German SPD and KPD in the Weimar period.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Hey guys, I'm doing a comparison of the German social democrats and communists in the weimar period as a dissertation - I'd appreciate it if anyone could give me some good suggested reading. Currently I have Chris Harman's The Lost Revolution and Pierre Broue's The German Revolution. Primary sources are just as welcome as secondary, maybe even more so. Also people's own thoughts and commentary are welcome on the two parties, their relationship to each-other and wider German society during Weimar etc. Would like to get the broad spectrum of left opinion on this - with Harman and Broue I have a good start on the trotskyist view, but I'd like to hear everyone's take.

Cheers in advance for any help. :)

-Alex

[Die Neue Zeit]

The SPD's "Democratic Front" antics against both the Nazis and KPD didn't and doesn't help arguments against the KPD's "Third Period" tactics. I know there are Google Books on the "Democratic Front."

[Babeufist]

Some useful books:
Ruth Fischer: Stalin and German Communism: A Study in the Origins of the State Party
Timothy S. Brown: Weimar Radicals: Nazis and Communists Between Authenticity and Performance
and - if you speak German -
Stefan Vogt. Nationaler Sozialismus und Soziale Demokratie: Die sozialdemokratische Junge Rechte 1918-1945.

[The Idler]

Socialist Standard has some articles from the period and a recent one on the anniversary


The German elections (1912) (http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1912/no-90-february-1912/german-elections)

The German Elections (1918)
(http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1919/no-174-february-1919/german-elections)

Germany, November 1918 (1998)
(http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1998/no-1131-november-1998/germany-november-1918)
possibly more available on e-mail request

[Geiseric]

The "Social fascism," line against SPD rank and file didn't help with members who were dissilusioned with the SPD, or at least bordering. It was at the point when Communists and SPD members were fighting in the streets when the Nazis were getting 7,000,000 votes in the Reichstag.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The "Social fascism," line against SPD rank and file didn't help with members who were dissilusioned with the SPD, or at least bordering. It was at the point when Communists and SPD members were fighting in the streets when the Nazis were getting 7,000,000 votes in the Reichstag.

I'd take the Social Fascism line any day of the week over turning the other cheek for Democratic Front antics.

[A Marxist Historian]

Hey guys, I'm doing a comparison of the German social democrats and communists in the weimar period as a dissertation - I'd appreciate it if anyone could give me some good suggested reading. Currently I have Chris Harman's The Lost Revolution and Pierre Broue's The German Revolution. Primary sources are just as welcome as secondary, maybe even more so. Also people's own thoughts and commentary are welcome on the two parties, their relationship to each-other and wider German society during Weimar etc. Would like to get the broad spectrum of left opinion on this - with Harman and Broue I have a good start on the trotskyist view, but I'd like to hear everyone's take.

Cheers in advance for any help. :)

-Alex

I strongly recommend the Spartacist theoretical article on German communism and the 1923 missed revolution, which also has great references to various useful recently published books.

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/esp/56/germany1923.html

Also, be it noted that Ruth Fischer's book is notoriously unreliable.

Fischer, Zinoviev's main lieutenant in Germany, had a rather checkered political career, finally ending up as an anti-communist testifying before HUAC.

As a political leader of the German party she was a bit problematic. Her low point was during her public debate with Nazis in the summer of 1923 (a terrible idea in itself), at which she answered the Nazi debater saying that the Nazis would kill all the Jewish capitalists by saying that the Communists were even more radical because they would kill all the capitalists.

-M.H.-