The March Action and Its Aftermath

“Das Vorpostengefecht der Weltrevolution,” ibid., March 18, 1921. The calls in the KPD press led ad absurdum the subsequent assertion of GDR historians that the KPD did not plan insurgency actions but only responded to provocations on the part of the bourgeoisie and the SPD. See the official Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, ed. by the Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus, Vol. 3 ([East] Berlin: Dietz, 1966), p. 323.

See Pierre Broué, Histoire de l’Internationale communiste 1919–1943 (Paris: Fayard, 1997), p. 216; Heinrich August Winkler, Von der Revolution zur Stabilisierung: Arbeiter und Arbeiterbewegung in der Weimarer Republik 1918–1924, 2nd ed. (Bonn: J. H. W. Dietz, 1985), p. 515. Exact figures were never given.

“Zinoviev’s claim at the Third Comintern Congress that half a million workers had fought was a typical triumphalist exaggeration” [Anonymous] “Review Article: Paul Levi in Perspective,” Historical Materialism, Vol. 23 (2015), No. 3, pp. 143–170, http://​grimanddim.​org/​historical-writings/​2015-paul-levi-in-perspective/​#_​edn29. See most convincingly on the March Action Werner T. Angress, Stillborn Revolution: The Communist Bid for Power in Germany, 1921–1923 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963). See also Sigrid Koch-Baumgarten, Der Aufstand der Avantgarde: Die Märzaktion der KPD 1921 (Frankfurt-Main: Campus, 1986); Stefan Weber, Ein kommunistischer Putsch? Märzaktion 1921 in Mitteldeutschland (Berlin: Dietz, 1991); Duncan Hallas, The Comintern (London: Bookmarks, 1985), pp. 61–64; Chris Harman, The Lost Revolution: Germany 1918–1923, (London, New York and Sydney: Bookmarks, 1997), pp. 191–220. Dirk Schumann distinguishes between “the Comintern leadership and the majority of the German party central office [who] wanted to wait for the appropriate occasion to attempt an uprising [and] a minority in the top echelons of the VKPD as well as the three-man Comintern delegation [who] advocated a swift strike.” Dirk Schumann, Political Violence in the Weimar Republic, 1918–1933: Fight for the Streets and Fear of Civil War. Translated by Thomas Dunlap (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2009), p. 55.

Hans Ulrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, Vol. 4: Vom Beginn des Ersten Weltkriegs bis zur Gründung der beiden deutschen Staaten 1914–1949 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2003), p. 405.

Clara Zetkin, Reminiscences of Lenin: Dealing with Lenin’s Views on the Position of Women and Other Questions (London: Modern Books, 1929), p. 24. See also “Review Article: Paul Levi in Perspective.”

Wolfgang Abendroth, A Short History of the European Working Class. Translated by Nicholas Jacobs, Brian Trench, and Jovis de Bres (London: New Left Books, 1972), p. 80.

Harman, The Lost Revolution, p. 191.

Manfred Weissbecker, Basiswissen: Weimarer Republik (Cologne: Papyrossa, 2015), p. 51.

Eric D. Weitz, Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy, new and expanded ed. (Princeton, NJ and Oxford, 2013), p. 112.

Adolf Warski to Julian Marchlewski, letter of April 4, 1921, as quoted in: Miloš Hájek and Hana Mejdrová, Die Entstehung der III. Internationale (Bremen: Edition Temmen, 1998), p. 307.

On Meyer see Florian Wilde, Revolution als Realpolitik: Ernst Meyer (1887–1930) – Biographie eines KPD-Vorsitzenden (Constance and Munich: UVK-Verlagsgesellschaft, 2018). A shorter English version can be found in: Idem, “Building a Mass Party: Ernst Meyer and the United Front Policy 1921–1922,” Ralf Hoffrogge and Norman LaPorte (eds.), Weimar Communism as Mass Movement 1918–1933 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2017), pp. 66–86. See also the memoirs of his widow: Rosa Meyer-Leviné, Inside German Communism: Memoirs of a Party Life in the Weimar Republic (London: Pluto Press, 1977).

See Ernst Stock and Karl Walcher, Jacob Walcher (1887–1970): Gewerkschafter und Revolutionär zwischen Berlin, Paris und New York (Berlin: Trafo, 1998), pp. 67–70; Riccado Altieri, “Paul Frölich, American Exile and Discourse About the Russian Revolution,” American Communist History, Vol. 17 (2018), No. 2, pp. 220–231 (Riccardo Altieri is currently writing a dissertation on Frölich at the University of Potsdam).

A full English translation can be found in: David Fernbach (ed.), In the Steps of Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Writings of Paul Levi (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 119–165. See also Levi’s collected works: Paul Levi, Ohne einen Tropfen Lakaienblut: Schriften, Reden, Briefe, ed. by Jörn Schütrumpf (Berlin: Karl Dietz, 2015–2018; two volumes in four books to date).

Friesland left the KPD in December 1921. After WWII he gained prominence as Social Democratic mayor of West Berlin under the name Ernst Reuter. See on him Willy Brandt and Richard Löwenthal, Ernst Reuter: Ein Leben für die Freiheit: Eine politische Biographie (Munich: Kindler, 1957).

See Maslow’s Curriculum Vitae in: RGASPI, Fond 495, Inventory 205, Personal File 8651. See also Hermann Weber and Andreas Herbst, Deutsche Kommunisten: Biographisches Handbuch 1918 bis 1945 (Berlin: Karl Dietz, 2004), p. 485. On the ‘Russian Section’ that included up to 4000 members, see Johannes Zelt, “Kriegsgefangen in Deutschland: Neue Forschungsergebnisse zur Geschichte der Russischen Sektion bei der KPD,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, Vol. 15 (1967), No. 4, pp. 621–638. See also the documentation: Margot Pikarski and Kerstin Rosenbusch, “Dokumente der Russischen Sektion bei der KPD,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung, Vol. 30 (1988), No. 6, pp. 774–790.

See “Bezirksparteitag Berlin,” ibid., August 8, 1921. See also Brandt and Löwenthal, Ernst Reuter, p. 176.

See Broué, Histoire de l’Internationale communiste, pp. 261–262.

See Andreas Wirsching, Vom Weltkrieg zum Bürgerkrieg? Politischer Extremismus in Deutschland und Frankreich: Berlin und Paris im Vergleich 1918–1933/39 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1999), pp. 161–162.

See ibid., p. 166. Wirsching’s thesis that the Communists locked themselves in a counter-world was correct. However, this was no longer the case for Stalin’s communist opponents after 1926–1927. By naming anti-Jewish racism as constitutive of the Hitler movement, Wirsching also partially questioned his own approach to a “flexible” theory of totalitarianism.

Mathilde Montagnon, Ruth Fischer 1895–1961: Itinéraire d’une communiste oppositionnelle, Université Pierre Mendès-France, Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Grenoble, 1998), p. 54.

See Ralf Hoffrogge, “Class Against Class: The ‘Ultra-Left’ Berlin Opposition, 1921–1923,” Idem and Laporte (eds.), Weimar Communism as a Mass Movement, p. 89.

Fowkes, Communism in Germany, p. 73.

See Pierre Broué, The German Revolution 1917–1923. Translated by John Archer, with a new introduction by Eric D. Weitz (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006), p. 580; Hoffrogge, “Class Against Class,” p. 89.

Werner Scholem emphasizes this political radicalism as a feature of the Berlin opposition, in contrast to alleged centrist tendencies of the party leadership in the years 1921–1923. See Werner Scholem, “Skizze über die Entwicklung der Opposition in der KPD,” Die Internationale, Vol. 7 (1924), Nos. 2/3, pp. 122–134. Ruth Fischer and Arkadij Maslow wrote the first draft of this article, subsequently published under Scholem’s name, as Ralf Hoffrogge has found out. The first draft can be found in: SAPMO-BArch, RY 5/I 6/3/128. See Hoffrogge, “Class Against Class,” p. 105.

V. I. Lenin, “Speech in Defence of the Tactics of the Communist International; July 1, 1921,” Idem, Collected Works, Vol. 32 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965), p. 473. Original emphasis.

Leon Trotsky, “Theses of the Third World Congress on the International Situation and the Tasks of the Comintern,” Idem, The First Five Years of the Communist International. Translated and ed. by John G. Wright, Vol. 1 (New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1945), pp. 240–241.

Protokoll des III. Kongresses der Kommunistischen Internationale, Moskau, 22. Juni bis 12. Juli 1921 (Hamburg: V.I.V.A., 1921), pp. 582, 584; John Riddell (ed.), To the Masses: Proceedings of the Third Congress of the Communist International, 1921 (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2015), pp. 528, 530.

Leon Trotsky, “The School of Revolutionary Strategy,” Idem, The First Five Years of the Communist International. Translated and ed. by John G. Wright, Vol. 2 (New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1953), p. 24. Trotsky, however, had no sympathy for Levi’s break with party discipline.

Clara Zetkin, Ausgewählte Reden und Schriften, Vol. 2: Auswahl aus den Jahren 1918 bis 1923 ([East] Berlin: Dietz, 1960), p. 336.

Hermann Weber, Die Wandlung des deutschen Kommunismus: Die Stalinisierung der KPD, Vol. 1 (Frankfurt-Main: E.V.A., 1969), p. 362, mentions 359,000 who left immediately after the unification with the USPD-left (December 1920), while Klaus Michael Mallmann, Kommunisten in der Weimarer Republik, gives a number of around 157,000 for August 1921.

Bericht über die Verhandlungen des 2. Parteitags der Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands (Sektion der Kommunistischen Internationale), abgehalten in Jena vom 22. bis 26. August 1921 (Berlin: V.I.V.A., 1922), pp. 175–181. On Radek see Warren Lerner, Karl Radek: The Last Internationalist (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1970); and Fayet, Karl Radek. Wolf Dietrich Gutjahr’s book “Revolution muss sein”: Karl Radek – die Biographie (Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau, 2012) is unconvincing, despite its large volume.

Ibid., p. 346.

SAPMO-BArch, NY 4036/666, p. 13: Bestand Wilhelm Pieck [Wilhelm Pieck Papers]: Wilhelm Koenen to the ECCI: Report about the 7th Party Conference of the KPD.