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The Russian Revolution and the German Social Democratic Party in 1917

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2019

John L. Snell
John L. Snell*
Affiliation:
Tulane University
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Extract

While The Impact of the Bolshevik Revolution upon international socialism has attracted considerable attention, the international impact of the revolution of March, 1917, has largely been ignored. It is the purpose of this paper to survey the effects of the March revolution upon one important segment of the Socialist International, the German, and particularly to describe the efforts of the German majority socialists to achieve a separate peace between their Government and the Provisional Government in Russia.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , October 1956 , pp. 339 - 350
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1956

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References

1 Der wahre Jacob (Stuttgart), the Social Democratic humor magazine, October 2, 1914. See also, e.g., the Sozialdemokratische Feldpost (Berlin), May 15, 1916.

2 Erich Kirschbaum to W. F. Sollmann, March 16, 1917, in the William F. Sollmann Papers, Swarthmore College Peace Collection.

3 Frölich, Paul, Rosa Luxemburg, Gedanke und Tat (Hamburg, 1949), p. 277 Google Scholar.

4 Meyer, Ernst, ed., Spartakus im Kriege: die illegalen Flugblatter des Spartakusbunder im Kriege (Berlin, 1927), pp. 166-69.Google Scholar

5 Drahn, Ernst and Leonhard, Susanne, Unterirdische Literatur im revotutionären Deutschland während des Weltkrieges (Berlin, 1920), p. 84 Google Scholar.

6 Volkszeitung (Leipzig), e.g., March 15, April 12, 1917. .

7 Ibid., April 16, 1917; Germany, Reichstag, V erhandlungen des Reichstags, CCCIX (May 5, 1917), 3099; (May 7, 1917), 3139; and (May 15, 1917), 3400.

8 Volkszeitung (Leipzig), May 8, 1917; Mitteilungs-Blatt (Berlin), April 29, 1917.

9 Mitteilungs-Blatt (Berlin), April 8, July 29, 1917. ;

10 Volkszeitung (Leipzig), May 9, May 18, 1917. See also: Germany, Reichstag, Das Werk des Untersuchungsausschusses der deutschen verfassungsgebenden Nationalversammlung und des deutschen Reichstags 1919-1926, vierte Reihe: Die Ursachen des deutschen Zusammenbruches im Jahre 1918, 12 vols. (Berlin, 1925-29), V, 165. Hereinafter cited a Die Ursachen.

11 For contemporary protests against the censorship see, e.g., Mitteilungs-Blatt (Berlin), April 22, 1917; Verh. des Reichstags, CCCIX (May 14, 1917), 3365.

12 Richard Müller, Vom Kaiserreich zur Republih, 2 vols. (1924-25), I, 81-82; Mitteilungs- Blatt (Berlin), April 22, 1917; Sozialistische Monatshefte (Berlin), May 23, 1917, pp. 541-42; Gewerkschaftskommission, Berlin und Umgegend, 28. Jahres-und-Kassen Bericht der Gewerkschaftskommiision Berlins und Umgegend und Bericht des Arbeiter Sekretariats Berlin für das Jahr ipiy (Berlin, 1918), p. 12; testimony of General Groener in Martin Gruber vs. Paul Nikolaus Cossmann, Der Dolchstoss Prozess in Mtinchen, Oktober-November 192; (Munich, n.d. [1925]), p. 200.

13 Internationale Korrespondenz (Berlin), April 3, 1917, pp. 1-3, and passim throughout 1917; Sozialistische Monatshefte (Berlin), especially the Rundschau section, throughout 1917; report on the Bavarian Landeskonferenz in Sozialdemokratische Feldpost (Berlin), April 15, 1917; Vorwärts (Berlin), March 15, 1917, and passim.

14 Sozialdemokratische Feldpost (Berlin), April 1, 1917; Parvus, (Alexander Helphand), Heine Antwort an Kerenski & Co. (Berlin, 1917), pp. 10–12 Google Scholar.

15 Sozialdemokratische Feldpost (Berlin), April 1, 1917.

16 Noske, Gustav, Erlebtes aus Aufstieg und Niedergang einer Demokratie (Offenbach-Main, 1947), pp. 50–51 Google Scholar; Mitteilungs-Blatt (Berlin), April 8, 1917. See also Great Britain, General Staff, Daily Review of the Foreign Press, March 21, 1917, p. 760.

17 Wysong, Richard Lincoln, The German Newspapers and the Russian Revolutions of 1917, an unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Stanford University, 1951), pp. 72–160 Google Scholar.

18 Lenin, V. I., Collected Works, XX, The Revolution of loiy: From the March Revolution to the July Days (New York, 1929), I, 92 Google Scholar; Shub, David, Lenin (Garden City, 1949), pp. 182–83Google Scholar.

19 Parvus, Im Kampf um die Wahrheit (Berlin, 1918), pp. 12, 43.

20 Shub, Lenin, p. 182.

21 Parvus, Meine Antwort an Kcrenski & Co., p. 3; Parvus, Im Kampf um die Wahrheit, p. 44; Lenin, Collected Works, XXI, 183-84; XXI, I, 59.

22 Parvus, Im Kampf um die Wahrheit, p. 51; Internationale Korrespondenz (Berlin), May 26, 1917, pp. 105-06; Lenin, Collected Works, XX, I, 280.

23 Parvus, Im Kampf um die Wahrheit, p. 51.

24 Erzberger, M., Erlebnisse im Weltkriege (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1920), pp. 236-37Google Scholar, and, for a fuller treatment, see David's testimony in Die Ursachen, VII, I, 153-56.

25 Sozialistische Monatshefte (Berlin), April 11, 1917, pp. 339-56; April 25, 1917, pp. 403-14; June 6, 1917, pp. 568-81; June 20, 1917, pp. 6ig-26; August 15, 1917, pp. 827-31. The journal financed by Parvus, the weekly Die Glocke (Berlin), also strongly supported the movement for a Russo-German rapprochement.

26 Sozialistische Monatshefte (Berlin), April 11, 1917, pp. 354-55.

27 S.P.D., Protokoll der Sitzung des erweiterten Parteiausschusses am 18. und 19. April 1917 in Reichstagsgebaude z.u Berlin, p. 63, Contoura negative of printed minutes, University of North Carolina Library. Cf. ibid., p. 42 (Scheidemann). This argument continued to be used by the S.P.D. press. See, e.g., Sozialdemokratische Feldpost (Berlin), June 15, 1917.

28 S.P.D., Protokoll der Sitzung des erweiterten Parteiausschusses am 18. und 19. April 191J, p. 61 (Löbe), p. 38 (Scheidemann), and passim, pp. 47-73. Right-socialist journalists also called for reform in the name of the Russian revolution. See the Sozialistische Monatshefte (Berlin), April 11, 1917, pp. 355-56.

29 The typescript papers of Dr. Heinrich Kanner, Hoover Institute and Library, Stanford University. See III (Pt. 2), 128 for Kanner's interview with German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann on April 19, 1917, and III (Pt. 2), 140 for his interview with Eduard Bernstein of the U.S.P.D., April 20, 1917. Cf. Scheidemann's statement in S.P.D., Protokoll der Sitzung des erweiterten Parteiausschusses am 18. und 19. April 1917, pp. 44-46.

30 S.P.D., Protokoll der Sitzung des erweiterten Parteiausschusses am 18. und 19. April 1917, pp. 44-46.

31 Ibid., p. 47.

32 Ibid., p. 56. The suggestion culminated in the July peace resolution of the Reichstag, which is noted below.

33 Ibid., p. 74; Sozialdemokratische Feldpost (Berlin), May i, May 15, 1917.

34 Verh. des Reichstags, CCCIX (May 15, 1917), 3394-95 (Scheidemann), and 3412 (David).

35 See Scheidemann's statement in S.V.D.,Protokoll der Sitzung des Parteiausschusses am 26, Juni ipiy im Reichstag, pp. 2-4; Scheidemann, Philipp, Memoiren eines Sozialdemokraten, 2 vols. (Dresden, 1928), II, 5–24,101Google Scholar; Gruber vs. Cossmann, Der Dolchstoss in Miinchen, p. 237; Robert Lansing to Henry Cabot Lodge, May 28, 1917, and Lansing's Desk Diary, May 19, 21, 1917, the Robert Lansing Papers, Division of Manuscripts, Library of Congress. For secondary accounts of the Stockholm conference effort and the reactions of European governments to them see Kent Forster, The Failures of Peace: the Search for a Negotiated Peace During the First World War (Philadelphia, 1941), pp. 113-25, and Merle Fainsod, International Socialism and the World War (Cambridge, Mass., 1935), chapter seven.

36 S.P.D., Protokoll der Sitzung des Parteiausschusses am 26. Juni 191J, pp. 2-4; Internationale Korrespondenz (Berlin), May 15, 1917, pp. 77-78.

37 Lenin, Collected Works, XX, I, 289; Hill, Elizabeth and Mudie, Doris eds., The Letters of Lenin (New York, 1937), p. 431 Google Scholar. Plekhanov, George, the Menshevik spokesman, also opposed the Stockholm movement. (God na rodine [Paris, 1921], I, 49-73Google Scholar. I am in- ; debted to Dr. S. H. Baron for translations of this material.)

38 Internationale Korrespondenz (Berlin), May 8,. 1917, p. 62.

39 S.P.D., Protokoll der Sitzung des Parteiausschusses am 26. Juni 1917, pp. 2-12.

40 Ibid., pp. 8-12. The Stockholm memo of the S.P.D. was published in the central organ of the party, the Vorwarts (Berlin), June 16, 1917.

41 Die Ursachen, VII, I, 292.

42 Mitteilungs-Blatt (Berlin), June 24, 1917.

43 Ibid., July 22, 1917.

44 Ibid., July 8, 1917, for the Soviet statement.

45 S.P.D., Protokoll der Sitzung des Parteiausschusses am 26. Juni 1917, p. 20.

46 Ibid., pp. 38-39, and see pp. 14-38 for the debates reviewed above.

47 Scheidemann, Memoiren, II, 28.

48 Die Ursachen, VII, I, 291. See also Bruce Bradford Frye, Matthias Erzberger and German Politics, 1914-1921, a carefully executed Ph.D. dissertation (Stanford University, 953)’ pp. 130-63.

49 Die Ursachen, VII, I, 291-94, for statements by David and Scheidemann; ibid., VII, II, 390, for letter which Michaelis wrote to the Crown Prince, July 25, 1917, boasting that he had robbed the peace resolution of its effect. The July Crisis has been treated by Ralph H. Lutz, “The July, 1917, Crisis in Germany,” Proceedings of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, V (1930), 87-98, and more recently by Eyck, E., “The Generals and the Downfall of the German Monarchy, 1917-1918,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, II (London, 1952), 47–67 Google Scholar. New light is thrown on the crisis by the following excellent study: Paul Herre, Kronprinz Wilhelm: seine Rolle in der deutschen Politik (Munich, 1954), pp. 85-102.

50 Die Ursachen, VII, I, 147 (David's statement) and ibid., p. 294 (Scheidemann's statement); Correspondenzblatt der Generalkommission der Gewerkschaften Deutschlands (Berlin), XXVII (July 28, 1917), 281-83; Sozialistische Monatshefte (Berlin), August 1, 1917, pp. 763-68; Freie Presse (Leipzig), July 30, August 8, 1917.

51 John L. Snell, “Benedict XV, Wilson, Michaelis, and German Socialism,” Catholic Historical Review, XXXVII (July, 1951), 151-78. For recent revelations from the Geheimes Staatsarchiv in Munich see Ernst Deuerlein, “Zur Friedensaktion Papst Benedicts XV. (1917),” Stimmen der Zeit, CLV (January, 1955), 241-64, and Hans Schadewaldt, “Kühlmann und die päpstliche Friedensaktion 1917,” ibid. (March, 1955), 466-67.

52 Drahn and Leonhard, Unterirdische Literatur, pp. 84-86.

53 Die Ursachen, IX, I, 2-43, 281-83; ibid., IX, I-II, passim; and ibid., X, II; Gruber and Cossmann, Der Dolchstoss Prozess in Miinchen, pp. 57-65. For an adequate secondary account see Heinrich Neu, Die revolutionare Bewegung auf der deutschen Flotte 1917- 1918 (Stuttgart, 1930), pp. 14-52.

54 See, e.g., Sozialistische Monatshefte (Berlin), July 18, 1917, pp. 715-23; August 1, 1917, pp. 761-68; October 10, 1917, pp. 1019-24; Freie Presse (Leipzig), September 13, October 4,1917; Bürger-Zeitung (Bremen), September 4, 8, 25, 1917.

55 S.P.D., Protokoll iiber die Verhandlungen des Parteitages abgehalten in Würzburg vom 14. bis 20. Oktober 1917 (Berlin, 1917), pp. 406-7.

56 See, e.g., Mitteilungs-Blatt (Berlin), August 5, 1917; Volkszeitung (Leipzig), November 3, 1917.

57 Edward Hoop, Die Innenpolitik des Reichskanzler Michaelis und Graf Hertling, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Kiel, 1951), pp. 80-118, provides a careful review of the development of the crisis.

58 Vorwärts (Berlin), 5-9, 1917; Bürger-Zeitung (Bremen), November 9, 1917.