So I've been reading about the German revolution at the end of the First World War. I was wondering what the community thought of him. It seems like he tried to keep the monarchy in Germany but seemed like events forced him to abolish it and declare a republic. I was wondering what others thought of him. Was he someone to vilify or does he deserve a certain amount of sympathy for what happened?
I would like to point out that this site of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), the official think-tank affiliated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany, has an Academy for Social Democracy, through which people can learn more about social democracy. The site has various PDFs, mostly around 160 pages long (they're like books essentially), with neat design and detailed, but easy to understand, explanation of various topics pertaining to social democracy. The PDFs' topics are:
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History of Social Democracy;
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Foundations of Social Democracy;
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Economics and Social Democracy;
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Welfare State and Social Democracy;
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Europe and Social Democracy;
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Integration, Immigration and Social Democracy;
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State, Civil Society and Social Democracy;
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Globalisation and Social Democracy.
I believe that these PDFs and this site would prove to be very valuable to all those who have a keen interest in social democracy and wish to learn more about our movement, its origins, what it stands for and the policy it advocates, as well as hear social democratic perspectives as well as ideas and theories that influenced it.
This site is already linked in the "Recommended Books" page of our wiki, but I feel like the FES (and its work) hasn't been discussed nearly at all on this subreddit, perhaps because many people don't know about them, and that, despite its inclusion, it doesn't seem to have been noticed much. Therefore, I made this post simply to highlight it to people as their work is fantastic. Furthermore, most of those PDFs are translated into several different languages - so that is a helpful thing as well.
As for the foundation itself, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (named after the German president Friedrich Ebert, a social democrat, from the early 20th century) is one of the largest and most important social democratic think-tanks in Europe and it has international chapters as well in countries around the world. They carry out wide-ranging research in various countries and people can volunteer for them and research with them as well. Learn more about it here.
Give it a decade for the war with China or Russia to begin and she will lead the social democratic faction of the DNC to vote for war credits. I can foresee a situation in which she is elected in 2028 (maybe after a Tom Cotton win in 2024) to Stop The War, only to intensify it.
'We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.”
~Karl Marx
February 27th, 1919
Seldom had the Spartacist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg had to do anything that some might consider unsavory. She had denounced the nature of the Bolshevik revolution, yet sought to undergo a social revolution in her own nation. As Republikskanzler of the Free Socialist Republic of Germany, she was now inclined to undergo the same actions that others in her position had to partake in. She was disgusted and felt as if it were beneath her, though she would become determined to carry out her task efficiently and well.
With the approval of the Republikskanzler and the Executive Council of the Council of People’s Deputies, the Ministerium für Staatsicherheit was authorized to begin a purge of the Ebert-Schiedemann Government. Not only had these criminals sought to crush the revolution, but they also conspired with foreign powers to undermine the revolution. And because of their crimes to the peoples of Germany, it was the prerogative of the secret police to terminate the threat they posed.
Soldiers of the paramilitary wing of the Ministerium für Staatsicherheit would go on to simultaneously arrest key members of the Ebert-Schiedemann government. For their support in efforts of counterrevolution, various members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany would be arrested too.
Friedrich Ebert, Philipp Scheidemann, Gustav Noske, and various other social democratic politicians would be arrest at the SPD headquarters.
Matthias Erzberger would be arrested at his private home, having decided to forgo party functions while he nursed a small cold.
Otto Wels would be hidden by a number of loyal police officers, but he would later opt to turn himself in.
The only major SPD figure to escape the grasp of the secret police was Eugen Schiffer, who fled to France at the first opportunity.
With the head cut off the body, Friedrich Ebert’s already weak government unceremoniously collapsed.
Among the many charges SPD leaders were facing, their use of the Freikorps was listed as being the most heinous.
According to Thomas Kastning (2013), these are the core values of social democracy: https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/ghana/10519.pdf
- Freedom
- Equality
- Justice
- Solidarity
That means the best way to enact those basic principles is via a mixed market economy with a strong welfare state and regulations of the market by the state; not to mention respecting human rights and democratic values (which socialists rarely respect anyway).
if the german revolution had succeeded along with the russian one we'd probably be well on our way towards world communism by now and i wouldn't have to deal with this bullshit
