Development of German Socialism 1890-1939

Posted on 30/03/2026 by Michael

The German Revolution – November 1918

Development of German Socialism 1890-1939

Apart from the works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Germany produced a disproportionate number of Socialist/Progressive theoreticians from the late 19th century up to the start of World War II. Some of these were involved in heated and substantial debates with VI Lenin as he was developing the revolutionary element of Marxism (which led, in 1917, to the victory of the October Revolution in Russia) whilst in German the emphasis was being placed upon what became Social Democracy.

Even one of the most revolutionary of the German Communists, Rosa Luxemburg, carried out a persistent polemic against Lenin on the need for an organised and structured revolutionary Party to lead the workers in the taking of state power. Whilst not the sole factory in the defeat of the Spartacist Revolution in 1918 the lack of such an ideologically organised Party certainly played its part in the failed insurrection.

The works presented below are all part of building up an extensive library of Socialist/Communist thought up to and following the October Revolution. The success in Russia in 1917 and the struggle for the building of Socialism subsequently certainly challenged the ideas of Social Democracy but the victory of revisionism following the death of JV Stalin has allowed these erroneous ideas to again establish a foothold in the anti-capitalist movement. The denigration of the achievements of Socialism in those countries which made efforts to construct a Socialist society from the 1945 onwards, principally the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – USSR, the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, the People’s Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, also played its role in undermining revolutionary Marxism-Leninism. The ‘easy’ (though in reality the most difficult) road of Social Democracy has been, therefore, able to re-establish its sway in worker and peasant movements worldwide.

German Communism

Creating German Communism, 1890-1990 – from popular protests to Socialist State, Eric D. Weitz, Princeton University Press, 1997, 465 pages.

Rosa Luxemburg

On the National Question, Marxist Internet Archive edition, with internal hyperlinks as well as outside links to other documents on the MIA site, 146 pages.

The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions, English translation of 1906 German original, MIA edition.

The Crisis in the German Social-Democracy, (The Junius Pamphlet), The Socialist Publication Society, NY, 1919, 141 pages.

The Russian Revolution, Workers Age Publishers, NY, 1940, Marxist Internet Archive edition, 2020, 41 pages.

The Russian Revolution and Leninism or Marxism, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1961, 117 pages.

The Accumulation of Capital, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1951, translated by Agnes Schwarzschild, introduction by Joan Robinson, 474 pages.

The Accumulation of Capital, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 2003, translated by Agnes Schwarzschild, with a new introduction by Tadeusz Kowalik, 453 pages.

The Accumulation of Capital – an anti-critique and Imperialism and the Accumulation of Capital (by Nikolai Bukharin, written in 1924). Two separate works in one volume, edited with an Introduction by Kenneth Tarbuck, Monthly Review Press, NY, 1972, 289 pages. Luxemburg’s work is a reply to critics of her 1913 work (see above), while Bukharin’s work is another critique of Luxemburg which focuses on her 1915 Anti-Critique.

Letters to Karl and Luise Kautsky from 1896 to 1918, edited Luise Kautsky, translated from German by Louis P. Lochner, Robert M. McBride and Co., NY, 1925, 249 pages. Luise Kautsky’s introduction to this book is a good source for biographical information about Rosa Luxemburg.

Letters from Prison, Publishing House of the Young International, Berlin,1923, 79 pages.

Reform or Revolution, Vanguard Pamphlets, New Malden, 1951, 74 pages.

Leninism or Marxism, Independent Labour Party, London, 1971, 16 pages.

The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions, Young Socialist Publication, Colombo, 1970, 88 pages.

The Essential Rosa Luxemburg – Reform or Revolution and the Mass Strike, Helen Scott, ed., Haymarket, Chicago, 2008, 194 pages.

Selected political writings of Rosa Luxemburg, Dick Howard. ed., Monthly Review, NY, 1971, 441 pages.

The Rosa Luxemburg Reader, Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson, ed., Monthly Review, NY, 2004, 447 pages.

The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg, Volume 1, Economic Writings 1, Peter Hudis, ed., Verso, London, 2013, 559 pages.

Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation, and Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution, Raya Dunayevskaya, Harvester Press, Sussex, 1981, 234 pages.

Rosa Luxemburg’s views on The Russian Revolution, Clara Zetkin, first published by the Communist International, 1922, reprint Red Star Publishers, 2017, 212 pages.

Karl Liebknecht

Militarism and Anti-Militarism, written in 1907, Rivers Press, Cambridge, 1973, Marxist Internet Archive version, 206 pages.

The future belongs to the People, speeches made since the beginning of the War, Macmillan, NY, November 1918, 148 pages.

Voices of Revolt – speeches of Karl Liebknecht, International, NY, 1927, 104 pages.

Karl Liebknecht – man without a country, Karl W. Meyer, Public Affairs Press, Washington, 1957, 191 pages.

In Memoriam to our Comrades Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, Martyrs to the German Revolution, Max Bedacht, Socialist Party of San Francisco, 1919, 16 pages.

During the Weimar Era

Communism in Germany under the Weimar Republic, Ben Fowkes, Macmillan, London, 1984), 134 pages.

Barricades in Berlin, Klaus Neukrantz, International/Martin Lawrence, NY/London, n.d. 1933?, 191 pages. This is a novel based closely on the actual events of the police attack on the 1929 May Day demonstrations in Berlin.

During the Nazi Era

The German Communist Resistance: 1933-1945, T. Derbent, Foreign Languages Press, Paris, 2021, 128 pages.

Ernst Thaelmann

Ernst Thaelmann, fighter against war and Fascism, International Labor Defense, NY, 1935, 16 pages.

German Social-Democracy in the Late 19th Century and Early 20th Century

General

German Social Democracy, six lectures, Bertrand Russell, with an appendix on the SDP and the Woman Question in Germany by Alys Russell, Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1896, 216 pages.

The German Social-Democratic Party: 1914-1921, Abraham Joseph Berlau, NY. Columbia University Ph.D. thesis, 1949, 373 pages.

The SDP and World War I

The Socialist Party in the Reichstag and the Declaration of War, P. G. La Chesnais, T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1915, 140 pages.

Otto Bauer

Otto Bauer (1881-1938): Thinker and Politician, Ewa Czerwinska-Schupp, Brill Open Access, Leiden. 2017, 442 pages.

August Bebel

Woman and Socialism, Jubilee 50th Edition, Socialist Literature Co., NY, 1910, 513 pages.

Speeches of August Bebel, International Publishers, NY, 1928, 104 pages.

My Life, by August Bebel, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, n.d. 1912?, 358 pages.

Karl Kautsky

The Class Struggle, written in 1892 about the 1891 Erfurt Program, Charles H. Kerr and Co., Chicago, 1910, 217 pages.

Communism in Central Europe in the time of the Reformation, T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1897, 298 pages.

Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History, n.d. but the original German book was written in 1906, 216 pages.

The Social Revolution, with 2 lectures presented by Karl Kautsky in Amsterdam in 1902: Reform and Revolution and The Day After the Revolution, Charles H. Kerr and Co., Chicago, 1910, 190 pages.

The High Cost of Living: Changes in Gold-Production and the Rise in Prices, Charles H. Kerr and Co., Chicago, 1914, 133 pages.

The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, translated by H. J. Stenning, National Labour Press, Manchester, n.d. 1918 or 1919?, 158 pages.

Terrorism and Communism: A Contribution to the Natural History of Revolution, National Labour Press, Ltd., London, n.d. but first published in 1920, 245 pages.

The Guilt of William Hohenzollern, Skeffington and Son, Ltd., London, n.d. but late 1919 or early 1920, 270 pages.

Georgia – a Social-Democratic Peasant Republic: Impressions and Observations, translated by H. J. Stenning and revised by the Author, International Bookshops, Ltd., London,1921), 118 pages.

The twelve who are to die: The trial of the Socialists-Revolutionists in Moscow, with W. Woitinsky, published by the Delegation of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists (i.e., the Russian Social-Revolutionary Party), Berlin, 1922), 144 pages.

Foundations of Christianity – a study of Christian origins, International Publishers, NY, 1925, 488 pages.

The Labour Revolution, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1925, 293 pages.

The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx, A. and C. Black Ltd., London, 1925, 264 pages. Translated by H. J. Stenning.

Are the Jews a Race?, International, NY, English translation of 2nd German ed., 1926, 254 pages.

Thomas More and His Utopia, International Publishers, NY, 1927, 257 pages.

Academic and Historical Works on the Revolutionary Movement in Germany

General and Overall

The German Revolution, 1918-1919, Ralph Haswell Lutz, Stanford University, 1922, 187 pages.

The German Revolution and After, Heinrich Ströbel, Jarrolds, London, n.d. but circa 1923, 319 pages.

The November Revolution (of 1918) and the Overthrow of the Emperor

And the Kaiser abdicates – the story of the death of the German Empire and the birth of the Republic, told by an eyewitness, S. Miles Bouton, Yale University, New Haven, 1920, 280 pages.

Germany after the Armistice, Maurice Berger, Putnam, NY, 1920, 374 pages. About prevailing social conditions and attitudes.

Ebert and the German Republic, Robert George Brehmer, Jr., University of Wisconsin MA thesis, 1926, 172 pages. Supportive of Ebert’s bourgeois-democratic politics.

The Spartacist Revolt – the attempted Socialist Revolution following World War I

Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918-1919, Sebastian Haffner, Banner Press, Chicago, 1986, 224 pages. Somewhat messy scan; our apologies.

The Forgotten Revolution – Germany, a conceptual map, by Gaard Kets and James Muldoon, 2019, 24 pages.

The Spartacist Uprising of 1919, and the crisis of the German Socialist Movement, Eric Waldman, Marquette Univ. Press, Milwaukee 1958, 269 pages.

On the KPD up until World War II

We are neither visionaries nor Utopian dreamers, Willi Münzenberg, the League Against Imperialism, and the Comintern, 1925-1933, Fredrik Petersson, Ph.D Thesis, 2013, 598 pages.

Agricultural bas reliefs – Valea Morilor Park – Chișinău – Moldova

Posted on 11/11/2025 by Michael

Bas relief at the Valea Morilor Park, Chișinău

More on Moldova – on the Post-Socialist Countries – Eastern Europe and Asia page

Agricultural bas reliefs – Valea Morilor Park – Chișinău – Moldova

There’s a limited amount of Soviet decoration still visible in Moldova and only one example of this art work in the form of bas reliefs (so far) in Chișinău, the capital of the country.

This is on the façade of a building which is now some banal events venue but which must have had a more official function in the Soviet past.

What we have here are two tableau depicting agricultural, collective farm, life during the period of the construction of Socialism in the Soviet Union.

These are very reminiscent of the images that can be seen on the external walls of the Republic pavilions at the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy (VDNKh) in Moscow, but I didn’t – at the time of my visit – note exactly what images were representing which Republic.

What we have in all such bas reliefs is a respectful representation of working people, productive and working not just for themselves but for the benefit of the collective. We have men, women and children all involved in the productive process from which all will receive the awards and not having the fruits of their labour stolen by the capitalist owners of the means of production. There was a time when the workers of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) had the reins of power in their hands. The fact that they allowed those reins get into the hands of the exploiting class following the death of Comrade Stalin (in 1953) is, for the sake of this discussion, irrelevant. For a time they had the power – why they allowed that power to be taken away from them is an important matter but not something which can be covered here. (That ‘debate’ is available on other pages of this blog.)

In these images there’s always a gentle relationship between the collective farmers and the animals they tend. This would always be an idyllic representation. Farm life, when it comes to livestock, is invariably cruel. The animals are there for one reason – that it to be exploited for what they can produce whilst alive and to provide protein on their deaths. But even though that would have been the reality on any Soviet State/collective farm it would have lacked the industrial slaughter that exists under capitalist food, factory production process. I don’t want to romanticise Soviet agriculture but I don’t believe it ever reached the level that was already a long established norm in the ‘killing fields’ of the like of the Chicago stock yards as was depicted in Upton Sinclair’s ‘The Jungle’. In that capitalist environment it was (and is?) difficult to work out who was the more abused, the animals or the human workers.

Whether that situation would have arisen even if revisionism and the restoration of capitalism had not occurred in the Soviet Union is a moot point. Whatever the future might have been the past of a gentile relationship between man and animal is still preserved in the bas reliefs on the building close by the Valea Morilor Lake in Chișinău.

These images also tell the history of the country, in that those agricultural products that were important in the country in the 1960s/70s (when I assume the bas reliefs were produced) are there on the wall – the grapes (for the wine), the sunflowers (for the oil), the maize (for the cobs) and wheat (for the flour).

Somewhat surprising (to me) is the lack of a significant reference to industry. The unique representation is in a male with spanner. No mechanisation, no tractor/combine harvester in the imagery, no indication that agricultural production was moving away from a situation of ‘idiocy of rural life’. This is not meant as a criticism of the skills of agricultural workers but of the fact that their working life had traditionally led them to an existence of isolation and a lack of organisation which was forced upon industrial workers with the development of factories and the concentration of hundreds (and thousands) of workers in a restricted area. They wouldn’t have chosen that move if given free will – they would have preferred working in a ‘cottage industry’ with their cow, pig and chickens on common land and a small vegetable patch – but that was stolen from working people by the first major privatisation of the modern age with the Enclosure Acts (where the rich stole from the poor in a blatant act of ‘legalised’ theft).

So these public works of art told a part of the history of the common people in Socialist societies. When they were/are obliterated in a purge of the past because capitalism doesn’t want the working class to even remember what the construction of Socialism (with the potential to lead to Communism) had meant to their lives then they will just accept the ‘norm’ that capitalism offers – to stay in your place, to accept what is given and allow the billionaires to rake in unbelievable amounts of wealth whilst the poor get poorer and as their ranks are increased.

That is why the images of Socialist Realism are being destroyed and, in an attempt to combat that revision of history, why that imagery that remains is being documented on the pages of this blog.

If you head to the lakeside to see these bas reliefs then you cannot but avoid also visiting the tableau of the three outstanding Communists – Karl Marx, VI Lenin and Georgi Dimitrov.

Location;

Strada Ghioceilor 1, Chișinău,

By the Moldexpo International Exhibitions Centre and at the edge of the Valea Morilor Lake.

GPS;

47.01631 N

28.80432 E

More on Moldova – on the Post-Socialist Countries – Eastern Europe and Asia page

Socialist Realist Art in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Posted on 15/08/2025 by Michael

The daughter of Soviet Kirghizia – SA Chukov

Socialist Realist Art in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Introduction

It’s not just the manner in which public statues and monuments are treated that tells you a lot about a particular post-Soviet, post-Socialist society but how they choose to tell the story of the past in their art galleries. Art galleries were constructed in all towns and cities in Socialist societies, showcasing the work of local and national artists. Although all art from the past tells a political story (although then and now such a connection to politics is denied – ‘art for art’s sake’) in Socialist societies the importance of art (in all its forms) in the construction of Socialism was stated explicitly.

In all the countries that started along the road of the construction of Socialism in the 20th century the vast majority of the people would never have had the opportunity to view any of the art works that had been accumulated by the aristocracy and the wealthy – even in those ‘public’ art galleries that did exist. Even though the Hermitage Museum was open to the ‘public’ in 1852 few workers from the steel mills, sailors from the Imperial Fleet or any peasant who had reason to be in Saint Petersburg pre-1917 would have walked along such ‘hallowed’ corridors.

But as statues and monuments from the early 1990s started to disappear from the streets of those once Socialist countries so did paintings and sculptures (gradually in some places more rapidly in others) from the art galleries. Sometimes cloaked as a normal reorganisation of the collection what happened was that paintings which made an overt reference to leaders from the Socialist past or sculptures of those leaders were removed to be replaced with … what? The problem was that if the curators didn’t want to have bare walls they had to have some of those images from the Socialist period – or the galleries would just have to shut down.

It was ‘easier’ to replace public statues with something new but it also became problematic. Lenin and Stalin were deposed in Tirana to be replaced by the fascist, collaborator and self-proclaimed monarch, Zog – as well as some other ‘monuments’ . In Moscow the statues of Soviet leaders were placed in a museum park across the river from what must be one of the greatest monstrosities to be placed in the open air, that is the huge mess which is the monument to Peter the ‘Great’. In Tbilisi VI Lenin was replaced by a character from mythology, Saint George slaying a dragon. In Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan gaudy statues of feudal lords now ‘adorn’ squares and public spaces once occupied by Soviet leaders.

What all these replacements have in common is a separation from the working class. They bear no relationship to their daily struggles and these images only reaffirm their subservience to the capitalist ruling order.

When it comes to art galleries it’s not too easy to fill the empty places and many locations in post-Socialist societies still display (often the less ‘controversial’) examples from the period on their walls.

Below are details about the galleries and examples of the art on show at three art galleries in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Regional Art Museum – Atyrau – Kazakhstan

Atyrau Art gallery

This is a small art gallery, of just two storeys, with the collection of Soviet era paintings and sculptures on the first floor. It doesn’t seem to get many visitors and was very quiet on my visit. For those interested in other aspects of Kazakh culture the Regional Museum is just across the road.

Amongst the collection are still some overtly political paintings and prints. However, I am unable to include these in the slide show as I was prevented from taking pictures half way through my visit. I had only been in the country a short time and wasn’t aware that trying to take pictures with anything other than a mobile phone will get you jumped on.

Location;

11 Azattyk Avenue, which is a side street off the main road close to the Central Bridge over the ural River, on the ‘Asian’ side.

GPS;

47.10632 N

51.92281 E

Opening Hours;

Monday – Friday; 09.00 – 19.00

Saturday and Sunday; 10.00 – 19.00

Closed between 13.00 and 14.00

Entrance;

1000 Tenge (£1.40)

Kasteyev State Arts Museum – Almaty – Kazakhstan

Museum of Art – Almaty

This is a large art gallery in the city that used to be the country’s capital before that ‘honour’ being claimed by the monstrosity which is Astana. The collection covers many aspects of Kazakh art other than paintings and sculptures from the Socialist era with displays of what are normally classified as folk art. However, the slide show only includes work produced pre-1990. Of particular note, and somewhat unusual in such collections of Socialist Realist art, is the two paintings that depict a) the ‘tradition’ of bride kidnapping, which was fought against under Socialism but which has seemingly managed to be revived in the last 35 years and is still a scourge of Kazakh society, especially in the rural areas and b) the sad image of a young woman who is the victim of an arranged marriage.

Location;

Koktem-3 microdistrict, 22/1

GPS;

43.23603 N

76.91931 E

Opening times;

Tuesday – Sunday; 10.00 – 18.00

Closed Monday

Entrance;

500 Tenge (£0.70)

Kyrgyz National Museum of Fine Arts – Bishkek – Kyrgyzstan

The Kyrgyz National Museum of Fine Arts in Bishkek

This is another art gallery that displays much more than the art from the Socialist period. One picture to look out for (and which will be recognised by any readers who have an interest in Soviet Socialist Realist Art) is ‘The daughter of Soviet Kirghizia’ by SA Chuykov. This is the artist’s reproduction of the original which is in the New Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

Location;

196 Yusup Abdrakhmanov Street

GPS;

42.87893 N

74.61082 E

Opening times;

Every day (apart from Monday when closed); 11.00 – 18.00

Entrance;

Free