When the Social Democratic Party divided into two subsets, the Majority SPD and the USPD, its communist counterpart, the decisions made would ultimately lead to unequal power. More importantly, this power struggle would lead to a significant occurence that would be an important precoursor to World War II.
The Majority SPD succeeded in establishing an eight-hour work day and make a deal with big businesses to consider free trade rights and unions. They would also choose to accept military support for the revolution in exchange for avoiding any revolutionary changes within the army. Although their deals looked good, this second decision would form an unequal balance of power.
As more and more actions are caused by the military compromise, the communist subset of the SPD would revolt for Marxism. Shortly after, the Majority SPD would use the right-wing military groups on their side to crush the opposing socialists.
The crushing of the Spartacist revolt for full Marxism is a significant turning point in the events leading up to World War II because it shows the emergence of political powers being completely unwilling to cooperate with opposition. Instead, they began using force to exert power, rather than political motions.
On a bigger level, it seems the division of the SPD and the power struggle that would follow left a window open for Nazi control. Just as the Majority SPD would not accept or reason with the other socialists' discontent, the Nazis would not consider compromising to help their opposition, no matter if it consisted of German citizens.
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I’m glad you pointed out that the schism between the SPD and the USPD was not only in the Reichstag but out in the streets. It is important to understand that the differences between the two groups were not only caused by differences in policy but in the fact that the SPD was literally calling for the execution of the Communists n the street through their support of organizations like the Freicorps. This ultimately means that there is no possible way the groups can reconcile. Both groups are too proud and too sore over political assassinations and street massacres to ever work together to accomplish anything for Germany. So when it comes time for the two groups to work together to fight off the Nazis neither group can muster support to stand up to them alone. They may have been able to gain the majority that they needed as a political force through some sort of coalition in order to halt the Nazis in their tracks and aid the Germany people, but bitter infighting and backstabbing made it impossible
ReplyDeleteDivision was a huge problem during this period. We've talked about how the Nazis were never a majority party, but the inability to form a successful coalition really gave them a lot of traction. It wasn't just the SPD either. The Center Party couldn't hold together either.
ReplyDeleteThe split on the Left did allow room for the Nazis to manipulate events but to some extent the rhetoric of the Left played a role as well. A group that is dedicated to the overthrow of the state and the seizing of private property is not quite the same a socilist group who wants to shift the balance of burdens between workers and employers. To play Devil's advocate, what measures should the state not take when confronted with an armed group proclaiming as its goal the overthrow of the state?
ReplyDeleteHaha I need to do some more research to come up with an answer for that one.
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