In the course of the German revolution, the workers’ and soldiers’ councils, which initially held the reins of power, simply handed them over to the Social Democratic leaders, who they trusted, but who in turn used their authority to rescue capitalism. These spineless reformists, who had in practice long ago abandoned the idea of proletarian revolution and Marxism, managed to rip defeat from the jaws of victory and prepare the way, not for ‘democracy’, but for naked and bloody reaction.
This was the exact opposite of what had happened in Russia when the Bolsheviks took power on behalf of the soviets and put an end to the rule of the landlords and capitalists. The Russian February was followed by the Russian October. The German ‘February’ failed to make that transition. The betrayal of the German Social Democrats was to prepare the ground for defeat and terrible retribution. These tragedies and lost opportunities were to lay the basis later on for the victory of German fascism, and with it the horrors of concentration camps and gas chambers. If the German Revolution had been successful, it would have changed the entire course of the history of the twentieth century. The German failure can therefore be considered one of the greatest – if not the greatest – tragedies of our time.
Nowadays, it has become increasingly fashionable amongst certain bourgeois historians to say that the events of November 1918 did not constitute a revolution. Even the radical ‘left’ can be ambivalent. “The jury is still out on whether it really was a revolution,” states Gabriel Kuhn. (G. Kuhn [ed.], All Power to the Councils! A Documentary History of the German Revolution 1918-1919, p. xi.) And what jury is that? The concept of revolution seems to worry them. To the official ‘sociologists’, the term provokes a condescending smile, as would childish pranks. Not surprisingly, to the conservative mind, revolution is some kind of collective madness. This caricature is of course entirely false. It is not madness that is expressed but the instinctive desire of the oppressed class to change society.
If we consider that the basic premise of a revolution is the entry of the masses onto the stage of history, then the events of 1918 in Germany constituted a gigantic – and classic – revolutionary movement. The awakening of the masses and their active participation in politics is the most decisive feature of revolution, including the German Revolution. The revolution itself is a colossal school in which millions of ordinary men and women rapidly learn through their daily experience. Every single day a new revelation and a new lesson is learned. A new order begins to take shape and crystallise. Through the efforts and initiative of the masses alone, the revolution places power into their hands. As a consequence, it succeeds in breaking the political domination of the Junker class and sweeps away the monarchy. Leon Trotsky – who had direct experience of leading a revolution – answered the question in the following manner:
The most indubitable feature of a revolution is the direct interference of the masses in historical events. In ordinary times the state, be it monarchical or democratic, elevates itself above the nation, and history is made by specialists in that line of business – kings, ministers, bureaucrats, parliamentarians, journalists. But at those crucial moments when the old order becomes no longer endurable to the masses, they break over the barriers excluding them from the political arena, sweep aside their traditional representatives, and create by their own interference the initial groundwork for a new régime. Whether this is good or bad we leave to the judgment of moralists. We ourselves will take the facts as they are given by the objective course of development. The history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny. (L. Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution, emphasis added.)
If we take this scientific definition, the events in Germany in November 1918 certainly constituted a revolution. Unfortunately, it stopped short, halfway. It did not destroy the economic power of the bankers and capitalists. The fact that the German revolution was not carried through to a successful conclusion, as in Russia in 1917, is another matter. It simply proves that you cannot carry through half a revolution. A revolution must go all the way or it will fail. There is no halfway house.
It also demonstrates that victory does not fall like a ripe fruit from a tree. Even when every element of capitalist society has disintegrated, and the workers are prepared to take the power, it requires, above all, a determined and conscious revolutionary leadership, which is prepared to go to the very end.
Although the 1918 revolution was defeated, other revolutionary opportunities, equally as important, emerged in 1919, 1920 and in particular 1923. Trotsky believed revolutionary possibilities could have existed in German even up until the victory of Hitler. The German working class had shown itself more than ready to lead mankind out of an epoch of hunger and blood. The blame does not lie with them. In fact, nothing more could be asked of them. These opportunities were cynically squandered by their leaders. Once again, German capitalism was allowed to survive, but at such terrible human cost.