100-541: (Redirected from Anti-Bolshevik ) Anti-bolshevism may refer to: Council communism , a current of socialist thought Anti-communism , opposition to communism Anti-Leninism , opposition to the political philosophy of Vladimir Lenin Anti-Stalinist left , a leftist current opposed to the political philosophy of Joseph Stalin Anti-Sovietism , opposition to
200-764: A New Labour Movement" and Helmut Wagner's "Theses on Bolshevism". Council communists popped up in several other countries. The German emigrant Paul Mattick brought it to the United States where he published the International Council Correspondence . J.A. Dawson published the Southern Advocate of Workers' Councils in Australia and Laín Diez published council communist texts in Chile. The 1960s student movement led to
300-500: A battle be fought before the Brandenburger Tor between troops that have fought side by side against a common enemy? When Reichswehr fires on Reichswehr all comradeship within the officers' corps will have vanished". Others have quoted Seeckt's words as the even more succinct: "Reichswehr does not fire on Reichswehr!" Noske, depressed enough by the disloyalty of the military to speak about suicide to an aide, reported to
400-526: A brief resurgence of council communism, mainly in France, Italy, and Germany. After the decline of the 1968 movement , it mostly disappeared again, but for a few small groups in Europe and North America. While sharing a common general direction, council communists differed widely in their views on many issues. In contrast to reformist social democracy and to Leninism, the central argument of council communism
500-447: A citizen militia began to coalesce around the school. At about noon, a Freikorps machine-gunner fired a burst over the gathering crowd to disperse them. A firefight ensued, with 13 civilian casualties. Three Iron Troop soldiers were also killed, and eight others captured and executed. With neither police nor Reichswehr troops to restrain the gathering militia, and little ammunition among his troops, Berthold realized he had to negotiate
600-419: A communist society. Where the network of worker councils would be the main vehicle for revolution, acting as the apparatus by which the dictatorship of the proletariat forms and operates. The government and the economy should be managed by workers' councils composed of delegates elected at workplaces and recallable at any moment. As such, council communists oppose authoritarian socialism . They also oppose
700-536: A competition to select a design. It was built according to plans submitted by the architectural office of Walter Gropius . Although Gropius had said that the Bauhaus should remain politically neutral, he agreed to participate in the competition of Weimar artists at the end of 1920. The monument was arranged around an inner space, in which visitors could stand. The repeatedly fractured and highly angular memorial rose up on three sides, as if thrust up from or rammed into
800-414: A mass movement to failures by its proponents. They did not develop a politics that could survive under a stabilized capitalism. Council communists did not gain an understanding of the composition of the council movement, the reasons for its decline, and the influence of Leninism and democracy on workers. All this was exacerbated, according to Gerber, by council communists' dogmatism and a lack of leadership at
900-563: A party in its own right. The AAUD–E quickly became an assortment of individual groups and tendencies rather than a coherent organization. It lost its leading theorist Rühle in 1925, when he concluded that the political situation was too reactionary for revolutionary politics. In 1927, it merged with a group excluded from the KPD and a union organization to form the Spartacist League of Left Communist Organizations, which in turn merged with
1000-506: A provisional government. Lüttwitz served as commander of the armed forces and Minister of Defence. Several well-known conservatives and former secretaries of state were invited to assume government positions but declined. International con-man Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln became Kapp's press censor. Since 1 January, Rudolf Berthold 's Iron Troop Freikorps had been returning to Germany from fighting in Lithuania. Their eventual destination
1100-589: A right-wing politician associated with the Bavarian People's Party , as Minister President of Bavaria. In the rest of the Reich, the commanders of the Wehrkreise (military districts) did not declare for or against Kapp but were not neutral and most sympathised more or less openly with the putschists. The upper echelons of the bureaucracy were still dominated by those who had risen to their positions under
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#17327828434601200-714: A supporting role. On 29 February 1920, the Defence Minister Noske ordered the disbandment of two of the most powerful Freikorps , the Marinebrigade Loewenfeld and Marinebrigade Ehrhardt . The latter numbered from 5,000 to 6,000 men and had been stationed at the Truppenübungsplatz Döberitz , near Berlin, since January 1920. An elite force, it had been created from former Imperial Navy officers and NCOs, boosted later by Baltikumer (those who had fought
1300-654: A surrender. He agreed to let his unarmed men exit the school at six pm upon assurance the militia would not harm them. During this surrender, an enraged crowd of onlookers mobbed the Iron Troop, and Berthold was murdered. The disarmed Iron Troop was taken to a nearby military base. There was no military resistance to the Putsch; the regular troops in Berlin, Sicherheitspolizei , navy, the army commands of East-Prussia , Pomerania , Brandenburg and Silesia , formally accepted
1400-456: A train, which crept along unsafe tracks into Harburg, Hamburg . Before the Iron Troop's arrival, Independent Socialist city officials had quietly arrested the commanding officer of the local Reichswehr battalion, leaving the soldiers leaderless. Upon the train's arrival, the officials directed the Freikorps to the local middle school for shelter. On the following morning, 15 March 1920,
1500-638: Is a Jew, he will play the card of Jewish finance-capital". The next major dispute in the KAPD concerned the formation of a new International opposed to the Comintern, the participation of the AAUD in wage struggles, and the role of the party's leadership around Karl Schröder . Schröder's leadership in the KAPD became increasingly controversial and he was perceived by some as attempting to exert dictatorial control. Politically, Schröder's faction argued that capitalism
1600-563: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Council communism Defunct Council communism or Councilism is a current of communist thought that emerged in the 1920s. Inspired by the November Revolution , council communism was opposed to state socialism and advocated workers' councils and council democracy . It is regarded as being strongest in Germany and
1700-603: Is not a Party Matter , Rühle argued that the goal of the revolutionary movement was to take over production and therefore had no need for a party, which would necessarily become opportunist. Accordingly, Rühle and his supporters left the KAPD in November 1920 and, when it became clear that the pro-KAPD faction was in control of the AAUD in June 1921, they set up the AAUD–Unitary Organization (AAUD–E). The AAUD–E criticized
1800-481: Is referred to as anti-authoritarian and anti-Leninist Marxism. Kapp Putsch Collapse of the putsch [REDACTED] Putschists [REDACTED] Weimar Republic The Kapp Putsch ( German pronunciation: [ˈkapˌpʊt͡ʃ] ), also known as the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch ( German pronunciation: [kapˈlʏtvɪt͡sˌpʊt͡ʃ] ), was an attempted coup against
1900-489: Is that democratic workers councils arising in factories and municipalities are the natural form of working class organisation and governmental power, maintaining that the working class should not rely on Leninist vanguard parties or reforms of the capitalist system to bring socialism. Alternatively, the party would maintain a propagandic and "minoritarian" role. Council communists see the mass strike and new yet to emerge forms of mass action as revolutionary means to achieve
2000-579: Is the Russian model that reveals to all countries something – and something highly significant – of their near and inevitable future" and that certain features of the Russian Revolution were universally valid. Gorter took on the task of answering Lenin. His Open Letter to Comrade Lenin reiterated the argument that the differences in the class structure between East and West necessitated differences in communist tactics. Despite this dispute,
2100-463: The Baltic , have supported this act of madness, the government—in order to avoid the spilling of blood—has spared the lives of the few regular troops located in Berlin and has departed Berlin. For enough blood has flowed since 1914. And this adventure will collapse in a few days from its intrinsic impracticality. The government has transferred its seat to Dresden . Everyone remains bound in obedience to
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#17327828434602200-754: The Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution. In 1918, Gorter said that the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin "stands out above all other leaders of the Proletariat" and that Karl Marx was Lenin's sole peer. In 1919, Pannekoek wrote that "in Russia communism has been put into practice for two years now". When the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was formed in December 1918, a majority in the party
2300-471: The Marinebrigaden . Ebert and Noske rejected these demands and Noske told Lüttwitz that he expected his resignation the next day. Lüttwitz went to Döberitz on 11 March and asked Ehrhardt whether he would be able to occupy Berlin that evening. Ehrhardt said he needed another day but in the morning of 13 March he could be in the centre of Berlin with his men. Lüttwitz gave the order and Ehrhardt began
2400-799: The Netherlands during the 1920s. Council communism emerged in the years after 1918, as some communists in Germany and the Netherlands concluded that the Russian Revolution had led to power being concentrated in the hands of a new political elite. Its most prominent early proponents were the German educator Otto Rühle , the Dutch astronomer Anton Pannekoek , and the Dutch poet Herman Gorter . They were initially enthusiastic supporters of
2500-615: The Social Democratic Party (SPD), German Democratic Party (DDP, left-of-centre liberals), and Zentrum (conservative Catholics). President Friedrich Ebert , Chancellor Gustav Bauer , and Defence Minister Gustav Noske were all members of the SPD. According to the constitution, the president was the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, represented in peace time by the Minister of Defence. The most senior officer of
2600-409: The 1930s. According to Frits Kool, the term council communism was first used by Franz Pfemfert in 1921. According to van der Linden, council communism was defined by five basic principles: The German and Dutch left was part of a broader left communist movement that pushed back against the imposition of the Bolshevik model on Western Europe. In Vienna, Georg Lukács emphasized the importance of
2700-593: The AAUD–E. In 1925, the Essen KAPD's main leaders including Schröder left to rejoin the SPD as they thought the revival of the council movement of the revolutionary period unlikely. In 1927, Gorter died and by 1929 the group could not afford to publish its newspaper. The Berlin KAPD, having lost its leadership and theorists to the Essen KAPD, spent the next years issuing repeated and widely ignored calls for insurrection. In 1927, it lost its AAUD affiliate which declared itself
2800-798: The American Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It was seen by some as the union federation affiliate of the KAPD . In 1918, Gorter wrote the pamphlet The World Revolution pointing to differences between the situations in Russia and Western Europe. Pannekoek asserted in World Revolution and Communist Tactics , a pamphlet he published in 1920, that communist tactics in Western Europe were necessarily different from those in Russia. He argued that in Western Europe
2900-672: The Army. The pilot was Robert von Greim , whom Hitler later appointed as the last commander of the Luftwaffe. He was met by striking workers at an airfield outside of Berlin, where he landed by mistake, and had to disguise himself. Eventually Hitler was able to continue his flight together with Dietrich Eckart to Berlin, where they immediately went to the Reichskanzlei to meet Wolfgang Kapp. Hitler and Eckart were approached by Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln , who told them that Kapp had fled and
3000-578: The Berlin AAUD in 1931 to create the Communist Workers' Union of Germany, but this organization had a membership of just 343. By the early 1930s, council communism as a large-scale movement had come to an end. According to John Gerber, council communism was a product of the post-war turmoil and, as a result of the end of the council movement, the council communists' politics became abstract. He also attributes council communism's decline as
3100-574: The Bolsheviks in Latvia in 1919). During the civil war in 1919, the brigade had seen action in Munich and Berlin. It was extremely opposed to the democratic government of Friedrich Ebert. Its commander, Korvettenkapitän Hermann Ehrhardt , declared that the unit would refuse its dissolution. On 1 March, it staged a parade without inviting Noske. General Walther von Lüttwitz , in command of all
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3200-473: The Comintern. At the Second World Congress of the Comintern in 1920, the Comintern leaders Lenin, Leon Trotsky , and Grigory Zinoviev unanimously rejected the KAPD's positions. An open letter by the Comintern's executive committee informed the KAPD that the Comintern fully supported the KPD in its dispute with the left. Some KAPD delegates left the congress early in protest. Lenin criticized
3300-526: The Empire and most were sympathetic to the coup, whilst remaining outwardly neutral and biding their time. In the eastern provinces, the bureaucracy fell in line behind Kapp and Lüttwitz. The government moved to Dresden , where they hoped to get support from Generalmajor Maercker but he had been ordered by Berlin to take them into "protective custody" and they moved on to Stuttgart . The cabinet proclamation on 13 March, calling on German workers to defeat
3400-496: The Essen tendency. Pannekoek was exasperated by the factionalism in the movement and stayed out of the dispute, though he mostly sympathized with the Berlin tendency. After the KAPD withdrew from the Comintern in 1921, its leadership decided to make plans for the formation of a new International. Schröder and Gorter supported this, but many in the organization were skeptical that the time was right for this move. In April 1922, after
3500-415: The German council communist movement consisted mostly of intellectuals who had already been part of the left wing of the SPD before World War I as well as younger intellectuals, people with a Bohemian background and academics, who were radicalized by the war. Its membership consisted mostly of younger workers who had not been politically active before the war and former soldiers embittered by the brutality of
3600-656: The German national government in Berlin on 13 March 1920. Named after its leaders Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz , its goal was to undo the German Revolution of 1918–1919 , overthrow the Weimar Republic , and establish an autocratic government in its place. It was supported by parts of the Reichswehr , as well as nationalist and monarchist factions. Although the legitimate German government
3700-717: The KAPD for differing from the KPD only in its rejection of parliamentarianism. At the KAPD's second congress in August 1920, the National Bolshevik wing of the party was expelled. This wing was led by Heinrich Laufenberg and Fritz Wolffheim . They supported a strong German nation that, after a successful proletarian revolution, would ally itself with the Soviet Union in a struggle against Western capital and militarism. They also invoked anti-Semitic stereotypes in their critique of Paul Levi, claiming that "because Levi
3800-626: The KAPD was replicated in the Bulgarian and Dutch organizations, as groups in each party supported the Essen KAPD and others the Berlin KAPD. After 1922, the council communist organizations declined and disintegrated. The German organizations were down to 20,000 supporters in 1923 and just a few hundred by 1933. The Essen KAPD declined most quickly. In 1923, a faction left to form the League of Council Communists, most of whose members then joined
3900-646: The KAPD's mass base and never had more than 200 members. In Bulgaria, too, there was a left communist wing in the Communist Party . Led by Ivan Ganchev and influenced by the KAPD, the left formed the Bulgarian Communist Workers' Party (BRKP) in January 1922. It had just over a thousand members, mostly workers and few intellectuals. In the United Kingdom, the former suffragist Sylvia Pankhurst , also opposed to parliamentary politics,
4000-418: The KAPD, Pannekoek, and other left groups in the 1920 pamphlet "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder , accusing them of spreading confusion. He claimed that a refusal to work in parliaments and labor unions would leave workers under the influence of reactionary leaders. He conceded that there were considerable differences between Russia and the more advanced countries in Western Europe, but held that "it
4100-582: The KAPD, and other similar groups, initially sought to change the international communist movement from within. At the Third World Congress of the Comintern in 1921, the KAPD failed to rally a left opposition and therefore withdrew from the International. The council communist critique of Bolshevism became more fundamental. Council communists concluded that the Bolsheviks were not in fact building socialism. In 1921, Pannekoek argued that
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4200-538: The National assembly has been requested to convene the National assembly again at once. Only a government based on the Constitution can save Germany from sinking into darkness and blood. If Germany is led from one coup to another, then it is lost. A government resting on an act of violence lacks authority domestically and abroad. The people will starve if new troubles interrupt the economy and commerce and undermine
4300-455: The Putsch and the subsequent Ruhr Uprising except those due to "cruelty" or "self-interest". Of 705 cases brought against civilians, only the prosecution of von Jagow ended with a guilty verdict. Freikorps and Reichswehr members were subject to military law and of 775 courts-martial , 486 cases were closed. 48 officers were removed from their posts, six resigned, the others were subject to mild disciplinary actions. The Marinebrigade Ehrhardt
4400-568: The Putsch by means of a general strike met with enormous success and received massive support from the working class . The majority unions, sympathetic to the government dominated by social democrats , joined the call for a strike on the same day, as did the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) and the Democratic Party; the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) followed one day later. In Berlin,
4500-553: The Putsch collapsed on 17 March, four days after it had begun. Kapp had put Vice-Chancellor Schiffer and the members of the Prussian state government into protective custody on 13 March but they were released the next day and on 15 March, negotiations began. Representatives of the democratic right, Oskar Hergt and Gustav Stresemann also participated. The four big centre-right parties (Democratic Party, Zentrum, German People's Party and German National People's Party ) agreed that
4600-587: The Republic, which would make the Reichstag, rather than the electorate, responsible for the presidential election. As a consequence of the political crisis that the putsch caused, the date of the general election for the first republican Reichstag was brought forward to 6 June. All attempts to change the method of election for the presidency of the Republic were abandoned. In the Reichstag elections of 6 June ,
4700-568: The Russian Revolution was but a bourgeois revolution like the French Revolution . Gorter characterized it as initially a dual revolution, a working-class revolution against capitalism and a capitalist revolution against feudalism, but argued that this dualism was resolved with the New Economic Policy of 1921 and that Soviet Russia had become unambiguously a capitalist state. By 1921, council communism had broken with
4800-476: The Treaty of Versailles, which came into effect on 10 January 1920, Germany was required to reduce its land forces to a maximum of 100,000 men, who were to be only professional soldiers, not conscripts. The initial deadline was set for 31 March 1920 (later extended to the end of the year). Freikorps units were expected to be disbanded. Since the reason for their creation—internal repression—had become obsolete with
4900-402: The bourgeoisie was more established and experienced and that as a result class struggle must oppose bourgeois institutions such as parliaments and trade unions. He emphasized the importance of class consciousness among the masses and deemed the avant-garde party model advocated by the Bolsheviks a potential obstacle to revolution. Immediately after the KAPD's formation, it sought admission to
5000-495: The cabinet at 4:00 am. At a confused meeting at the Reichskanzlei , the undefended cabinet took two decisions: to flee the city and to issue a call for a general strike. These were not unanimous, the Vice-Chancellor Eugen Schiffer and some of the other non-SPD ministers refused to leave the city, to preserve the opportunity to negotiate with the putschists. Only Ebert and the SPD ministers signed
5100-659: The call for a general strike. At 6:15 am they had to interrupt the meeting and flee. Within ten minutes of their departure, the Marinebrigade reached the Brandenburger Tor , where it was met by Lüttwitz, Ludendorff, Kapp and their followers. Shortly thereafter, Kapp's men moved into the Reichskanzlei. Supported by a battalion of regular Reichswehr, they occupied the government quarter. Kapp declared himself Chancellor ( Reichskanzler ) and formed
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#17327828434605200-412: The constitutional government. Only it can issue orders and payments. Any decree from another place is legally null. The soldiers of the national army have to defend the constitution, protect the president and government, and be obedient. To emulate the breaking of their oath by a number of officers is prohibited by duty and law. The dissolution of the national assembly is unconstitutional. The President of
5300-412: The country and only fled to Sweden in April. Lüttwitz first went to Saxony and only later left for Hungary . Both men used passports provided by supporters in the police. Ehrhardt went into hiding in Bavaria. In 2009, Layton wrote, "At first sight the collapse of the Kapp Putsch could be viewed as a major success for the Weimar Republic. In the six days of crisis, it had retained the backing of
5400-439: The country, the strike turned into an armed revolt. The violence came from local military commanders who supported the new government and arrested pickets, which the workers resisted. In Thuringia and Saxony the military defeated the workers after bloody fights. In the Ruhr , the workers continued their protests after the Putsch in Berlin had collapsed. In the Ruhr uprising , the Red Ruhr Army of about 50,000 workers went on
5500-546: The country, until the National Assembly had decided on the question of an amnesty and even offered them false passports and money. On 18 March, Seeckt praised the discipline of the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt and the next day provided Ehrhardt with a written promise that he would not be arrested as long as he was in command of the brigade and the brigade left Berlin. When they were heckled by an unfriendly crowd of bystanders, they opened fire with machine guns, leaving twelve civilians dead and thirty severely wounded. Kapp remained in
5600-408: The coup failed. With the country paralyzed, Kapp and Lüttwitz were unable to govern; in Berlin, communication between military units was by courier only. The rank and file of the bureaucracy were on strike, and there were no newspapers. Proclamations asking the workers to return to their jobs, promises of new elections and even the threat of capital punishment for strikers remained without results and
5700-419: The crushing of the leftist uprisings, they were becoming a threat to the government. Some senior military commanders had started discussing the possibility of a coup as early as July 1919. Although the Putsch has been named after Wolfgang Kapp , a 62-year-old nationalist East Prussian civil servant, who had been planning a coup against the republic for a while, it was instigated by the military; Kapp played
5800-522: The earth. The monument was destroyed by the Nazis in February 1936. They objected to it politically and considered it an example of " degenerate art ", as Hitler characterized modern works. To the German people! As a result of a lunatic coup de main , the government buildings of Berlin have fallen into the hands of mutineers. No political party, no man of sober-minded thought is behind these events. They are to be deplored. Since troops that are destined for discharge in Döberitz, namely [troops] from
5900-473: The general strike. It offered some concessions to the unions, some of them made in bad faith. The unions ( ADGB , Afa-Bund and DBB ) demanded the creation of a new government made up of SPD and USPD led by Carl Legien , but only a new government based on the Weimar Coalition found a majority in the National Assembly. Hermann Müller (SPD) replaced Bauer as chancellor. The government then tried to negotiate with workers who refused to lay down their arms after
6000-430: The government a chance to surrender before being taken into custody, assuming that all of Lüttwitz's demands were accepted by 7:00 am. This was reported to Noske who met with Ebert. Ebert then called a cabinet meeting for 4:00 am. At 1:00 am Noske asked the senior commanders to his office in the Bendlerblock . Noske asked the commanders to defend the government buildings but was turned down. All but two of
6100-486: The government of the Soviet Union Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Anti-bolshevism . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anti-bolshevism&oldid=1067383821 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
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#17327828434606200-418: The government suppressed by military force, after having dealt leniently with leaders of the Putsch. These events polarized the German electorate, resulting in a shift in the majority after the June 1920 Reichstag elections . After Germany had lost World War I (1914–1918), the German Revolution of 1918–1919 ended the monarchy. The German Empire was abolished and a democratic system, the Weimar Republic ,
6300-408: The idea of a revolutionary party since council communists believe that a party-led revolution will necessarily produce a party dictatorship. Council communism and other types of libertarian Marxism such as autonomism are often viewed as being similar to anarchism due to similar criticisms of Leninist ideologies for being authoritarian and the rejection of the idea of a vanguard party. As such, it
6400-442: The land forces was called Chef der Heeresleitung , a post held in early 1920 by General Walther Reinhardt . Chancellor Bauer was obliged to sign the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, even though he disagreed with it. The treaty had been dictated by the victorious Allies of World War I ; it forced Germany to assume responsibility for the war, reduced the area of Germany and imposed huge reparation payments and military restrictions on
6500-455: The left had cause to accuse the SPD and the Ebert government of siding with the enemies of the workers and of the republic. The Putsch left a rump of military conspirators such as Pabst and Ehrhardt, who found refuge in Bavaria under the right-wing government of Gustav von Kahr (itself an indirect product of the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch) and there attempted to organize plots against the republican constitution and government of Germany. The crisis in
6600-439: The left majority out of the party and about half of its 100,000 members left. In April 1920, the left formed the Communist Workers' Party of Germany (KAPD) with an initial membership of about 38,000. The move was partly motivated by the fact that the left perceived the KPD's reaction to the Kapp Putsch as weak. The same year, the General Workers' Union of Germany (AAUD) was formed as a revolutionary labor union partly modeled on
6700-451: The lower levels. After the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933, organized council communism disappeared, although a few groups continued in the resistance to the regime . It continued in several small groups in the Netherlands. The Group of International Communists (GIC) became a coordinating center for international debates until the late 1930s. It published the movement's central texts, most prominently Henk Canne Meijer 's "The Rise of
6800-419: The main perpetrator of the Armenian genocide , was hiding in Berlin after the war and appeared at the press conference to criticize the putschists for dilettantism. Between 1920 and 1922 a monument in honour of the workers who were killed in the wake of the Kapp Putsch was erected in the Weimar central cemetery . The memorial was commissioned by the Weimar Gewerkschaftskartell (Union Cartel), which conducted
6900-446: The main threat was now "bolshevism" and that they had to "win back" the officer corps. It was considered undesirable that Kapp and Lüttwitz should be toppled, they must be seen to resign voluntarily. The four parties, supported by some Social Democrats who had remained in Berlin, offered fresh elections, a cabinet reshuffle and an amnesty for all participants in the Putsch, if Kapp and Lüttwitz were to resign. The putschists offered only
7000-408: The nation. In early 1919, the strength of the Reichswehr , the regular German army, was estimated at 350 000, with more than 250 000 men enlisted in the various Freikorps ("free corps"), volunteer paramilitary units, largely consisting of returning soldiers from the war. The German government had repeatedly used Freikorps troops to put down Communist uprisings after the war. Under the terms of
7100-413: The necessity of a struggle to win workers over and they were more open to flexibility in tactics such as participation in wage struggles, which Schröder dismissed as reformism. In March 1922, this dispute led to a split into an Essen tendency, led by Schröder, and a Berlin tendency, each with its own AAUD affiliate. The Berlin tendency was stronger, but most intellectuals in the KAPD including Gorter joined
7200-477: The new minister of defence and Reichskanzler. Admiral Adolf von Trotha , the navy commander, came out in support of the coup as soon as he learned of it. In Bavaria , the Social Democratic state government resigned after refusing to install an emergency regime as demanded by Reichswehr General Arnold von Möhl, Georg Escherich and Gustav Ritter von Kahr . The Bavarian Parliament then elected Kahr,
7300-601: The number of votes cast for the SPD and the Democratic Party fell by more than half compared to the January 1919 elections, while the right-wing German National People's Party (DNVP) (some of whose voters eventually switched to the Nazis) and the left-wing USPD gained substantially. The Weimar Coalition lost its majority in parliament and would never regain it. The effects of the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch throughout Germany were more lasting than in Berlin. In some parts of
7400-571: The offensive with the goal of overthrowing the Weimar Republic and replacing it with a soviet-style council republic. On 17 March it took Dortmund, on 18 March Hamm and Bochum and on 19 March Essen , causing the local commander of the military district at Münster to order a withdrawal. By 22 March, the Ruhr was under the control of the revolutionary workers. The legitimate government returned to Berlin on 20 March and demanded an end to
7500-483: The officers (one of them was Reinhardt, Chef der Heeresleitung ) refused to follow an order to shoot at the rebel troops. Some suggested negotiations, others claimed that the troops would not understand an order to fire, some argued that the regular units would not be able to defeat the elite Marinebrigade . Seeckt spoke about comradeship. His exact words were not recorded, but have been reported as: "troops do not fire on troops. So, you perhaps intend, Herr Minister, that
7600-464: The official communist movement and formed a distinct current, according to the historian Marcel van der Linden . Many authors agree with van der Linden in dating the emergence of council communism to the early 1920s, but others, like Philippe Bourrinet and John Gerber , refer to the tendency as the Dutch–German form of left communism during this period and date the advent of council communism to
7700-557: The old Reich. Their goal was to establish an authoritarian regime (though not a monarchy) with a return to the federal structure of the Empire. Lüttwitz asked them to be ready to take over the government on 13 March. The group was unprepared but agreed to the schedule set by Lüttwitz. One factor making them support quick action was that sympathetic members of the Sicherheitspolizei in Berlin informed them that warrants for their arrest had been issued that day. Lüttwitz
7800-635: The party split, the Essen KAPD and the KAPN formed the Communist Workers' International (KAI). The BRKP and the CWP joined later. The KAI also claimed to have a Russian affiliate, but in reality it only consisted of two Russians living in Berlin. Gorter wrote the KAI's program. Its organizational structure was similar to the Comintern's, but it never attained any significant influence or activity. The split in
7900-473: The people of Berlin and had effectively withstood a major threat from the extreme right." Among the grievances which Kapp and his followers had against the government were that the National Assembly, which had been elected to serve temporarily, was beginning to act as a permanent Reichstag and that it seemed this assembly might revise the constitution with respect to the election of the president of
8000-427: The preparations. It was only at this point that Lüttwitz brought the group known as Nationale Vereinigung into the plot. These included German National People's Party (DNVP) member Wolfgang Kapp, retired general Erich Ludendorff , Waldemar Pabst (who had been behind the murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in January 1919), and Traugott von Jagow [ de ] , the last Berlin head of police in
8100-413: The regular troops in and around Berlin ( Gruppenkommando I ), the highest ranking general in the army at the time and in command of many Freikorps , said at the parade that he would "not accept" the loss of such an important unit. Several of Lüttwitz's officers were horrified at this open rejection of the government's authority and tried to mediate, by setting up a meeting between Lüttwitz and the leaders of
8200-521: The relations of Bavaria with the Reich (August–September 1921) which ended in Kahr's resignation was a further phase of the same trouble. After the Putsch Noske named Kapp, Pabst and Ehrhardt as being responsible, despite the support from much higher up in the army. Most of the participants were granted an amnesty and on 2 August 1920, the Reichstag passed a law that exculpated crimes committed during
8300-618: The resignation of Kapp, and Lüttwitz tried to hold on for another day as head of a military dictatorship but his commanders deserted him. They suggested to Schiffer, in the absence of Ebert in charge of the government's affairs, that he appoint Seeckt as head of the Reichswehr, which Schiffer did in the name of Ebert. When Lüttwitz offered his resignation on 18 March, Schiffer accepted—again in Ebert's name—while granting him full pension rights. Schiffer also suggested Pabst and Lüttwitz should leave
8400-406: The right-wing parties and adding his own, now demanded the immediate dissolution of the National Assembly, new elections for the Reichstag, the appointment of technocrats ( Fachminister ) as Secretaries for Foreign Affairs, Economic Affairs and Finance, the dismissal of General Reinhardt, appointment of himself as supreme commander of the regular army and the revocation of the orders of dissolution for
8500-463: The spontaneity of the working class. In Italy, Amadeo Bordiga was opposed to electoral politics, but had little regard for councils as the basis for a reorganization of society and advocated vanguard parties as Lenin did. In Russia, the Workers' Opposition criticized the bureaucratization of working-class organizations and sympathized with the KAPD. According to Hans Manfred Bock, the leadership of
8600-502: The strike started on 14 March and by the next day it had spread all over the Reich. It was the most powerful strike in the history of Germany, involving up to 12 million workers. The country was paralysed. In Berlin the gas, water and power supply stopped. Adolf Hitler , who had been in contact with the members of the Nationale Vereinigung and was eager to help the coup along, was flown into Berlin from Munich by
8700-579: The two major right-wing parties. Lüttwitz listened to and remembered their ideas but was not dissuaded from his course of action. Noske then removed the Marinebrigade from Lüttwitz's command and assigned it to the leadership of the Navy, hoping that they would disband the unit. Lüttwitz ignored the order but agreed to a meeting with President Ebert, suggested by his staff. In the evening of 10 March, Lüttwitz came with his staff to Ebert's office. Ebert had also asked Noske to attend. Lüttwitz, drawing on demands by
8800-508: The unions called off the strike on 22 March. When the negotiations failed, the revolt in the Ruhr was suppressed by Reichswehr and Freikorps units in early April 1920. Over 1,000 workers were killed, many in summary executions , some committed by units that had been involved in the Putsch, including the Marinebrigade Loewenfeld . Another 600 Reichswehr and Freikorps soldiers also lost their lives. As in 1918–1919, those on
8900-446: The war. In September 1921, the Communist Workers' Party of the Netherlands (KAPN) was formed as a Dutch analog to the KAPD. Gorter was supportive of this decision and became its chief spokesman, but Pannekoek was skeptical because he felt conditions for a new organization were not ripe in the Netherlands. The KAPN was modeled on the KAPD and its program was nearly identical to the German party's. It did not, however, manage to replicate
9000-551: The working class's revolutionary dynamic. As Weimar Germany stabilized in the early 1920s and the council movement of the German Revolution ebbed, the disputes became more pronounced. As early as the KAPD's founding congress, Rühle and Franz Pfemfert , the editor of the journal Die Aktion , were opposed to any centralized party structures and the traditional division of the labor movement into political parties and economic labor unions. In his 1920 brochure Revolution
9100-417: Was Zossen , where they would disarm. By 13 March, they had gotten as far as Stade . There, they discovered the insurrection was in progress. Balked from boarding a train there by striking rail workers, Berthold had his men occupy the train station, city hall, telegraph office, and post office. He then bedded his troops for the night in the local girls’ high school. The following day, the Iron Troop commandeered
9200-719: Was dissolved in May 1920 but most of its members were allowed to join the Reichswehr where they had successful careers. The courts were much harsher on the members of the Red Ruhr Army, many of whom were sentenced to lengthy terms of imprisonment. Kapp was arrested in Sweden on 16 April but not deported to Germany. He voluntarily returned to Germany in April 1922 and died the same year in prison while awaiting trial. Lüttwitz returned to Germany as part of an amnesty in 1924. Gustav Noske
9300-543: Was established in 1919 by the Weimar National Assembly . Right-wing nationalist and militarist circles opposed the new republic and promoted the stab-in-the-back myth , claiming that the war had been lost only because the efforts of the undefeated German military had been undermined by civilians at home. In 1919–20, the government of Germany was formed by the Weimar Coalition , consisting of
9400-574: Was excluded from the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in September 1921. She formed the Communist Workers' Party (CWP) in February 1922. It claimed to have 500 members, but likely had far fewer. From its inception, the KAPD was beset by disputes and internal turmoil. The party was composed of a wide variety of political tendencies and it did not create stable organizations, as its proponents feared they could become bureaucratic and hold back
9500-461: Was forced to flee the city, the coup failed after a few days, when large sections of the German population joined a general strike called by the government. Most civil servants refused to cooperate with Kapp and his allies. Despite its failure, the Putsch had significant consequences for the future of the Weimar Republic. It was also one of the direct causes of the Ruhr uprising a few weeks later, which
9600-426: Was forced to resign by the unions on 22 March, as a condition for ending the general strike and because some in the SPD thought that he had not been tough enough facing up to the putschists; Otto Gessler succeeded Noske as Defence Minister. General Reinhardt also resigned out of protest at Noske's dismissal. General Seeckt became his successor as Chef der Heeresleitung . Former Ottoman grand vizier Talat Pasha ,
9700-400: Was in a final crisis that would lead to its demise, but that workers were not yet ready for capitalism's end as they were still under the control of reformist leaders. From this they concluded that the KAPD's role was to firmly adhere to strict revolutionary principles so it could lead workers at a later time. Schröder's opponents agreed that capitalism was in decline, but for them this implied
9800-439: Was not dismissed but suspended from his post on 11 March. To defend the government, Noske ordered two regiments of Sicherheitspolizei and one regular regiment to take position in the government quarter but doubted that a Putsch was imminent. The regimental commanders decided not to follow orders to shoot, a decision that received the approval of Chef des Truppenamts General Hans von Seeckt . The reluctance to shed blood
9900-555: Was one-sided. On the evening of 12 March, Ehrhardt ordered his brigade to march into Berlin, to "ruthlessly break any resistance" ( jeden Widerstand rücksichtslos zu brechen ) and to occupy the centre of the city with the government buildings. The Brigade, sporting swastikas on their helmets and vehicles, started off towards Berlin at around 10:00 pm. An hour later the Gruppenkommando knew about it and informed Noske. Two general officers met Ehrhardt and convinced him to give
10000-574: Was opposed to electoral politics and trade unionism. These positions placed it to the left of Bolshevik orthodoxy. In 1919, the Communist International (Comintern) was formed to promote Bolshevik policies internationally. In October 1919, Paul Levi , the head of the KPD leadership, pushed through a new party line that followed the Comintern's policies. This line called for participation in parliamentary elections and fighting for control of established labor unions. In effect, this forced
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