c07.qxd 3/19/09 9:38 AM Page 1373 International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, ed. Immanuel Ness, Blackwell Publishing, 2009, pp. 1373–1381 Germany, socialism and nationalism 1373 issue of support for the German military effort Germany, socialism precipitated a split within the Social Democratic and nationalism Party. On the eve of the war in July 1914, the SPD’s leadership instructed the party’s Reichstag John M. Cox delegation to vote for the war budget – a decision that was deeply unpopular among the party’s rank Led by Adolf Hitler, the National Socialist, or and file. Nazi, Party took power in Germany in January The war greatly compounded the party’s 1933, promising a “thousand-year empire.” Twelve internal divisions and by 1917 open factions had years later, Germany and most of Europe lay in appeared, competing for control of local organ- ruins, German Nazism having been subdued by izations and of the party’s formidable press the armies of the Soviet Union and the Western apparatus. In April 1917 the left wing formed Allies, led by the United States and Britain. its own party, the Independent Social Demo- But while outside forces were required to bring crats (Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei down Hitler’s tyranny, the Nazi dictatorship Deutschlands) (USPD). The USPD was, how- was never free from domestic opposition. The ever, not simply a product of dissension within Third Reich, as the Nazi government was called, the SPD leadership; it also reflected the explosive found its most persistent and numerous enemies social conditions of 1917 resulting from labor in the remnants of Germany’s left-wing parties, protests and a deepening popular abhorrence of which Hitler had ruthlessly suppressed upon the war. taking power. Although many thousands of German Shortages and austerity combined with war- workers and socialists undertook anti-Nazi resist- weariness to produce widespread discontent, ance activity, their story has been overshadowed, culminating in massive strikes and civil unrest in in Germany and elsewhere, by an attempt on April 1917 and a general strike in January 1918. Hitler’s life organized by opponents within the This upsurge in working-class militancy gave military elite in July 1944. This conservative further impetus to the left wing of German military resistance is often inaccurately designated socialism. Meanwhile, the Bolshevik Revolution German resistance. However, the resistance the in Russia, in October 1917, promoted the growth of Germany’s socialists and communists began in of communist and left-wing socialist parties and the first days of the dictatorship and only ended movements throughout Europe. This influence with its defeat. was both direct – through the efforts of the Com- munist International (Comintern), founded in Socialist and Communist Parties March 1919 – and indirect, through the inspira- tion that the Russian Revolution initially provided Before Hitler to many thousands of workers and intellectuals. By 1914 the Social Democratic Party of Germany Revolution broke out in Germany in November (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) (SPD) 1918, the same month World War I ended, was the largest socialist party in the world, with and swept away the centuries-old Hohenzollern a membership of nearly 1.1 million. Its associated monarchy. When navy leaders ordered an attack trade unions grew in membership from less than on the British at the end of October, sailors in a quarter million in 1893 to 2.5 million by 1913. Kiel rose up in protest, and within a few days The party’s strength was reflected in its electoral a generalized mutiny erupted. The sailors’ successes; the SPD received 34.7 percent of the grievances intersected with those of large sectors national vote in 1912, giving the socialists the of German society, and sailors, soldiers, and largest delegation in the Reichstag, the German workers quickly established revolutionary coun- legislature. The SPD commanded the allegiance cils. Kaiser Wilhelm II fled Berlin, and then the of most German workers, and through its numerous country, and on November 9 SPD leaders mass organizations – including sporting, cultural, Friedrich Ebert and Philipp Scheidemann pro- youth, and women’s clubs – the party built a claimed a republic. thriving social and cultural milieu. By this time the Independent Social Democrats For many years the SPD contained compet- had grown to more than 100,000 members, a ing factions, including a far-left wing, a steadily figure that would increase several-fold in sub- growing right wing, and a large “left center.” The sequent months. The USPD was strong in some c07.qxd 3/19/09 9:38 AM Page 1374 International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, ed. Immanuel Ness, Blackwell Publishing, 2009, pp. 1373–1381 1374 Germany, socialism and nationalism of the industrial centers, most importantly Berlin, Democrats. In the midst of a generalized polar- which had always been a bastion of left social ization and radicalization, the KPD’s membership democracy. The new USPD’s far-left wing adopted burgeoned from 117,000 in 1929 to approxim- the name “Spartacus League” in homage to the ately 360,000 by 1932. The party’s strength was anti-Roman slave rebellion. The Sparticists, a demonstrated in the November 1932 elections – small minority, abandoned the USPD at the end the last election before the Nazi takeover – in of the year, meeting on December 30 to form which the Communists drew 16.9 percent of the the Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei overall vote and 38 percent in Berlin. By 1933 Deutschlands) (KPD). the KPD was the largest communist party in the The SPD, now the governing party, enlisted world outside the Soviet Union. the aid of right-wing paramilitary forces to sup- The KPD’s increasing numerical strength was press the communists and other revolutionary accompanied, however, by its political degen- forces in Berlin, Munich, and elsewhere during eration. Under the influence of changes in the the first months of 1919. The memory of the Soviet Union – where the consolidation of power short-lived revolution – and of the moderating and by Josef Stalin and his supporters signified the even counterrevolutionary role of the SPD in abandonment of anything resembling demo- those dramatic days – would far outlive the 1918– cratic and socialist values – the KPD became in 19 German Revolution, causing bitter recrimina- many ways an appendage of the Soviet party, tions on the left and, for conservatives and which handpicked its leaders and dictated its rightists, stoking fears of workers’ revolution. political line. These problems were compounded by the Comintern’s imposition since 1928 of German Socialism During a bizarre doctrine known as the “third period” theory. Under this theory, capitalism had sup- the Weimar Republic posedly entered a third and terminal stage by The Weimar Republic was the German govern- the late 1920s, and the communist parties should ment and political system that originated in a assume leadership of the coming revolution by February 1919 National Assembly meeting in the attacking their “opponents” in the workers’ move- town of Weimar. Throughout most of its 14 years, ment, primarily the Social Democrats. Thus the republic was governed by a “grand coalition” the KPD lost considerable time and energy in comprising the SPD and two centrist parties. The Weimar’s final years denouncing and trying to SPD’s leading role in a government that was beset outmaneuver the SPD, rather than preparing by severe economic problems, forged alliances for its real enemy, the ever-growing far-right and with discredited business and bureaucratic elites, Nazi movements. and sought pacification in its first months through the excesses of right-wing military forces drove Rise of the Nazi Party large numbers of workers out of the political center and into the ranks of the socialist left in The left was not the only political force to gain 1919. The radicalization of large sections of the sustenance from Germany’s deepening economic industrial workforce aided the USPD first and and political turmoil. Initially a minor grouping foremost. The USPD’s membership increased in the spectrum of nationalist and racist organ- from approximately 300,000 to 750,000 during izations, the National Socialist German Workers 1919 and continued to grow at a more modest Party or Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische pace for the first few months of 1920. deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) drew But the Independent Socialists would soon German nationalists, anti-Semites, and other be overtaken by the Communists as the second- right-wingers under its banner during the Weimar largest party in German socialism. Despite ill- years. Founded as the German Workers Party in conceived communist uprisings in 1921 and 1923 early 1918, the party adopted its full name in – each of which was met with harsh repression early 1920, a few months after a 30-year-old – the KPD established itself as a major political demobilized army veteran from Austria, Adolf force throughout the Weimar years. The USPD Hitler, found his way into its ranks. disappeared in the early 1920s, much of its In the early 1920s the Nazis were based in membership joining the KPD, which by the Munich, the site of their ill-fated 1923 Beerhall end of the decade began to rival the Social Putsch, which led to the deaths of a few members c07.qxd 3/19/09 9:38 AM Page 1375 International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, ed. Immanuel Ness, Blackwell Publishing, 2009, pp. 1373–1381 Germany, socialism and nationalism 1375 and Hitler’s conviction and imprisonment. A moved to fill the void, there was still no unified sympathetic criminal justice system ensured action. that Hitler served less than one year of his five-year sentence. While in jail he composed 1933: Disaster for the Working- his magnum opus, the 700-page collection of Class Movements diatribes and malicious outbursts that would be published as Mein Kampf (My Struggle).