Postwar Germany and the Formation of the Revolutionäre Obleute

THE history of the German Left at the end of the First World War, as well as during the immediate aftermath of the conflict itself, is a fascinating subject and something I discussed at length in my biographies of both Otto Strasser (2010) and Ernst Röhm (2016). However, in the newly-translated edition of Albert Schmelzer’s work on Rudolf Steiner and the Threefolding Movement, the communist role in the establishment of Germany’s workers’ councils is considerably understated. Whilst Schmelzer is lucky in the sense that, as a native German, he has access to some valuable historical sources from the period in question, one or two of his conclusions are a little dubious.

Whilst he rightly notes that the Social Democratic Party (SPD), for example, adopted a decidedly nationalistic attitude and began supporting the country’s war effort, he significantly downplays the influence that Soviet Russia had on the councils themselves. It was not for nothing that the Freikorps - which, initially, were used by the reactionary government as mercenary units in order to bolster its own position - had managed to attract so many people to its anti-communist banner, but Schmelzer maintains that the councils themselves were overwhelmingly comprised of SPD members and that pro-Soviet communists played little or no significant role.

That apart, he does offer an interesting summary of the five world-views that were in vogue at the time: (1) restorative monarchy, (2) pluralist democracy within a capitalist economy, (3) parliamentary government with democratic councils and economic socialisation, (4) out-and-out communist dictatorship, and (5) what he describes as a ‘pure’ political and economic council system. There is little doubt that the militaristic right, at least prior to the coming of Hitlerism, favoured the first option, whilst the second was a preference for those who - like the German People’s Party (DVP) - were liberal-conservative. The third category denotes the centre-left SPD, which had over a million members by 1918, whilst the fourth clearly alludes to Rosa Luxemburg’s Communist Party (KPD).

Soon after the Independent Social Democrats (USPD) had split from the SPD as a result of its newfound sabre-rattling, the USPD was itself cleft in two when it spawned the aforementioned KPD. Schmelzer’s fifth category, that’s if I haven’t quite overwhelmed you with this kaleidoscopic litany of ideological brands, was apparently populated by the left-leaning segments of the USPD and it is they who, in his opinion, were struggling for a more autonomous form of political, social and economic decentralisation.

Those within the USPD who adhered to this more radical outlook called themselves the ‘Revolutionary Shop Stewards’ (Revolutionäre Obleute) and produced some very effective strike actions as a means of trying to halt the country’s destructive slide into total war. Ironically, whilst these particular elements had not followed Luxemburg into the KPD they were considerably more radical in the sense that they were fundamentally opposed to state control of the economy and participation in the the bourgois national assembly. Their chief failing, however, as Schmelzer points out in his book, is that whilst the Revolutionäre Obleute faction struggled for self-determination it made the mistake of seeking to achieve such principles in a climate marked by utter chaos and heightening authoritarianism.

By far the best strategy, at least for National-Anarchists who support many of the same objectives, would have been to apply such autarkic principles on the periphery and not at the core of what was an increasingly technological society. Ultimately, it was Karl Kautsky, Hugo Haase and Rudolf Hilferding - all from the USPD’s right flank - who finally determined that the party must give its allegiance to the democratic system and abandon the idea of ‘pure’ councils altogether. Although many supporters from the Revolutionäre Obleute later joined the anarcho-syndicalist Free Workers’ Union (FAUD), a unique opportunity had been squandered.