The German Revolution, 1917-1923

Historical Materialism #5

by Pierre Broué, Brian Pearce (Editor), Ian H. Birchall (Editor)

“Broué enables us to feel that we are actually living through these epoch-making events…. [D]o not miss this magnificent work.”—Robert Brenner, UCLA

A magisterial, definitive account of the upheavals in Germany in the wake of the Russian revolution. Broué meticulously reconstitutes six decisive years, 1917-23, of social struggles in Germany. The consequences of the defeat of the German revolution had profound consequences for the world.

Pierre Broué (1926-2005) was for many years Professor of Contemporary History at the Institut d’études politiques in Grenoble and was a world renowned specialist on the communist and international workers’ movements.

Genres: History, Politics, Germany, Nonfiction, European History, World History, Philosophy

991 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1971

About the author

Pierre Broué was a French historian and Trotskyist revolutionary militant whose work covers the history of the Bolshevik Party, the Spanish Revolution and biographies of Leon Trotsky.

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

M. Broué’s work is really a history of the German Communist Party, in its various forms, from 1917-1923. The author describes at great length the development of the movement’s leadership through those years, ultimately resulting in the notable failure of the revolution that never was, in 1923. As for the fundamental difference between the Russian experience and German, M. Broué noted,

In the first place, the War, which in Russia had mobilised the peasantry at the side of the proletariat, had now ended. In any case, the peasantry in the West was far less homogeneous than the Russian peasantry. Furthermore, the Russian bourgeoisie was young, weak, deeply subject to foreign capital, and had only attained power for the first time in March 1917, in war conditions which compelled it to share power with the army. But the European bourgeoisie was old, well organised on the basis of economic concentration, rich with the experience of decades of rule, and, lastly, had learned from the Russian experience. The Russian proletariat carried out its revolution arms in hand in the midst of war, but the Western proletariat had surrendered its arms upon demobilisation, at the same time as the bourgeoisie was arming its special formations, and in the West the workers had to launch their first attacks bare-handed. Finally, in the developed countries, illusions about the capacity of capitalism to overcome its crisis were stronger, especially amongst the privileged stratum of the labour aristocracy; although in the long run this stratum could only join with the proletariat as a whole, there could be no disputing that the next great struggles of the proletariat would have a reformist character, and, therefore, the process of transforming the consciousness of the masses would be a long one.

I believe the fact that Lenin and Trotsky survived the revolutionary moment whereas Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were shot dead, along with many others, should also be considered.

What a mess, those years.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

The translation and publication of Pierre Broué's magisterial account of the mass movements which swept across Germany from 1917 to 1923, fills an enormous hole in the literature available on this period. It covers much the same ground as Chris Harman's Lost Revolution, but does so in much greater detail, with a much firmer grasp of the historical sources, and with a quite different spirit. The key issue is the relationship between the Communist International and the German Communist Party, in particular in the run-up to the March Action of 1921. Reading Broué's account, makes it absolutely clear that the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) played a considerable role in these events, and in large part contributed to the catastrophe which ensued. Informed by the very juvenile "Theory of the Offensive", the ECCI leaders sided with the most inept section of the German Communist Party, used their considerable influence (and considerable material and financial resources), to muscle aside the Luxemburgist cadre who should have been the future of the party – in particular, Clara Zetkin and Paul Levi. The resulting "adventure" – famously labelled by Levi as the "largest Bakuninist putsch attempt in history" – broke the party, creating damage from which it never really recovered.

In the Lost Revolution, Harman documents all this, but draws the lesson that the Germans needed to be more like the Russians. By contrast, Broué opens up a careful discussion about the very different conditions in Germany compared to Russia, and asks the question, was a different kind of Bolshevism needed in Germany, than was necessary in Russia? He doesn't answer that question – but in posing it openly and honestly, he considerably advances our understanding of this period. And to a much greater extent than Harman, Broué treats the figure of Levi with considerable respect, devoting an entire chapter to an exploration of Levi's contribution to our understanding of this period.

My only complaint is that this 991 page book has no index. The frustrated reader can get around this to some extent, calling the book up on a Google Book search, and searching for items of interest. But hopefully, in the next printing, we will get an index to assist in the reading and study of this important book.

[Tiarnán · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exhaustive and at times exhausting history of the foundation of the German Communist Party and its frustrated revolutionary efforts in response to various missed opportunities between 1917 and 1923.

This book will give you a new appreciation of the role of figures marginalised by traditional socialist (both Stalinist and Trotsky) histories of the period: individuals like the enigmatic Communist MP Paul Levi, a dapper intellectual and pioneer of the strategy of United Front, and the erratic Karl Radek, one of the few members of the early Comintern executive that had a genuine appreciation of both the similarities and profound differences that marked the revolutionary processes of the post WW1 era in the East and West.

Broué is an avowed Trotskyist, but he doesn't hit you over the head with this allegiance, and challenges some simplistic schemas about the necessity or feasibility of a German Bolshevism, stressing the often-negative impact that undue Moscow influence had in undermining the self-confidence of the young German party's leaders, and reminding readers of the genuinely 'democratic' democratic centralism that both the Bolsheviks and KDP practiced even under duress, with full freedom of debate, to factionalise, and for minority positions to appear in the party press - in opposition to the routine practice of Trotskyist sects the world over today in conditions of perfect legality.

The second half of the book is weaker than the first, and at times Broué becomes too bogged-down in his cataloguing of the internal minutiae of the KDP at the expense of a perspective of the wider context of the crisis of German society, and the living standards and combativity of its huge working class, of which the Communists only ever remained one current within a much bigger body of water.

Germany in this period of the early Weimar Republic remains a classical historical 'what if?' In the best case scenario a majoritarian workers' revolution in 1920-1923 might have seen the immediate alleviation of the worst effects of hyper-inflation on living standards, a successful counter-attack against the excesses of the extreme right and its allied capitalists that led eventually to the gates of Auschwitz, and - perhaps most crucially - the lifting of the cultural and economic embargo of the capitalist West against the nascent USSR that intensified the isolation of the Bolsheviks and the tiny Russian working class, leading to vicious bureaucratic factionalism and isolation that empowered Stalin's murderous rise.

Broué's book might be taken to task by more recent and more academically rigorous/conservative historians of the period for his relative revolutionary optimism, but for radicals of the left it remains a key starting point for fashioning an answer to those dilemmas.

[Chase · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was certainly a beast of a historical work, and while I found it to be a fatiguing book to be read leisurely from front to back, I was blown away by the plethora of research Broué brought into this piece. The book begins prior to the Great War and leaves off at around 1924, following the failed November Revolution by the revolutionary forces within Germany. The author gives a very detailed account of the movements and events happening at the time, down to specific meetings held in the flats of Berlin between leaders. Yet, he still manages to from time to time utilize benign story-telling to give life to the intricate details.

This being the second work written by a Trotskyist I’ve read, I found as an ML this to be a much more balanced work by a Trotskyist historian compared to likes of N. Faulkner. Even when it comes to the question of Stalin or the ultra-left currents at the time, Broué does not "go off the rails" so to be speak of a historical integrity. Sure, he has his moments of sharing his ideological tendencies within the book, but even on a first read it is clear that he is interjecting with his own thoughts, rather than citing historical sources.

I certainly plan on coming pack to this text eventually to dive into the text more deeper to get a more complete understanding of the currents that went on during those fateful years 100 years ago.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

After I finished this brilliant, iconoclastic history of the German workers movement, my partner asked "Who won?" I hate to break the bad news to you ....

[Harry · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's worth the size and time. Would give it six if I could. Without learning from this world historic fumbling of the bag, we will continue to hit walls.

[Aubeen Lopez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although there was a gap of a year in me finishing this massive book, finally having finished reading it was well worth the wait and anticipation. For it was in those last 3 to 5 chapters that lessons of that great event, the German Revolution, were best summed up by Broue. Anyone seeking to learn from one of the greatest events in the last century, its causes and and consequences should take a look at Pierre Broue's massive and detailed work.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is massive because it needs to be. Broue gives the ins and the outs of the SPD and the revolutionary period 1917-1923. The history is important because the failure of this revolution has everything to do with the rise of fascism nearly a decade later. Someday, I hope to finish it.

[Neal · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exhaustive history. Maybe too exhaustive.

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The KPD had workers' leaders, tested organisers such as Brandler, theoreticians such as Thalheimer, people able to coordinate strikes, organise demonstrations, and lead the forces of workers who could both fight and die at their posts. It could call upon good speakers for its mass meetings and its parliamentary debates, underground workers who were skilful conspirators, talented journalists, people who could write books and aim machine-guns. But there was no one who, with their ear to the ground, heard the grass grow, as Lenin liked to say. No one who could find the way forward in a practical situation. Taking into consideration the abilities of the personalities in the pre-war left opposition in the SPD, there was nothing in the history of the party or in that of the German Proletariat that made likely the emergence, within a few years, people able to lead a successful revolution against the most conscious and determined bourgeoisie in Europe, if not the world.
Levi said in 1920 that the principal mistake of the German revolutionaries was their refusal before 1914 to organise independently on the political level, even if they would have to exist as a sect. In 1926, in a letter to Zetkin, Radek expressed the same judgement: "On the anniversary of the death of Karl and Rosa, I spoke at a meeting of the Moscow Youth League. I prepared for my speech, thumbed through old articles by Rosa, and it is my deep conviction that we left radicals in Germany awakened not too early but too late, fought against the dangers not too sharply by too weakly."
The weaknesses of the KPD were, in short, the distorted reflection of those of Social Democracy as it had developed before the war. A society within society, it was perfectly integrated by a principled opposition and a practical adaptation which offered experience, responsibilities and tasks, not to those who were capable of making history with the workers, but only to those who wanted to take part in politics by making use of the workers.

[Raya Paul Gracchus · Rating 4 out of 5]

The scholarship deserves a 5/5, but Broue's bizarre partisan obsession with backing people like Paul Levi and Leon Trotsky against the 'ultra-left,' which he parades around as a bogeyman in every relevant historical debate that occurred in the German communist movement through the years of 1917-1923 -- is a 1/5. The last 90 pages of the book, split between 4 chapters make up a sort of conclusion where he drops the historical narrative and the scholarship that makes the book so excellent, leaving behind just the rehabilitation of Paul Levi's honor, not just in the chapter which bears his name, but across the 3 other chapters as well. Despite Broue's rightism and Levi-cultishness, I will emphasize that the scholarship is impeccable and extremely detailed. The book is, in spite of the author's politics, one of the best I've read this year. Highly recommend.

[Nathan Levin · Rating 3 out of 5]

An extremely dense history of the German Revolution, focusing primarily on the VKPD, told from a Trotskyist of the IMT. The Trotskyist (and thus, Leninist in the worst way) perspective limits this work significantly, as it is extremely unthinking in its criticism, so much so that it puts forward that Paul Levi remained a "socialist" (whatever that means to the author) even after he had re-joined the SPD, and that the "ultra-left" (the German Left in the KAPD) was childish, despite Pannekoek and Gorter, two experienced revolutionaries, being at its head. However, it is clear that a lot of research was put in to write this text, and it is worthwhile for this reason.

[Eddie S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sad

[Ella Pia · Rating 5 out of 5]

;(

[Rohit · Rating 3 out of 5]

A colossal text. And importantly, one that is not about Germany in the 1917-1923 period, but more specifically and narrowly about the origins, evolution, and eventual degeneration of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) during this time period, with a focus on its leadership and the debates and discussions amongst themselves, and with the leaders of the USSR.

This makes the book often a slog, particularly in the middle, getting bogged down in close examination of letters and meeting minutes, and often glossing over the general political and economic situation of Germany and Europe, or the nature of communist organization and strategy in the factories and streets. The best parts of the book are around the time periods where serious action is taking place, i.e. the Spartacist Uprising in 1919, and the abortive pre-revolutionary and pre-insurrectionary moments in early 1920 and late 1923. The third act, the last couple hundred pages or so, which describes the revolutionary moment of 1923 and the tragic failure of the KPD to take advantage, is probably the best and most engaging.

Overall, an impressive piece of work, but this will be a difficult, tedious, and confusing book if one does not already have a good grasp of Germany history during this time period, and familiarity with key German and Russian communists of the era.

[Ibrahim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A depressing tome that covers the most consequential missed opportunity of the 20th century and only leads to questions of what-ifs. Its a shame Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg chose to die with the workers of Berlin and did not flee the city - the KPD needed personalities respected enough to dominate and discipline the ultra-left to accept the task of building a mass party instead of going on adventurous undertakings. Levi and Radek were smart but ultimately lacked the personality, zeal or authority to see that through. Bela Kun on the other hand would have been better off dead in the Hungarian revolution he led to its defeat.

At the end of the day, the USSR died with the death of the German Revolution. It was supposed to be the first front of a world revolution, and instead had to attempt survival alone and isolated, and by the time it was not isolated post-WW2, the convulsions born from the isolation led to a degraded political structure and economy that limped along to its death while unable to reform. The presence of Luxembourg in the Comintern would have also rebalanced the domination of the Bolsheviks while providing Lenin with a more reliable ally against the left communists by advocating for more democracy and mass politics.

[Juan Pablo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This took me a long time to get through due to circumstances of life which caused long breaks. I’m not sure I got everything out of it that I should have but the gist is it’s documenting the failures of communists in Germany at a very critical moment in history which could have changed the course of the world for the better.

The Germans were unfortunately unorganized & their deferment to the Social Democrats despite their consistent betrayal of the working class & capitulation to the Bourgeoisie are key factors. Their lack of organization & by extension lack of a coherent programme also led to them falling prey to the swindle that came from Stalin’s rise to power.

It’s an important history to know as the Russian Revolution is often talked about but what gets left out is itself dependence on world revolution for survival, about which they were optimistic & Germany was to be huge deciding factor that in whether that would come to fruition. Sadly that was not to be. A must read to help clarify the subsequent events of the last 100 years including what is currently happening in the world today.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pierre Broué fait un excellent travail d'analyse de la révolution allemande ainsi que des causes de son échec. Il passe en détails sur les differents acteurs si bien du parti Social-Démocrate, que du KAPD et de l'exécutif de la 3e Internationale, notemment Pau Levi qui occupe une place centrale dans les développements du KAPD mais aussi Radek, Karl Liebknecht et Rosa Luxembourg. On ressent toute fois le trotskisme de l'auteur dans une conclusion très peu originale, attaque sans principe et à rallonge contre la direction de Staline, quand bien même celle-ci n'est jamais mentionné plus d'une fois dans toute l'œuvre, ce qui affaibli la conclusion de l'ouvrage pourtant forte. A contrario, Trotski est systématiquement mentionné malgré son absence total de rôle dans les événements, Trotsky étant délégué de l'exécutif aux affaires françaises, non pas Allemande, et ayant une piètre connaissance des événements allemands.

[Dimitrii Ivanov · Rating 3 out of 5]

A heavy tome indeed - although the generous layout means that the pages are flicked rather quickly. It is rather systematically organised and quite well-written in that chugging chronological-order kind of way, although individual personalities emerge more vividly from the biographical details section rather than the main text. But the title is misleading, as this is the history of the German revolution as it must be seen from the point of view of a Communist Party, with the author taking little notice of the fourth wall that historians wishing to appear non-partisan erect.

[gaverne Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been meaning to read this book for 25 years and though long it was worth it. Passion drives this book. So read nuanced accounts of historical events.

[Brenmlaws · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dense, amazing and complicated history of the most important failed revolution to study. Worth the time to read and reread.

[Nils Van Nieuwenhuyse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant

[Differengenera · Rating 5 out of 5]

everything you're looking for in a history of the German Revolution with the proviso that it is v v dry, equivalent to Rabinowitch's Russian trilogy in that sense

[tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

some Trotskyist nonsense to look past but otherwise very good

[Reuben Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this tome years back while a hardened Trotskyist. I can only remember a few points from it, as I wasn't in the best state of mind at the time.

Broadly, this history of the German Revolution covers the political trends that overthrew the Kaiser, established the Weimar Republic, and challenged capitalist hegemony over Germany. It is not, as some may believe, a history of the later counterrevolution.

A few lessons from this tragic history are; the necessity of building the infrastructure of a workers party before the proletarian revolution occurs, the conflicting forces that emerge within a workers party (my reading group concluded that the early ultra-leftism inspired by the lumpenproletarian base could have been avoided if the revolutionary shop stewards decided to join in 1918), and the question of leadership behaviour (at the time I agreed with my reading group in concluding that Levi should have taken the olive branch, but now that I've been expelled from the revolutionary left I'm unsure).