An account of the emergence of the KPD (The German Communist Party) in the early days of the German Revolution - as a break from the Social Democratic Party - through its decline and transformation into a tool of the Russian Bolshevik regime.
A short biography of German communist Max Hoelz, known as the Red Robin Hood for his daring acts expropriating from the rich to distribute to workers and the unemployed.
SUPPLEMENT: Before, during and after March
Ben Lewis explores the multiple causes behind what was a badly calculated bid to artificially induce
revolution in Weimar Germany
Heavens above, what is going on here! Genuine remorse, even if enforced, or nothing of the kind? Do you really know what you have done? The best action, the noblest and highest cause . a cause that god just for once put in your hands, you have treated like muck in a pigsty
(Gerhart Hauptmann
Our path against putschism)
This article, which is based on a talk I gave to the Online Communist Forum in March, represents a first attempt to revisit and reinterrogate the complex chain of events known as the ‘March Action’ or - more accurately - the ‘March struggles’ of 1921, which culminated in a failed attempt to bring about a general strike nationally and seize power by the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). However, looking back a hundred years on, things appear more like a ‘Whodunnit’.