Early Communist Growth

At the onset of World War I, the German Social Democrat Party members within the Reichstag voted to go to war. While technically a Marxist party at the time, it did not support a predominantly Marxist agenda in entirety. Members Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, were leftists and Marxists within the party who strongly opposed Germany’s decision to go to war. Liebknecht and Luxemburg then started the German Communist Party, better known as the KPD. When violence broke out following the end of the war, Germany broke out into a revolution. The KPD was strongly in support of a violent overthrow of the government. The Social Democrat Party within Germany eventually claimed power after the fall of Germany’s monarchy. This group was vehemently opposed to the KPD’s ideals, worried that a Bolshevik Revolution might follow just as was the case in Russia. Gustav Noske, the defense minister of Germany following the revolution in 1918, created an anti-communist group to eliminate Communist threats. Liebknecht and Luxemburg, who had become part of the Bolshevik movement, were found and executed by this so-called “Freikorps.”

While Bolshevism was sought out as an enemy and nearly silenced in Germany after the end to the war, Germany was not necessarily always opposed to the group and its agenda. While in World War I, Germany was at odds with Russia and its Tzar Nicholas II. The Kaiser saw a common friend in the Bolsheviks. Vladimir Lenin was also opposed to the czarist regime in Russia. The Kaiser, while not a communist himself, was in support of Lenin’s ideals as a way to break down Russia and was sympathetic towards his cause of violently toppling Tzarism. By aiding Lenin and the Bolsheviks, the German kaiser felt that he could destabilize Russia on the Eastern Front. It is said by war’s end, the Kaiser spent what is today equivalent to $582 million in order to destabilize Russia during the war. Germany’s relationship with Bolshevism in Russia goes back to roughly 1891 with a man named Israel Lazarevich Gelfand. A Russian Jew and leftist writer, Gelfand lived in Germany for nearly 15 years, establishing relationships with Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Kautsky, Vladimir Lenin and Leo Trotsky along with the ideals of Bolshevism within Germany. After Bloody Sunday in 1905 in which the Russian imperial guard shot demonstrators in St. Petersburg, Gelfand and Trotsky returned to Russia courtesy of German trains and assumed positions as leaders of councils. Not long thereafter, they were both sent to prison. Gelfand, now going by the name “Parvus” soon escaped and fled to Constantinople. Having started a bank and amassed wealth from various sectors of trade, many of Parvus’s comrades had deserted him due to his lifestyle. Living in the Ottoman Empire, Parvus was in close contact with the German Foreign Office. Having lived in Germany, he understood the power they could wield in toppling the current Tzarist Russian regime.

Parvus wrote a 23 page document for the German Reichstag stating how Germany could assist in toppling Russian Tsarism and how Bolshevism could prevail. Revolutionaries in Russia, especially the Bolsheviks, reaped the benefits of the Kaiser’s monetary and material support. Ships were sunk and dynamite smuggled in courtesy of the Reichstag and the efforts of Gelfand. He was a brilliant war profiteer, dabbling in arms, alcohol, money laundering, food, or really anything he could smuggle into Russia with the help of the Germans. Though Lenin receives much of the credit, Gelfand had an enormous responsibility in the creation of a relationship between Germany, its Marxist movement, and the relationship it had with Russia and the creation of the Soviet Union.

The Spartacist Uprising

In early January of 1919, the Revolution in Germany grew as a result of the close of World War I. One group, the Social Democrats, were in support of a new social democracy, while the Communists were in support of a council republic. The Spartacist league, founded and started by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, fought to take control of the government after the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the resignation of Chancellor Max von Baden. The Spartacist League, also known as the Communist Party of Germany, originally pursued victory through elections, but as turmoil in Germany became increasingly violent, workers intended to do it through more violent means. As the revolution and unrest in Germany became increasingly violent, so did the Spartacists, much to the frustration of Liebknecht and Luxemburg. On January 7th, 1919, both the Communists and the Social Democrats participated in a strike of over 500,000 people. Many of these strikers had obtained weapons. The Spartacists failed to attract the support of the military, in particular the navy, and thus their plan of a violent overthrow was revealed. Just a day later, the Social Democrats and Ebert, the current government leader, engaged in discussions. The Spartacists chose to have no part in the discussions. Not long thereafter, Spartacists found pamphlets which read in German “The Hour of Reckoning is Coming Soon!” and within the week, 156 insurgents, in addition to Liebknecht and Luxemburg, were executed by the Freikorps. The Spartacist Uprising had come to a screeching halt.

Here are some videos to illustrate reactions to Bolshevism in Germany: