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Jan 15, 2022 16 tweets 8 min read Read on X
#OTD in 1919, after suppressing the Spartacist Uprising, proto-fascist forces killed communist leaders Rosa #Luxemburg & Karl #Liebknecht on the orders of the Social Democrat-led government.
Their deaths must be understood in historical context of the German workers' movement:
1/
In January 1912, the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland (SPD) secured a historic electoral victory – with over a third of the votes, it became the first workers' party to dominate a European parliament. Deep divisions had, however, already been developing within the party. 2/
Driven by the emergence of monopoly capitalism (or imperialism) in the late 19th & early 20th century, a reformist tendency rejecting proletarian revolution spread through the SPD leadership. As WWI erupted in 1914, this tendency pushed through a party policy of "Burgfrieden". 3/
"Burgfriedenspolitik" (politics of peace within the castle) was an attempted cross-class truce in the name of patriotism: SPD parliamentarians were to vote for credits to fund the war, trade unions were to refrain from strikes, and the government was not to be criticised. 4/
The only parliamentarian to openly resist this line was Karl Liebknecht. Those within the SPD who still upheld proletarian revolution and rejected the war formed the 'Spartacus Group' in August 1914. Its leading figures were #Liebknecht, Rosa #Luxemburg and Clara #Zetkin. 5/
Unwilling to tolerate criticism of the government and its war, the SPD subsequently expelled members of the Spartacus Group and abandoned its leaders who were then imprisoned.
Yet, as the war dragged on and millions were killed, unrest began to spread throughout Germany. 6/
At a clandestine conference in 1918, the Spartacus League drafted its "October Programme", calling for an immediate end to the war, the overthrow of German imperialism, and the establishment of a socialist republic "that is in solidarity with the Russian Soviet Republic". 7/
The November Revolution broke out shortly thereafter, bringing the Empire and the war to an end.
The SPD, led by Friedrich Ebert, moved to prevent a social revolution by aligning with the bourgeois parties and old elites of the Empire to establish a parliamentary republic. 8/
Meanwhile, the Spartacus League, renamed the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in December 1918, called for all power to the workers’ and soldiers’ councils that had spontaneously emerged in the upheaval as they had in Russia in 1917. Liebknecht proclaimed a socialist republic. 9/
The SPD called on their new partners to quell the KPD-led Spartacus Uprising that broke out on 5 January. With the superior firepower of the proto-fascist Freikorps, the uprising was suppressed. Liebknecht and Luxemburg were then captured, beaten and shot by the Freikorps. 10/
Attempts to build socialist power were more successful in Bavaria, where various groups held out against the SPD-government for several months in 1919.
Yet they too were ultimately suppressed at the hands of the Freikorps. The proletarian revolution in Germany had failed. 11/
Despite mass executions of communists in the months that followed, the KPD grew in strength during the Weimar Republic (1918-33). It continued to uphold the traditions of internationalism & proletarian revolution, fighting for workers’ rights & resisting the rise of fascism. 12/
Yet the divided nature of the working class – originating in the reformist tendency of pre-war social democracy – lent an advantage to the gathering fascist forces.
Financed by monopoly capital, the Nazi party took power and the German working class movement was decimated. 13/
After the final defeat of German fascism at the hands of the Red Army in 1945, the KPD became a leading party in the Soviet Occupied Zone. To overcome the division that had facilitated the rise of fascism, the KPD & SPD merged in 1946 to form the Socialist Unity Party (SED). 14/
In the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), the KPD was banned in 1956 and communists were expelled from their occupations throughout the decades that followed. 15/
In the #DDR, #Liebknecht and #Luxemburg were upheld as forebearers of the first Workers' and Peasants' State in Germany. Since 1946, annual commemorations were held at the Memorial of the Socialists in Berlin and continue to be organised by socialist groups today.

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More from @_IFDDR

Nov 28, 2023
The #Tehran Conference convened 80 years ago #OTD.
The “Big Three” discussed, among other issues, the question of what to do with #Germany after the War. Records show that the initiative to partition Germany undoubtedly came from the USA and UK, not the USSR. [A thread 🧵] Image
The Tehran Conference convened on 28 Nov. 1943. By this time, the tide of the War had already turned after the Soviets defeated Hitler’s 6th Army at Stalingrad in Feb. 1943. The central question at the Tehran Conference was thus the opening of a second front in Western Europe.
The plans for post-war Germany were also placed on the agenda and discussed towards the end of the Conference.

Less than a month prior, the foreign ministers of the UK, USA, and USSR had met in Moscow and already discussed this issue.
Read 25 tweets
Sep 26, 2023
And also "Operation Sunrise”: initiated even earlier in Feb. 1945, the US & UK began secret negotiations with high-ranking SS generals in Switzerland to determine whether the Wehrmacht could form “a common front with the Allies against the advance of the USSR in Europe”.🧵 1/5
These negotiations took place with the blessings of Himmler and Hitler in the villa of German industrialist Edmund Stinnes in Bern.

The Swiss intelligence service and the private attaché of Pope Pius XII played mediatory roles.
2/5 Image
When the Soviets learnt of these meetings, they demanded a seat at the table, but were prohibited by the USA. The event shook Soviet trust in the anti-Hitler coalition.
3/5
Read 5 tweets
Sep 11, 2023
West and East Germany played diametrically opposed roles in #Chile's history, which we will be exploring in an article later this week to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the putsch against #Allende.

To look at just one example: the role of the German intelligence services 🧵
Image
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A recent investigation by @mdrde found concrete evidence that the BND (West Germany's intelligence agency) had worked with a German sect in #Chile to smuggle weapons to fascist groups in opposition to the Allende government.
2/
ardmediathek.de/video/fakt/chi…
This German sect – the "Colonia Dignidad" – was led by Paul Schäfer, a German preacher that fled West Germany to escape an arrest warrant for child abuse. West Germany used the "Colonia Dignidad" as a conduit for smuggling arms to Chilean anti-communist groups.
3/ Image
Read 8 tweets
Jul 31, 2023
Day 4: On 16 December 1972, Portuguese commandos entered the Mozambican village of Wiriyamu & gunned down all 400 of its inhabitants. While Salazar's brutality was downplayed by his @NATO allies, the #WorldYouth come together in Berlin to denounce colonialism & support FRELIMO.🧵 Image
The formation of the Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO) and early support of the socialist states:
2/5 #WorldYouth Image
FRELIMO's advances in the late 1960s, based on popular initiatives to increase peasant access to education, healthcare, and cooperative working structures.
3/5 #WorldYouth Image
Read 5 tweets
Jun 20, 2023
Unrest in West Germany: On 20 June 1948, a secretly planned economic reform is implemented in the Western occupied zones of Germany. A new USD-tied currency (the “Deutsche Mark”) is introduced to facilitate the flow of US capital into Germany as part of the Marshall Plan.
🧵 1/ Image
This currency reform has two major consequences. First, it triggers a massive increase in prices throughout the economy, as pre-existing price controls are swept away, and wages remain frozen.
(Photo: Munich, August 1948)
2/ Image
Months of social unrest follow. In October 1948, the US military even resorts to the deployment of tanks and tear gas to disperse protesters calling for the nationalization of industries in Stuttgart.
3/ Image
Read 8 tweets
Jun 19, 2023
The weapons and vehicles with which the apartheid regime gunned down over 170 South African school children in #Soweto 1976 came from West Germany.

East Germany (the #DDR), on the other hand, had been a leading supporter of the anti-apartheid struggle. A very brief thread:
The apartheid troops that were deployed to suppress the #sowetouprising drove trucks made by the West German Mercedes-Benz corporation. Their weapons had been delivered by West Germany, which maintained close relations with the apartheid regime until the very end.
We recently interviewed the anti-apartheid militant Ronnie Kasrils, who recounted his experiences & impression of the socialist states' solidarity with the ANC.
Kasrils was 1 of hundreds of anti-apartheid militants to receive military training in the #DDR.
ifddr.org/en/interview-r…
Read 7 tweets

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