German workers' and soldiers' councils 1918–1919
Soviet-style councils of the 1918/19 German Revolution / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The German workers' and soldiers' councils of 1918–1919 (German: Arbeiter- und Soldatenräte) were short-lived revolutionary bodies that spread the German Revolution to cities across the German Empire during the final days of World War I. Meeting little to no resistance, they formed quickly, took over city governments and key buildings, caused most of the locally stationed military to flee and brought about the abdications of all of Germany's ruling monarchs, including Emperor Wilhelm II, when they reached Berlin on 9 November 1918.
In spite of being patterned after the soviets of the Russian Revolution, few of the German workers' and soldiers' councils had any interest in establishing a system of council communism. Most members wanted an end to the war and to German militarism, and the establishment of a parliamentary republic dominated by the moderate Social Democratic Party (SPD). The interim national revolutionary government, the Council of the People's Deputies, was initially a coalition of the SPD and the more leftist Independent Social Democrats (USPD), but in it and the majority of the other councils, the SPD was able to keep the radical left wing on the sidelines. During the two large gatherings of the workers' and soldiers' councils, on 10 November and at the Reich Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils that began on 16 December, most of the voting went the way the SPD leadership wished. An election for a national assembly that would allow all Germans, not just workers and soldiers, to determine Germany's future form of government was scheduled for 19 January 1919.
In the early months of 1919, there were a number of violent revolts by workers who thought that the revolution had been stopped too soon and wanted to carry it forward to establish a council republic. The government in Berlin, until 13 February still the Council of the People's Deputies, called on the army and the paramilitary Freikorps to suppress the uprisings, and there was considerable loss of life. The central councils in Berlin began turning their powers over to the Weimar National Assembly in early February. After the Weimar Republic was established on 14 August 1919, the last of the local councils disbanded late in the fall of 1919.