The Ruhr and revolution : the origin and course of the revolutionary movement in the Rhenish-Westphalian industrial region, 1912-1919

Abstract

For more than a decade there has "been a strong revival of historical interest in the German revolution of 1918/19. Following a series of personal accounts given by participants shortly after the event the November Revolution and its aftermath, the time of the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils, quickly fell into oblivion. The official attitude of the Weimar Republic was to play down the revolution. It was referred to as a period of general unrest such as might be expected to follow defeat in war and the overthrow of the monarchy. The term revolution itself was avoided. It stood for something opposed to the German tradition of obedience and law and order. Historians, at best, credited the SPD leaders for having averted the grave bolshevist danger which was said, and believed, to have faced Germany at that time. This interpretation of the revolution survived until the I960's. By this time, however, new literature on the November Revolution had emerged in the West as well as in East Germany. Large scale research began earlier in East Germany than in the West. The first revolution in a fully industrialized country would obviously attract Marxist historians. Its closeness in time to the Russian October Revolution encouraged comparisons and led to explanatory studies of why the German revolution had failed. Moreover, the linking of the November Revolution with the foundation of the Communist Party and its history to the present day is of vital importance in East Germany's historical tradition. In West Germany initial studies by Tormin, Sauer and Schieck in the 1950's were followed by Kolb's work on the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils and von Oertzen's analysis of the role of works councils. Then came a long series of publications dealing with a whole range of topics associated with the revolution. Its causes were again investigated, as were its main events, its institutions and the reason for its failure. The question was asked to what extent the term revolution was applicable, and many regional studies were published. By placing more emphasis upon the orthodox or centrist wing of the USP these studies maintained that the revolution offered a genuine chance to alter existing inequalities and to lay the basis for a social, economic and constitutional reconstruction of German society. They argued that the SPD leaders failed to realize the revolution's potential and were in part to blame for exposing the Republic to the political extremism which proved so fatal for Weimar Germany…