All power to the councils!: A documentary history of the German revolution of 1918–1919
Submitted by working class s... on Dec 24 2012 22:07
This definitive documentary history collects manifestos, speeches, articles, and letters from the German Revolution—Rosa Luxemburg, the Revolutionary Stewards, and Gustav Landauer amongst others—introduced and annotated by the editor. Many documents, such as the anarchist Erich Mühsam's comprehensive account of the Bavarian Council Republic, are presented here in English for the first time. The volume also includes materials from the Red Ruhr Army that repelled the reactionary Kapp Putsch in 1920 and the communist bandits that roamed Eastern Germany until 1921.
The German Revolution erupted out of the ashes of World War I, triggered by mutinying sailors refusing to be sacrificed in the final carnage of the war.
Mühsam, Erich: His life, his work, his martyrdom - Augustin Souchy
A biography of the German anarchist and poet Erich Mühsam, written by his friend Augustin Souchy shortly after Mühsam was murdered by the Nazis in 1934, including a brief but fascinating account of Mühsam’s role in the Bavarian Council Revolution in 1919 and featuring quotations from Mühsam evincing his sympathy for anarchosyndicalism and his advocacy of the Council system.
The German Social Background
Less highly developed than it was in other countries, anarchism in Germany has produced only a handful of combatants and thinkers. Social democratic state-worship overwhelmed all libertarian thought; its representatives were not fighters; they preferred to describe the struggles that others were fighting.
Left-wing splinter parties in the Weimar Republic
A 1974 dissertation on various left-wing radical groups in Weimar Republic era Germany.
ABSTRACT
Otto Gross - the Anarchist Psychoanalyst
Submitted by rasa2 on May 3 2012 11:29
Vincent Cassel's portrayal of Dr. Otto Gross in the film, The Dangerous Method, is very powerful. However, it doesn't say much about the real Otto Gross - who, despite his many flaws, managed to combine interests in Stirner, Nietzsche, Freud, Kropotkin, 'sexual revolution', feminism and the German Communist Party (in its early more left-communist phase). He was also an important influence on Jung, Kafka and Berlin Dada.
Here is an interesting article by Gottfried Heuer, and a classic article by Gross himself describing the revolutionary potential of psychoanalysis, years before Reich, Marcuse, Fromm or Laing:
THE DEVIL UNDERNEATH THE COUCH: THE SECRET STORY OF JUNG'S TWIN BROTHER - Gottfried Heuer
Evolution of the Problem of the Political Workers Councils in Germany - Karl Korsch
Karl Korsch on problems with the workers' councils in the German revolution, written in 1921.
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The German-Dutch communist left - Philippe Bourrinet
Submitted by Spassmaschine on Dec 26 2010 09:35
Revised edition of Philippe Bourrinet's history of the Dutch and German left communist currents.
This edition taken from the "Left Wing" Communism - An Infantile Disorder? website.
The original edition of this history is available via the International Communist Current.
Councils and State in Weimar Germany - Guido De Masi and Giacomo Marramao
Submitted by Steven. on Sep 23 2010 16:34
Guido De Masi and Giacomo Marramao write on the German workers' councils and council communist movement around the German revolution of 1918.
1. Crisis of the Socialization Program and the Economic-Institutional Consequences
The Allied Food Blockade of Germany, 1918-19 by N. P. Howard
Submitted by tolern on Feb 22 2010 21:34
The Social and Political Consequences of the Allied Food Blockade of Germany, 1918-19.
N. P. Howard's article shows the determination of Allied governments to destroy the German Revolution in 1918-19 at the cost of 100,000s of lives.
Albin Köbis (1892-1917)
Submitted by Battlescarred on Dec 11 2009 13:00
A short account of Albin Köbis and the first stirrings of revolt at the Kiel naval base.
“I perish a victim of military justice. It is, of course, not easy to die so young, but I die with a curse on the German-militarist state.” - Albin Köbis in a letter to his parents before his execution.
Spartakism to National Bolshevism - the KPD 1918-24 - Solidarity
Submitted by Red Marriott on Nov 8 2009 19:09
An account of the emergence of the KPD (The German Communist Party) in the early days of the German Revolution - as a break from the Social Democratic Party - through its decline and transformation into a tool of the Russian Bolshevik regime.
Initially a federation of radicals in favour of workers councils, the article traces the Party's steady degeneration through bureaucratisation and opportunism; and its role as a counter-revolutionary tool of Russian Bolshevik foreign policy, following Moscow directives to undertake dubious 'uprisings' and enter alliances with fascists and nationalists (the "Schlageter Line").
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