Social Democratic Party under Weimar
The Revolution had been systematically prepared by members of the Independent Socialist party. The deputy Ledebour afterwards publicly boasted that he had been working at these preparations since 1916. The Independent Socialist Cohn is understood - indeed he subsequently admitted it - to have received large sums of money from Russia for the purposes of the Revolution. Bands of picked men (Stosstruppen), lavishly provided with rifles and machine-guns, had everywhere been formed. The "majority" (or governmental) Social Democratic party did not officially participate in these schemes. But when the Revolution began on 09 November 1918, they associated themselves with the revolutionaries, and it was perhaps due to them that the Revolution did not take the course which it took in Russia, and that by persistent efforts order was gradually restored.
Friedrich Ebert, head of the SPD, beaome Provisional President of Germany, and at the end of 1918 the Supreme Executive, the Federa1 Cabinet, was composed of Herr Ebert and five colleagues, all members of the "Majority" Socialist Party. In the early weeks of the revolution three of the six Cabinet portfolios had been held by Independent (or Extreme) Socialists. Before the end of December, however, the Independent Socialists had resigned, their places being immediately occupied by Moderate Socialists. There was at first no parliament. Both the Bundesrat and the Reichstag had been dissolved, if not abolished. On the other hand, " Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates"- Soviets-had sprung into existence all over the country, and the Central Soviet representing all Germany exercised considerable influence, albeit an extra-legal influence, over the Federal Government.
The revolution was of a singularly placid character; but, nevertheless, a few feeble attempts to overthrow the Ebert Government by violence were made by the Bolshevik or "Spartacist" faction in Berlin. Street fighting occurred in the capital during Christmas, but it was mostly very unreal in character; considerable noise was made with fire-arms, but there were few casualties. Further and somewhat more serious efforts to create disturbances were made by the Spartacist faction in Berlin at the beginning of January 1919. The two most famous leaders of the Spartacists were Karl Liebkne'cht and Rosa Luxemburg, who had been notorious as extreme communists for many years before the revolution. The avowed aim of Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg was to upset by violence the Ebert Government, to establish a "dictatorship of the proletariat" in Germany through the instrumentality of the Soviets, and then, in alliance with the Russian Bolsheviks, to spread the social revolution, by violent means if necessary, to the countries of Western Europe.
On 05 January 1919 serious rioting broke out in the Prussian capital. The Spartacists went so far as to try certain loyalist prisoners by "court-martial," and "executed" them. On the other hand, some Spartacist partisans found carrying arms appear to have been shot without ceremony. By 13 January 1919 order was re-established throughout the capital. Both Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were captured, and killed soon after capature.
After the W+ar, the former Progressives, the left-wing liberals of the Wilhelmine Empire, formed a new party, called the German Democratic Party (DDP). The Center Party was shocked by the abdication of the Kaiser and the following socialist turmoil that often assumed threateningly anti-clerical tone, and the Bavarian section of the Center Party, resenting the party's liberal course in the final months of the war, broke away from the national party. The Right formed two parties, the German People's Party (DVP), a pro-industrialist party, and the German-Nationalist People's Party (DNVP), an intransigent anti-democratic organization uniting the old conservatives and other right-wing organizations including the remainders of anti-Semitic parties.
The General Election for the new National Assembly of the German Republic took place on 19 January 1919. It was a disappointment to those socialists who had initially hoped that the labor parties would win a majority, as the SPD and USPD together had less than 50%. The SPD, DDP, and the Center together secured a vast majority.
The German Socialist Gustav Bauer was the first chancellor of the republican German Reich. On 21 June 1919 he became president of the Ministry which was installed to accept the Peace Treaty of Versailles. The new constitution of the Reich having been enacted, the president of the Ministry resumed, in accordance with its provisions, the old title of chancellor (Reichkanzler), and Bauer was the first to hold this office under the republican regime. He remained chancellor until the Kapp coup of March 1920, when he fled with the president of the Reich, Ebcrt, and the rest of the Ministry to Dresden and afterwards to Stuttgart. On their return the Ministry was reconstructed and Bauer made way for the second republican chancellor, Hermann Muiler.
There was by 1921 in every industrialized country at least one Socialist party, possessing in the majority of cases a considerable representation in its national Parliament. Indeed, in many countries there had come into being more than one Socialist party; for the process of unification of Socialist political forces which had been proceeding steadily up to the outbreak of the war gave place to a separatist tendency, which resiilted in a regrouping of forces in most of the countries in which the movement was strong. The first cause of these divisions was the attitude of Socialists towards the outbreak of the World War. In almost all belligerent countries the Socialist parties became divided over the issues of the war. In some cases these divisions of opinion resulted in actual cleavages within the various parties; in others the parties held together, but acute divisions of opinion continued inside them. These differences were greatly accentuated by the Russian revolutions of 1917, which inevitably exercised a very powerful influence on Socialist opinion throughout the world.
Everywhere the left wing of the Socialists acclaimed the Bolshevik Revolution, while the right wing was hostile to what it regarded as the overthrow of the "democratic" institutions which had been introduced under the Kercnsky regime. During the following years, from 1918-21, the differences within the Socialist ranks resulting from the Bolshevik Revolution were steadily accentuated. Under the auspices of the Russian Bolsheviks, or Communists as they now call themselves, with a definite reference back to The Communist Manifesto of 1847, a new international organization of Socialism, the Third or Moscow International, was inaugurated, and an appeal was made to the "proletariat " in all countries to rally to this new body, of which the fundamental ideas were the overthrow of the capitalist regime by the intensive prosecution of the class war, involving the use of force, and the assumption by the "proletariat" of dictatorship over Society during the "transitional period," which would be necessary both for the combating of the attempts of the " counter-revolution " to regain power, and for the laying of the foundations of a Socialist or Communist society free from class distinctions.
In Germany the Social Democratic party split during the war. A majority section of the parly supported the German Government in the prosecution of the war and voted war credits. Gradually a minority party formed, and finally the anti-war elements left the Social Democratic party and formed the Independent Socialist party. After the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia two small Communist parlies were also formed in Germany. In 1920 the majority of the Independent Socialist party resolved upon adhesion to the Moscow International and united with the Communist factions to form the German Communist party. The right wing of the Independent Socialist party continued in existence under the old name; and there were thus in Germany, in 1921, three distinct parties, Social Democrats or Majority Socialists, Independent Socialists, and Communists.
Immediately on the conclusion of hostilities steps were taken to convene a full International Socialist conference, and an attempt was made to reform the pre-war Socialist International. The reformed body, however, known as the "Second International," never became, in face of acute differences of opinion, at all fully representative, and during 1919 and 1920 there were numerous secessions from it, until it came to consist principally of the British Labour party, the German Social Democratic party (Majority Socialists), and the Socialist parties of a number of small countries such as Sweden, Poland, Belgium and Holland.
Any definition of Socialism in the 1920s would certainly have to emphasize the fact that it sought not merely a better distribution and production of wealth, but a fundamental reorganization in the whole system of organized Society, political as well as economic. Socialists came to regard the political State, or machinery of government, as the principal instrument of regulation, and to look forward to the transition to Socialism mainly through the nationalization, or transference to State ownership, of all vital industries and services, together with an extension of municipal ownership in the sphere of local public-utility services.
The Reichstag elections of May 1924 reflected the intense anger of the preceding year. The SPD and the middle parties lost ground, while the radicals of the left and right made massive gains. The ant--democratic right-wing Deutschnationale Volkspartei (DNVP) became the strongest party, and a radical rightist party (successor to the illegal Nazi party) under Ludendorff emerged and won about 6% of the vote. The influx of American credits under the Dawes Plan secured relative, though unsound and deceptive, prosperity over the next few years, and the Reichstag elections in December 1924 benefited the moderate parties. In 1925 President Ebert died, and the German people elected their national hero, Paul von Hindenburg, who supported the policies inaugurated by Stresemann until 1929, the year of Stresemann's death. The Reichstag elections in May 1928 seemed to confirm the trend toward stability and democratic government. The SPD gained votes and formed a "great coalition" (as in 1923) with the Center, the DDP, and the DVP, under Chancellor: Hermann Müller of the SPD.
The crash of the New York stock market in September 1929 led to a worldwide depression, with dramatic effects on Germany. Stresemann died of a heart attack (at age 51) just as the crisis starts. Unemployment rose sharply in the end of the year, and reached unprecedented heights in the following years. Until 1930 the DNVP, not the NSDAP, had been the leading right-wing opposition to the Weimar Republic. The DNVP assumed a more radical course in 1928, and from 1929-1933 the party split again (the moderates left it) and became a junior partner of the NSDAP. The Nazis gained support as they projected an image of determined order and reconstruction at a time when traditional economic and social structures seemed to be breaking down.
Hitler submitted a bill to the Reichstag that granted the government the right to decree laws without any parliamentary control for the following four years (the Enabling Act). The decisive opportunity for Hitler to expand his power came on 27 February 1933, when the Reichstag burnt down. In the election of 05 March 1933, the Nazis did not reach an absolute majority. Their share of the vote increased from 33% to almost 44%, short of the hoped-for majority. The KPD, with most of its leaders already in newly established concentration camps, fell from 16 to 12%. The elected Communist deputies were all arrested before the new Reichstag even met. The SPD, also under severe terror, fell only slightly from 20 to 18% but received almost as many votes as in November 1932. On 23 March 1933 the Reichstag passed the bill with the necessary two-thirds majority. Only the SPD deputies voted against it, although they knew that they might pay for this by being sent to a concentration camp. The KPD was outlawed right after the Reichstag fire and the SPD followed suit a few months later.
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