Chapter Five: The Spoils of War¶
Core Argument¶
The defeat of Germany in 1918 produced the punitive Treaty of Versailles in June 1919, whose 'War Guilt Clause' and crushing reparations of 132 billion gold marks reflected the divergent imperialist interests of the victorious powers. France sought maximum retribution and dismemberment of Germany; Britain aimed to weaken Germany while preventing French dominance; the United States intervened late to exhaust both sides and secure global hegemony. John Maynard Keynes resigned from the British Treasury, denouncing the treaty as a 'Carthaginian peace' that would ruin Europe and provoke revolution. The reparations burden fell upon the German working class while the bourgeoisie profited from inflation, and the treaty's humiliation fuelled German nationalism, laying the groundwork for Hitler's rise.
When Germany defaulted on reparations in January 1923, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr, seizing its coal—the region contained eighty per cent of Germany's steel and seventy-one per cent of its coal production. The Cuno government declared 'passive resistance', forbidding co-operation with the occupiers; only the Communists voted against this policy in the Reichstag. Hyperinflation spiralled catastrophically: a loaf of bread costing 250 marks in January 1923 reached 201,000 million marks by November. Fixed incomes, savings, and insurance policies were wiped out; infant mortality exceeded wartime levels. The bourgeoisie—notably Stinnes, Thyssen, and Krupp—accumulated vast fortunes through access to central bank loans repaid in devalued currency. By August, a spontaneous general strike of three million workers toppled the Cuno government, but the new Stresemann administration, including the SPD, ended the strike.
The Communist International's leadership vacillated fatally. Zinoviev and Bukharin supported defying bans on demonstrations; Radek and Stalin opposed it, fearing defeat. Stalin argued the KPD lacked the resources the Bolsheviks had in 1917. When a revolutionary situation emerged, Zinoviev and Trotsky recognised it, but the Comintern's direction proved disastrous. The ECCI ordered the KPD to enter state governments in Saxony and Thuringia as a springboard for revolution, planning to arm 50,000–60,000 men. Brandler opposed this, but Zinoviev overruled him. When the Reichswehr issued an ultimatum, Brandler called a trade union conference to launch a national general strike, but Social Democratic leaders blocked the vote. Brandler abandoned the insurrection plans. In Hamburg, Thälmann and Remmele, unaware of the cancellation, gave the go-ahead; 1,300 KPD members seized police stations and erected barricades, but most workers remained passive, and the uprising collapsed.
The Comintern initially accepted some responsibility for the October defeat but, within two months, shifted blame entirely onto the German leadership, especially Brandler and Thalheimer. At the Fifth Congress in March 1924, KPD leaders were condemned as the Comintern leaders—Zinoviev, Bukharin, and Stalin—who bore ultimate responsibility escaped censure. The April 1924 KPD Congress recorded membership falling from 267,000 to 121,400. Trotsky's Lessons of October drew the essential lesson: the need for resolute leadership, which was absent in Germany. The Zinovievite campaign of so-called 'Bolshevisation' transformed parties into pliant tools of Moscow, not revolutionary organisations. After 1923, the German party was transformed from a revolutionary living organism into a mouthpiece for the emerging Stalinist bureaucracy, sealing the fate of the German revolution and the Communist International.