The Early KPD: Responses to Weakness

Abstract

Germany had witnessed decades of rapid economic and social modernisation by 1914, yet retained a hereditary monarchy whose powers exceeded those of the parliament. There was widespread pressure for constitutional reform which so alarmed the monarchist authorities that they eventually risked war in August 1914 as a means of deflecting this pressure. They hoped ultimately to restore the Imperial Government’s credit through military success, but in the event defeat threw Germany into a state of turmoil during the autumn of 1918. The question arose of how to deal with ‘an enraged and totally war-sick populace’¹ in the hour of defeat as crowds milled through the streets of urban Germany and Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils began to take up the task of day-to-day administration.