#138: What Can We Learn from the German Revolution?

April 26, 2018

I

Most everyone in the Western world knows that there was an American Revolution (1775-1783) and a French Revolution (1789-1799). The continental nineteenth century had a number of lesser known, smaller, unsuccessful revolutions in 1848.

Virtually unknown in the West, there was the Chinese revolution in 1911.

And then there was the important Russian Revolution of 1917, which was, in fact, two revolutions, one in February and one in October, which led to the murderous reign of the Bolsheviks.

The most recent revolution, however, was the German Revolution which began in October of 1918, just one year after the Bolsheviks took power in Russia; which rejected monarchical rule and replaced it with a presidential parliamentary democracy.

On a side note, outrageously, the neurotic imbecile Kaiser Wilhelm II was allowed to go into exile on November 10, to Holland, where he lived in comfort until June, 1941, and where he died in his bed at the age of 82. Nicholas II, on the other hand, his cousin and one of the other co-conspirators in the catastrophic debacle that was WW I, was murdered along with his entire family in July 1918. As in Wilhelm’s case, his sin seems to have been entirely culpable stupidity. King George V, another cousin and co-conspirator, also lived past the end of the war, and remained King till the age of 70. Maybe this was just a bit less outrageous than Wilhelm’s case since Britain was a constitutional monarchy during WW I and the king really had very little influence. The fourth conspirator was the semi-senile dotard Franz Josef of Austria, who had the good manners to die in the middle of the war, 1916, at the indecent old age of 86. Millions of others were consigned to much harsher destinies than any of these.

Back to Germany, the new democracy was based in the German Enlightenment city of Weimar, home to Goethe, among others. It’s first chancellor was Friedrich Ebert, leader of the Social Democrat Party.

While there was nothing here quite like the excesses of the French Revolution, the German one was scarcely “bloodless” and there is much to learn today from this most recent Revolution. While the events of the revolution and the details of the Weimar Republic’s efforts to govern during the following decade are daunting in complexity, this much is evident.

The forces at play were:

The Social Democrat Party (SDP)

The Spartacist Party, supported by the Bolsheviks (meddling in German politics)

The army and a reactionary population which, while enraged at the monarchy for the outcome of the war, were still committed to authoritarian rule.

And here are some thoughts on how that revolution is interesting today.

First, and most obvious, the Russians have clearly had the habit of meddling in other countries’ elections and politics since their own revolution. No surprises here.

Second, the Socialists were split then along lines similar to ours today. The SDP was the centrist Democrat party of the 1950s and 60s; the Spartacists were today’s followers of Bernie Sanders. Just like today’s ANTIFAs and BLMs, the Spartacists were happy to use violence to try to achieve their ends. Since the SDP followers were unwilling to brawl in the streets, the SDP made the ill-considered and fateful decision to enlist the army and non-government militias to maintain order. Well, we know how that turned out.

Third, while today’s Left would very much like to paint Trump’s conservative middle-class supporters as today’s version of the 1918 German reactionary population, this is where the historical analogy fails. Nonetheless, even while failing, there is a very important insight to be had here.

II

While political power can be taken by force, the real objective of a revolution, whether totalitarian or democratic, is for it to become permanent. The most common strategy for this has been to erase the preceding culture in an attempt to normalize the new order; the French tried this, the Russians tried this, and the Chinese tried this. While these efforts have definitely altered the cultures involved, they have not had the effect of safeguarding regimes. As it turns out, the only two things which safeguard a regime are giving the population what it wants (usually bread and circuses), on the one hand, and severe repressive power, on the other.

The American revolution aside, we find that populations accustomed to autocratic absolutist government often return to it. Populations are fickle; the political history of post-revolution France proves this if nothing else.

The French had their popular revolution in 1789 with its exercise of democratic mob murder, but soon enjoyed having autocracy back in the person of the Emperor Napoleon. They gave up Louis XVI and the Bourbon line only to embrace Napoleon and the Bonaparte line. Then they tried democracy for a while, only to follow it with a second emperor Napoleon. Through the following decades, France lumbered back and forth between autocracy and democracy. France is now enjoying its fifth republic (fifth constitution). Who knows how long it will last?

The Russians gave up Nicholas II and the Romanov line in the Feb revolution, only to embrace Lenin and Stalin and their successors in the October revolution. The USSR has since disappeared, but little has changed for the average Russian: Russian aristocrats have just been exchanged for Russian oligarchs and oppression is arguably worse than it was under the czars.

In the German revolution, circumstances allowed for a democratic republic, only to see the population embrace absolutism again in the decade following 1933, when General von Hindenburg, long past his best-before date, allowed himself to be persuaded to make Adolf Hitler chancellor of Germany.

George W. Bush, a good son of the American founding vision, could not imagine a population that would not be ecstatic to be self-governing. Iraq raises questions on this thesis. I think that a closer look at history might have suggested to him that people are far more open to autocratic rule than he thought was possible.

What do we learn from this?

That populations really do not care so much how they are governed so long as their needs, their wants, and their prejudices are satisfied.

Where any of these three are significantly absent, and where autocratic power does not prevent it, the people will revolt.