went out for the formation of more Freikorps units. Since early December 1918, such Freikorps units had been forming from former frontline soldiers and volunteers. Now Ebert and Noske allowed them to muster around Berlin with organizations loyal to
10824-535: The parliament of Prussia later put the overall death toll at 156. Among the military there were thirteen killed and twenty wounded. On 13 January Freikorps units from the area around Berlin moved into the city, as did the Guards Cavalry Division , a unit of the soon to be dissolved Prussian Army under Captain Waldemar Pabst . Berlin newspapers hailed the troops' entry at the end of the fighting as
10947-510: The party away from the policy of immediate revolution, in an effort to win over SPD and USPD voters and trade union officials. These efforts were rewarded when a substantial section of the USPD joined the KPD, making it a mass party for the first time. Through the 1920s, the KPD was racked by internal conflict between radical and moderate factions, partly reflecting the power struggles between Joseph Stalin and Grigory Zinoviev in Moscow . Germany
11070-513: The party followed the Comintern line and received funding from the Comintern. Under Thälmann's leadership, the party was closely aligned with the Soviet leadership headed by Joseph Stalin ; Thälmann has been described as "the driving force behind Stalinization in the mid to late 1920s" and "Stalin’s right hand in Germany". After winning control from his former leftist allies, he expelled the party's Right Opposition around Heinrich Brandler . After
11193-503: The party was merged, by Soviet decree, with remnants of the Social Democratic Party to form the Socialist Unity Party (SED) which ruled East Germany from 1949 until 1989–1990; the merger was opposed by many Social Democrats, many of whom fled to the western zones. After the fall of the Berlin Wall , reformists took over the SED and renamed it the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS); in 2007
11316-414: The pay of an average skilled worker, and had no privileges, apart from being the first to be arrested, prosecuted and sentenced, and when shooting started, to be the first to fall". Soviet republic List of forms of government A soviet republic (from Russian : Советская республика , romanized : Sovetskaya respublika ), also called council republic , is a republic in which
11439-424: The persons involved were demonstrators or bystanders, they forcibly and violently dispersed the crowds that formed. As the day progressed, street battles developed between the protestors and the police, who used firearms and armoured cars. The violence lasted until the afternoon of 3 May, mostly in the working-class neighbourhoods of Wedding and Neukölln . An estimated 33 civilians, none of whom were involved with
11562-410: The prisoners interrogated and physically abused over a period of hours. KPD leader Wilhelm Pieck , who was also arrested when he visited the apartment that evening, witnessed the abuse as well as a number of telephone calls. The murders of Luxemburg and Liebknecht were intended to look like an assassination. Private Otto Runge hit Luxemburg with his rifle butt as she was being led out of the hotel. She
11685-486: The provisional government in Berlin. In an attempt to force payment, the sailors took Otto Wels (MSPD), the military commander of Berlin, hostage. The following day, when the three MSPD members of the Council of the People's Deputies ordered Berlin's police chief, Emil Eichhorn (USPD), to use the security forces under his command to free Wels, he refused. Ebert then had the Army called in and ordered it to use deadly force against
11808-440: The ranks of the Revolutionary Stewards. The committee was formed of 53 people, with Georg Ledebour , Liebknecht and Paul Scholze the three co-equal chairmen. The following day, the Revolutionary Committee called on the workers of Berlin to stage a general strike on 7 January and overthrow Ebert's government. The call was answered by up to 500,000 people who poured into the city center. They did not take part in any fighting in
11931-510: The reception hall of the City Council. Rosa Luxemburg was initially against the setting up of a new party but joined the KPD after her initial hesitation. Apart from the Spartacists, another dissident group of socialists called the International Communists of Germany (IKD), also dissenting members of the Social Democratic party but mainly located in Hamburg , Bremen and Northern Germany , joined
12054-575: The remaining legitimacy of the pro-democratic parties - such as the Social Democrats, the State Party, and the German People's Party - in favor of the anti-democratic parties. They also followed an increasingly nationalist course, trying to appeal to nationalist-leaning workers. In 1931, the party reported a membership of 200,000. The KPD leadership initially first criticised but then supported
12177-456: The resignation of all the leaders responsible for the "fratricide". Both the Ebert government and Ledebour and Liebknecht were seen as responsible for the situation. Numerous resolutions from the factories called for an end to the street fighting and the creation of a government in which all socialist parties would be represented . In the view of historian Sebastian Haffner , the executive committee of
12300-414: The restoration of "peace and order". The military occupation was followed by many instances of violence committed by right-wing troops, far exceeding previous acts of violence by some from the left. Right-wing groups had been agitating against German Communists and their leaders even before the January uprising. The Anti-Bolshevist League printed posters and appeals to the population of Berlin calling for
12423-425: The result that the two already hostile left-wing parties did not obtain an absolute majority. In the subsequent elections during the life of the Weimar Republic, the SPD never again achieved more than 30 percent of the vote and thus remained dependent on coalitions with the middle-class parties of the center in order to participate in government, even after its reunification with most of the USPD in 1922. Every year on
12546-406: The revolution must be brought to a victorious end. Either we establish the dictatorship of the proletariat or we will see Ebert – Scheidemann , the executioners of the revolution, strangle it to death. ... Workers! Comrades! Soldiers! Take power into your hands. Overthrow the government, which places itself protectively before the coffers, which has betrayed and only betrayed the revolution. Long live
12669-564: The rising right-wing militias. For example, in October 1923 the KPD formed a coalition government with the SPD in the states of Saxony and Thuringia . However, the Reichswehr legally overthrew these governments by force, through a constitutional process called Reichsexekution . In 1926 the KPD worked with the SPD on a referendum to expropriate the German nobility, together mobilising 14.4 million voters. The party's first paramilitary wing
12792-485: The same tactic again after Adolf Hitler was appointed as chancellor but was widely ignored by other organisations and individual workers this time as well. On 27 February, soon after the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor, the Reichstag was set on fire and Dutch council communist Marinus van der Lubbe was found near the building. The Nazis publicly blamed the fire on communist agitators in general, although in
12915-591: The second weekend of January, the Liebknecht-Luxemburg demonstration takes place in Berlin to commemorate Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. It ends at the Socialists' Memorial in the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery . In the historiography of the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the uprising was judged very positively. Its view was that only the KPD had succeeded in forming
13038-428: The soldiers and saying, 'The gang must not leave the Eden Hotel alive!' ... A short time after that, a maid came up, fell into the arms of a colleague, and exclaimed, 'I'll never be free of the image of that poor woman being knocked down and dragged around.'" Runge received two years in prison, Vogel 28 months. The officers involved, the brothers Heinz and Horst von Pflugk-Harttung , were acquitted. Their commander Pabst
13161-794: The tsarist authorities reclaimed control. Near the end of the First World War , soviet republics started appearing on a larger scale as short-lived communist revolutionary governments that were established in what had been the Russian Empire after the October Revolution and under its influence. These states included some such as the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic which won independence from Russia during
13284-598: The uprising but joined once it had begun, were captured by the Freikorps and murdered. At its peak, the party had 350–400,000 members in 1920. The party split a few months later into two factions, the KPD and the much smaller Communist Workers Party of Germany (KAPD). Following the assassination of Leo Jogiches , Paul Levi became the KPD's leader. Other prominent members included Clara Zetkin , Paul Frölich , Hugo Eberlein , Franz Mehring , Julian Marchlewski , August Thalheimer , Wilhelm Pieck and Ernst Meyer . Levi led
13407-445: The uprising predominantly negatively. Hans Mommsen labeled the insurgents' actions a "terrorist coup tactic". Hagen Schulze wrote that their goal was a "socialist, red revolution and a dictatorship of the working class". Heinrich August Winkler sees the January uprising as an "insurrection against democracy". Much like the 1917 October Revolution by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks , who subsequently used force of arms to disperse
13530-555: The war. Left-wing members of the party, led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg , strongly opposed the war, and the SPD soon suffered a split. From the split emerged the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and the more radical Spartacist League ; the latter formed the core of what would become the KPD. In November 1918, revolution broke out across Germany. The KPD held its founding congress in Berlin from 30 December 1918 to 1 January 1919, in
13653-435: The workers who sought the overthrow of the government. At the same time, KPD members tried to win over to their side some of the regiments stationed in Berlin, especially the People's Marine Division. They did not succeed, since most of the soldiers were already at home, either because they had declared themselves neutral or their loyalty was to the Council of People's Deputies. In addition, a part of Berlin's citizens, especially
13776-617: Was a major far-left political party in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period , an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany , and a minor party in West Germany during the postwar period until it was banned by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1956. Founded in the aftermath of the First World War by socialists who had opposed the war, the party joined the Spartacist uprising of January 1919, which sought to establish
13899-593: Was banned in August 1956 by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany . The decision was upheld in 1957 by the European Commission of Human Rights in Communist Party of Germany v. the Federal Republic of Germany . After the party was declared illegal, many of its members continued to function clandestinely despite increased government surveillance. Part of its membership re-founded the party in 1968 as
14022-536: Was being propagated as a theory. The KPD regarded itself as "the only anti-fascist party" in Germany and held that all other parties in the Weimar Republic were "fascist". The Nazis achieved an electoral breakthrough in the 1930 Reichstag election . By the early 1930s, the political situation in Weimar Germany was extremely unstable after the onset of the Great Depression . The Depression effectively destroyed
14145-453: Was crushed, the Spartacist leaders feared for their lives and went into hiding. The government sought them out as alleged putschists in order to prosecute them for the attempted coup before the 19 January elections. Fritz Henck, Philipp Scheidemann's son-in-law, publicly assured the residents of Berlin on 14 January that the leaders of the uprising "would not get off scot-free". In just
14268-478: Was not charged, and others who had possibly given orders were not sought out. As commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Noske personally confirmed the verdicts with his signature. Vogel was taken out of Moabit Prison on 17 May, three days after the sentencing, by a Lieutenant Lindemann for transfer to Tegel Prison . Lindemann was in fact Captain Lieutenant (and later Admiral) Wilhelm Canaris , who took Vogel to
14391-557: Was not until 1929 that Paul Jorns, who had been the military judge in the trial, was dismissed for bias. In 1934, the Nazi regime granted Runge compensation for his imprisonment and Vogel convalescence using taxpayers' money. In January 1935, the National Socialists leveled the graves of Luxemburg and Liebknecht, possibly also disposing of their bones. Runge, recognized and beaten by workers in 1925 and 1931 after his release from prison,
14514-406: Was primarily a power struggle between the supporters of the provisional government led by Friedrich Ebert of the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), which favored a social democracy , and those who backed the position of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg , which wanted to set up a council republic similar to the one established by
14637-466: Was pushed unconscious into a waiting car then shot in the temple by Freikorps Lieutenant Hermann Souchon . Her body was thrown into the Berlin Landwehr Canal by First Lieutenant Kurt Vogel . It was not found until 31 May. Liebknecht was taken from the hotel shortly after Luxemburg and after getting into a waiting car was knocked almost unconscious, again by Otto Runge. The car stopped in
14760-403: Was said to have made an agreement to cooperate in the arrest and murder of the Spartacists. Otto Kranzbühler , who later became the lawyer for Hermann Souchon, the man who shot Luxemburg, stated that Pabst had confirmed to him the telephone conversation with Noske. Biographers also believe that Pabst probably consulted with Noske or Hans von Seeckt of the army command. The uprising did not have
14883-545: Was seen as being of central importance to the struggle for socialism, and the failure of the German revolution was a major setback. Eventually Levi was expelled in 1921 by the Comintern for "indiscipline". Further leadership changes took place in the 1920s. Supporters of the Left or Right Opposition to the Stalinist -controlled Comintern leadership were expelled; of these, Heinrich Brandler , August Thalheimer and Paul Frölich set up
15006-495: Was the Roter Frontkämpferbund (Alliance of Red Front Fighters), which was founded in 1924 but banned by the governing Social Democrats in 1929. By 1927, the party had 130,000 members, of whom 40,000 had been members in 1920. From 1928 onwards (after Stalin reinstated Thälmann as KPD leader against the majority of the KPD central committee in the wake of an embezzlement scandal involving Thälmann's ally John Wittorf ),
15129-520: Was tracked down by members of the KPD in Berlin in May 1945 and handed over to the Soviet commandant's office on the instructions of senior prosecutor Max Berger. Runge was charged with murder, although his health later deteriorated, and he died in custody in September 1945. The journalist and right-wing politician Eduard Stadtler stated in his 1935 memoirs that the murders were contract killings. He wrote that on
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