The German catastrophe of 1923

In the summer of 1923, Germany found itself in the grip of an intense revolutionary ferment. But this historic opportunity for the working class to seize power was squandered, with devastating implications, not only for Germany, but for the course of the world socialist revolution. In this article, marking the hundredth anniversary of the dramatic failure of the German Revolution in October 1923, Tatjana Pinetzki explains how this situation emerged, the mistakes of the leadership, and the impact of these events on world history.

[This article was originally published as part of issue 43 of In Defence of Marxism (IDOM) magazine, the quarterly theoretical journal of the Revolutionary Communist International. A print or digital subscription to the IDOM magazine is available here, as well as individual digital copies of issue 43]

“No other nation has experienced anything comparable to the events of 1923 in Germany. All nations went through the Great War, and most of them also experienced revolutions, social crises, strikes, redistribution of wealth, and currency devaluation. None but Germany has undergone the fantastic, grotesque extreme of all these together; none has experienced the gigantic, carnival dance of death, the unending, bloody Saturnalia, in which not only money but all standards lost their value.”^[1]

The October Revolution of 1917 in Russia gave a powerful impetus to the world socialist revolution. Lenin and the Bolsheviks clearly understood that the young Soviet republic depended for its survival on the aid of the international proletariat and on further victorious revolutions in Europe. Above all, they turned their gaze to the German working class, which in the revolutionary period between 1918 and 1923 was presented with several opportunities to break the rule of the capitalist class and the Prussian Junkers.

The November Revolution of 1918 not only forced Germany out of the First World War, but ended the German Empire itself, overthrowing the last Hohenzollern Emperor, Wilhelm II. But thanks to the reformist leadership of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the trade unions connected to it, capitalism was saved. Instead of being replaced by a socialist republic, the German Empire converted itself into the bourgeois Weimar Republic. 

Further revolutionary uprisings also failed, not only because of the treacherous role of the reformists but also because the immature Communist Party of Germany (KPD) had been robbed of its leading figures – above all Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht – by the counter-revolution.

The decisive turning point finally came in 1923. It was a year marked by deep political convulsions and extreme economic collapse. The KPD, now a mass party, was finally presented with the opportunity to fulfil its historical role and lead the working class to power.

A peace to end all peace

The Treaty of Versailles formally ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers on 28 June 1919. This humiliating agreement had devastating consequences for Germany, which was alone saddled with blame for the war. 

Defeated Germany was to assume full responsibility: it would have to disarm, make considerable territorial concessions, and pay reparations to the victorious powers.

France was the most aggressive of the Allied powers. Prime Minister Georges Clémenceau in particular was anxious to weaken Germany politically and economically. The French bourgeoisie grabbed the strategically important industrial region of Alsace-Lorraine and eyed the Rhineland. They hoped to strengthen their own position in Europe through the economic advantages thus acquired.

Far from liberating those nations formerly under the yoke of German imperialism, the victorious powers divided up the German colonies among themselves as well as the border regions of the overthrown empire. 

The total sum of reparations demanded stood at an unbearable 226 billion gold marks. The reparations proved impossible to pay, even after having been reduced to 132 billion marks in 1921. The reparations were paid not only in money, but in coal, steel, timber and agricultural products. Locomotive engines, trucks, and even cows were sent to France in reparations. 

Occupation of the Ruhr

By 1922, Germany was increasingly struggling to meet its reparations payments. On 26 December, the Allied Reparations Commission unanimously concluded that Germany had not fulfilled its obligations. 

France under Prime Minister Poincaré, followed by Belgium, marched 60,000 troops into the Ruhr valley / Image: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R09876, Wikimedia Commons

On 9 January 1923, the Commission declared that Germany was deliberately withholding supplies. This prompted France under Prime Minister Poincaré, followed by Belgium, to march with 60,000 troops into the Ruhr valley, the centre of German coal and steel production. 

The following day, Reich Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno announced that he would resist the occupation. This was an uncharacteristically daring move, and one that his government would come to regret.

The Reichstag agreed on a plan of ‘passive resistance’, which forbade any collaboration with the occupying authorities or reparations payments. Mass demonstrations against the French troops took place everywhere. In some cases, the industrialists and the trade unions made a joint call for protests. 

The Cuno government’s call for resistance unwittingly galvanised the class struggle. The working class responded enthusiastically to the call for resistance and the struggles quickly became more radical. The national unity between workers and capitalists quickly crumbled as class contradictions became more apparent. 

The capitalists, by contrast, secretly cooperated with the French in coal deliveries, in defiance of the Reichstag plan. When they were offered cash payment, the bourgeois didn’t hesitate to break off their ‘passive resistance’. They made huge profits, whilst calling upon the workers to make great sacrifices in the name of standing up to the Allied powers. 

This became an excuse to shift the burden of the general economic crisis onto the shoulders of the working class, particularly through inflation. Industrialists like Hugo Stinnes even demanded the abolition of the eight-hour day and branded demands for higher wages as  “unpatriotic”. ^[2]

Inflation profiteers

The inflation that Germany experienced was not down simply to reparations. The German Empire had financed its war effort by issuing domestic bonds, i.e. public debt. But these were insufficient to cover the costs of the war. The government therefore set about printing money and applying a loose credit policy. 

The amount of money in circulation rose from 2.9 billion marks at the outbreak of the war in August 1914, to 18.6 billion marks in December 1918. And the nation’s total debt by the war’s end stood at 156 billion marks. The external value of the mark had fallen by almost half relative to the pre-war period. ^[3] The reparations came on top of all this. In order to pay them, the government turned once again to the printing press, increasing the amount of paper money in circulation sixfold. 

Passive resistance also fuelled inflation. Production declined whilst the paper money in circulation proliferated, and the government worsened this by subsidising the lost profits of the industrialists of the Ruhr, using money it did not have. Further, the state picked up the wage bill for the workers in those factories standing idle as a result of passive resistance.

While smaller companies went bankrupt, the industries that produced for the export market flourished, as they were able to undercut foreign competitors with the devalued mark, receiving profits in dollars or gold. Hugo Stinnes was thus able to acquire an entire industrial empire on credit… which he repaid with worthless paper money. This earned him the title of the ‘inflation king’. 

Among those who profited so splendidly from inflation were the East Elbe landowners, who easily paid off their debts that had now become worthless. Many peasants were also among those to profit from inflation. With money becoming worthless, farmers held on to their produce, while people from the ruined middle classes were forced to barter all they had left – heirlooms, jewellery, fur coats, etc. – for food.

Inflation’s losers

Inflation turned into hyperinflation. Within months, the working class was plunged into absolute poverty. Meanwhile, the urban petty bourgeoisie was likewise being driven to ruin as inflation ate up their savings and incomes. Pensioners and welfare recipients (the unemployed, survivors and the disabled from the war) faced complete destitution.

Only a short while after receiving money, the sum would be rendered worthless. At the beginning of August 1923, the literary scholar Victor Klemperer wrote in his diary about what he observed in a café:

“The price board showed 6,000 M. That disappeared while she was drinking. When she went to pay, the waiter asked for 12,000. She said it had said 6,000 earlier. ‘Oh, you were already here during the old price? Then pay 6,000’.”^[4]

In 1919, the price of bread stood at 36 pfennigs. By September 1923, at the height of hyperinflation, the same loaf would cost 20.1 billion marks. Wheat consumption fell by 66 percent. Many families could barely afford meat. Coffee became a luxury good.

Poverty became even more bitter. Upon her visit to Germany the Russian Communist, Larissa Reissner, wrote:

“Berlin is starving. In the street everyday people who have fainted from exhaustion are being picked up on the trams and in the queues. Starving drivers drive the trams, starving motormen urge their trains on along the infernal corridors of the underground, starving men go off to work or roam without work for days and nights around the parks and the city’s outlying areas.” ^[5]

Preconditions of the revolution

The trade unions were plunged into crisis as the membership fees paid by the rank and file were rendered worthless. The SPD backed the right-wing Cuno government. The KPD, by contrast, advanced an independent position. It called on the workers to oppose both the occupation of the Ruhr and the attacks of the ruling class. Its slogan was: “Beat Poincaré at the Ruhr and Cuno at the Spree”. On 23 January, the KPD leadership published an appeal in the Die Rote Fahne (‘The Red Flag’):

“In this situation the proletariat must know that it has to fight on two sides. The German proletariat, of course, cannot submit to the capitalist invaders. The French capitalists are not one whit better than the Germans and the bayonets of the French occupation troops are no less sharp than those of the Reichswehr…

“Only if you march everywhere throughout the empire as an independent force, as a class fighting for its own interests, will you be able to confront the danger which lies in the strengthening of the German bourgeoisie by the nationalist frenzy. Only if you stand up separately from the German bourgeoisie, laying down its trade, will the workers of foreign countries, first and foremost the French workers, come to your aid.”^[6]

The objective conditions for a socialist revolution were in place. What had been a strike wave of ‘passive resistance’ called by Cuno in the Ruhr, was developing from May into a strike wave against the Cuno government itself. By the summer months, the Cuno government was on the brink of collapse. It had made no progress on the reparations question, nor in stabilising the currency. The mark was in free fall.

The Cuno government made no progress on the reparations question, nor in stabilising the currency / Image: public domain

The ruling class was divided, a large section wishing to abandon passive resistance altogether, while a small section was prepared to risk everything in a new war with France. One wing of the ruling class wanted to drop Wilhelm Cuno in favour of the ‘annexationist’ and representative of industrial capital, Gustav Stresemann of the national liberal German People's Party (DVP). Another wing was striving towards military dictatorship.

The working class was looking for a way out of its situation. In the course of the first half of the year, more and more workers turned to the KPD. In September 1923, the membership of the KPD was around 295,000. Jakob Walcher estimated at the extended meeting of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) in June that 2.4 million workers in the trade unions were under the influence of the Communists. Fritz Heckert reported that about 30-35 percent of organised workers were under the leadership of the KPD. ^[7]

Anger seethed among the petty bourgeoisie, and especially the urban middle classes, who turned their gaze in the direction of the workers’ parties. On this point, the historian Wolfgang Ruge wrote:

“Large sections of the middle classes joined more closely to the proletariat, took part in actions against usury and inflation, in tenants' strikes and hunger marches, began to realise that misery, insecurity and the danger of war could only be banished by overcoming bourgeois rule.”^[8]

Onto the offensive?

The situation required one thing above all else: a revolutionary leadership directing all its energies towards the preparations for an uprising and the seizure of power.

But after the party plunged into an ultra-left adventure in 1921, called the March Action, it had inevitably suffered defeat and been severely punished. Following the failure of the March Action, the KPD had correctly pursued the tactic of the United Front, adopted at the Third Congress of the Communist International of the same year. This involved Communist Parties appealing to reformist organisations, including the SPD, in order to expose their leaders and patiently drawing the working class to its side. 

The ultra-left wing of the KPD around Ruth Fischer, Arkadi Maslow and Ernst Thälmann incessantly denounced the “opportunist course” of the party leadership, and accused Brandler of pandering to the SPD. But on the basis of this tactic, the KPD succeeded in recovering from the defeat of 1921 and winning a wider layer of workers to its ranks. 

However, by 1923 the situation had changed; the KPD now needed to go on the offensive. But the party leadership, around Heinrich Brandler and August Thalheimer, had become overcautious, having burnt their fingers in 1921. In May 1923, the party centre completely misjudged the situation:

“We are not in a position to institute the dictatorship of the proletariat because the necessary preconditions, the revolutionary will amongst the majority of the working class, do not yet exist.” ^[9]

In truth, the situation could not have been more favourable. Arthur Rosenberg – historian and member of the KPD until 1927 – recalled: “There has never been a period in recent German history which would have been so favourable for a socialist revolution as the summer of 1923.”^[10]

The KPD Lefts indignantly demanded that the question of power be raised. They called for an immediate programme of action that included the occupation of factories, the introduction of workers’ control over production, and workers’ militias throughout the Ruhr. These measures were to open up the direct struggle for power.

The situation required one thing above all else: a revolutionary leadership / Image: public domain

Karl Retzlaff, a member of the KPD, wrote of those summer months:

“The inner-party disputes over the policy and tactics of the KPD meanwhile became so violent and spiteful that they were once more carried to the Communist International. Party leader Brandler and the most important members of the Central Committee went to Moscow in midsummer 1923 and again stayed away for several weeks. These very weeks were decisive for the expected popular uprising.”^[11]

In actual fact, the KPD – along with the ECCI, should have already begun preparations for an armed uprising in Germany. But the leadership of the Communist International, like the KPD leaders themselves, wavered. Grigory Zinoviev, then-chairman of the ECCI, claimed:

“This does not mean that revolution will come in a month or in a year. Perhaps much more time will be required. But in the historical sense Germany is on the eve of the proletarian revolution.”^[12]

The preparations for the insurrection were thus postponed indefinitely into the future. Unfortunately, neither Lenin, who was incapacitated, nor Leon Trotsky were present at the ECCI to steer the discussion towards the offensive. Many of the discussions revolved around the threat of fascism, instead of the Communists developing concrete plans for an uprising and an offensive of their own.

Anti-Fascist Day

As of the start of 1923, a reactionary government had been established in Bavaria under the monarchist, Gustav Ritter von Kahr. In the summer, rumours increasingly surfaced that fascist Freikorps and the Black Reichswehr were preparing for civil war against the Social Democratic minority governments in Saxony and Thuringia. In these states, the SPD leaned to the left and even tolerated the Proletarian Hundreds (workers’ militias), which had existed since 1920 and had been built up by the KPD.

The KPD headquarters published a decision in Die Rote Fahne: it declared 29 July to be an “Anti-Fascist Day” of the proletariat, and called for demonstrations throughout Germany. The self-proclaimed “bloodhound” of the Weimar state, Gustav Noske (SPD), banned all demonstrations in the Prussian province of Hanover, where he was president. Other states followed suit, with the exception of Saxony, Thuringia and Baden.

According to Pierre Broué, all the differences at the top of the party “immediately reappeared within the Zentrale. Should they accept the ban? Should they proceed, but if so, how could they avoid running excessive risks, and even risking a premature battle?”^[13]

Brandler argued for a compromise: demonstrations should go ahead where they were permitted, as well as in Prussia and the Ruhr, where the Reichswehr was not in a position to prevent them. Fischer insisted that demonstrations should also take place in Berlin, so that the KPD could save face. Brandler was unwilling to make the decision alone, and he called upon the advice of the ECCI.

When Brandler’s telegram arrived in Moscow, only Karl Radek was there to receive it, and he remained unconvinced that there was a revolutionary situation. He was of the opinion that the KPD should not take up the gauntlet, so as not to risk defeat. He asked for the opinion of other ECCI comrades. Trotsky was recovering from illness and had insufficient information, and therefore could not give any advice. Zinoviev and Nikolai Bukharin were in favour of defying the ban. Stalin was of a different opinion:

“If the Government in Germany topple[s] over now, in a manner of speaking, and the Communists were to seize hold of it, they would end up in a crash. That, in the ‘best’ case.”^[14]

In order to avoid what he believed would be a “general battle” in which the “bourgeoisie plus right-wing social democrats” would “smash the Communists”, it was Stalin’s opinion that the ECCI should, “hold the Germans back and not drive them on”.

Radek passed Stalin’s opinion on to the KPD. The central office endorsed his position. In most places, the street demonstrations planned for Anti-Fascist Day were replaced by assemblies, except in Saxony, Thuringia and Württemberg. But attendance at them was very high. 

“There were 200,000 in Berlin at 17 meetings, between 50,000 and 60,000 in Chemnitz, 30,000 in Leipzig, 25,000 in Gotha, 20,000 in Dresden, and a total of 100,000 in the Württemberg region.” ^[15]

The KPD leadership and the ECCI lagged far behind the developing situation. Even the bourgeois newspapers scented the danger of revolution. An anonymous editorial of Germania (party newspaper of the Catholic Centre Party) wrote on 27 July 1923: “The air is charged with electricity, and a spark is enough to set off an explosion”. All signs pointed to an imminent crisis of the state, comparable to the Russian October Revolution. 

Earlier, the conservative mouthpiece Neue Preußische Zeitung also declared that everything pointed to the imminent outbreak of a new revolution. On 28 July, the chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the Reichstag, Hermann Müller, expressed concern in the Social Democratic organ Vorwärts over the “wild radicalisation” of the masses. Should the formation of a new government be necessary, he said, the SPD was ready to participate constructively.

General strike against Cuno

At the end of July and the beginning of August, the social collapse due to inflation was so terrible that the Cuno government had become unacceptable to the working class. On 1 August, a family of five already had to spend 10 million marks to survive.

The social collapse due to inflation was so terrible that the Cuno government had become unacceptable to the working class / Image: public domain

A wave of strikes shook the bourgeoisie, particularly in Berlin, Hamburg, Silesia, the Ruhr and the central German industrial area. The strikes became political and had a further radicalising effect on the ‘Works Councils’, essentially factory committees that had been enshrined under the Weimar Constitution. 

These bodies had been introduced as a more peaceful, reformist alternative to the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils (German soviets) that had been established in 1918. Their main task was not to socialise industry but to regulate the workplace and make it more efficient, in conjunction with representatives of the bosses. But in the context of the deep crisis of 1923, a section of the Works Council movement began to move towards revolution.

On 7 August, a plenary meeting of Berlin Works Councils called on the Cuno government to resign. It called on the workers in the large factories to present this demand through delegations to the Reichstag.

The next day, the Berlin printers decided to call a general strike for 10 August, for the overthrow of the Cuno government. Only the newspapers and publishing houses of the workers’ parties were unaffected by the strike. Workers at the Reichsdruckerei, where money had been printed around the clock for months, also joined the strike. They were followed by the transport and electricity workers.

The Socialist, Evelyn Anderson, writes of the Cuno general strike:

“Next to the strike against the Kapp rebellion the Cuno strike was far the biggest and most successful mass action ever undertaken by the German working class. There were important differences, however, between the two strikes. In March 1920 German workers had responded to the joint appeal of their Unions and parties. In August 1923 no such appeal had been issued, either by the Unions or by any of the working-class parties. The Cuno strike was entirely spontaneous, and as such it was a unique action in the history of the German Labour movement.”^[16]

Out of desperation and a longing for a revolutionary solution, hundreds of thousands of workers left the SPD and joined the KPD. On 12 August, after the KPD introduced a motion of no confidence against Cuno in the Reichstag, the Cuno cabinet resigned. The KPD leadership could no longer ignore the seriousness of the situation. The majority of the workers were behind them. The hour had come to strike – but it passed unused.

President Ebert took advantage of the KPD’s hesitation. He offered Gustav Stresemann the Chancellorship. This reactionary had played a shady role in the Kapp Putsch of 1920. Although his party, the DVP, was not directly involved in the putsch, it had immediately declared its support for the Kapp government. 

Now the SPD entered into a bourgeois government with these counter-revolutionaries in order to thwart the working-class movement.

Differences in Moscow

The general strike against Cuno had also apparently roused Zinoviev and the rest of the ECCI. The KPD leaders were summoned to Moscow once more. When they arrived, they were surprised to see banners hanging all over Moscow that read: “Russian Youth Learn German! The German October Is Approaching!”

President Ebert took advantage of the KPD’s hesitation / Image: Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-10884, Wikimedia Commons

At the meeting of the ECCI and the Central Office, Radek reported that the German revolution had entered a new phase. Trotsky had no doubt that the time was now approaching for the decisive, direct struggle for power in Germany. Only a few weeks remained for preparations. Everything was to be subordinated to this task. Enough time had already been wasted because the KPD leadership and the ECCI had been incapable of correctly assessing the situation.

Zinoviev, however, took the view that it was more likely that months would pass before there would be a revolution. Stalin predicted the possibility of a revolution in the spring of 1924 at the earliest, if at all. Nevertheless, it was agreed that it was necessary to begin preparations now.

Other differences arose during the course of these preparatory meetings, for instance, over the question of when to call for the formation of workers’ councils along the lines of the soviets. Zinoviev argued that the KPD should call for the election of such councils before the uprising, since they would form the basic elements of the new German workers’ state. 

Trotsky and Brandler successfully argued that this was not necessary as such organs of workers’ democracy would form in the course of the revolution itself. Rather, the KPD could launch an insurrection in the name of any of the re-existing workers’ organisations, including the Works Councils, where it was beginning to grow in influence.

Trotsky and Brandler agreed on the question of the soviets, but they did not agree on whether to set a date for the uprising. The left wing of the KPD, supported by Zinoviev and Trotsky, insisted on setting a date. Trotsky proposed 7 November, the anniversary of the October Revolution in 1917. Brandler rejected this and was supported by Radek.

Both Radek and Brandler failed to grasp the revolutionary character of the situation in Germany. Indeed, Brandler privately expressed doubts as to whether the KPD was sufficiently prepared politically or organisationally for the revolution and wanted to postpone the plans, concerns that were shared by Radek and Stalin.

By 9 March 1923, Lenin was already seriously ill and was no longer politically active. The intrigues in the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were slowly coming to a head, and were aimed at Trotsky in particular. He was repeatedly opposed by the so-called ‘Troika’, the secret faction consisting of Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev, who wanted to prevent Trotsky from becoming Lenin’s successor. Now, the Troika’s personal concern with prestige played the most poisonous role.

When Brandler, who despite differences and controversies with Trotsky had been extremely impressed by him, asked that the organiser of the Russian October be sent to Germany, Zinoviev firmly refused. No one had forgotten what Trotsky had achieved in 1917. The Troika was not prepared to risk success in Germany, if that success would boost the prestige of their rival. 

‘Workers’ governments’ in Saxony and Thuringia

Despite the betrayal of the November Revolution in 1918 and the events that followed, the SPD still enjoyed influence over a broad section of the working class. It was precisely in the wake of that revolution that many joined the SPD, including Erich Zeigner. He belonged to a new layer of Social Democrats who had moved to the left.

In March 1923, a minority government of left Social Democrats was formed in Saxony, with Zeigner as prime minister. Zeigner rejected coalition talks with the bourgeois parties and instead sought talks with the KPD. On 18 March, the parties agreed a common programme on the basis of which the communists would support the SPD in power. The main points were: the formation of Proletarian Hundreds to defend against fascism, and the establishment of price control centres and control committees to combat usury.

The situation in Saxony now fed into the tactics of the KPD and Comintern. Instead of the capital, Berlin, the uprising was to begin in Saxony. On 1 October, a telegram arrived at KPD headquarters from Zinoviev on behalf of the ECCI. He called on them to enter the state governments of Saxony, as well as in Thuringia, where the SPD was likewise in government.

These so-called ‘workers’ governments’ – that is, coalition governments made up of representatives from the workers’ parties, including the KPD – were intended to become a springboard for the coming revolution. 

Brandler was unimpressed by this plan, and claimed that the government of Saxony was not in a position to arm the workers. However, his objections were rejected by Zinoviev, who argued that any military force used against these left governments could serve as a stepping stone for a revolutionary counter-offensive. It also instructed the party leadership to make plans for a national general strike. This was to be the basis for an uprising.

On 10 October, Brandler finally became State Secretary in the State Chancellery in Zeigner’s Saxon cabinet. KPD members Paul Böttcher became Minister of Finance and Fritz Heckert Minister of Economics. On 16 October, three more KPD deputies joined the Thuringian state government.

The Reich government under Stresemann and the capitalist class went on the offensive once more. On 20 October, the Reichswehr issued an ultimatum to the Saxon government to disband the Proletarian Hundreds in its jurisdiction within three days. Zeigner was determined to resist the threats, and the state parliament rejected the ultimatum. As a result, troops marched in on 21 October to restore bourgeois supremacy.

The German October is cancelled

On the same day, a conference of workers’ organisations was held in Chemnitz on Brandler’s initiative. Brandler wanted to use this conference to argue for a national general strike in defence of the SPD-KPD governments.

The meeting was attended by 498 delegates, “of whom about 140 were from works councils, 102 from various trade unions, 20 from the Saxon ADGB leadership, 79 from control bodies, 26 from workers’ co-operatives, 15 from action committees, 16 from unemployment committees, 66 from KPD organisations, seven from social democratic organisations and one independent.”^[17]

The conference started with the reports of the three Saxon ministers: Georg Graupe (SPD), Böttcher and Heckert (both KPD). All three emphasised the poor food supply, the severity of inflation and the catastrophic unemployment. Many delegates commented on the political situation in Saxony and advocated immediately organising the struggle against the military dictatorship. Some even called on the governments of Thuringia and Saxony to immediately call a general strike against the preparations of the Reichswehr. 

Brandler spoke next and moved the motion for the general strike. However, he stressed that unanimity was required. In this way, delegates to the conference were given a veto over a general strike. This was completely at odds with what should have been done in preparing an insurrection, as it was clear from the outset that the trade unions and the left-reformist SPD delegates would inevitably lag behind the actual situation.

There were several clashes in Saxony, which was flooded with 60,000 Reichswehr troops / Image: public domain

As expected, the SPD ministers spoke out vehemently against the proposal to launch a general strike. They did not want to challenge the Reichswehr. Graupe even went so far as to say that if the Communists pushed through the motion proposed by Brandler, he would leave the conference with his party comrades and leave the Communists alone with this responsibility. Brandler then agreed to withdraw his motion.

After this debacle, Brandler saw no other option but to abandon plans for a general strike. He was convinced that it would not work without the Social Democrats. However, in a debriefing with Radek, he added that the decision to call off the general strike could be reversed if the ECCI disagreed. Radek, however, agreed to call it off. Zinoviev and Stalin also supported the decision.  

Rob Sewell, in his book on Germany from 1918 to 1933, evaluates the actions of the leadership as follows:

“The party had been outmanoeuvred by the reformist leaders and was now disorientated with no alternative plans. The decision of the Chemnitz conference could not have been more calculated to produce the maximum confusion. Brandler and Thalheimer, in particular, had bungled the affair. But behind them stood the foot-dragging advice of the Comintern leaders, not least of all Stalin.”^[18]

Only in Hamburg was the uprising not called off. The news of the cancelled uprising did not reach the local KPD. The reasons for this are not entirely clear. Whether it was due to a break with party discipline or the result of misunderstandings or communication failures remains unclear.  

It was hoped that the Hamburg uprising would form part of a national revolutionary upsurge, but the insurrection remained isolated. Despite a heroic struggle, the Communists were crushed and eventually had to withdraw. There were also several clashes in Saxony, which was flooded with 60,000 Reichswehr troops as early as 22 October, in order to put a stop to the SPD-KPD government there. 

Now the soldiers were rampaging through Saxony. The most serious clashes took place in Freiberg am Erzgebirge, where soldiers fired on demonstrators, killing 23 and injuring 21. In addition, there were arbitrary arrests and mistreatment of prisoners.

Stresemann demanded Zeigner’s resignation and threatened further repression. On 28 October, Zeigner quit his collaboration with the KPD and resigned two days later. It was an inglorious retreat.

After the failed October 

In 1923, all the elements for a successful revolution were in place, including a mass revolutionary party. So how did this defeat come about? An honest evaluation of the events should have been at the top of the ECCI’s agenda. But instead, the individuals who played a decisive role in the debacle tried to cover their tracks.

The ECCI should have initiated preparations for the uprising in June at the latest, but had misjudged the situation from the beginning. Zinoviev in particular feared for his reputation. He himself had approved all the decisions, including cancelling the German October. But he cast blame onto the KPD leadership. 

Initially, he claimed that it had been right to call off the uprising; later, he accused them of having been insufficiently prepared for it. That was certainly true, but were Brandler, Thalheimer and the other KPD leaders solely to blame? 

Zinoviev’s about-turn did not happen by chance. On 8 October, Trotsky wrote a letter to the Russian Central Committee denouncing the rise of the bureaucracy in the party and the Soviet state. This open attack terrified the Troika. It was followed on 15 October by a joint letter, signed by 46 leading Communists, who took a similar line to Trotsky.

Until then, the conflict with Trotsky had been carried out behind closed doors, but now it came out in the open. This led to a sharper polemic, which was even published in the pages of Pravda. 

Brandler and Thalheimer defended themselves against this criticism, claiming that the defeat was down to the changed objective situation, that the working class itself was not ready for revolution, and that by October any attempt at insurrection would have failed.

It is true that a revolutionary situation had already existed since the summer and had reached its high-point with the fall of the Cuno government. The revolutionary upsurge had begun to wane by October, but this in no way ruled out a successful overturn. As Sewell explains:

“There was a degree of exhaustion by October. But a revolutionary situation, if we compare the Russian events from February to October, is not a straight line; it unfolds erratically. Within the revolutionary curve there are sudden breaks.”^[19]

It should be noted that a similar passivity reigned over the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party as late as October 1917, the very month they took power. Writing from hiding in Finland, Lenin bombarded the leadership with letters, indignantly demanding that the party move from words to action:

“There is no middle course. Delay is impossible. The revolution is dying.”^[20]

Without this constant pressure from Lenin, and the intervention of Trotsky, the Bolshevik Revolution might never have taken place. 

The main obstacle to the German October uprising of 1923 was the indecision of the leadership. It had not prepared the uprising sufficiently, either politically or organisationally. 

Even after the decision in favour of an insurrection in September, it took hardly any political measures. The direction of the agitation and propaganda remained unchanged, and neither the KPD nor the working class was prepared by the leadership by the raising of the question of power.

In October itself, the Communists had entered the governments of Saxony and Thuringia with the intention of using them as bases for an insurrection. And yet, hardly any of the practical steps required to launch such an insurrection – organising supplies of armaments and food, the formation of factory committees, etc. – were initiated.

In this way, the revolutionary situation was squandered, only for those responsible to claim that the masses had not been ready and that the objective situation had not been mature enough.

In his Lessons of October, written 1924, after the failure of the German Revolution, Trotsky emphasised that in the conditions present in Germany at that time it was precisely the indecision and passivity of the party leadership that cultivated passivity in the masses, not the other way round:

“...a party which carries on a protracted revolutionary agitation, tearing the masses away from the influence of the conciliationists, and then, after the confidence of the masses has been raised to the utmost, begins to vacillate, to split hairs, to hedge, and to temporise – such a party paralyses the activity of the masses, sows disillusion and disintegration among them, and brings ruin to the revolution; but in return it provides itself with the ready excuse – after the debacle – that the masses were insufficiently active.”^[21]

The year 1923 shows how important far-sighted and decisive leadership is in turbulent times. At certain points, the actions of a handful of people can determine the fate of the world revolution – for better or for worse. 

Through their mistakes, the German and international leadership wasted a crucial opportunity to continue the world revolution in October 1923. It is no exaggeration to say the whole of world history would have been changed had they succeeded in taking power.

The failure of the German revolution effectively sealed the isolation of the revolution in Russia. Without a successful revolution in an advanced country like Germany, the backward conditions in Soviet Russia led to the emergence of a powerful, privileged bureaucracy. Just one year later, Stalin came forward with his ‘theory’ of “socialism in one country”, which reflected the counter-revolutionary interests of the bureaucracy in the isolated workers’ state.

Today, it is necessary to understand the lessons of the failed German October. Capitalism is in decline, and revolutionary situations await us in every country. As Communists, we must devote ourselves to the building of the subjective factor – the revolutionary party – and learn to correctly assess and prepare for the transition from a period of agitation and propaganda to the direct struggle for power.

References

[1] S Haffner, Defying Hitler: a memoir, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002, pg 52,53

[2] R Sewell, Germany 1918-1933: Socialism or Barbarism, Wellred Books, 2018, p. 248

[3] V Ullrich, Deutschland 1923. Das Jahr am Abgrund, C.H.Beck, 2023, pg 72-73, our translation

[4] ibid., pg 79, our translation

[5] L Reissner, “Berlin im Oktober 1923“, Hamburg auf den Barrikaden, Haag & Herchen, 2013, pg 90

[6] “Aus dem Aufruf der Zentrale der KPD vom 22. Januar” (“Die Rote Fahne”, Berlin 23 January 1923), Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, Vol. 3, Dietz Verlag, 1966, pg 648, our translation

[7] P Broué, The German Revolution 1917-1923, Koninklijke Brill, 2005, pg 717

[8] W Ruge, Republik auf Zeit, Verlag das europäische Buch, 1969, pg 114, our translation

[9] P Broué, The German Revolution 1917-1923, Koninklijke Brill, 2005, pg 707

[10] A Rosenberg, A History of the German Republic, Methuen, 1936, pg 192

[11] K Retzlaff, Spartacus.Erinnerungen eines Parteiarbeiters, Verlag Neue Kritik, 1985, pg 236

[12] E H Carr, The Interregnum 1923-1924, 1954, pg 178

[13] P Broué, The German Revolution 1917-1923, Koninklijke Brill, 2005, pg 738

[14] L Trotsky, Stalin, Wellred Books, 2016, pg 530

[15] P Broué, The German Revolution 1917-1923, Koninklijke Brill, 2005, pg 741

[16] E Anderson, Hammer or Anvil: The story of the German working-class movement, Victor Gollancz, 1945, pg 92

[17] P Broué, The German Revolution 1917-1923, Koninklijke Brill, 2005, pg 806

[18] R Sewell, Germany 1918-1933: Socialism or Barbarism, Wellred Books, 2018, pg 269

[19] ibid., pg 282

[20] V I Lenin, “Marxism and insurrection”, Lenin Collected Works, Vol. 26, Progress Publishers, 1977, pg 22

[21] L Trotsky, Lessons of October, Pioneer Publishers, 1937, pg 42