Ernst Däumig and the German Revolution of 1918 (Morgan , 1982)

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Ernst Dumig and the German Revolution of 1918 Author(s): David W. Morgan Source: Central European History, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Dec., 1982), pp. 303-331Published by: on behalf of Cambridge University Press Conference Group for Central European

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Ernst Daumig and the

German Revolution of 1918

DAVID W. MORGAN

ONE

ofthe oldest commonplaces about the German Revolu? tion of 1918 is that the leadership of the revolutionary left was ineffectual?that the revolution never found its Lenin.

Yet any one who seeks insight into particular leaders of this revolution will find little to go on. Apart from the peripheral but ever-popular Spartacist leaders and Kurt Eisner, only a handful of leading radicals and revolutionaries have been studied in any depth.1 Others, however im?

portant they were then, are shadowy figures to history. Among these is Ernst Daumig, intellectual leader ofthe Berlin Executive Council, fore- most spokesman ofthe German workers' council movement, and some- time chairman of two important political parties during the revolution?

ary years: the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) and the United Communist Party (VKPD).

Yet Daumig is one ofthe most interesting personalities on the socialist left in the years around 1918, with an unusual career, personality, and convictions. At the outbreak ofthe war he was middle-aged and middle-

ranking, but then, under the special conditions of war and revolution, he rose rapidly to the top. He won national prominence only after the

war, and even then he was distinguished from most of the faction he led by age?only a handful of other key revolutionary figures were over fifty years old?and a certain ethical traditionalism. Some two and a half years later, when he failed in his last, almost desperate effort to

regenerate the revolution?through Communism?he was left disillu-

sioned, weakened, and on the downward slope to an early death. The

l. See Ursula Ratz, Georg Ledebour 1850-1947 (Berlin, 1969); Helmuth Stoecker, Walter Stoecker: Die Fruhzeit eines deutschen Arbeiterfuhrers 1891-1920 (Berlin, 1970); Kenneth R. Calkins, Hugo Haase: Democrat and Revolutionary (Durham, N.C., 1979; orig. German ed. 1976). Among shorter studies see esp. Robert F. Wheeler's biographical preface to Curt Geyer, Die revolutiondre Illusion (Stuttgart, 1976).

303


304 Ernst Daumig and the Revolution of igi8

rise and decline of Ernst Daumig, in fact, is coextensive with the history ofthe German revolution, and perhaps as illustrative ofthe problems of the radical left in those years as the life of any one man could be.

Daumig, born in Merseburg on November 25,1866, had unusual be-

ginnings for a leading socialist.2 His family background is not definitely known, but his Gymnasium education suggests the middle or lower mid? dle class, most likely the latter.3 He is said to have prepared himself to

study theology.4 At the age of twenty, however, he went into military service, first in the French Foreign Legion in North Africa and Indo- china (where he rose to noncommissioned officer and was decorated twice) and then in the German army (again as noncommissioned officer, serving with an artillery unit at Metz). His military career lasted eleven years, until 1898, and left a lasting mark on his interests, for he devel?

oped and kept up a competence in military studies in spite of his subse?

quent revulsion against militarism and war.5 He was therefore at least in his thirty-second year when he joined the German Social Demo? cratic Party (SPD). Whatever jobs he may have held after leaving the army?he was a sleeping-car conductor for a time?it seems that he never had a trade or profession other than writing. By 1900 he was

struggling to earn his living as a freelance writer on military subjects, publishing fiction as well as journalistic pieces. Early the following year

2. The previously collected data about Daumig's career are sparse. There are quasi- autobiographical entries under his name in the Handbuch des Vereins Arbeiterpresse, Dritter Jahrgang (Berlin, 1914) and Reichstags-Handbuch, 1. Wahlperiode, 1920 (Berlin, 1920); unattributed biographical details in the text are from these sources. Johannes Fischart (pseud. of Erich Dombrowski), Das alte und das neue System, Dritte Folge: Kopfe der Gegenwart (Berlin, 1920), pp. 257-61, and Emil Unger, Politische Kopfe des sozialistischen Deutschlands (Leipzig, n.d. [1920]), pp. 121-24, are brief studies by contemporaries. The best personal appreciation is by "P.L." (undoubtedly Paul Levi) in Freiheit, July 6,1922. See also the recent brief treatments in Neue Deutsche Biographie and Biographisches Lexikon zur deutschen Geschichte.

3. Colin Ross, "Die ersten Tage der Revolution," Das Tagebuch 1 (1920): 287, asserts that Daumig's father was an army sergeant, which is plausible but unconfirmed. Accord? ing to P.L. in Freiheit, July 6,1922, Daumig never talked about himself; even his friends knew only scanty details about his early life.

4. Obituaries in Freiheit, July 6, 1922. The "religious" quality of his convictions is repeatedly mentioned by contemporaries.

5. Details of his military service are in letters from Daumig to Karl Kautsky in 1900: Karl Kautsky papers (International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam), D VII 237- 241. Kautsky published two of Daumig's articles in Neue Zeit in 1900; see also the fictional pieces Daumig collected as Moderne Landsknechte: Erzahlungen aus dem Kolonial-Soldaten- leben (Halle, n.d. [ca. 1904]).


David W. Morgan 305

he settled into his ultimate career when he took a job with the socialist newspaper in Gera.6

The next thirteen years saw a steady but undramatic rise for Daumig. Within a few months he moved from Gera to the larger Halle paper, and by 1908 he not only was in charge ofthe cultural page (Feuilleton), presumably his original job, but was also second political editor. In 1909 he moved to the Erfurt party paper as editor-in-chief.7 In both cities he became chairman ofthe workers' education committee (a characteristic and lasting interest of his) and member ofthe local party leadership; he was also known for work among the socialist youth. In the spring of

1911 he was honored by selection as one ofthe political editors of Vor? wdrts in Berlin, with special responsibility for military and educational

questions. Here, too, he quickly established himself, in particular as a

speaker in party assemblies. He excelled in workers' education, lecturing at the Workers' Educational Institute?a course in the history of litera? ture was one of his offerings?and helping to set up a workers' educa? tion committee for Greater Berlin, becoming its first chairman at the end of 1912.8 By the spring of 1913 he was highly enough regarded to be offered a nomination for the elections to the Prussian House of Dep? uties, an offer he refused, apparently unwilling (as so often in his career) to be pushed into prominent positions, particularly positions outside the

party.9 Daumig was thus still a rising man when the war broke out in the

forty-eighth year of his life. He was little known nationally?he had never had a seat in a parliament, he had spoken only once at a party con?

gress, and he wrote little for national journals?but his handsome, sol- idly built figure was familiar both on public platforms and in inner

party circles in the capital. He was known as sober, steady, even some? what pedantic in manner; he himself said that he could only lecture, not make a rousing speech.10 He was a pronounced radical, but not one

6. On Daumig as sleeping-car conductor see Philipp Scheidemann, Memoiren eines Sozialdemokraten, 2 vols. (Dresden, 1928), 1 1269; Hermann MUller, Die November-Revolu- tion (Berlin, 1928), p. 102; and Geyer, p. 159. For his struggles to establish himself as a writer see the letters to Kautsky cited in n. 5.

7. See fahrbuch fiir Partei- und Gewerkschafts-Angestellte for 1908, entry under Halle Volksblatt, and for 1910, entry under Erfurt Tribune.

8. See the issues of Mitteilungs-Blatt des Verbandes der sozialdemokratischen Wahlvereine Berlins und Umgegend for the autumn of 1912. He held this office until 1918.

9. Ibid., Apr. 9, 1913, p. 5. 10. Unger, Politische Kopfe, p. 122.


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306 Ernst Daumig ani the Revolution 0/1918

who, as Germans say, storms the heavens; rather he was a party man,

organization-oriented, and in a controversy with some of Rosa Luxem-

burg's associates on the very eve ofthe war he staunchly defended the

party's existing methods and purposes.11 But his methodical, bureaucratic side?his later friend Paul Levi was often reminded ofthe Prussian

corporal Daumig had once been12?was offset by an underlying emo- tionalism that seems to have been felt readily enough by his audiences and colleagues. The romanticism that impelled him into the Foreign Legion and infused his early writings,13 the ethical idealism shown by his regular Sunday lectures for a humanist society,14 were largely leashed, or sublimated into political commitment and administrative energy. Yet they gave a special quality to Daumig's devotion to the cause.

The tensions in Daumig's career might or might not have worked themselves out fruitfiilly in normal times. The war changed his life,

breaking the old molds, releasing his idealistic energies, and propelling him rapidly to the forefront of radical socialist politics.

The change in him was not immediate. Though he opposed Social Democratic support of Germany's war effort, he did so, for over two

years, within the framework of conventional radicalism. In August 1914, for instance, Daumig joined other Vorwdrts editors in protesting that the SPD's vote for war credits violated the party's long-standing taboo on support for the military, damaged the International and the SPD's position within it, and burdened the party needlessly with responsibility for the war and its consequences.15 In coming months he agitated against the "passivity" of the party line, demanding an active peace program;16 but at the same time he repudiated the hyperradicalism and break-awav tendencies of the nascent Soartacist Grouo. insistino: on

li. See [Daumig,] "Organisationskritik," Mitteilungs-Blatt, June 10, 1914, pp. 1-3, and his defense ofthe article, ibid., July 8, 1914, pp. 6-7.

12. P.L. in Freiheit, July 6, 1922. 13. See not only his letters to Kautsky in 1900 and Moderne Landsknechte but his propa?

ganda play Maifeier (Berlin, 1901). 14. P.L. in Freiheit, July 6,1922. Two published works derive from his concerns as an

ethical humanist, or freethinker: Wanderungen durch die Kirchengeschichte: Eine Vortrags- folge, gehalten in der freireligiosen Gemeinde (Berlin, 1917) and Freier Volks-Katechismus: Ein Wegweiser zur echten Nachstenliebe undfreien Menschenwiirde (Berlin, n.d. [1918]).

15. Text in Eugen Prager, Geschichte der U.S.P.D. (Berlin, 1921), pp. 30-31. 16. See his remarks of Feb. 1915 reported in Deutsches Zentralarchiv Potsdam, Reichs?

kanzlei 1395/9, pp. 190-91; also Das Kriegstagebuch des Reichstagsabgeordneten Eduard David 1914 bis 1918, ed. Susanne Miller with Erich Matthias (Diisseldorf, 1966), p. 38, and letter from Wilhelm Pieck to Karl Schroder, Feb. 21, 1915, in the Karl Schroder papers (Archiv der Sozialen Demokratie, Bonn-Bad Godesberg), 22.


Davii W. Morgan 3?7

working strictly within the party organization as long as possible.17 He

continued as chairman of the workers' education committee and lec?

turer in the Workers' Educational Institute, on new topics: the history of war and colonial policy. All in all, he was not one ofthe most prom? inent of Berlin's oppositional socialists. If the war had ended within

two years, Daumig might have remained a figure of the second rank.

The first critical break in his life came in 1916, in his job at Vorwdrts. During the war Daumig, as the editor charged with observance ofthe

military censorship regulations?no doubt because of his steadiness as

well as his knowledge of the military?had gradually become first

among equals on the staff. Then in October 1916 the Party Executive

seized control ofthe paper from its oppositional editors, with an assist

firom the censors, and Daumig lost his job.18 The bitterness which en-

suecl?Daumig, who usually eschewed personal attacks, called the Party Executive "dishonest," "hypocritical," and "unscrupulous"19?helped

precipitate the schism in the party and the formation of the USPD in

April 1917. Meanwhile the oppositional Berlin socialists converted their

monthly bulletin (Mitteilungs-Blatt) into a weekly political paper meant to serve the opposition, and later the USPD, throughout the Reich.

Daumig became its leading editor in November 1916, in the midst of

turmoil that was breaking up the old ways of the party. Further impetus came from the revolution in Russia, which Daumig

later called the "beacon light" by which he and his friends "oriented

themselves in the to-and-fro ofthe subsequent events ofthe war."20 On

Russia Daumig first showed how much his outlook had changed. His

paper, having followed the revolution closely from March on, openly

adopted the cause of the Bolsheviks in September, well before their

seizure of power.21 In November the Mitteilungs-Blatt greeted the tri-

umph of "the determinedly socialist elements" in the Russian labor

17. See anti-Spartacist resolutions proposed by Daumig in Max Groger, ed., Zur Abwehr (Berlin, n.d. [1916]), p. 6, and Vorwdrts, Sept. 11, 1916.

18. On this conflict see Zum Vorwdrts-Konflikt (Berlin, 1916), for the Party Executive's version; Der Gewaltstreich des Parteivorstandesgegen den "Vorwdrts" und die Berliner Partei- organisation (n.p., n.d. [1916]), for the opposition viewpoint; and Kurt Koszyk, Zwischen Kaiserreich und Diktatur (Heidelberg, 1958), pp. 45~48 and 79-85-

19. Mitteilungs-Blatt, Nov. 19, 1916, p. 8. 20. Freiheit, Dec. 24, 1919 (m.=morning ed.). 21. Mitteilungs-Blatt, Sept. 30, 1917. That Daumig was behind certain unsigned edito-

rials is likely from suggestions in the style, comments of contemporaries, other indications of his views at the time and later, and of course the fact that he was chief editor ofthe

paper.


308 Ernst Daumig and the Revolution of1918

movement who were finally putting into practice what socialists had

always preached.22 "In Russia," the paper observed in December, "the socialist proletariat has captured political power, has the powers of the

government in its hands, and is going on to realize all the great socialist and political goals."23

Wrapping the Bolsheviks in the mantle of true socialism implied a

challenge to German socialists to emulate them. In fact, as early as March 1917 Daumig had begun to tell closed party circles that revolu? tion was a strong possibility in Germany after the war, or perhaps even before it was over.24 During 1917, Daumig became a revolutionary? something quite different from a radical Social Democrat. Other radi? cals underwent the same evolution, but not many of Daumig's age or level of responsibility in the party; few can have had such strong chili- astic tendencies in them waiting to be mobilized. It was not an easy process; he wrote expressively and painfully of how "the most frightful of all wars has brought all economic, political, social, and intellectual

questions into flux and will keep them in flux for a long time to come."25 With the old verities gone, he fastened onto the vision of revolution that opened itself to him during 1917. He talked often about revolution in Russia, as one ofthe most engaged observers of Russian events in the whole of German socialism, and he always spoke implicitly of Germany as well. He declared, "We mean to learn from what happens there and then apply the lessons fruitfully to the coming struggles for the salva- tion of humanity from the claws of capitalism."26 Revolution?the imminent prospect of creating a new social order?became for Daumig the measure of all things.

This is not to say that Daumig gave up the party activities that had been the substance of his political life. He still lectured at the Workers' Educational Institute and to youth groups?though his subject was now the Russian revolution. He was still active in the Berlin party or?

ganization. In fact, during 1918 Daumig took his first position with the national organization: at the beginning of May he was co-opted into the

22. Ibid., Nov. 18, 1917. 23. Ibid., Dec. 16, 1917. 24. Speech reported in Die Auswirkungen der grossen sozialistischen Oktoberrevolution auf

Deutschland, ed. Leo Stern, 4 vols. (Berlin, 1959), 2:388. His newspaper at this time was still far more cautious.

25. Daumig, Wanderungen durch die Kirchengeschichte, p. 3. 26. Speech of Aug. 1918 reported in Die Auswirkungen, 3:1494. See also Mitteilungs-

Blatt, Feb. 24 and Mar. 31, 1918.


Davii W. Morgan 309

central office ofthe USPD as a salaried national secretary.27 Hardly any- thing is known about his work in this post, save that he had to operate a replacement for the party's press service, closed down by the censors on June 22.28

Daumig's new direction, however, also took him into the under?

ground movement of radical workers from the Berlin munitions indus?

try, the group later known as the "revolutionary shop stewards." To? ward the end ofthe war this circle, which had mounted strikes in April 1917 and January 1918, had explicitly revolutionary goals, and Daumig's participation?starting in the summer of 1918?involved him in the kind of conspiratorial activities party officials hardly ever practiced, however much they might talk revolution. His combination of sober, organizational qualities with revolutionary fervor made him an excel? lent choice as one of only two party officials admitted to the workers' committee, and he quickly became a leading figure.29 He approached revolution (as did the trade union militants on the committee) as a problem of patient, detailed preparation, and therefore resisted as waste- ful and dangerous Karl Liebknecht's efforts to whip up emotions by street demonstrations; but as the moment approached he showed him? self as active and impatient as any one.30 In fact, it was Daumig's arrest on November 8, with a briefcase full of insurrectionary plans, that pre- cipitated the shop stewards' final decision to set their machine in motion.31 The following day?though only in part because ofthe shop stewards' efforts?revolution came to Berlin.

Daumig did not join the new provisional government, manned by the two socialist parties; he condemned his party's efforts to direct the revolution jointly with the profoundly un-radical SPD, and held that the USPD should either run the government alone or go into opposi-

27- Leipziger Volkszeitung, May 3, 1918. 28. Koszyk, p. 96. 29. Richard Miiller, Vom Kaiserreich zur Republik, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1924), 1:127; and

Emil Barth, Aus der Werkstatt der deutschen Revolution (Berlin, n.d. [1919]), pp. 30, 32, and 35-36. The other party figure was Georg Ledebour.

30. See Liebknecht's diary entry for Oct. 28,1918, in Illustrierte Geschichte der deutschen Revolution (Berlin, 1929), p- 203; and the sources on the meeting of Nov. 2, cited in David W. Morgan, The Socialist Left and the German Revolution (Ithaca, N.Y., 1975), p. 113. According to R. Miiller, Vom Kaiserreich, 1:138, Daumig had the risky task of trying to establish contacts with the garrison.

31. R. Miiller, Vom Kaiserreich, 1:141; Barth, p. 52; Ledebour in Der Ledebour-Prozess (Berlin, 1919), p. 30; unpublished memoirs of Wilhelm Dittmann (typescript in IISH, Amsterdam), pp. 862-63.


310 Ernst Daumig and the Revolution of1918

tion. Named to a supervisory position in the War Ministry because of his special knowledge of military affairs, he refused the office, as he also

rejected suggestions on two occasions that he himself become war min? ister, saying that he would not let himself "be buried in the War Min?

istry."32 He also began to withdraw from his party positions. He seems to have become inactive in the daily affairs ofthe Party Executive soon after the revolution; while he may still have been a member as late as

mid-December, he must have resigned soon afterwards?quietly, with? out making an issue of it, as was his usual modest way in such matters.33 At some time in November he left the Mitteilungs-Blatt, and in Decem? ber he turned aside a proposal that he should replace Rudolf Hilferding as editor-in-chief of Freiheit, the USPD's new flagship daily, on the

ground that neither the national nor the local USPD shared his political commitments.34 What remained was the revolutionary committee, whose leaders had joined the newly elected Executive Council of the Berlin workers' and soldiers' councils. Daumig chose this as his forum, and made its cause his cause.

Daumig made his national reputation as spokesman for the council movement over the next year, and it is for this that he is now principally known. He was one of the first respected socialists to see the workers'

councils, not just as a revolutionary expedient, but as a potential alternative form of governance, in both the political and the economic

spheres; and the fervor, resourcefulness, and intellectual seriousness with which he promoted his conception ofa new society governed through councils are noteworthy. Here Daumig's visionary side reached the fullest expression it ever had in politics: the teacher and preacher were

merged for once with the political organizer. He could see the severe limitations ofthe actual revolution he was experiencing; but the mil? lenarian spirit evoked in him by the war led him nevertheless to treat these events as a critical opportunity which could and must be exploited to create a new world.

The place ofthe councils in this new order, as Daumig saw it, was to

32. Dittmann memoirs, pp. 927-29; H. Miiller, Die November-Revolution, p. 103; Die Regierung der Volksbeauftragten 1918/19, ed. Susanne Miller with Heinrich Potthoff, 2 vols. (Diisseldorf, 1969), 1:83 and 88.

33. Daumig himself said he was still a member in mid-December; USPD, Protokoll uber die Verhandlungen des ausserordentlichen Parteitages vom 2. bis 6. Mdrz 1919 in Berlin (hereafter cited as: USPD Parteitag, Mar. 1919), p. 263. His resignation was not reported in the press.

34. Freiheit, Dec. 16, 1918 (m.).


Davii W. Morgan 311

render men truly self-governing?to bring social, economic, and politi? cal institutions under the tangible control of the citizenry, and involve each person in responsibility for his or her immediate world.35 This, and nothing less, was what the revolution was about. Liberal democ?

racy had nothing to contribute here; from the outset Daumig, in con? trast to many members of his party, resolutely regarded "formal de?

mocracy," or "bourgeois democracy," as merely a facade for unchanged relations of domination in political and economic life. Workers' coun-

cils, the spontaneous product of revolutions in Russia and Germany? and therefore "the given form of organization ofthe modern revolu? tion"36?offered a fundamental alternative. The issue was not, as for

many radical socialists, how to find a place for councils within the democratic order; the issue was councils or liberal democracy, "pro? letarian or bourgeois-liberal democracy."37 Alternatively one could

speak of two forms of dictatorship: the dictatorship of capital, masked by parliamentary institutions, and the dictatorship ofthe proletariat, which he saw not as a party dictatorship but as "equivalent" to the council

system, and thus profoundly democratic in essence.38 Daumig was one of the very first (apart from the small factions of the sectarian left) to proclaim this choice as the central issue ofthe revolution, and he strove

uncompromisingly for the full realization of his ideal?the "pure coun? cil system," as it is commonly called.

Daumig saw council rule not just as an ideal or a program, but as a necessity. It was in the first place a moral necessity: "in these days, out of an ocean of blood and tears, a new world must arise."39 "The col-

35- The formal content of Daumig's conception is described and evaluated in Franz Gutmann, Das Ratesystem: Seine Verfechter undseine Probleme (Munich, 1922), pp. 61-66; Peter von Oertzen, Betriebsrdte in der Novemberrevolution (Diisseldorf, 1963), pp. 89-99; and Horst Dahn, Rdtedemokratische Modelle: Studien zur Ratediskussion in Deutschland 1918- 1919 (Meisenheim am Glan, 1975), pp. 44-56. It was a model of direct democracy based on the constant active participation ofthe working population (in a broad sense) through their places of work (where possible), or at least their occupational groupings. Councils would operate in both political and economic matters, combining policy-making and administrative functions. This model seems to have been suggested both by Daumig's direct experience of shop-floor political activism and by his understanding ofthe soviets in Russia.

36. Allgemeiner Kongress der Arbeiter- und Soldatenrate Deutschlands vom 16. bis 21. Dezember 1918 (Berlin, n.d.), p. 114.

37. USPD Parteitag, Mar. 1919, p. 95. 38. Ibid., pp. 95-96; see also Allgemeiner Kongress, p. 117. 39. Allgemeiner Kongress, p. 113.



lapse ofthe capitalist economy and civilization in the world war" meant that

the old capitalist production, the old ways of governing, the old cultural

perspectives founded on individualism and egotism are no longer viable. We intend to and must realize socialism in Germany because otherwise the great masses of the working people, all who must earn their bread with hand or brain, will not escape from economic hardship and spiritual and cultural narrowness and torpor. We must have socialism because only then will our

people's demoralization, bitterness, and disinclination to work be overcome, only then will there spring up in the working class feelings of self-confidence, responsibility, andjoy in labor, stripped of its character as capitalist bondage.40 The historical epoch of capitalism, which had brought a catastrophe on the world, was past; it would be a tragedy if capitalism should somehow reestablish its dominance?if indeed this were possible at all. For Dau?

mig believed that the revolution had planted itself ineradicably in the will ofthe workers, though perhaps not at first on the conscious level. Thanks to the war, "the psyches ofthe peoples are in constant stormy movement and will not come to rest until a new foundation has actually been created on which we can build anew."41 His premise was that revolution was on the march in the world, in spite of all difficulties and

temporary setbacks; and "we here in Germany are in the midst ofthe final struggle between capital and labor."42

This conviction was strong enough to outweigh Daumig's intense awareness of the weaknesses of the German revolution. After a few weeks of bitter experience he denounced events up to then as "a purely bourgeois revolution with purely bourgeois results."43 What was worse, the main obstacle to revolutionary advance was the failure ofthe work? ers to free themselves from old habits of mind and recognize their historic task. He declared to an assembly: "Comrades, I tell you, the worst

thing now threatening us is ultimately not economic collapse, but the damned trustfulness ofthe German, which he has taken along into the

40. Freiheit, Nov. 27, 1919 (e.=evening ed.). 41. Unpublished minutes of the general assemblies of the Berlin councils (Institut fur

Marxismus-Leninismus, Zentrales Parteiarchiv, East Berlin), Mar. 7, 1919, St. 11/13, P- 174.

42. Der Arbeiter-Rat 1 (1919), no. 28:2. 43. Daumig, Der erste Akt der deutschen Revolution! (Berlin, n.d.), p. 1. This is the text

ofa speech delivered on Dec. 27, 1918.


David W. Morgan 313

revolution with him."44 The problem was "to break finally with all the

decaying perspectives that sit so deep in all of us that the individual doesn't even notice it. The entire feeling of dependence, the pettiness of thought, are the kind of thing against which we must fight."45 Look-

ing back from a year later he summed up:

Rarely can a working class have gone into a revolution so little predisposed psychically . . . because the German proletariat has neither a revolutionary tradition nor revolutionary temperament, because the German proletariat is infected right into its class-conscious ranks with the spirit of subjection in which the German people has been raised for generations. . . . Such a pro? letariat, which was hurled into a revolutionary situation by the upheavals of the world war and which was not strong enough nor trained enough in revo? lution to hold onto the revolutionary gains ofthe first days in November of last year, must be schooled and formed for its revolutionary task in the course of the revolution itself.46

Nor could the parties and trade unions be expected to help in the

revolutionary schooling. Here is Daumig's thoroughly disillusioned view of the old conventional labor movement he had once served so

faithfully:

The organized masses without any revolutionary tradition and training, drilled on party discipline, punctual payment of dues, propagandistic chores, etc, the organization itself a rigid, bureaucratically elaborated structure with real assets like buildings, presses, newspaper offices, etc, further the trade union welfare institutions with their millions in dues. The leaders almost

exclusively dominated by the reformist outlook, accustomed on the one side to regard all events solely from a parliamentary perspective, on the other side

proud of the unions* great collective bargaining agreements, which impose certain contractual obligations on the employers without in any way threat-

ening the private profit economy of capitalism.47

Changes in these organizations since 1914 had been slow, very incom-

plete, and partly undesirable, for there were now three socialist parties, fighting among themselves. The parties and unions would not serve: it was necessary to "bring in a revolutionary organization of struggle

44- Minutes ofthe Berlin general assembly of Jan. 31, 1919, St. 11/12, pp. 73-74. 45. Unpublished minutes ofthe Berlin Executive Council (IML-ZPA, Berlin), Jan.

28, 1919, St. 11/5, p. 216. 46. USPD, Protokoll iiber die Verhandlungen des ausserordentlichen Parteitages in Leipzig

vom 30. November bis 6. Dezember 1919, pp. 239-40. 47. Freiheit, Dec. 21, 1919.



that has grown up on the soil of the social revolution and is made for the demands of this revolution"?the councils.48 Daumig never actually advocated the dissolution of parties or unions; but his allegiance, for over a year after the revolution, was to the councils.

For Daumig all this was not just a program or a doctrine; it was a vision. His language in presenting it tended to be urgent, metaphorical, sometimes rhapsodic. There is at the same time an element of pathos in these speeches and writings. Even as Daumig proclaims dogmatic cer- tainties and iron determination, he allows us to feel an underlying doubt as to whether the German masses would grasp their tasks before the

revolutionary moment ended in chaos. An elegiac tone creeps into the exhortation. Even at the peak of his activity, Daumig seems always to have lived with possibility of failure?including, one senses, personal failure. This helps us understand the odd moments of tentativeness and

episodes of avoidance in his career from the revolution to the collapse of his hopes in 1921.

As mentioned above, the manner of Daumig's entry into the council movement was conditioned by political and personal ties. At first he refused to serve on the Berlin Executive Council, a mixture of Inde?

pendent Socialists, Majority Socialists, and soldiers?the kind of alliance of opposites he hated.49 But the other leaders ofthe shop stewards' com? mittee joined, and Daumig could hardly abandon his close connection with the organized factory militants, Berlin's most promising revolu?

tionary force. He went in with his eyes open, noting sardonically that even his militant friends sometimes treated the Executive Council as a branch of the Metal Workers' Union, from which they nearly all came.50 Here, as on other occasions?notably in his dealings with the Communist International?he showed himself totally committed to the

cause, while reserved or sceptical about particular institutions that were

supposed to embody the cause. But his work in the Executive Council cemented a relationship that was to last. The shop stewards, an informal but potent network, were Daumig's truest allies for many months to

come, accepting him as spokesman in ideological matters and generally

48. Ibid., Nov. 27, 1919 (e.). 49. Details in Ingo Materna, "Der Vollzugsrat der Berliner Arbeiter- und Soldatenrate

in der Novemberrevolution" (unpubl. diss., Humboldt University, Berlin, 1969), pp. 88 and 101-2.

50. Minutes ofthe Berlin Executive Council, Nov. 19 and 23, 1918, St. 11/1, pp. 35 and 62.


David W. Morgan 315

showing a like mind in practical politics. With some, like Richard

Miiller, the lathe operator who was chairman ofthe Executive Council,

Daumig established bonds that endured through drastic political vicis-

situdes until nearly the end of his life.

Daumig's first instinct was correct; the Executive Council was doomed to dismal failure.51 He must bear a share ofthe blame, in that he influ? enced the council to aspire to goals beyond its limited sphere of effective

authority, which helped earn it a reputation for presumption, mis-

management, and futility. It was soon clear that most workers still

expected more from the government and the socialist parties than from the councils. Within a week of the revolution Daumig had begun to show the irritated depression and bitterness which found expression in his powerful speech at the national workers' and soldiers' congress in the third week of December.52 This congress confirmed that the coun? cils themselves wanted a parliamentary democratic order for Germany. It thereby liquidated the original hopes ofthe council-oriented revolu-

tionaries, and forced them to turn toward a new revolution?in Dau?

mig's words, to open "the second act ofthe revolution."53 Even after these early defeats Daumig and his allies, including leading

socialists and militants from other cities, continued to put their faith in the councils, which Daumig called the "sole achievement" ofthe No? vember revolution.54 They accordingly took on an absorbing, creative task of propaganda and construction, with some imposing results: an

agreement on detailed goals and structures by summer of 1919; the smooth transition to factory councils when the original workers' coun? cils lost their political functions; and above all the conversion of many industrial workers to belief in council rule, a process that continued well into 1920. Daumig was a central figure in all this, as editor ofthe weekly journal Der Arbeiter-Rat (which first appeared late in January 1919), principal spokesman for the council system at USPD party congresses and other major gatherings, and a leading organizer of the expanding but fragile network connecting the councils in different cities. But

despite all advances, the attempt to assert practical council authority against the exclusive claims of Weimar's conventional democratic sys-

51. The classic account ofthe Executive Council is Eberhard Kolb, Die Arbeiterrate in der deutschen Innenpolitik 1918-19 (Diisseldorf, 1962), pp. 125-37; see also Erich Matthias's introduction to Die Regierung der Volksbeauftragten, 1 :xcii-cvii, and Materna.

52. Allgemeiner Kongress, pp. 113-18. 53. Der erste Akt, p. 6. 54. Ibid., p. 1.



tem collapsed, overwhelmed by bureaucratic fiat, legislative enactment, and military action. By the summer of 1920 a large dissatisfied sector of the workers had endorsed the revolutionary demand for socialism

through the council system; but the actual institutions of the revolu?

tionary council system lay in ruins in all but a few localities. The pursuit of its aims involved the radical council movement in a

series of clashes, often violent; in consequence, Daumig lived a semi-

underground existence for much of the next two years. Between De? cember 1918 and March 1920 Berlin was mostly under martial law, with intermittent street fighting and bitter strikes. The Executive Coun? cil was raided and searched more than once, then abruptly closed down

by the government in August 1919. Its successor was also suppressed for several weeks, starting in November. Daumig was under arrest at least twice for brief periods, and was held for six weeks in January and Feb?

ruary of 1920. Conditions for him and his associates were thus more like the wartime state of siege than like life under a democratic order.55 This was real revolutionary schooling.

Daumig did not play an insurrectionist's role in these events. For one

thing, he strongly preferred nonviolent methods on ethical grounds. He

objected to what he called "putsch tactics," meaning armed uprising on every plausible occasion, giving as his reason that "workers' blood is a very precious substance that must be especially thriftily handled after this world war."56 He repudiated the shop stewards' only actual

attempt to overthrow the government by force, in the misnamed

"Spartacus week" of January 1919;?though his abstention was dictated more by political judgement than by concern about bloodshed.57 He hoped that

the path which the council idea, under immutable laws, still has to travel may not be spattered with blood. . . . The political schooling of the masses, pro- ceeding at a rapid pace in revolutionary times, lets us anticipate a victory of the council idea even without brutal use of force.58

55- A rare surviving private letter of Daumig's has bitter comments on the government's "persecution" of him and his friends; letter to Hans Ostwald, Sept. 13, 1919, in ASD, Bonn-Bad Godesberg, collection: Verschiedene Originalbriefe und Dokumente, 12.

56. Der erste Akt, p. 6. 57. Richard Miiller, Der Biirgerkrieg in Deutschland: Geburtswehen der Republik (Berlin,

1925), pp. 33-34; Ledebour in Der Ledebour-Prozess, p. 53; Daumig's own account in Protokoll der Reichskonferenz vom 1. bis 3. September 1920 zu Berlin, pp. 179-80.

58. Daumig's preface to Richard Miiller, Was die Arbeiterrdte wollen und sollen (Berlin, n.d. [1919]), P- 4-


Davii W. Morgan 317

But he was ready for conflict, caused (as he saw it) by the other side's blind refusal to bow to historical necessity. He was one ofthe originators of the ill-fated general strike of March 1919, which was intended to force socialist concessions from the government without violence, but ended instead in street fighting.59 The general strike remained his model of revolutionary action, though there seems to have been no other occasion in the next two years (apart from the Kapp Putsch) when he advocated one. At some point he also began a different kind of revolu?

tionary preparation: the organization of armed, underground cadres that could go into action in case a resort to force became unavoidable. Little is known about these activities?which probably began in the winter of 1919-20?nor about Daumig's role in them, but he has been identified as the chief organizer.60 He played no part, however, on either occasion when elements of this network, or some such network, went into action: the days of the Kapp Putsch, when he counseled

against armed action by the Berlin workers; and the VKPD's March Action in 1921, which Daumig, by then no longer in a leading position, outspokenly condemned.

In this and other ways Daumig's activities changed in the second half of 1919, as confidence in an early revolutionary success began to drain out ofthe movement. There was a greater stress on organization: on

thoroughness, system, and structure. Immediate opportunities for posi? tive political action might be lacking, but at least one could try to build

up the underlying framework ofthe councils in preparation for coming crises. Daumig, in a reversion to bureaucratic type, spoke at times as

though system was the key to the situation?"a council organization built according to plan and acting from a uniform outlook, which

[has] its affiliates in every workplace, in every office."61 He also began to stress the importance of creating a reliable elite of conscious revolu? tionaries in the factories. As early as March 1919 he had begun a speakers' course for selected members of the workers' councils.62 As the year

59- See Morgan, The Socialist Left, pp. 230 and 232-36. 60. Ruth Fischer, Stalin and German Communism (Cambridge, Mass., 1948), p. 173;

Gunther Nollau, International Communism and World Revolution (London, 1969), p. 68. The scanty evidence about the preparations is cited in Morgan, The Socialist Left, p. 333. Daumig several times made vague public references to this side of his activity; see USPD Reichskonferenz, Sept. 1920, p. 184; Verhandlungen des Reichstages, vol. 345, p. 925, and vol. 347, p. 2242.

61. Daumig in Die Revolution: Unabhdngiges sozialdemokratisches Jahrbuch fur Politik und proletarische Kultur 1920 (Berlin, 1920), p. 90.

62. Mentioned by him in USPD Parteitag, Mar. 1919, p. 232.


318 Ernst Daumig and the Revolution of 1918

wore on the elitist element in his thought became more pronounced; he once even called for "a proletarian intelligentsia."63 His experience as leader of a small vanguard was turning into acceptance of the prin? ciple ofa vanguard, in a form new to his thinking.

Similarly, towards the end of 1919 the "world revolution" began to feature in Daumig's formulations as it had not while the vitality ofthe German revolution itself seemed sufficient. On the anniversary of the November revolution?which he now called a mere collapse, not a true revolution at all64?he elaborated on his understanding of "the

revolutionary epoch in which we find ourselves":

The catastrophe of the world war with all its side effects and consequences, even today scarcely graspable, has created the preconditions from which the world revolution is now setting out on its march through all countries. . . . Here in Germany this revolution assumed acute forms in the November days of 1918, after it had entered the stage of feverish intensity a year earlier in the former Tsarist Empire, while in the countries ofthe West just the preliminary spasms of proletarian rebellion against capitalist power are showing them? selves. The world revolution is here!... As a social revolution it goes through the different lands and everywhere sharpens the class conflict between the

previously ruling and privileged classes and the proletarian forces, which

partly instinctively, partly purposefully aim to dig the grave of the old economic and social order.65

Germany's beleaguered revolutionaries took comfort in seeing their efforts as part ofa wider movement whose ultimate success was prom? ised by the Russian experience. But for many this was more than a

platonic vision. A growing part ofthe USPD, including Daumig, con- cluded that being truly a part of the world revolution meant seeking alliance with the Bolsheviks through the new Communist International.

Daumig, unlike many others, showed no hesitation about his inter? national loyalties. He had no interest in efforts to revive an inclusive Second International containing reformist as well as revolutionary so?

cialists, while his longstanding sympathy and admiration for the Bol? sheviks made him immediately ready to join the Third International,

63. See especially his comments at the USPD's September conference, reported in Freiheit, Sept. 11,1919 (m.); and in Die Revolution, pp. 95-97. The quoted words are from the announcement of a new school for training members of the councils of which Daumig was cosponsor; Die Rateschule, no. 2 (Jan. 1920), p. 3.

64. Freiheit,Nov. 11, 1919 (m.). 65. Metallarbeiter-Zeitung, Nov. 15, 1919.


Davii W. Morgan 319

founded in Moscow in March 1919.66 But if his choice was easy, the tone in which he addressed such matters was unusual. His support for the Bolsheviks was steady and loyal rather than effusive; he recom- mended the Bolshevik experience for study and constructive evaluation rather than for simple emulation. Here is a typical passage, from June: The much-abused Bolshevism was the first to call a halt to the mad slaughter ofthe nations and to try to replace a shattered state and ruined economy with a form of society that meets the requirements of socialism. Many a false step, many an error may have been made, but the greatness ofthe enterprise cannot be diminished thereby. . . .

The history of Soviet Russia up to now offers us enormously valuable lessons for the construction of the council system, for the establishment of the

dictatorship ofthe proletariat: lessons also in that we can avoid many a mis? take that our Russian friends had to make under the pressure of circumstances.67

The Bolsheviks had no firmer German defender of their achievement than Daumig, but also no friend who referred more often to their mis? takes and to how Germans must modify Russian practices to fit their own needs.68 What he admired was their boldness in ending the war,

breaking with the halfhearted "Kerenskis," and devising new political and economic institutions intended to embody socialism. He seems to have been aware that the Bolshevik leaders during most of 1919 spoke only abusively of him and other left-wing Independents;69 perhaps it was partly for this reason that he allowed others to lead the campaign for affiliation to the Third International. But where he stood was clear: "The unambiguously revolutionary elements ofthe world revolution have already crystalized in the Third International, and we regard it as our duty to join these picked forces at once."70

The last, and most momentous, ofthe changes in Daumig's activity at the end of 1919 was his assumption of a leading party office. It hap-

66. A good guide to his thinking is his May Day article in Die Republik, May l, 1919. 67. Daumig's preface to Philips Price, Die Wahrheit iiber Sowjet-Russland (Berlin, n.d.

[1919]), p. 5. 68. See for instance Allgemeiner Kongress, p. 116; USPD Parteitag, Mar. 1919, pp. 96-

97 and 228-29; L>er Arbeiter-Rat 1 (1919), no. 20:3; USPD Parteitag, Dec. 1919, p. 372. The only "error" he specified was the Bolsheviks' use of political repression and terror. Daumig's reticence is also noted in Peter Losche, Der Bolschewismus im Urteil der deutschen Sozialdemokratie 1903-1920 (Berlin, 1967), pp. 228-29.

69. See Lenin's comments in Die Kommunistische Internationale, no. 2, pp. 76-77, and no. 3, p. 29. Daumig's article in Die Republik, May 1,1919, appears to reflect knowledge of such comments.

70. USPD Parteitag, Dec. 1919, p. 371.



pened dramatically, with little prelude: on December 6, at the USPD's second postwar congress, he was elected one of the party's two chair-

men, and was abruptly catapulted into the world of high party politics, toward which he had shown little but repugnance for over a year.

Daumig had never entirely ceased his party activity after giving up his official positions in November and December of 1918, but his ties were tenuous. He detested the USPD's policies during these months of coalition socialist government, which he once compared with Kerenski's doomed regime.71 Relations between the party left and the leadership almost reached the breaking point. At a Berlin party assembly on De? cember 28, 1918, several shop steward leaders, including Daumig, de? clared themselves willing to run for election to the National Assembly only if party chairman Hugo Haase were excluded from the list.72 When the assembly opted for Haase, the disgruntled radicals gave thought to pulling out ofthe party altogether. They were unable, how?

ever, to arrange an accommodation with Karl Liebknecht and his asso-

ciates, who were just then founding the Communist Party (KPD), and the idea of yet another new party, alongside the Communists, was

unappealing. Daumig made his decision at this time to stay with the

large, growing USPD and wait for it to be radicalized by the further

development of the revolution.73 For most of 1919 he waited. By spring he was the best-known mem?

ber ofthe party's left wing?apart from Georg Ledebour, who was in

jail?and he regularly appeared at major party conclaves. But he hardly ever wrote for the party press, publishing instead in his own Der Arbeiter- Rat and in the daily Die Republik, which he also edited for a time; and he held no party office.74 At one point he almost ended his abstention: a party congress in March elected him cochairman with Haase, seeking to reconcile the party's wings. But Haase balked, reminding the con?

gress that not only had Daumig repudiated him, Haase, in December, but he had just refused to endorse the USPD's latest program, which

71. Die Republik, Dec. 8, 1918. His reasons for disaffection are best expressed in Der erste Akt, pp. 4-5.

72. Freiheit, Dec. 29, 1918, and Jan. 3, 1919 (m.); USPD Parteitag, Mar. 1919, pp. 263-64.

73. Der Grundungsparteitag der KPD: Protokoll und Materialien, ed. Hermann Weber (Frankfurt, 1969), pp. 270-80; Freiheit, Jan. 3, 1919 (e.); R. Miiller, Burgerkrieg, pp. 86-89; USPD Parteitag, Mar. 1919, p. 263; USPD Reichskonferenz, Sept. 1920, pp. 180-81.

74. Daumig wrote regularly for Die Republik from April on, and was coeditor from the beginning of June until the paper's suppression by the government on June 23.


Davii W. Morgan 321

was much radicalized but still a compromise product.75 Like the earlier

assembly, the congress opted for Haase, choosing Artur Crispien in

Daumig's place, while Daumig returned to his labors in the council

movement, probably with relief.

Daumig was in fact deeply ambivalent about parties in the revolution. In his work in the councils the narrow partisanship ofthe three socialist

parties?"party egotism," he called it?was a curse. At times he sug? gested that common labors in the council system would lead the different socialists to overcome organizational differences and merge the parties on a new basis.76 But he knew the parties were a powerful force for

good or ill as long as they lasted. He had no use for the SPD, as a party; it was not part ofthe movement (though many of its followers were), it was part ofthe enemy, and he always denounced coalitions between USPD and SPD as inadmissible.77 The Communists were different;

Daumig saw them as fellow revolutionaries, regrettably divided from the main body of revolutionary socialists by their "putschism," their

tendency to pander to their wildest followers in tactics, and their con? stant pursuit of narrow party interests.78 The USPD was the party where the bulk ofthe revolutionaries were gathered; but its inherited forms and procedures and the outlook of many members, including most of the higher leaders, made it still "a radical opposition party" and not a revolutionary party.79 Until this was changed Daumig's in? volvement in the party could never be wholehearted.

Younger, more aggressive and single-minded men took the lead in

trying to transform the party?men such as Curt Geyer, Otto Brass, Bernhard Diiwell, and their allies in the Party Executive, Walter S toecker and Wilhelm Koenen. Daumig collaborated with this faction without

quite being a member of it.80 But the program points used in its cam?

paign were ones long associated with Daumig: dictatorship ofthe pro? letariat through the councils, a principle that had won majority support in the party after ten months of brutal and unimaginative rule under the

75- USPD Parteitag, Mar. 1919, p. 254. 76. See for instance ibid., p. 105. 77. In March 1919 Daumig strenuously resisted an attempt to renew the coalition of

the two socialist parties; see Das Kabinett Scheidemann: 15. Februar bis 20. Juni 1919, ed. Hagen Schulze (Boppard am Rhein, 1971), p. 4111.

78. Minutes ofthe Berlin general assembly of Mar. 7, 1919, St. 11/13, p. 182; USPD Parteitag, Mar. 1919, p. 106; Ernst Daumig and Richard Miiller, Hie Gewerkschaft! Hie Betriebsorganisation! Zwei Reden (Berlin, n.d. [1919]), pp. 15 and 18-19.

79. Daumig in Freiheit, Dec. 21, 1919. 80. This relationship is evident from Geyer, pp. 128 and 159.



new democracy; and affiliation with the Communist International. With Ledebour heterodox on both points, Daumig was now more than ever the outstanding figure ofthe left wing, as well as one ofthe most pop? ular personalities in the party. When the left wing mobilized a voting majority at the Leipzig party congress in December, Daumig was its natural choice for the chairmanship. However reluctantly, he accepted.81

The chairmanship (which he shared with Crispien) meant a displace- ment of Daumig's efforts from the council system?which he still de? clared to be a more important revolutionary instrument than the party82 ?into conventional politics. His goal, he wrote a few weeks later, was to see to it "that the Independent Party not merely calls itself a revolution?

ary party and parades around with a revolutionary program, but acts in a Marxist-revolutionary sense without timid reservations."83 But as it turned out, Daumig had been thrust into a position he detested: nomi- nal head of an institution which ultimately would not lend itself to his

purposes. The USPD did not become truly revolutionary just because the left wing passed its resolutions and elected its men at a party con?

gress. Not even the new Party Executive was revolutionary in Daumig's sense, for some ofthe radical majority proved to be conventional party men, even if ideologically advanced. Ultimately, the USPD was understood by much of its rank and file and most of its middle leadership, parliamentary representatives, and newspaper editors not as an agent of immediate social revolution, but as the continuator of the old Social Democratic orthodoxy in a somewhat more radical form. True, another

part of the rank and file, the majority in several important cities, was highly radicalized, and Daumig obviously hoped that the balance ofthe

party had changed, or was about to change. It had not, and would not.

Daumig was in for a miserable time. The confident advance of the USPD's left wing ended in January

1920 after a bloodbath at a big public demonstration in Berlin, blamed

by many socialists partly on the demonstration's sponsors, the council movement. Daumig, who was in detention from January 19 to March 4, was powerless to resist as a counteroffensive by the moderates halted the leftward trend in the party leadership.84 Meanwhile the revolution-

8i. The words Geyer puts in Daumig's mouth as the latter tried to resist being nomi- nated?"I am not the man you think I am" (pp. 159-60)?may or may not be historical, but the fact of his resistance surely is.

82. USPD Parteitag, Dec. 1919, esp. p. 243. 83. Freiheit, Dec. 24, 1919. 84. On this whole affair see Morgan, The Socialist Left, pp. 311-20.


Davii W. Morgan 323

ary council movement decayed, being undermined by new legislation and then slowly emasculated by the jealous trade unions. Daumig was at liberty again (though ill from his imprisonment) in time to join in the one great mass action of 1920, the popular resistance to the Kapp Putsch, which began on March 13; but he was able to play almost no

positive role.85 A united working-class front against the putsch was the

goal of all socialists; however, while Daumig aimed to unite the workers

by reviving workers' councils with political powers, many of his fellow

Independents instead sought an all-socialist Reich government incor-

porating the USPD, the SPD, and the unions. The USPD leadership was so miserably divided that it fell into agonizing, embittering paral? ysis. Daumig himself twice threatened to resign when coalition with the SPD seemed near.86 Many people saw Daumig's position as essentially abstentionist and obstructive (which was far from his intention), and his reputation suffered.87

By comparison with its failure in March, the USPD's great success in the Reichstag elections of June 6 meant little, at least to a revolu?

tionary, and Daumig, who won his first parliamentary seat, showed his indifference by refusing election as chairman of the party's Reichstag delegation.88 Daumig and his friends were looking, not for parliamen? tary action, but for ways to get the revolution moving again. In this

spirit they turned toward the Communist International and the suc? cessful revolutionaries behind it, the Bolsheviks.

Until circumstances forced the role on him in the summer, Daumig was not publicly a leader in the drive for affiliation with Moscow; his views are therefore not known in detail. Those who led the drive, such as Stoecker and Geyer, believed that the International could help them

finally to transform their party as well as to revive the revolutionary

85. The illness is mentioned in Geyer, p. 180. On the USPD leadership in the Kapp Putsch see Morgan, The Socialist Left, pp. 320-32.

86. Luise Zietz in Protokoll uber die Verhandlungen des ausserordentlichen Parteitages in Halle vom 12. bis 17. Oktober 1920, p. 64; Wilhelm Koenen, "Zur Frage der Moglichkeit einer Arbeiterregierung nach dem Kapp-Putsch," Beitrage zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, 4 (1962): 348.

87. See Arthur Rosenberg, Geschichte der deutschen Republik (Karlsbad, 1935), pp. 114 and 136.

88. Protokoll der Fraktion der U.S.P. (unpubl. minute book, IISH Amsterdam), minutes for June 21, 1920. His maiden speech in the Reichstag, on October 30, began with words on the futility of parliamentary speechmaking; Verhandlungen des Reichstags, vol. 345, p. 918. In two years in the Reichstag he made only three speeches, the last in March 1921.



spirit in Germany. Moreover, joining the Comintern was popular with a clear majority ofthe party's rank and file, which offered the left wing an advantage in its intraparty power struggle. The more conventional

party leaders and their following were suspicious of the Comintern's

tendency to dictate to member parties, but did not dare to oppose affiliation outright.89 Both sides understood that control of the USPD's future was potentially at stake when Daumig and three others departed on July 13 to take the USPD's application for admission to the Inter- national's Second World Congress in Moscow.

Within the larger doings of the congress, the story of the USPD's

delegation represents a small personal drama of fatal importance to the

party.90 It was a balanced delegation, two supporters of joining the International (Daumig and Stoecker) and two sceptics (Crispien and Wilhelm Dittmann), and the members made an honest effort to preserve their common front. The front held for a while; even Daumig's speech to the congress represented a defense of the USPD's autonomy, and

gave nothing away.91 But Daumig and Stoecker finally could not main? tain the reserve of their colleagues. In important ways this was their

milieu, a source of revolutionary strength from which they could not cut themselves off.92 They were openly distressed at some ofthe Inter- national's new Twenty-One Conditions for admission, and Daumig, at least, strongly opposed the Bolshevik intention to reform the USPD

by splitting it. In the end, however, both men found they could accept the Twenty-One Conditions; and Russian pressure brought them to declare their views before leaving Moscow. A split in the USPD became inevi table.

Before leaving Moscow Daumig and Stoecker concerted the main lines of their coming campaign in the USPD with the Comintern's leaders and Paul Levi ofthe KPD; and on their return Daumig opened the controversy with a piece in Freiheit.93 Through much ofthe ensuing

89. On the development of the issue in the spring of 1920, see Robert F. Wheeler, USPD und Internationale (Frankfurt, 1975), chap. VII.

90. The best source is accounts given by the four delegates, especially those in USPD Reichskonferenz, Sept. 1920. See also Wheeler, USPD und Internationale, chap. VIII.

91. Der zweite Kongress der Kommunist. Internationale: Protokoll der Verhandlungen vom I9.fuli in Petrograd und vom. 23. Juli bis 7. August 1920 inMoskau (Hamburg, 1921), pp. 366-73.

92. See Stoecker's letter to his wife, July 28, 1920, in H. Stoecker, p. 231. 93. See Levi's report of Aug. 25, 1920, in Levi papers (ASD, Bonn-Bad Godesberg),

P 27; Dittmann memoirs, pp. 1150-51. Daumig's article appeared in Freiheit, Aug. 26, 1920 (e.).


David W. Morgan 325

debate, however, his voice was oddly muted. His basic position was

plain: with the help of the International and its conditions of entry, "the USPD in theory, practice, and organization will finally be what it has so far only claimed to be: a genuinely purposeful, organizationally unified and combative revolutionary party, a battle-ready army in the front ranks of the revolutionary world proletariat."94 Details were

unimportant:

Petty formalism may object to this or that in the superficial confusion ofthe congress, but nothing can change the fact that people were working there with honest effort to create a firm fighting unity for the international pro? letariat. In detail there will have to be a good deal of polishing and rebuilding in this young institution. But I for one have no doubt that the Communist International will embrace all parties that have the will to carry on the struggle against capitalism and reaction to the very end.95

He pressed unwaveringly for adherence to the International under the

Twenty-One Conditions; but he did so, until late in the campaign, without endorsing the conditions in detail.96

Daumig at any rate had no serious inhibitions about merger with the Communist Party and adoption ofthe Communist name; he had always regarded the Communists less as party rivals than as allies in the councils

(though often exasperating ones). And affiliation with Russia was natu? ral for him, in fact virtually inescapable. It was a point of honor to join the Bolsheviks in the world struggle, especially now that they were so hard pressed by international capitalist reaction; he could not under-

stand, he said, how anyone could claim to support the defense of Soviet Russia (a slogan used by all Independents) while opposing the Com? munist International.97 He even declared that, when the Bolsheviks claimed leadership over would-be revolutionary parties abroad, they had clearly earned this right.98

This was new; Daumig had been an admirer of the Russians, but never a disciple. Other new elements crept into his discourse in the

94- Daumig's preface to Fiir die dritte Internationale! by Curt Geyer et al. (Berlin, 1920), p. 5.

95. Freiheit, Aug. 26, 1920 (e.). 96. See his speeches in USPD Reichskonferenz, Sept. 1920, pp. 37-52 and 178-93, where

an underlying ambivalence is unmistakable. He justified the conditions in detail only in Fur die dritte Internationale! pp. 5-8.

97. USPD Reichskonferenz, Sept. 1920, pp. 40 and 42. 98. Kommunistische Rundschau, Oct. 1,1920, pp. 9-10, and Oct. 14, 1920, p. 3; USPD

Parteitag, Oct. 1920, pp. 104-5.



latter stages ofthe campaign. He had invested a great deal in the deci? sion for Moscow, and he was presumably trying to adapt to the con?

sequences of his choice. In line with his new allegiances, throughout the

campaign he hardly ever spoke ofthe councils, and when he did, he no

longer accorded them primacy over the party?a concession to the extreme party-centered outlook of the Communists which must have been difficult for him.99 The idea of a vanguard or elite, which he had earlier used for the council leadership, was now applied to the party's role.100 He justified the rigorous centralization demanded by the Inter? national, often using military metaphors for the party's tasks, a way of

talking foreign to him and in fact adopted directly from the Comin? tern's language ofthe day.101 In another small but telling way he broke with his past: he declared that the party must cease bringing general culture to the workers and educate them exclusively for immediate

revolutionary tasks.102 All this was couched at times in a new, harsh

language, routine in Leninist circles but not heard from Daumig before. His first piece for the new Kommunistische Rundschau, which he edited with Geyer and Stoecker, featured unprecedentedly brutal and sarcastic turns of phrase, including attacks on the private motives ofthe Comin? tern's opponents.103 Daumig had come a long way in a few weeks; he was becoming "Bolshevized"?though only superficially, as time would show. But there were also revealing flashes of his old self, even as late as the Halle party congress where the USPD finally split:

And since for a year and a half now we have all of us together, myself included, been bunglers, myself also included, yes indeed, and since Russia has shown us how hard it is to wage war against world capitalism, therefore I am for adherence to the Third International.104

Whatever struggles Daumig may have experienced within himself,

99- For the sole significant mention of the councils, see USPD Parteitag, Oct. 1920, p. 111.

100. Ibid., p. 101. 101. Freiheit, Aug. 26, 1920 (e.), and Sept. 13, 1920 (e.). 102. See Daumig's preface to Fritz Fricke, Die Rdtebildung im Klassenkampf der Gegen-

wart (Berlin, 1920), p. 6; Kommunistische Rundschau, Dec. 6, 1920, p. 2; Bericht iiber die Verhandlungen des Vereinigungsparteitages der U.S.P.D. (Linke) und der K.P.D. (Sparta- kusbund), abgehalten in Berlin vom 4. bis 7. Dezember 1920, p. 46.

103. Kommunistische Rundschau, Oct. 1,1920, pp. 6-11, esp. p. 9; these imputations were rather graciously withdrawn in the second issue (Oct. 14, 1920, pp. 5-6). But see other uncharacteristically personal aspersions in Fiir die dritte Internationale! pp. 6 and 8.

104. USPD Parteitag, Oct. 1920, p. 108.


Davii W. Morgan 327

he remained the most respected ofthe USPD's advocates ofthe Com? munist International; and he became cochairman (with Paul Levi) of the new United Communist Party formed by merger of the left-wing Independents with the Communists early in December 1920. He was to hold this office for a mere eleven weeks. His role in the intraparty dis?

putes of this time is obscure, but was probably close to that of his friend and ally Levi, about which much more is known.105 Levi was then resisting the Comintern's efforts to radicalize its West European member parties by whatever means it could find, even at the cost of

greatly reducing these parties' mass following, which would mean?in Levi's (and Daumig's) eyes?condemning them to impotence. Levi's independence of mind provoked Moscow into mounting an intrigue against him, reinforcing anti-Levi sentiment that was already present among many militants. These conflicts had their dramatic outcome on

February 23,1921, when several prominent members resigned from the VKPD Central Committee, among them both party chairmen.

Levi and Daumig did not resign in order to start a faction fight; they only wanted to escape from presiding over the execution of disastrous Comintern policies.106 Daumig was still prepared to act as official spokesman for the party in the Reichstag on March 18.107 But within days of this speech the predicted disaster struck in the form of the notorious March Action, a semi-insurrectionary movement launched without any particular goals on the instance of representatives of the International from Moscow. This was the old

"putsch tactics" with a vengeance, and much blood flowed to no purpose. Daumig was affected most directly when the party attempted by strong-arm methods to force a strike in the large Berlin factories, his prime constituency since the revolution.108 These events finally stirred the "Levite" circles to open protest. Levi's classic polemics, Unser Weg and Was ist das Verbrechen?, led the assault;

many others, including Daumig, Richard Miiller, and other former

105- See Richard Lowenthal, "The Bolshevisation of the Spartacist League," in St. Antony's Papers Number 9: International Communism, ed. David Footman (London, 1960), pp. 23-71; Werner Angress, Stillborn Revolution: The Communist Bidfor Power in Ger? many, 1921-1923 (Princeton, 1963), pp. 86-102.

106. This is the burden of their brief declaration in Rote Fahne, Feb. 28, 1921. Levi, like Daumig, was always ambivalent about the leadership positions he occupied.

107. Verhandlungen des Reichstages, vol. 348, pp. 3207-10. 108. For the story ofthe March Action see Angress, chaps. 4 and 5; Lowenthal, pp.

57-64; and Willy Brandt and Richard Lowenthal, Ernst Reuter: Ein Leben fiir die Freiheit (Munich, 1957), pp. 151-59. On the Berlin factories see Brandt and Lowenthal, p. 158, and Fischer, p. 176.



shop stewards, and even Clara Zetkin, also spoke out.109 But the party leadership remained intransigent. Levi, too loud to be ignored, was

expelled, with a few others; still others, like Miiller, lost their party jobs. The dissidents clustered around Levi, and waited for improvement. But when a Comintern congress and then a party congress in the sum? mer brought no relief, resignations began.110 On September 26, 1921, nine months after beginning his new life as a Communist, Daumig too left the party.111

The failure of his hopes for Communism seems to have wounded

Daumig in a mortal spot, robbing him of the sustaining belief that he was participating in the historic transition to socialism.112 He was not

among the more vocal members ofthe disaffected group?perhaps be? cause he deplored polemic, perhaps because he no longer had a positive program to put forward. But he soldiered on. When Levi's associates founded a new parliamentary group, the Communist Alliance (KAG), at the time of Daumig's resignation from the KPD, Daumig (with Adolph Hoffman) took on the editorship of its weekly bulletin, and filled this post until the paper shut down the following March. At the KAG's first formal conference in November he was elected to its na? tional directorate.113 But the group's only raison d'etre was to regenerate Communism from the outside, and the KPD leadership frustrated this

hope by fending off the dissidents and stabilizing the party in its own fashion. By February 1922 the KAG had no reason for carrying on. At the end of March, after some hesitation on both sides, most of its mem? bers entered (or reentered) the USPD, Ernst Daumig among them.114

The return to the USPD must have been profoundly humiliating for

Daumig. So far as we know, he played no role in the party during the remainder ofthe spring except as a member of its Reichstag delegation,

109- See Daumig's letter of March 28 to the Central Committee, in Sowjet, May 1, 1921, pp. 9-10; and a protest letter cosigned by him, ibid., May 15, 1921, p. 57.

110. Daumig was specially invited to attend the Comintern congress in Moscow: letter from Levi to Mathilde Jacob, Aug. 5,1921, in Levi papers, P 84. He was too ill to go. In spite of his robust appearance Daumig was subject to recurrent ill health which seems to have become more frequent from this time onward.

111. Declaration by Daumig and Adolph Horfmann in Mitteilungsblatt der Kommuni? stischen Arbeitsgemeinschaft, Oct. 1, 1921.

112. The obituaries in Freiheit and Leipziger Volkszeitung, July 6,1922, stress how much weakened in every respect Daumig seemed after his breach with the Communist Party. Dittmann, p. 1236, says he was a "spiritually broken man" at the end.

113. Mitteilungsblatt der Kommunistischen Arbeitsgemeinschaft, Nov. 25, 1921. 114. See Morgan, The Socialist Left, pp. 412-14.


David W. Morgan 329

and even there he was absent for several weeks because of illness. On

June 13, in the middle ofa Reichstag session, he collapsed in his seat. At about midnight on the night of July 4,1922, at the age of 55, he died.115

Daumig, at one time a dominant, emblematic figure, no longer mattered politically at the end; few in high places stopped long to mourn him. Yet he remains, at the least, a remarkable political per? sonality. He was modest, and markedly selfless in his work. His convictions were strong, but all who dealt with him testify to his friendliness, his consideration for others, his readiness to listen to the views of those who differed with him. He was a wheelhorse of any enterprise to which he lent himself, with a pronounced, even painful sense of responsibility. But he was ultimately a deeply divided personality.116 On the one hand, he was an organizer and manager, with a clear eye for what needed to be done and the will to do it. The taste for organizational solutions to

problems never entirely left him, even during his passionate involve- ment in the council movement, and people still remarked on his sober, bureaucratic style. Along with this went an unusually realistic awareness of the weaknesses the movement needed to overcome?including his own weaknesses. But at the same time he had a deep inner need for faith in higher things. The central mission of his life from around 1900 to the middle of the war, and in a sense even afterwards, was to help elevate the consciousness of the workers, to help them raise the level of their humanity. This was Daumig the evening teacher and Sunday lecturer, and it led, under the peculiar circumstances of 1917 and 1918, to Daumig the prophet. Here his sustaining beliefs became directly mil?

lenarian, and however much he might apply his formidable practical gifts to realizing his vision, he was caught in a dangerous tension between commitment and reality that ultimately left him vulnerable.

As a revolutionary leader, Daumig had many valuable qualities: energy, conviction, commitment, high intelligence, independence of

mind, a sense of responsibility toward his followers, and a good measure of charisma. But his peculiar psychological formation set limits to his effectiveness. His revolutionary fervor was bought at the price of chili- astic urgency that could not sustain repeated shocks of frustration. He lacked the balance needed for a long career as a professional revolu?

tionary. And the narrow focus of his revolutionary commitments?the

115- Verhandlungen des Reichstages, vol. 355, p. 7795, and vol. 356, p. 8287. 116. Only P.L. (Levi), in Freiheit, July 6, 1922, has done justice to the duality of

Daumig's personality and character.



council system, in the particular way in which he conceived it?restricted his range of fruitful activity. He functioned well as both colleague and leader in a milieu where his central beliefs were common to all, as in the council movement during 1919; but when forced into harness with

persons of different perspectives?as in the Berlin Executive Council, or later in the USPD Party Executive?he could become dour, withdrawn, and ineffective. He was prey to the impulse to retire onto the secure (if lonely) ground defined by his central beliefs?and this warred with his sense of responsibility, with sometimes the one winning, some? times the other. Though he put so much of himself into his politics, there was something remote about him as a leader, and something brittle.

Even before his late, dramatic conversions, Daumig must always have been a man at war with himself. The stages of his career were a succes? sion of self-repudiations, renunciations of his previous life. His entry into the Foreign Legion may have been the first of these, though we have too little information to know. A clearer case is his transformation from career soldier to antimilitarist and socialist, which moreover ap? parently meant a rupture with his relatives.117 His later metamorphosis from conventional radical to revolutionary was a genuine conversion

experience, which entailed repudiating Social Democratic perspectives and committing himself to something substantially new. The final re- nunciation was his turning from a belief in the spontaneous revolu?

tionary potential ofthe German workers through their own institutions, to reliance on the principle of a tight revolutionary vanguard largely directed from abroad. This last, willed conversion remained incomplete and psychologically unsuccessful; in that it is particularly revealing.

Throughout the most creative phase of his life Daumig held that the German proletariat would rise to the needs of its times and build a new human society on the ruins of the old world that had failed mankind so badly. It was almost a willed belief; Daumig, after all, saw so clearly the lack of revolutionary drive in the German socialist parties and the German workers. But given the historical and moral necessity of revo?

lution, surely the masses would respond. In this way Daumig was at once a leader ofthe German revolution and one of its most illuminating

117- Daumig to Karl Kautsky, Aug. 3, 1900, in Kautsky papers, D VII 241. In his early play Maifeier (1901) there is a petty-bourgeois convert to socialism whose resulting family conflicts are particularly vividly portrayed; this may be a piece of reworked autobiography.


David W. Morgan 331

critics. He recognized the distortions of the conventionally radical so? cialist movement far better than most contemporaries, and separated himself from them more completely. But like his fellow revolutionaries, in their great majority, he remained committed to reaching his socialist end by essentially democratic means, by evoking the spontaneous revo?

lutionary energies which he saw lying latent in the German workers. Like his friends he was caught in the dilemma of trying to mobilize for socialist revolution a working class which in its mass would not tran- scend its deep-rooted democratic hopes to embrace the transforming vision of socialism. But because of the particular nature and sources of his convictions, Daumig, unlike the others, was destroyed by the dilemma.


Article Contentsp. 303p. 304p. 305p. 306p. 307p. 308p. 309p. 310p. 311p. 312p. 313p. 314p. 315p. 316p. 317p. 318p. 319p. 320p. 321p. 322p. 323p. 324p. 325p. 326p. 327p. 328p. 329p. 330p. 331

Issue Table of ContentsCentral European History, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Dec., 1982), pp. 303-399Volume InformationFront Matter [pp. 399-399]Ernst Dumig and the German Revolution of 1918 [pp. 303-331]Heute Deutschland! Marx as Provincial Politician [pp. 332-350]The Roots of Crime in Imperial Germany [pp. 351-376]The Great Berlin Beer Boycott of 1894 [pp. 377-397]News [p. 398]Erratum: Cotta and Napoleon: The French Pursuit of the Allgemeine Zeitung

Documents

Ernst Däumig and the German Revolution of 1918 (Morgan , 1982)