Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 2:49 pm Post subject: April 4, 2011 Homework
Mak describes the chaos of Berlin after WW One and the initial emergence of two closely related political parties. Give your opinion: Neither of these two political parties stood a chance in becoming a unifying organization. They were disorganized, haphazard and too radical.
I agree with this statement. There were definite moments where each party had the potential to unify a successful organization and make strides in their political platforms, but unfortunately for them, they weren't organized or strategic enough.
Liebknecht's followers and himself, for example, is even referred to as impervious... he had his beliefs on how to solve his problems with the elections -- through brute force and violence -- and didn't stop to consider that the German soviets couldn't agree less. (This also helps support the theory that while he was quick and brave, he had no political sense.) Berlin was a hostile place, and nobody was unified. Everybody was hiding in their homes, afraid to come out because of his regime. He wanted a revolution, but had no plan, and didn't have the wits to come up with one either.
Radek and the Spartacus Movement didn't fair much better. Radek didn't have enough time to establish his presence, and had contradictory public/private views. In fact, when the Sparticists and social democrats were marching, and they all got riled up but... nothing happened. The revolution was short-lived and failed for lack of clarity and movement.
Now, because frustrations were so high and nobody was taking a lead, radicals and communists took over and used violence on opposition, including Sparticists.
I think it's clear both political parties had opportunity, but not the foresight to fulfill any plans or accomplish anything.
I think that the chances were pretty slim of unifying the parties mainly because of the excess violence that was occurring in Germany at the time. There might have been a chance of unity if people would have stopped fighting for like two seconds, but it just wasn’t possible with the country in that state. There was very little effort to stop the violence, as well as any kind of strong leadership within the country at the time. Lieknecht certainly did not have very good leadership skills, and was rather unorganized as he started a revolution without preparing for it. Nobody was on top of their game interns of actually organizing any type of legitimate forms of leadership. Radek might have made some kind of progress, but he didn't have time to control the KDP. It seems that at the time the answer to any kind of predicament involving the German people was to kill them.
I think the two groups were far too busy convincing themselves that the other was wrong in a sort of "us vs. them" kind of way to even make a unifying organization possible without a third party to enter the stage and perhaps unite the two.
I think that both political parties had to potential, ideology, and support to become unifying organizations but in the end they lacked what the Bolsheviks in Petrograd possessed: A charismatic leader and tons and tons of funding. During World War 1, the German high command saw an opportunity to destabilize Russia and possibly get them out of the war. They smuggled Lenin into Petrograd from where he was living in exile, Switzerland I think. A long the way, the gave him tons and tons of funding with which to produce propaganda, and further the Bolshevik movement in Russia. Lenin's Charisma, political fervor, and limitless funding by an affluent empire were what the Russians needed for their revolutions to succeed, and the very things that the German revolutionaries lacked.
The German revolutionaries were able to get 200,000 people ready and waiting to over throw the government but in the end, their leadership did not prove strong enough to mobilize the people to action. It also seems like their were a lot of different radical political factions all vying for popular support and I think that if one of those parties had had the funding that the Russian Bolsheviks did, they may have far more successful at crushing the other revolutionaries to take center stage and provide a stronger challenge to the powers that were.
I agree with what pretty much everybody has been saying so far. Although these parties had the potential to succeed, the countries instability combined with their lack of leadership skills led them to failure. As the author states, “Liebknecht was a brave, hot-headed lawyer, but no political genius” (p217). The population of the country was in such state of opposition and aggression. Like George Grosz wrote “people no longer to bear their frightened, confined existences had climbed onto the roofs and were shooting at everything that moved, be it birds or people” (p216). With the society in such a state, without an incredibly inspiring and strong political force, it was destined to not succeed. Like Keaton said, maybe if there had been more consolidated powers, people would have been more onboard. It just seemed like the population and the political parties both were both lacking clarity and assertion in getting what they wanted.
I usually like to be the devil’s advocate in cases like these, but unfortunately I also agree with the general consensus. I think what was most interesting is the continual failure of these revolutions and how they compared with Russia’s revolution. I think that a country coming out of such a huge war as World War I and purposefully destroyed as much as it was by the victors, I do not expect anything different than from what happened. Even if these political groups were slightly better organized or more cohesive, there still would be revolutions in the streets and splintering factions.
I don’t necessarily think that the groups were too radical, because I think that the people of Germany wanted to look towards a radical solution, but as is usually the case, the idea was often better than the reality. Coming out of this chaos, it seems almost impossible to unite the people of Germany once again. It was interesting however that the revolutions started with the mutiny of the workforce (the sailors) and worked its way up from there.
The formation and actions of these parties was completely reactionary. Neither group seemed to hold any legitimacy but rather formed out of anger. Given the squalor and devastation of losing the war, a stagnant population and shattered economy, it was only conceivable that two radical parties, if not more, arose out of the chaos. Ultimately, I don't believe any revolution could have taken hold in Germany, as its general populace (aside from the disgruntled veterens) didn't have the desire for a full scale revolution, "by the end of the day most of the demonstrators had simply gone home." Both parties legitimacy only came out of the conditions in germany.
by the way this is douglas... i didn't use my real name as my user name because i'm stupid.
i think that the soviet revolution was never going to work out because they felt to accomplished in their success in russia. so now they probably figured it was gonna be easier in germany cause the country had gone to pot and it was a much smaller land mass. so high expectations ruined them. also in that state of mind where you just finished a war where you fought for something that was always unclear but stilled fought because you had pride in your country. then they lose the war and the government is all but dismantled so now most people (especially the soldiers) were probably very hesitant to join a new cause right away and their unsuraty (if that;s a word) made them switch their minds often and shift from one answer to the next. someone mentioned and i 100% agree the first few solutions were obviously going to flop because of the state people were in. someone (possibly many) also mentioned that the new goverments were unorganized... it would have taken a drastically restated and repowered remake of the chinese empire (an empire known especially for it's organization) for germany to have a stable new government at this time in their history
I agree with everyone who has posted so far. The statement "Neither of these political parties stood a chance in becoming a unifying organization .They were disorganized, haphazard and too radical." rings true. The social democrats and the Spartacists lacked a leader with enough charisma, experience and strength to succeed. "There was no leadership, there were no decisions made."(p217) Also, if the groups had even attempted to join forces, cooperate and work together toward a common goal they could have gone a lot further. Although they may have seemed to an onlooker as very similar organizations, they still could not get along. "Both were made up of drab, identically dressed shopkeepers and factory maids, both waved red flags and marched in the same bourgeois cadence. The only difference was the text on their banners. They mocked each other in passing and may, perhaps, start shooting at each other before the day is done" (p217) I agree with Olivia in that I don’t think that the groups were too radical, they just needed more control. Germany was indeed in dire need of some major changes to uplift the current state of the country.
I mostly agree with this statement. I definitely think that neither of these political parties stood a chance at success. They were far too disorganized and idealistic. It seems as though small groups of people supported an idea and hoped for a revolution but never actually secured the necessary means to make a revolution successful such as gaining support form a large portion of the public and strategizing. However, I do not think that these groups were too radical. Germany needed a radical change but they needed one which many people could stand behind and most of all they needed organization. A stable and organized revolution which established power, had a compelling leader, and had strong support would have taken root but neither of these revolutions attained that.
The thing that surprised me the most while I was reading this article was the fact that the ramshackle KDP ultimately decided to join the cause of the NSDAP, the goals of which seemed to diametrically oppose the goals of the KDP. Like a few people have already said, the single unifying force between these two parties was their radicalism; they both just wanted to get shit done. It didn’t really matter what they were doing, as long as they could kick the SDP out of power. This kind of unification of various radical groups against a common tenacious enemy reminds me of the current cooperation between al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other “terrorist” organizations, who would probably be trying to annihilate one another if it weren’t for the United States inserting itself in their business and trying to eliminate them. But that is a story from another millennium.
I think one of the biggest problems with the Weimar Republic is the fact that it went from nothing to perfectly functional in the span of about five years. Mak writes, “…the deep dissatisfaction with the Weimar Republic had everything to do with the abrupt transition from the semi-absolutionist regime of Wilhelm II to a modern parliamentary democracy. That process usually takes a number of generations, but in Germany the change came within two to three years.” Mak mentioned that the younger generation of Germans during the Weimar Republic were addicted to radical social and political change, and this stable, moderate government did nothing to feed that addiction.
I believe this is true. Each party was too radical and passionate to sit down and form an organized plan. Maybe if the two leaders had tried to work things out and unite, they could've bonded and became a unified organization. Although I still find that unlikely because they weren't natural politicians who were able to manipulate the part of the country they didn't have in their favour.
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