@@jorgjorgsen7528 True, but the SPD has certain key elements that shouldnt be negotiable. I like how they scrapped more of the social state than any other party including the CDU.
SPD is the epitome of betrayal to the working class. They won't survive Scholz however (I believe): the devastation this submission not just to the oligarchs but to foreign (US) oligarchs as if a banana republic won't be pardoned, can't be.
The biggest importance of the German Revolution of 1918-23 (which I hope will not be left out in favor of a Berlin centric narrative that ends in january 1919 and is quite inadequate for understanding the revolution imo) for us today imo, is that it remains the *only* revolution in history to have broken out in an industrial society where a huge if not a majority of the population has been proletarianized and urbanized for a few generations already and with a large bourgeois cultural development accompanying it (yes the Kaiserreich was a monarchy, but that's still true, in a similar manner to how it was even more true for Britain). Germany a hundred years ago, in so many ways, is much more similar to our situation today than any other place where a revolution happened. Especially the big ones, Russia and China, were for all sense and purposes different worlds compared to today or Germany at that time, while if you were to time travel back to Germany in 1918, it would feel much much more familiar. Nonetheless, the stark difference that the last hundred years made, shouldn't be understated either. I just believe that if we think studying historical revolutions is useful, Germany should maybe be even higher on the list than Russia or China.
@Unism Any theory of history that posits a generational cycle should be flatly rejected. Any pair of crackpots can look through history to find records that "prove" this or that theory of history. This idea of generational cycles is nothing new and has never held any water before. Sure, you can go throughout history and claim this or that generation existed and did certain things but this is just making correlations between unrelated things. What causal mechanism causes these cycles? Is it biological? Sociological? Who can say. What is the fundamental unit of a generation? It also sounds seems eerily similar to the fascistic saying "hard times make strong men, strong men make good times, good times make weak men, weak men bring hard times". It's no wonder the fascist Steve Bannon loves the theory.
@@nietzschefriend The French Revolution occured at the dawn of capital, and socialism couldn't even be theorised because the mechanisms of capital were still coming into being at the time and were yet to be properly analysed and then resistance developed and put into practice. Unlike the Arab Spring, which was a late capitalist phenomenon.
2:40 small correction here: the Mexican revolution had been going on since 1910 and by 1917 it was nearly at its end. It was actually the first major mass revolution of the twentieth century 😄
Indeed. Two addendums to your comment: (1) Mexico was the first country on Earth to make into law the 8 hr working journey, consacrating it in the Mexican Constitution proclaimed early in 1917. (2) Also I was thinking right now that, while the European revolutionary attempts of 1918-19 followed the soviet (council) pattern of Russia, later revolutions, even if often aiming to be like Russia/USSR, were rather made the Mexican way, i.e. via guerrillas, possibly more adequate for their agrarian realities.
@@LuisAldamiz In addition, it's likely that later revolutionaries took key lessons from the Mexican case, specifically when it came to the importance of a united front among peasants and an emergent industrial working class. While the revolution was successful in its aims of overthrowing the Porfirian regime and reorganizing society, many of the more radical workers' organizations followed bourgeois/petty-bourgeois reformists (Carranza and Obregon) into battle against agrarian radicalism in the form of Zapatismo and (the dominant left wing of) Villismo. Also, it's surprising how little the Constitution of 1917 is brought up for how radical it was, even if many of those previsions were not fully enforced until the Cardenas era. AFAIK both the Soviet and Weimar-era German constitutions took inspiration from it.
@@yep9462 Very interesting comment, TY. The Mexican Constitution was the first instance worldwide of the establishment of the 8 hr journey. Russians were only second, although arguably they were more influential as most behind them were European states (bc the revolutionary or otherwise socialist trend was much stronger in Europe than anywhere in the Americas).
Honestly feel like this was the turning point of modern history and hardly anybody knows about it. I feel like our world would be completely different (and hopefully better, but who could say) if this had succeded
@@TheChesquitoo The world is a better place than it has ever been in history. More people are well fed, better educated, live longer than ever. You’re less likely to die prematurely than ever. Most of the world lives in peace. This after the downfall of the most suppressive, most corrupt, most violent governmental and economic system ever devised…communism. How many died in the name of equality and brotherhood? 100 million? 150 million?
@@ronryan7398 those millions who died for freedom are the lives that deserve redemption. I disagree that today's world has made it "worth it". Nor any other. I horrify at that thought beyond description. No need to agree my friend
A similar movement was in the USA with the Wobblies IWW. Woodrow Wilson’s government crushed the IWW and other organizations in the Red Scare and sent anti-Bolshevik troops to Russia to crush the revolution. US citizens have no clue of the history including politicians. Regardless of what a person may think about socialism, communism and anarchism they were all anti-imperialist movements. In the very least they would have shifted politics away from imperialist exploitation. Which is precisely why they were crushed except the Soviets.
1918 also had smaller movements in Italy, Hungary. Austria, Ireland, etc. See websites + videos for all these+ books, articles, even songs in some cases.
The history of early 20th century Germany, up until WW2 essentially, may be the most reflective on our times as any other, but rarely is it taught outside of that region
@Vandole they wanted to keep their power in place and people were making money off the war it’s really just that and it all had a domino effect that not even them thought was possible.. in short they were thinking of short term profits and didn’t think of the long term consequences.. basically like what’s happening today still
So much that went on then is still in a way happen now in the usa we a democratic party who are now waging war as did the German government did then who also call themselves democratic socialist but do not act like socialist and you have real socialist who are anti war and are also having a hard time with the government in many ways that the Spd left were having back then later spd gave Hitler the right of way to destroy the left during the 30's by joining forces with the fascist to rid them of the kpd in the end they too were arrested and killed by the Nazi's never trust them or get involved with them in any way today or tomorrow they are poison to any real worker society 50:14
Very sad moments in the history of humanity. Going from a revolutionary anti-war party to completely abandon those ideals, such a drastic change could have never been predicted.
Similar things happened and still happen all the time. It's never about the goals, it's about gaining power and then keeping that power. See every single communist state ever for example.
Eagerly awaiting the next video in this series! I certainly don't know nearly as much as I'd like about the German Revolution, but I do know this introduction and explanation will be exactly what is needed to help start
I'm so glad I finally got round to watching this, it was so incredilbly enlightening! I previously knew next to nothing about the German revolution. Thank you for all your hard work. I can't wait for the next installment!! ❤🖤
Thanks for the great video. Ever since I heard of Rosa Luxemburg (thanks to you) I've wanted to learn more about the Spartacus uprising and the German revolution, so thank you for making this. Can't wait to watch the next part of the series
This video was truly excellent. I feel like I have a far greater understanding of the roots of the 1918 German Revolution. I'm looking forward to the next video!
I've studied history for few years, yet I have never had heard about this revolution, somehow Polish books on history rarely even mention it. Which is quite bizarre since it seems like it was a major turning point not only for future of Germany but also Russia - and by extension the world in following 20 years. I wonder why this particular part of history is being either forgotten or buried. Anyways, great video, very informative and on unique and intriguing topic.
I think it might be because it was a "failed revolution", in my experience it is HEAVILY overshadowed by the October Revolution (& and the following Russian Civil War) because it happened during the same time but unlike the German Revolution, the October Revolution was successful
The proclamation of the 8 hr working journey in Poland (one of the first countries to do so, at the end of 1918) was almost certainly heavily influenced by both the Russian and German revolutions, which also proclaimed the same worker/human right (in 1917 and 1918 respectively). Only Mexico did before these three countries (early 1917). And then came Spain (after a massive and brutal strike in Catalonia) and Hungary (under the short-lived communist government of Bela Kun). A reason why it is ignored is because it was first betrayed by the SPD, who managed to redirect it to liberal democracy (Weimar Republic), which was arguably all that many workers could hope for: some reforms. Another reason is because later on in the Weimar Republic period and the ascent of Nazism it was proclaimed "judeo-communist betrayal" and a narrative that Germany lost the war because of this revolution, described not as such but as "treason", became mainstream in the right wing of German politics. It's not just Germany which is ignored: nearly all Europe had some sort of very strong class struggles, sometimes clearly revolutionary (notably Germany and Hungary) that shattered the socio-political order and set the foundations of the social-liberal status quo that dominated the 20th century and still lingers somewhat in spite of Neoliberal reaction. But it's easier for the elites to ignore the class struggle and pretend it was all "charity" orchestrated by FDR in the New Deal... two decades later. It's also ignored because discussing it would leave the social-democrats and progressives in bad light as traitors to the working class and better explain the success of bolshevism, which is not the kind of logic that they want to promote.
@@BiggestCorvid - One of the main players in the German Revolution was Rosa Luxemburg, who was actually Polish, from Zamosc, although she was against the division of Germany in the name of "internationalism".
Mostly commenting to feed the algorithm, but you are without doubt my favorite youtuber, constantly challenging my understanding of history and socialism in the most wonderful ways. I look forward to the next video!
Every time you make a new video I really enjoy it. Especially this one, since you've introduced us in a period that I know so little about. Anyway thanks and I wish you well.
I feel like a similar phenomenon that occurred in the German empire in regards to unions (30:00 in the video) also occurred in May 68 where revolutionary potential was squashed via bureaucrats and paid officials’ complicity with the government. For context, the trade unions CGT, FO and CFDT made deals with the workers’ employers that while getting better benefits and pay for the workers also sold out the workers’ revolutionary potential and furthermore betrayed their interest of an armed occupation of the factories that was already being carried out concurrent to these meetings. Overall, this makes me highly suspicious of anarcho-syndicalism and radical unionism as a program to overthrow capitalism as the union leadership always works within the framework of the status-quo, which while making things better for workers in the short-term does not work to achieve revolution in the long-term. Essentially, they never go beyond the apparatus of the union and because the union is a defense mechanism of workers’ rights within capitalism, they can never go beyond capitalism. This is where I think unions ultimately fail. Just to clarify, unions are obviously great for better workers’ pay and benefits just not as a long-term revolutionary apparatus to get out of capitalism or overthrow it.
I'm pretty ignorant but the dynamic you recounted here is not the way all unions would run. One can imagine a union in which part of the requirement for joining is to engage in prefigurative politics to the degree at least that leadership can be questioned and ultimately recalled at the drop of a hat. That way the antirevolutionary sentiment doesn't necessarily become the governing principle of the organisation and its leadership whilst operating under an economic system that (at least a little) favours said union leadership. My point is that there have probably been unions and organisations that intentionally built in backup mechanisms to prevent leadership from fully capitulating to weak reforms and enforcing a rule that councillors simply have the ability to relay demands, not make decisions without consultation with the union members.
Greetings from germany, thanks for putting the work in really enjoyed the video! I learned about the 1918 Revolution in school but it wasnt as detailed as your explanation.
@@yehor_ivanov Hey dude, sorry iam not that important, i cant really help. I hope that it will be over soon, to many lifes wasted allready. Wish you and your people all the best.
Fantastic video. There were levels of nuance expressed here that I hadn't previously heard, particularly with regard to the unique influence of shop stewards. The more I read and hear about the struggles of 100 years ago, the more interested I become in society's path forward and how I choose to become active within it.
So many good videos floating around at the moment. I thank you for your hard work and dedication, and I truly believe that this is the sort education is crucial. I was driven crazy at 29:18 trying to find why I had received a notification though...
Three arrows or Iron dice podcast, as the other channel is called, has a series called the fight for the republic, which goes, as he says, "...from the collapse of the german empire in 1918 through the roaring 20s and to the open carnage in the streets of berlin as the right, left, and center struggle for power..." SO there is going to be some good coverage. Glad to see this upload.
Man. You deserve an Honoris Causa for your labor. Amazing labor. I learnt more in your video that in a semester of whatever class in.... University! Times are changing, man. Thank you very much.
Thank you for making this video! Germany, my home country, and its revolutions...it was always a difficult story. While we contributed so much to the global ideas of the state of right and freedom and socialism, for ourselves we never really stood up when it was time. And when we stood up for ourselves, we always failed. It's a tragic story. But I hope I am correct in saying its not over yet and the true realm of freedom can still be realized in the future.
Lol. I think the revolution in East Germany of 1989 was very successful and a positive turning point for democracy. But I guess you are not a huge fan of its outcome, aren't you?
@@karlkarlos3545 It has brought more democracy, but it also destroyed the socialist foundation. So it has mixed results. I would have much more preferred to grow up in a democratic socialist society, as was the proposal of "Für Unser Land" which was signed by roughly a million citizens of the DDR which would have still had the reunification, but it would have secured the socialist economy as well as introducing democracy.
@@LibertarianLeninistRants Well, the annoying thing with more democracy is, that you have to bow to the will of the majority. And the majority of East Germans (at least at that time) had frankly enough of the "socialist foundation" and preferred the social market economy of West Germany.
@@karlkarlos3545 only as long until they actually experienced unemployment, rising rents and western prices for themselves. you are right, in a democracy, the majority has the power (theoretically). however in times like these opinions change massively in no time. if there would have been a longer process, more stable opinions on what the people really wanted their future to look like would have crystallized. Its a shame that the reunification was so rushed, nobody really got what they wanted in the end
I have no idea how this video has so few views (compared to your others). The writing is absolutely fantastic and the subject is something that every leftist should want to learn about. Great job on this man!
I can't thank you enough for your hard work to produce such excellent presentation of this epic yet tragic revolution. I have always been waiting for something as such to shed light on this complex segment of German social democracy. Great work. Many thanks to your dedication.
Truly fantastic video. As much as your theory videos are good too, I enjoyed this a lot more. There's nothing this in depth about this kind of topic elsewhere on youtube
Great video, as always. Very informative, this is a part of history that often gets ignored, but there is much to be learned as the US hopefully continues developing its modern labor movement.
Re-watched after the most recent production. Very inspiring but I find tears in my eyes during both videos, much like my mixed emotions around the Christmas Truce a period of history where we conquered fear only to be driven to defeat by our rulers and their dogs.
I've researched quite a bit of the German Revolution and this was a great effort :) I dont know if I would be able to do this as consciece as you did, I read too much and would probably be unsure what to leave out. I really like how you emphasized how little the different political intelligencias provided to the beginning of the revolution. It truly was a spontaneous erruption of the masses.
Very necessary to tell this history. I also studied this revolution, because of its significance to understanding the praxis of socialist revolution in our age. A huge compliment for how you made this video. The key elements are all there and it's very coherently narrated which makes it attractive for a broader audience. Well done! Can't wait to see the rest.
A very topical and useful subject to do a video on at this particular time. There are lots of historical precedents for modern issues alluded to, including: pitfalls of a "revolutionary" electoral party in congress and government, forces that erode radical principles, the reform vs revolution argument, the left responses to inter-imperial war, and most importantly a case study of where and how class consciousness and the revolutionary tendency arises as well as the role of leaders in harnessing this power for most effective progress. While you don't editorialise much as these topics come up, I found this video to be actively conscious of all this and more. It is useful to know this history, of what has been tried before, to begin to answer some of the most fundamental questions confronting left political groups at this time. ...Now what's left is to figure out why my local socialist workers group is made up entirely of academics :D Aciu labai, linkejimai is Airijos.
Very well researched, analyzed and narrated! I have one bit of criticism, but first I really like how you point out the role of the different actors and institutions, and especially the systemically conditioned differing interests and resulting division among the Socialist and Social Democratic factions! Even here in German the particulars of that stalled revolution are no longer well known by most, as the following decades overshadow those times both with regard to public awareness and personal biographies and education dedicated to it. When I learned about it in school (I took history as an intensive course, whose focus was revolutions in the modern age, so a deep-dive as far as public education goes...) our discussion of the events was very static, distanced and focused on the pseudo-ideological split and supposedly rather mindless factionalism between revolutionaries and reformist socialists, without really going into the details and actual societal manifestations of it, and this only came to bother me later, too. So, thank you for highlighting this! However, right there my criticism would be that this portrayal is imho a bit one sided and perhaps anachronistic with regard to how potent the revolutionary capacity of that time really was beyond the short-term, and in that context also how villanous and misguided the M(ajority, by name at least)SPD stance throughout the war really was, or whether there is more to that story. While I think Ebert and some figures in the M-SPD leadership kinda deserve to be portrayed as traitorous opportunist and cowards, with many instances suggesting that, this isn't true of the whole party faction. I think on the whole they really were convinced that history was on their side, the current configuration actually the one on the way to benefiting the average Joe the most, as it maintained peace and development, and that there was something righteous and/or inevitable about the war. Also, the state and the nation at that time were so positively connoted, even among Socialist-leaning parts of the public, not only due to propaganda, but because the state was actually quite functional, prospering and to a certain degree progressive. So even though people might have been opposed to the war, the General staff or the like, they might have been very convinced nationalists. I saw a lot of people in the comments pointing out, how this revolution was the closest real case to a Marxian proletarian revolution in Europe. Well, yes and no. I think one shouldn't overstate how urban and industrial Germany on the whole was at that point in time. Militarist, religious and aristocratic conservatives, bourgeois and capitalist forces were strong, popular and united enough against their Socialist common enemy.
Great stuff you've made. Have you ever wondered about adding the subtitles so that people from non-English speaking countries can translate the material into their mother tongues?
35:12 Potsdamer Platz is mentioned in David Bowie's Where are We Now? (2016), I knew it was a personally important part of Berlin for him but I didn't think of looking up this kind of history behind it, thank you.
This was really excellent and at times, reflects what is going on today in subtle and almost sinister ways. I think much of this is happening again. But great video.
I've yet to watch part 2 and 3 but this video was so good, holy hell. I just had to pledge a little bit. I can tell it takes a lot of work to put this together, and I'm inmenesely grateful.
As a german it is interesting to see how the SPD has never been very loyal towards their voters. Still the same.
you act like other partys are not the same.
@@jorgjorgsen7528 True, but the SPD has certain key elements that shouldnt be negotiable. I like how they scrapped more of the social state than any other party including the CDU.
The SPD voted for WW1 and betrayed the communists after the war ended in failure. Never trust the SocDems
SPD is the epitome of betrayal to the working class. They won't survive Scholz however (I believe): the devastation this submission not just to the oligarchs but to foreign (US) oligarchs as if a banana republic won't be pardoned, can't be.
Wer hat uns verraten? Die Sozialdemokraten.
The biggest importance of the German Revolution of 1918-23 (which I hope will not be left out in favor of a Berlin centric narrative that ends in january 1919 and is quite inadequate for understanding the revolution imo) for us today imo, is that it remains the *only* revolution in history to have broken out in an industrial society where a huge if not a majority of the population has been proletarianized and urbanized for a few generations already and with a large bourgeois cultural development accompanying it (yes the Kaiserreich was a monarchy, but that's still true, in a similar manner to how it was even more true for Britain). Germany a hundred years ago, in so many ways, is much more similar to our situation today than any other place where a revolution happened. Especially the big ones, Russia and China, were for all sense and purposes different worlds compared to today or Germany at that time, while if you were to time travel back to Germany in 1918, it would feel much much more familiar. Nonetheless, the stark difference that the last hundred years made, shouldn't be understated either. I just believe that if we think studying historical revolutions is useful, Germany should maybe be even higher on the list than Russia or China.
@Unism
The fourth turning is stupid ahistorical garbage
The Arab Spring were revolutions that occurred in industrialized countries
@Russ Ingram So was the French Revolution. What does it matter
@Unism
Any theory of history that posits a generational cycle should be flatly rejected.
Any pair of crackpots can look through history to find records that "prove" this or that theory of history. This idea of generational cycles is nothing new and has never held any water before. Sure, you can go throughout history and claim this or that generation existed and did certain things but this is just making correlations between unrelated things. What causal mechanism causes these cycles? Is it biological? Sociological? Who can say. What is the fundamental unit of a generation?
It also sounds seems eerily similar to the fascistic saying "hard times make strong men, strong men make good times, good times make weak men, weak men bring hard times". It's no wonder the fascist Steve Bannon loves the theory.
@@nietzschefriend The French Revolution occured at the dawn of capital, and socialism couldn't even be theorised because the mechanisms of capital were still coming into being at the time and were yet to be properly analysed and then resistance developed and put into practice. Unlike the Arab Spring, which was a late capitalist phenomenon.
2:40 small correction here: the Mexican revolution had been going on since 1910 and by 1917 it was nearly at its end. It was actually the first major mass revolution of the twentieth century 😄
Indeed. Two addendums to your comment: (1) Mexico was the first country on Earth to make into law the 8 hr working journey, consacrating it in the Mexican Constitution proclaimed early in 1917. (2) Also I was thinking right now that, while the European revolutionary attempts of 1918-19 followed the soviet (council) pattern of Russia, later revolutions, even if often aiming to be like Russia/USSR, were rather made the Mexican way, i.e. via guerrillas, possibly more adequate for their agrarian realities.
How wasn't the 1905 Revolution the first?
@@LuisAldamiz In addition, it's likely that later revolutionaries took key lessons from the Mexican case, specifically when it came to the importance of a united front among peasants and an emergent industrial working class. While the revolution was successful in its aims of overthrowing the Porfirian regime and reorganizing society, many of the more radical workers' organizations followed bourgeois/petty-bourgeois reformists (Carranza and Obregon) into battle against agrarian radicalism in the form of Zapatismo and (the dominant left wing of) Villismo.
Also, it's surprising how little the Constitution of 1917 is brought up for how radical it was, even if many of those previsions were not fully enforced until the Cardenas era. AFAIK both the Soviet and Weimar-era German constitutions took inspiration from it.
@@yep9462 Very interesting comment, TY. The Mexican Constitution was the first instance worldwide of the establishment of the 8 hr journey. Russians were only second, although arguably they were more influential as most behind them were European states (bc the revolutionary or otherwise socialist trend was much stronger in Europe than anywhere in the Americas).
@@Panzer1337 - The Russian 1905 revolution? It was crushed.
Honestly feel like this was the turning point of modern history and hardly anybody knows about it. I feel like our world would be completely different (and hopefully better, but who could say) if this had succeded
Never forget what they took from us brother.
It was! And it can still be redeemed
@@TheChesquitoo The world is a better place than it has ever been in history. More people are well fed, better educated, live longer than ever. You’re less likely to die prematurely than ever. Most of the world lives in peace. This after the downfall of the most suppressive, most corrupt, most violent governmental and economic system ever devised…communism. How many died in the name of equality and brotherhood? 100 million? 150 million?
@@ronryan7398 those millions who died for freedom are the lives that deserve redemption. I disagree that today's world has made it "worth it". Nor any other. I horrify at that thought beyond description. No need to agree my friend
A similar movement was in the USA with the Wobblies IWW. Woodrow Wilson’s government crushed the IWW and other organizations in the Red Scare and sent anti-Bolshevik troops to Russia to crush the revolution. US citizens have no clue of the history including politicians.
Regardless of what a person may think about socialism, communism and anarchism they were all anti-imperialist movements. In the very least they would have shifted politics away from imperialist exploitation. Which is precisely why they were crushed except the Soviets.
This is legitimately one of the revolutions I know so little about so I really appreciate this one.
1918 also had smaller movements in Italy, Hungary. Austria, Ireland, etc.
See websites + videos for all these+
books, articles, even songs in some cases.
The history of early 20th century Germany, up until WW2 essentially, may be the most reflective on our times as any other, but rarely is it taught outside of that region
@Vandole they wanted to keep their power in place and people were making money off the war it’s really just that and it all had a domino effect that not even them thought was possible.. in short they were thinking of short term profits and didn’t think of the long term consequences.. basically like what’s happening today still
So much that went on then is still in a way happen now in the usa we a democratic party who are now waging war as did the German government did then who also call themselves democratic socialist but do not act like socialist and you have real socialist who are anti war and are also having a hard time with the government in many ways that the Spd left were having back then later spd gave Hitler the right of way to destroy the left during the 30's by joining forces with the fascist to rid them of the kpd in the end they too were arrested and killed by the Nazi's never trust them or get involved with them in any way today or tomorrow they are poison to any real worker society 50:14
Sounds like "Realist" faction in German
(ex--) Green Party.
Thanks for going in depth about this subject and providing bibliography, lately I've been more interested in this period.
Very sad moments in the history of humanity. Going from a revolutionary anti-war party to completely abandon those ideals, such a drastic change could have never been predicted.
I disagree! Revisionists like Ebert, Kautsky and Bernstein already had high positions in the party before the war.
The SPD had long abandoned revolution and anti war by 1918
Similar things happened and still happen all the time. It's never about the goals, it's about gaining power and then keeping that power. See every single communist state ever for example.
@@Chestyfriend
Did you even watch the video?
@@calebr7199 I did, did you?
Eagerly awaiting the next video in this series! I certainly don't know nearly as much as I'd like about the German Revolution, but I do know this introduction and explanation will be exactly what is needed to help start
I haven't seen all of it but I am so thankful that you managed to research and make this upload. Thanks a million times.
Welcome Back Jonas, thank you for another fantastic video. I look forward to the next one!
Thank you for making this! I look forward to your next video as well!
This was absolutely fascinating, can’t wait for the continuation!
This has been an excellent rundown of this complicated historical period. Thank you!
My comrade, this was INCREDIBLE!! Just as exciting as it was informative! Looking forward to your next installment! WELL DONE! ✊🏽
I'm so glad I finally got round to watching this, it was so incredilbly enlightening! I previously knew next to nothing about the German revolution. Thank you for all your hard work. I can't wait for the next installment!! ❤🖤
Thanks for the great video. Ever since I heard of Rosa Luxemburg (thanks to you) I've wanted to learn more about the Spartacus uprising and the German revolution, so thank you for making this. Can't wait to watch the next part of the series
This is incredibly interesting, thank you so much for making this. Very much looking forward to the next installments.
This video was truly excellent. I feel like I have a far greater understanding of the roots of the 1918 German Revolution. I'm looking forward to the next video!
This is great! Looking forward to your next videos in the German Revolution
I’m a simple man, I see CCK posted I start drooling.
Greatly looking forward to part 2!
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! Please never stop making these videos
finished part 2 last night. Very good series. Thank you. It explains a lot of things for me.
I've studied history for few years, yet I have never had heard about this revolution, somehow Polish books on history rarely even mention it.
Which is quite bizarre since it seems like it was a major turning point not only for future of Germany but also Russia - and by extension the world in following 20 years.
I wonder why this particular part of history is being either forgotten or buried.
Anyways, great video, very informative and on unique and intriguing topic.
I think it might be because it was a "failed revolution", in my experience it is HEAVILY overshadowed by the October Revolution (& and the following Russian Civil War) because it happened during the same time but unlike the German Revolution, the October Revolution was successful
The proclamation of the 8 hr working journey in Poland (one of the first countries to do so, at the end of 1918) was almost certainly heavily influenced by both the Russian and German revolutions, which also proclaimed the same worker/human right (in 1917 and 1918 respectively). Only Mexico did before these three countries (early 1917). And then came Spain (after a massive and brutal strike in Catalonia) and Hungary (under the short-lived communist government of Bela Kun).
A reason why it is ignored is because it was first betrayed by the SPD, who managed to redirect it to liberal democracy (Weimar Republic), which was arguably all that many workers could hope for: some reforms. Another reason is because later on in the Weimar Republic period and the ascent of Nazism it was proclaimed "judeo-communist betrayal" and a narrative that Germany lost the war because of this revolution, described not as such but as "treason", became mainstream in the right wing of German politics.
It's not just Germany which is ignored: nearly all Europe had some sort of very strong class struggles, sometimes clearly revolutionary (notably Germany and Hungary) that shattered the socio-political order and set the foundations of the social-liberal status quo that dominated the 20th century and still lingers somewhat in spite of Neoliberal reaction. But it's easier for the elites to ignore the class struggle and pretend it was all "charity" orchestrated by FDR in the New Deal... two decades later.
It's also ignored because discussing it would leave the social-democrats and progressives in bad light as traitors to the working class and better explain the success of bolshevism, which is not the kind of logic that they want to promote.
1918-1921 was war with the Ukraniane and the Soviets. Busy time.
@@BiggestCorvid - One of the main players in the German Revolution was Rosa Luxemburg, who was actually Polish, from Zamosc, although she was against the division of Germany in the name of "internationalism".
I can recommend Państwo Czy Rewolucja Polscy komuniści, a odbudowanie państwa polskiego 1892-1920 bu Andrzej Friszke.
Mostly commenting to feed the algorithm, but you are without doubt my favorite youtuber, constantly challenging my understanding of history and socialism in the most wonderful ways. I look forward to the next video!
Every time you make a new video I really enjoy it. Especially this one, since you've introduced us in a period that I know so little about. Anyway thanks and I wish you well.
Wonderfully clear and interesting, thanks for the video. I'll wait impatiently for the next one
I feel like a similar phenomenon that occurred in the German empire in regards to unions (30:00 in the video) also occurred in May 68 where revolutionary potential was squashed via bureaucrats and paid officials’ complicity with the government.
For context, the trade unions CGT, FO and CFDT made deals with the workers’ employers that while getting better benefits and pay for the workers also sold out the workers’ revolutionary potential and furthermore betrayed their interest of an armed occupation of the factories that was already being carried out concurrent to these meetings.
Overall, this makes me highly suspicious of anarcho-syndicalism and radical unionism as a program to overthrow capitalism as the union leadership always works within the framework of the status-quo, which while making things better for workers in the short-term does not work to achieve revolution in the long-term. Essentially, they never go beyond the apparatus of the union and because the union is a defense mechanism of workers’ rights within capitalism, they can never go beyond capitalism. This is where I think unions ultimately fail.
Just to clarify, unions are obviously great for better workers’ pay and benefits just not as a long-term revolutionary apparatus to get out of capitalism or overthrow it.
Well said
I’m otto ruhle and i approve this message
Lenin smiled when he read this post
Yeah the anarchists around Malatesta are right when it comes to how we can build a new society unions alone won't get us there for sure
I'm pretty ignorant but the dynamic you recounted here is not the way all unions would run. One can imagine a union in which part of the requirement for joining is to engage in prefigurative politics to the degree at least that leadership can be questioned and ultimately recalled at the drop of a hat. That way the antirevolutionary sentiment doesn't necessarily become the governing principle of the organisation and its leadership whilst operating under an economic system that (at least a little) favours said union leadership. My point is that there have probably been unions and organisations that intentionally built in backup mechanisms to prevent leadership from fully capitulating to weak reforms and enforcing a rule that councillors simply have the ability to relay demands, not make decisions without consultation with the union members.
I give you Five Stars, Jonas. Can't wait for the next part -- but take your time.
Greetings from germany, thanks for putting the work in really enjoyed the video! I learned about the 1918 Revolution in school but it wasnt as detailed as your explanation.
could u push t' guns issue with your government, please, m8 ?)
important stuff, 4 reel, surely
but..damn!
hello from Ukraine
)
@@yehor_ivanov Hey dude, sorry iam not that important, i cant really help. I hope that it will be over soon, to many lifes wasted allready. Wish you and your people all the best.
One of your best videos yet. Keep talking about history!
Fantastic video. There were levels of nuance expressed here that I hadn't previously heard, particularly with regard to the unique influence of shop stewards.
The more I read and hear about the struggles of 100 years ago, the more interested I become in society's path forward and how I choose to become active within it.
So many good videos floating around at the moment. I thank you for your hard work and dedication, and I truly believe that this is the sort education is crucial.
I was driven crazy at 29:18 trying to find why I had received a notification though...
Great video. Can't wait for the second one.
Three arrows or Iron dice podcast, as the other channel is called, has a series called the fight for the republic, which goes, as he says, "...from the collapse of the german empire in 1918 through the roaring 20s and to the open carnage in the streets of berlin as the right, left, and center struggle for power..." SO there is going to be some good coverage. Glad to see this upload.
Can't wait for the next one! Thanks for this!
Man. You deserve an Honoris Causa for your labor. Amazing labor. I learnt more in your video that in a semester of whatever class in.... University! Times are changing, man. Thank you very much.
Thank you for making this video! Germany, my home country, and its revolutions...it was always a difficult story. While we contributed so much to the global ideas of the state of right and freedom and socialism, for ourselves we never really stood up when it was time. And when we stood up for ourselves, we always failed. It's a tragic story. But I hope I am correct in saying its not over yet and the true realm of freedom can still be realized in the future.
Lol. I think the revolution in East Germany of 1989 was very successful and a positive turning point for democracy. But I guess you are not a huge fan of its outcome, aren't you?
@@karlkarlos3545 It has brought more democracy, but it also destroyed the socialist foundation. So it has mixed results.
I would have much more preferred to grow up in a democratic socialist society, as was the proposal of "Für Unser Land" which was signed by roughly a million citizens of the DDR which would have still had the reunification, but it would have secured the socialist economy as well as introducing democracy.
@@LibertarianLeninistRants Well, the annoying thing with more democracy is, that you have to bow to the will of the majority. And the majority of East Germans (at least at that time) had frankly enough of the "socialist foundation" and preferred the social market economy of West Germany.
@@karlkarlos3545 only as long until they actually experienced unemployment, rising rents and western prices for themselves.
you are right, in a democracy, the majority has the power (theoretically).
however in times like these opinions change massively in no time. if there would have been a longer process, more stable opinions on what the people really wanted their future to look like would have crystallized. Its a shame that the reunification was so rushed, nobody really got what they wanted in the end
It’s over.
Amazing video! I'm really hyped for the wbole series
Amazing video, studied much of this back in the day, always interesting to listen to.
I love these. Can’t wait for the next one!
hour long CCK video this feels like christmas
I have no idea how this video has so few views (compared to your others). The writing is absolutely fantastic and the subject is something that every leftist should want to learn about. Great job on this man!
I have absolutely no doupts on why this is not a part of your average history curriculum(canon for you nerds) about the world wars.
I consider myself fairly educated on this time period but i still learned some new things, great video!
thank you for the video, such a well organised working class sounds like a dream
I can't thank you enough for your hard work to produce such excellent presentation of this epic yet tragic revolution. I have always been waiting for something as such to shed light on this complex segment of German social democracy. Great work. Many thanks to your dedication.
Great video!! I learned so much!
Awesome topic! Keep up the great work!
Truly fantastic video. As much as your theory videos are good too, I enjoyed this a lot more. There's nothing this in depth about this kind of topic elsewhere on youtube
informative and entertaining, cant wait for more!
Fantastic video. I've always wanted to learn about the German revolution of 1918 and this has been a great start.
Great video, as always. Very informative, this is a part of history that often gets ignored, but there is much to be learned as the US hopefully continues developing its modern labor movement.
Cant wait for the next one, brother
Re-watched after the most recent production. Very inspiring but I find tears in my eyes during both videos, much like my mixed emotions around the Christmas Truce a period of history where we conquered fear only to be driven to defeat by our rulers and their dogs.
Very nice video. And with regards to covering events post Kapp putsch I think it would be very nice to see you cover the March action
desperatly waiting for the next part!!!!
before watching this video i never knew about the german revolution, great video!
I've researched quite a bit of the German Revolution and this was a great effort :) I dont know if I would be able to do this as consciece as you did, I read too much and would probably be unsure what to leave out. I really like how you emphasized how little the different political intelligencias provided to the beginning of the revolution. It truly was a spontaneous erruption of the masses.
I'm really excited to have found this. Mal schauen was ich alles neues lerne! Vielen Dank.
Very necessary to tell this history. I also studied this revolution, because of its significance to understanding the praxis of socialist revolution in our age. A huge compliment for how you made this video. The key elements are all there and it's very coherently narrated which makes it attractive for a broader audience. Well done! Can't wait to see the rest.
Great work!
I love this video, i hope you make more.
Thank you so much for this!
Very interesting video… i am learning a lot. Thanks.
I loved this deep dive. More please 😀
Great Work!!!!!
Great video!
Great documentary!
thank you for this fantastic history lesson
This is such a well made video!!!
Super spectacular stuff, seriouly spiffing!
This was very well done.
yessss ty for posting
Hey man just wanted to leave a positive algorithm comment. I love your content. Keep going my friend :)
I’ll comment under that to keep it going
@@jacobolsons929 Here's one too.
Excellent video.
Great video
Oh boy i’m gonna enjoy this one bro
Really excellent, thanks. I know far too little about it, though I certainly know more now!
Great video, thank you
The main lesson of the german revolution:
reformist=class collaborator=counter revolutionary.
A very topical and useful subject to do a video on at this particular time. There are lots of historical precedents for modern issues alluded to, including: pitfalls of a "revolutionary" electoral party in congress and government, forces that erode radical principles, the reform vs revolution argument, the left responses to inter-imperial war, and most importantly a case study of where and how class consciousness and the revolutionary tendency arises as well as the role of leaders in harnessing this power for most effective progress.
While you don't editorialise much as these topics come up, I found this video to be actively conscious of all this and more. It is useful to know this history, of what has been tried before, to begin to answer some of the most fundamental questions confronting left political groups at this time. ...Now what's left is to figure out why my local socialist workers group is made up entirely of academics :D
Aciu labai, linkejimai is Airijos.
Ačiū Jonai, nekantriai laukiu antros dalies.
Wowie
A video I would have expected more by someone like three arrows rather than you
Still great work
Thank you so much cause tomorrow I have a history exam it helped me a lot
The exam is on Eskimo architecture. You are avoiding reality.
Very well researched, analyzed and narrated! I have one bit of criticism, but first I really like how you point out the role of the different actors and institutions, and especially the systemically conditioned differing interests and resulting division among the Socialist and Social Democratic factions! Even here in German the particulars of that stalled revolution are no longer well known by most, as the following decades overshadow those times both with regard to public awareness and personal biographies and education dedicated to it. When I learned about it in school (I took history as an intensive course, whose focus was revolutions in the modern age, so a deep-dive as far as public education goes...) our discussion of the events was very static, distanced and focused on the pseudo-ideological split and supposedly rather mindless factionalism between revolutionaries and reformist socialists, without really going into the details and actual societal manifestations of it, and this only came to bother me later, too. So, thank you for highlighting this! However, right there my criticism would be that this portrayal is imho a bit one sided and perhaps anachronistic with regard to how potent the revolutionary capacity of that time really was beyond the short-term, and in that context also how villanous and misguided the M(ajority, by name at least)SPD stance throughout the war really was, or whether there is more to that story. While I think Ebert and some figures in the M-SPD leadership kinda deserve to be portrayed as traitorous opportunist and cowards, with many instances suggesting that, this isn't true of the whole party faction. I think on the whole they really were convinced that history was on their side, the current configuration actually the one on the way to benefiting the average Joe the most, as it maintained peace and development, and that there was something righteous and/or inevitable about the war. Also, the state and the nation at that time were so positively connoted, even among Socialist-leaning parts of the public, not only due to propaganda, but because the state was actually quite functional, prospering and to a certain degree progressive. So even though people might have been opposed to the war, the General staff or the like, they might have been very convinced nationalists.
I saw a lot of people in the comments pointing out, how this revolution was the closest real case to a Marxian proletarian revolution in Europe. Well, yes and no. I think one shouldn't overstate how urban and industrial Germany on the whole was at that point in time. Militarist, religious and aristocratic conservatives, bourgeois and capitalist forces were strong, popular and united enough against their Socialist common enemy.
Great overview
i cant get enough of this
great video
Thank you so much for this
"A cry goes through the land: Who betrayed us? The Social Democrats".
Eugen Prager 1932
Thanks for the video! One hour went by like an instant! Algorithm, do your job!
Hell yeah. Thank you so much for your videos
I love your work.
Great stuff you've made. Have you ever wondered about adding the subtitles so that people from non-English speaking countries can translate the material into their mother tongues?
Sadly RUclips has completely disabled the community subtiles features.
When is the continuation due? Great work by the way!
Finished writing the script today! Now just gotta record and edit it...
Stunning
35:12 Potsdamer Platz is mentioned in David Bowie's Where are We Now? (2016), I knew it was a personally important part of Berlin for him but I didn't think of looking up this kind of history behind it, thank you.
This was really excellent and at times, reflects what is going on today in subtle and almost sinister ways. I think much of this is happening again. But great video.
I've yet to watch part 2 and 3 but this video was so good, holy hell. I just had to pledge a little bit. I can tell it takes a lot of work to put this together, and I'm inmenesely grateful.