Ernst Daumig: A Key Leader of the German Revolution of 1918

Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical
Association
Ernst Dumig and the German Revolution of 1918
Author(s): David W. Morgan
Source: Central European History, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Dec., 1982), pp. 303-331
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of Conference Group for Central European
History of the American Historical Association
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Ernst
German
Daumig
the
of
Revolution
DAVID
ONE
and
1918
W. MORGAN
ofthe
oldest commonplaces
about the German Revolu?
of the revolutionary
tion of 1918 is that the leadership
left
the revolution
never found its Lenin.
was ineffectual?that
Yet any one who seeks insight into particular leaders of this revolution
but ever-popular
will find little to go on. Apart from the peripheral
Kurt
a
of
and
handful
leaders
Eisner,
only
leading radicals and
Spartacist
have been studied in any depth.1 Others, however
im?
revolutionaries
portant they were then, are shadowy figures to history. Among these is
leader ofthe Berlin Executive
intellectual
Ernst Daumig,
Council, foreofthe German workers' council movement,
and somemost spokesman
of two important political parties during the revolution?
Social Democratic
and the
Party (USPD)
ary years: the Independent
United Communist
Party (VKPD).
time chairman
on the socialist
Yet Daumig is one ofthe most interesting personalities
with
an
unusual
and
left in the years around 1918,
career, personality,
At the outbreak ofthe war he was middle-aged
and middleconvictions.
of war and revolution,
ranking, but then, under the special conditions
he rose rapidly to the top. He won national prominence
only after the
from most of the faction he
war, and even then he was distinguished
a handful of other key revolutionary
led by age?only
a certain ethical traditionalism.
over fifty years old?and
a half years later, when he failed
the revolution?through
regenerate
sioned,
weakened,
in his last, almost

Communism?he
and on the downward
slope
figures were
Some two and
desperate effort to
was left disillu-
to an early death.
The
l. See Ursula Ratz, GeorgLedebour1850-1947 (Berlin, 1969); Helmuth Stoecker, Walter

Stoecker:Die Fruhzeit eines deutschenArbeiterfuhrers1891-1920 (Berlin, 1970); Kenneth R.
Calkins, Hugo Haase: DemocratandRevolutionary(Durham, N.C., 1979; orig. German ed.
1976). Among shorter studies see esp. Robert F. Wheeler's biographical preface to Curt
Geyer, Die revolutiondreIllusion (Stuttgart, 1976).
303
Ernst
304
rise and decline

ofthe
German
Daumig
and the Revolution
of igi8
of Ernst Daumig, in fact, is coextensive

with the history
and perhaps as illustrative ofthe problems of
revolution,
the radical left in those years as the life of any one man could be.
25,1866, had unusual
Daumig, born in Merseburg on November
be-
is not definitely
ginnings for a leading socialist.2 His family background
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
At the age of twenty, however,
he went into military
study theology.4
service, first in the French Foreign Legion in North Africa and Indochina (where he rose to noncommissioned
officer and was decorated
and then in the German
officer,
army (again as noncommissioned
with
an
unit
at
artillery
Metz). His military career lasted eleven
serving
years, until 1898, and left a lasting mark on his interests, for he devel?
twice)
in military studies in spite of his subse?

oped and kept up a competence
revulsion
militarism
and war.5 He was therefore at least
against
quent
in his thirty-second
year when he joined the German Social Demo?
cratic Party
(SPD). Whatever jobs he may have held after leaving the

a sleeping-car
was
conductor
for a time?it
seems that he
army?he
other than writing.
never had a trade or profession
By 1900 he was
to earn his living as a freelance writer on military subjects,
struggling
publishing
fiction
as well as journalistic
pieces. Early the following
year
2. The previously collected data about Daumig's career are sparse. There are quasiDritter
autobiographical entries under his name in the Handbuchdes VereinsArbeiterpresse,
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, PolitischeKopfe 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 DeutscheBiographieand BiographischesLexikon
zur deutschenGeschichte.
3. Colin Ross, "Die ersten Tage der Revolution," Das Tagebuch1 (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 237241. Kautsky published two of Daumig's articlesin Neue Zeit in 1900; see also the fictional
pieces Daumig collected as ModerneLandsknechte:Erzahlungenaus demKolonial-Soldatenleben (Halle, n.d. [ca. 1904]).
David
into his ultimate
he settled
W. Morgan
career when
he took
305
a job with
the socialist
in Gera.6
newspaper
The next thirteen
Within
rise for Daumig.

years saw a steady but undramatic
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),
his original job, but was also second political editor. In 1909
presumably
In both cities he
he moved to the Erfurt party paper as editor-in-chief.7
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?
for military and educational
wdrts in Berlin, with special responsibility
he
established
Here, too,
himself, in particular as a
questions.
quickly
became
speaker in party assemblies. He excelled in workers' education, lecturing

at the Workers'
Institute?a
Educational
course in the history of litera?
ture was one of his offerings?and
helping to set up a workers' educa?
tion
committee
for Greater
its first chairman at the

Berlin, becoming
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
had
year of his life. He was little known nationally?he
forty-eighth
never had a seat in a parliament,
he had spoken only once at a party con?
he
and
wrote
for
national
sollittle
his handsome,
gress,
journals?but
built
familiar
was
on
in
inner
both
and
idly
figure
public platforms
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-Revolution (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 fahrbuchfiir Partei- und Gewerkschafts-Angestelltefor 1908, entry under Halle
Volksblatt,and for 1910, entry under Erfurt Tribune.
8. See the issues of Mitteilungs-Blatt des Verbandesder sozialdemokratischenWahlvereine
Berlins und Umgegendfor the autumn of 1912. He held this office until 1918.
9. Ibid., Apr. 9, 1913, p. 5.
10. Unger, Politische Kopfe, p. 122.
Ernst
306
Daumig
ani
the Revolution
0/1918
say, storms the heavens; rather he was a party man,

and in a controversy
with some of Rosa Luxemorganization-oriented,
burg's associates on the very eve ofthe war he staunchly defended the
who,
as Germans
party's existing methods and purposes.11 But his methodical,

later friend Paul Levi was often reminded ofthe
cratic side?his
bureauPrussian
offset by an underlying
emocorporal Daumig had once been12?was
tionalism that seems to have been felt readily enough by his audiences
The romanticism
that impelled him into the Foreign
and colleagues.
infused
his
and
early writings,13 the ethical idealism shown by
Legion
his regular Sunday lectures for a humanist society,14 were largely leashed,
into political commitment
and administrative
or sublimated
energy.
to the cause.
devotion
Yet they gave a special quality to Daumig's
in Daumig's
career might or might not have worked
out fruitfiilly in normal times. The war changed his life,
themselves
the
old molds, releasing his idealistic energies, and propelling
breaking
him rapidly to the forefront of radical socialist politics.
The tensions
The change in him was not immediate.

Though he opposed Social
he did so, for over two
of
war
Democratic
effort,
Germany's
support
of
radicalism.
In August
the
conventional
framework
within
years,
1914, for instance, Daumig joined other Vorwdrts editors in protesting
that the SPD's vote for war credits violated the party's long-standing
and the
taboo on support for the military, damaged the International
SPD's position within it, and burdened the party needlessly with responIn coming months he agitated
sibility for the war and its consequences.15
an active peace
of the party line, demanding
against the "passivity"
at
he
the
and
the
same
time
but
repudiated
hyperradicalism
program;16
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 ModerneLandsknechtebut his propa?
ganda play Maifeier (Berlin, 1901).
14. P.L. in Freiheit,July 6,1922. Two published works derive from his concerns as an
Eine Vortragsethical humanist, or freethinker: Wanderungendurchdie Kirchengeschichte:
folge, gehalten in derfreireligiosen Gemeinde (Berlin, 1917) and Freier Volks-Katechismus:
Ein Wegweiserzur echtenNachstenliebeundfreien Menschenwiirde(Berlin, n.d. [1918]).
15. Text in Eugen Prager, Geschichteder U.S.P.D. (Berlin, 1921), pp. 30-31.
16. See his remarks of Feb. 1915 reported in Deutsches Zentralarchiv Potsdam, Reichs?
Eduard
kanzlei 1395/9, pp. 190-91; also Das Kriegstagebuchdes Reichstagsabgeordneten
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
strictly within
working
as chairman
continued
W. Morgan
3?7
as long as possible.17 He
the party organization
and lec?
committee
education
of the workers'
Institute, on new topics: the history

of war and colonial policy. All in all, he was not one ofthe most prom?
socialists. If the war had ended within
inent of Berlin's oppositional
remained a figure of the second rank.
have
two years, Daumig
might
The first critical break in his life came in 1916, in his job at Vorwdrts.
ofthe
as the editor charged with observance
During the war Daumig,
steadiness as
his
of
because
doubt
regulations?no
military censorship
first
become
of the military?had
well as his knowledge
gradually
Executive
1916 the Party
among equals on the staff. Then in October
editors, with an assist
seized control ofthe paper from its oppositional
The
bitterness which enhis
lost
and
the
firom
censors,
job.18
Daumig
who usually eschewed personal attacks, called the Party
suecl?Daumig,
and "unscrupulous"19?helped
Executive
"dishonest,"
"hypocritical,"
turer in the Workers'
Educational
of the USPD in
the schism in the party and the formation
precipitate
their
converted
socialists
Berlin
the
oppositional
April 1917. Meanwhile
meant
into a weekly political paper
monthly bulletin (Mitteilungs-Blatt)
the Reich.
and later the USPD,
to serve the opposition,
throughout
midst of
in
the
November
in
editor
its
became
1916,
leading
Daumig
of
the
the
old
turmoil that was breaking up
party.
ways
in Russia, which Daumig
Further impetus came from the revolution
later called the "beacon light" by which he and his friends "oriented
ofthe subsequent events ofthe war."20 On
in the to-and-fro
themselves
His
first showed how much his outlook had changed.
Russia Daumig
the revolution
closely from March on, openly
having followed
well before their
in September,
Bolsheviks
the
of
the
cause
adopted
the
seizure of power.21 In November
greeted the triMitteilungs-Blatt
in the Russian labor
socialist elements"
umph of "the determinedly
paper,
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 Gewaltstreichdes Parteivorstandesgegenden "Vorwdrts"und die BerlinerParteiorganisation(n.p., n.d. [1916]), for the opposition viewpoint; and Kurt Koszyk, Zwischen
Kaiserreichund Diktatur (Heidelberg, 1958), pp. 45~48 and 79-8519. 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 editorials 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.
Ernst
308
movement
who
Daumig
and the Revolution
of1918
were
finally putting into practice what socialists had

"the
always preached.22 "In Russia," the paper observed in December,
socialist proletariat has captured political power, has the powers of the
in its hands, and is going on to realize all the great socialist
government
and political goals."23
the Bolsheviks
in the mantle of true socialism implied a
Wrapping
to
German
socialists
to emulate them. In fact, as early as
challenge
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
it was over.24 During 1917, Daumig became a revolutionary?
Other radi?
something
quite different from a radical Social Democrat.
before
the same evolution,

but not many of Daumig's
age or
in the party; few can have had such strong chililevel of responsibility
It was not an easy
astic tendencies in them waiting to be mobilized.
cals underwent
and painfully of how "the most frightful

process; he wrote expressively
of all wars has brought all economic,
political, social, and intellectual
will
into
flux
them
in
flux for a long time to come."25
and
keep
questions
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
With
of German
socialism, and he always spoke implicitly of Germany

He declared, "We mean to learn from what happens there and
then apply the lessons fruitfully to the coming struggles for the salvation of humanity
from the claws of capitalism."26
Revolution?the
whole
as well.
for Daumig
prospect of creating a new social order?became
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'
imminent
his subject was

and to youth groups?though
He was still active in the Berlin party or?
In fact, during 1918 Daumig took his first position with the
ganization.
at the beginning of May he was co-opted into the
national organization:
Educational
now
Institute
the Russian
revolution.
22. Ibid., Nov. 18, 1917.

23. Ibid., Dec. 16, 1917.
24. Speech reported in Die AuswirkungendergrossensozialistischenOktoberrevolution
auf
Deutschland,ed. Leo Stern, 4 vols. (Berlin, 1959), 2:388. His newspaper at this time was
still far more cautious.
25. Daumig, Wanderungendurchdie Kirchengeschichte,
p. 3.
26. Speech of Aug. 1918 reported in Die Auswirkungen,3:1494. See also MitteilungsBlatt, Feb. 24 and Mar. 31, 1918.
Davii
central office ofthe
is known
thing
a replacement
USPD
about
W.
309
Morgan
as a salaried national
secretary.27 Hardly anyin this post, save that he had to operate

press service, closed down by the censors
his work
for the party's
on June 22.28
new
Daumig's
movement
ground
direction,
however,
of radical workers
also took
him
from the Berlin
into
the under?
munitions
indus?
To?
try, the group later known as the "revolutionary
shop stewards."
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
kind of conspiratorial
however
much
in the summer
of 1918?involved
him in the
officials
ever
party
hardly
practiced,
talk revolution.
His combination
of sober,
activities
they might
fervor made him an excel?
organizational
qualities with revolutionary
lent choice as one of only two party officials admitted to the workers'
and he quickly became a leading figure.29 He approached
committee,
revolution
on the committee)
as a
(as did the trade union militants
of
detailed
and
therefore resisted as wasteproblem
patient,
preparation,
ful and dangerous
Karl Liebknecht's
efforts to whip up emotions
by
street demonstrations;
but as the moment
he showed him?
approached
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 prethe
stewards'
final
decision
to
set
their
machine
in motion.31
cipitated
shop
The following
in
because
ofthe
day?though
only
part
shop stewards'
efforts?revolution
came to Berlin.
did not join the new provisional
manned by
Daumig
government,
the two socialist parties; he condemned
his party's efforts to direct the
revolution
un-radical
SPD, and held that
jointly with the profoundly
the USPD should either run the government
alone or go into opposi27- Leipziger Volkszeitung, May 3, 1918.
28. Koszyk, p. 96.
29. Richard Miiller, Vom Kaiserreichzur Republik, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1924), 1:127; and
Emil Barth, Aus der Werkstattder deutschenRevolution (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 IllustrierteGeschichtederdeutschen
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.
Ernst
310
and the Revolution
Daumig
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
on two occasions that he himself become war min?
rejected suggestions
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
he
must
have resigned soon afterwards?quietly,
with?
mid-December,
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
that
neither
the
national
nor
the
local
USPD shared his political
ground
commitments.34
What remained
was the revolutionary
committee,
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.
whose
for the council

reputation as spokesman
over the next year, and it is for this that he is now principally
He was one of the first respected socialists to see the workers'
Daumig
movement
known.
made
his national
but as a potential altercouncils, not just as a revolutionary

expedient,
native form of governance,
in both the political and the economic
and intellectual seriousness with
spheres; and the fervor, resourcefulness,
which he promoted
ofa new society governed through
his conception
councils are noteworthy.
side reached the
Here Daumig's
visionary
fullest expression it ever had in politics: the teacher and preacher were
merged for once with the political organizer. He could see the severe
but the mil?
actual revolution
he was experiencing;
to treat
in
him
evoked
him
the
war
led
nevertheless
by
spirit
these events as a critical opportunity
which could and must be exploited
to create a new world.
limitations
ofthe
lenarian
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
Regierungder 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 Verhandlungendes ausserordentlichen
Parteitagesvom 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.
311
Morgan
and politi?
bring social, economic,
control of the citizenry,
and involve
for his or her immediate
world.35 This,
render men truly self-governing?to

cal institutions
under the tangible
in responsibility
was about. Liberal democ?
less, was what the revolution
in con?
here; from the outset Daumig,
racy had nothing to contribute
of his party, resolutely
"formal
de?
trast to many members
regarded
for
or
as
a
facade
mocracy,"
democracy,"
merely
"bourgeois
unchanged
each person
and nothing
in political and economic

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

for councils
the
within
how to find a place

many radical socialists,
democratic
order; the issue was councils or liberal
democracy,
"pro?
or bourgeois-liberal
one could
democracy."37
Alternatively
the dictatorship of capital, masked by
speak of two forms of dictatorship:
and the dictatorship
ofthe proletariat, which
institutions,
parliamentary
letarian
he saw not as a party dictatorship

to the council
but as "equivalent"
thus
in
and
democratic
essence.38
was one
system,
profoundly
Daumig
of the very first (apart from the small factions of the sectarian left) to
and he strove
proclaim this choice as the central issue ofthe revolution,
for the full realization of his ideal?the
uncompromisingly
"pure coun?
cil system," as it is commonly
called.
saw council rule not just as an ideal or a program,
but as a
Daumig
It
in
was
the
first
a
"in
moral
these
necessity.
necessity:
days, out
place
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 Verfechterundseine Probleme(Munich, 1922), pp. 61-66;
Peter von Oertzen, Betriebsrdtein der Novemberrevolution(Diisseldorf, 1963), pp. 89-99;
and Horst Dahn, Rdtedemokratische
Modelle: Studienzur Ratediskussionin Deutschland19181919 (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. AllgemeinerKongress, p. 113.
Ernst
312
lapse ofthe
that
capitalist
Daumig
economy
ani
the Revolution
and civilization
0/1918
in the world
war" meant
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

was past; it would be a tragedy if capitalism should somehow
its dominance?if
indeed this were possible at all. For Dau?
had planted itself ineradicably
in the
mig believed that the revolution
will ofthe workers, though perhaps not at first on the conscious level.
the world,
reestablish
to the war, "the psyches ofthe peoples are in constant stormy

and will not come to rest until a new foundation has actually
created on which we can build anew."41 His premise was that
Thanks
movement
been
revolution
was on the march in the world, in spite of all difficulties and

setbacks; and "we here in Germany are in the midst ofthe
temporary
final struggle between capital and labor."42
This conviction
intense
was strong enough to outweigh
Daumig's
After a few
awareness of the weaknesses
of the German revolution.
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?
weeks
from old habits of mind and recognize their hisI tell you, the worst
to an assembly: "Comrades,
us is ultimately
not economic
thing now threatening
collapse, but the
damned trustfulness ofthe German, which he has taken along into the
ers to free themselves
toric task. He declared
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-Rat1 (1919), no. 28:2.
43. Daumig, Der ersteAkt derdeutschenRevolution! (Berlin, n.d.), p. 1. This is the text
ofa speech delivered on Dec. 27, 1918.
David
revolution
with him."44
W. Morgan
313
The problem was "to break finally with all the

that sit so deep in all of us that the individual
decaying
perspectives
doesn't even notice it. The entire
the pettiness
feeling of dependence,
of thought, are the kind of thing against which we must fight."45 Looking 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
which the German people has been raised for generations.
situation by
letariat, which was hurled into a revolutionary
the world war and which was not strong enough nor trained
of subjection in
. . . Such a pro?
the upheavals of
enough in revo?
lution to hold onto the revolutionary
in
ofthe
first
November of
gains
days
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

Here
revolutionary
schooling.
view of the old conventional
be expected
to help in the
is Daumig's
disillusioned
thoroughly
labor movement
he had once served so
faithfully:
The
tradition and training,

organized masses without any revolutionary
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 threatening the private profit economy of capitalism.47
since 1914 had been slow, very incomChanges in these organizations
for there were now three socialist parties,
plete, and partly undesirable,
The
themselves.
fighting
among
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 Verhandlungendes ausserordentlichen
Parteitagesin Leipzig
vom 30. November bis 6. Dezember 1919, pp. 239-40.
47. Freiheit, Dec. 21, 1919.
Ernst
314
Daumig
ani
the Revolution
0/1918
and is made for

that has grown up on the soil of the social revolution
councils.48 Daumig never actually
the demands of this revolution"?the
for
of parties or unions; but his allegiance,
the dissolution
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,
advocated
rhapsodic. There is at the same time an element of pathos in

these speeches and writings. Even as Daumig proclaims dogmatic cerhe allows us to feel an underlying doubt
tainties and iron determination,
as to whether
the German masses would grasp their tasks before the
sometimes
moment ended in chaos. An elegiac tone creeps into the

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
revolutionary
exhortation.
episodes of avoidance
his hopes in 1921.
in his career from the revolution
to the collapse
of
As mentioned
above, the manner of Daumig's

entry into the council
was conditioned
and
by political
personal ties. At first he
a mixture of Inde?
refused to serve on the Berlin Executive
Council,
kind of alliance
pendent Socialists, Majority Socialists, and soldiers?the
of opposites he hated.49 But the other leaders ofthe shop stewards' com?
movement
mittee joined, and Daumig could hardly abandon his close connection
with the organized factory militants, Berlin's most promising
revolu?
that
tionary force. He went in with his eyes open, noting sardonically
even his militant
branch
friends
of the Metal
came.50
sometimes
Workers'
treated
Union,
the Executive
from
as on other
Here,
occasions?notably
Communist
International?he
showed himself
Council
as a
they nearly all

in his dealings with the
to the
totally committed
which
cause, while reserved or sceptical about particular institutions that were

Council
supposed to embody the cause. But his work in the Executive
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.
315
Morgan
With some, like Richard

a like mind in practical politics.
showing
ofthe Executive
chairman
was
who
the
lathe
Council,
Miiller,
operator
established bonds that endured through drastic political vicisDaumig
until nearly the end of his life.
Council was doomed
Daumig's first instinct was correct; the Executive
to dismal failure.51 He must bear a share ofthe blame, in that he influ?
situdes
to aspire to goals beyond its limited sphere of effective

for presumption,
mishelped earn it a reputation
It was soon clear that most workers
still
and futility.
enced the council

authority,
which
management,
expected more
and the socialist parties than from

from the government
had begun to
a week of the revolution
the councils. Within
Daumig
in
show the irritated depression and bitterness which found expression
and soldiers' congress in

his powerful
speech at the national workers'
This
confirmed
that the coun?
the third week of December.52
congress
democratic
order for Germany.
wanted a parliamentary
cils themselves
the original hopes ofthe council-oriented
It thereby liquidated
them to turn toward a new revolution?in
forced
and
tionaries,
mig's words, to open "the second act ofthe revolution."53
revoluDau?
Even after these early defeats Daumig and his allies, including leading
to put their faith in
and militants from other cities, continued
socialists
called the "sole achievement"

ofthe No?
the councils, which Daumig
took on an absorbing,
creative
vember revolution.54
They accordingly
with some imposing
and construction,
results: an
task of propaganda
of 1919; the
on detailed goals and structures by summer
agreement
the
smooth transition to factory councils when
original workers' coun?
and above all the conversion
of many
cils lost their political functions;
well
industrial workers to belief in council rule, a process that continued
into 1920. Daumig was a central figure in all this, as editor ofthe weekly
(which first appeared late in January 1919),
journal Der Arbeiter-Rat
for the council system at USPD party congresses
principal spokesman
and a leading organizer of the expanding
and other major gatherings,
the councils
in different cities. But
network
but fragile
connecting
despite
against
all advances,
the exclusive
the attempt to assert practical

claims of Weimar's
conventional
council
authority
democratic
sys-
51. The classic account ofthe Executive Council is Eberhard Kolb, Die Arbeiterratein
der deutschenInnenpolitik1918-19 (Diisseldorf, 1962), pp. 125-37; see also Erich Matthias's
introduction to Die Regierung der Volksbeauftragten,1 :xcii-cvii, and Materna.
52. AllgemeinerKongress,pp. 113-18.
53. Der ersteAkt, p. 6.
54. Ibid., p. 1.
316
Ernst
Daumig
ani
the Revolution
0/1918
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
of the revolu?
through the council system; but the actual institutions
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,
lived a semiDaumig
existence for much of the next two years. Between
De?
underground
cember 1918 and March 1920 Berlin was mostly under martial law,
street fighting and bitter strikes. The Executive Coun?
with intermittent
cil was raided and searched more than once, then abruptly closed down
in August 1919. Its successor was also suppressed for
by the government
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?
for him and his associates were thus more
ruary of 1920. Conditions
like the wartime state of siege than like life under a democratic order.55
This was real revolutionary
schooling.
role in these events. For one
Daumig did not play an insurrectionist's
methods on ethical grounds. He
thing, he strongly preferred nonviolent
to
what
he
called
tactics,"
objected
"putsch
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

government
attempt
by force, in the misnamed
of
week"
his abstention was dictated
January 1919;?though
"Spartacus
than by concern about bloodshed.57
more by political judgement
He
that
hoped
to overthrow
the
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, proceeding 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 ersteAkt, p. 6.
57. Richard Miiller, Der Biirgerkriegin Deutschland:GeburtswehenderRepublik (Berlin,
1925), pp. 33-34; Ledebour in Der Ledebour-Prozess,p. 53; Daumig's own account in
ProtokollderReichskonferenzvom 1. bis 3. September1920 zu Berlin, pp. 179-80.
58. Daumig's preface to Richard Miiller, Was die Arbeiterrdtewollen und sollen (Berlin,
n.d. [1919]), P- 4-
Davii
W.
317
Morgan
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
to
of the ill-fated general strike of March 1919, which was intended
the government
without
but
violence,
ended instead in street fighting.59 The general strike remained his model
there seems to have been no other
of revolutionary
action, though
occasion in the next two years (apart from the Kapp Putsch) when he
force
socialist
concessions
from
one. At some point he also began a different kind of revolu?

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

or
the days of the Kapp Putsch,
and
against armed action by the Berlin workers;
then
no
Action in 1921, which Daumig,
by
longer
condemned.
outspokenly
either
occasion
went
into
when
action:
some
when
such network,
he counseled
the VKPD's
in a leading
March
position,
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
for posi?
system, and structure. Immediate
opportunities
action might be lacking, but at least one could try to build
the
ofthe councils in preparation
for coming
framework
underlying
up
in a reversion
crises. Daumig,
to bureaucratic
type, spoke at times as
thoroughness,
tive political
was the key to the situation?"a

council organization
to plan and acting from a uniform
which
outlook,
affiliates
in
in
its
office."61
He
also
every workplace,
every
[has]
began
to stress the importance
of creating a reliable elite of conscious revolu?
though system
built according
tionaries
course
in the factories.
for selected
As early as March 1919 he had begun a speakers'

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, InternationalCommunismand World Revolution (London, 1969), p. 68.
The scanty evidence about the preparations is cited in Morgan, The SocialistLeft, p. 333.
Daumig several times made vague public references to this side of his activity; see USPD
Reichskonferenz,Sept. 1920, p. 184; Verhandlungendes Reichstages,vol. 345, p. 925, and
vol. 347, p. 2242.
61. Daumig in Die Revolution: Unabhdngigessozialdemokratisches
Jahrbuchfur Politik und
proletarischeKultur 1920 (Berlin, 1920), p. 90.
62. Mentioned by him in USPD Parteitag, Mar. 1919, p. 232.
318
Ernst
wore
on the elitist element
Daumig
and the Revolution

in his thought
of 1918
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
itself seemed
revolution
November
revolution?which
true revolution
revolutionary
sufficient.
he now
On the anniversary
a mere collapse,
called
at all64?he
epoch
on his understanding
elaborated
in which we find ourselves":
of the
not a
of "the
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?
As a social revolution it goes through
selves. The world revolution is here!...
the different lands and everywhere sharpens the class conflict between the
previously ruling and privileged classes and the proletarian forces, which
partly purposefully aim to dig the grave of the old
partly instinctively,
economic and social order.65
Germany's
beleaguered
efforts as part ofa wider
revolutionaries
movement
whose
took
in seeing their
success was prom?
comfort
ultimate
ised by the Russian experience.

But for many this was more than a
A
vision.
ofthe
USPD, including Daumig, congrowing part
platonic
meant seeking
cluded that being truly a part of the world revolution
International.
through the new Communist
hesitation
showed
no
about
his inter?
others,
many
He had no interest in efforts to revive an inclusive
alliance with the Bolsheviks

unlike
Daumig,
national loyalties.
Second International
cialists,
sheviks
while
made
so?
reformist as well as revolutionary
containing
his longstanding
and
admiration
for
the
Bol?
sympathy
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
founded
tone
in Moscow
in which
319
in March
he addressed
the Bolsheviks
W. Morgan
1919.66 But if his choice was easy,

such matters was unusual. His support
was
steady and loyal rather than effusive;

mended the Bolshevik
for study and constructive
experience
rather than for simple emulation.
Here is a typical passage,
the
for
he recomevaluation
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,
and devising new political
"Kerenskis,"
breaking with the halfhearted
and economic
institutions
have been aware
intended
that the Bolshevik
to embody
socialism.
He seems to
leaders during most of 1919 spoke
of him and other left-wing

only abusively
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
have
elements ofthe
revolutionary
in
the
Third
International,
crystalized
unambiguously
world
revolution
it
already
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 hapand we regard
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 Wahrheitiiber Sowjet-Russland (Berlin, n.d.
[1919]), p. 5.
68. See for instance AllgemeinerKongress,p. 116; USPD Parteitag, Mar. 1919, pp. 9697 and 228-29; L>erArbeiter-Rat1 (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 Bolschewismusim Urteil derdeutschen
Sozialdemokratie1903-1920 (Berlin, 1967), pp. 228-29.
69. See Lenin's comments in Die KommunistischeInternationale,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.
Ernst
320
and the Revolution
Daumig
of 1918
with little prelude: on December

6, at the USPD's
pened dramatically,
second postwar congress, he was elected one of the party's two chairmen, and was abruptly catapulted into the world of high party politics,
toward which he had shown little but repugnance
for over a year.
Daumig
his official
had never
entirely ceased his party activity after giving up

in November
and December
of 1918, but his ties
positions
were tenuous. He detested
coalition
doomed
almost
cember
clared
the USPD's
socialist government,
regime.71 Relations
policies during these months of

he once compared with Kerenski's
between the party left and the leadership
point. At a Berlin party assembly on De?
which
the breaking
de?
28, 1918, several shop steward leaders, including Daumig,
themselves willing to run for election to the National Assembly
reached
from the list.72

only if party chairman Hugo Haase were excluded
for
the assembly
the
When
radicals gave
Haase,
opted
disgruntled
to
out
ofthe
were
unable, how?
thought
pulling
party altogether. They
an
Karl
accommodation
with
Liebknecht and his assoever, to arrange
ciates, who were just then founding the Communist
Party (KPD), and
the idea of yet another new party, alongside
the Communists,
was
his
at
this
made
decision
time
to
with
the
Daumig
stay
unappealing.
large,
growing
USPD
and wait for it to be radicalized
by the further
of the revolution.73
development
For most of 1919 he waited. By spring he was the best-known
mem?
left
from
in
who
was
ofthe
ber
wing?apart
Georg Ledebour,
party's
he regularly appeared at major party conclaves. But he hardly
jail?and
ever wrote for the party press, publishing instead in his own Der ArbeiterRat 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:
with Haase, seeking
a party congress in March elected him cochairman
the con?
to reconcile the party's wings. But Haase balked, reminding
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
ersteAkt, pp. 4-5.
72. Freiheit, Dec. 29, 1918, and Jan. 3, 1919 (m.); USPD Parteitag, Mar. 1919, pp.
263-64.
der KPD: Protokoll und Materialien, ed. Hermann Weber
73. Der Grundungsparteitag
(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 Republikfrom April on, and was coeditor from
the beginning of June until the paper's suppression by the government on June 23.
Davii
was much
radicalized
assembly,
the congress
place, while
Daumig's
movement,
W. Morgan
321
but still a compromise

product.75 Like the earlier
Artur Crispien
for
in
Haase, choosing
opted
returned to his labors in the council
Daumig
with relief.
probably
in
about parties in the revolution.
was
fact
deeply ambivalent
Daumig
In his work in the councils the narrow partisanship ofthe three socialist
he called it?was
a curse. At times he sug?
egotism,"
parties?"party
gested that common labors in the council system would lead the different
differences and merge the parties
socialists to overcome
organizational
force for
on a new basis.76 But he knew the parties were a powerful
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),
coalitions between
it was part ofthe enemy, and he always denounced
The Communists
were different;
divided from
revolutionaries,
regrettably
Daumig
their
socialists by their "putschism,"
the main body of revolutionary
in tactics, and their con?
to pander to their wildest followers
tendency
was the party
stant pursuit of narrow party interests.78 The USPD
revolutionaries
were gathered; but its inherited
where the bulk ofthe
USPD
and SPD
saw them
forms
most
as inadmissible.77
as fellow
of many members,
and the outlook
and procedures
including
of the higher leaders, made it still "a radical opposition
party"
and not a revolutionary

party.79 Until this was changed
in the party could never be wholehearted.
Daumig's
in?
volvement
men took the lead in

more aggressive
and single-minded
Younger,
such
as
Curt
transform
the
to
Geyer, Otto Brass,
party?men
trying
Walter S toecker
Bernhard Diiwell, and their allies in the Party Executive,
collaborated
with this faction without
Daumig
quite being a member of it.80 But the program points used in its cam?
ofthe pro?
dictatorship
paign were ones long associated with Daumig:
letariat through the councils, a principle that had won majority support
rule under the
in the party after ten months of brutal and unimaginative
and Wilhelm
Koenen.
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. Februarbis 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.
Ernst
322
Daumig
and the Revolution
of 1918
International. With
new democracy;
and affiliation with the Communist
on both points, Daumig was now more than ever
Ledebour heterodox
the outstanding
figure ofthe left wing, as well as one ofthe most pop?
in the party. When the left wing mobilized
ular personalities
a voting
was its
majority at the Leipzig party congress in December,
Daumig
natural choice for the chairmanship.
However reluctantly, he accepted.81
The chairmanship
(which he shared with Crispien) meant a displaceof Daumig's
efforts from the council system?which
he still de?
clared to be a more important revolutionary
instrument than the party82
?into
he
conventional
His
a few weeks later, was to
wrote
politics.
goal,
ment
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: nominal 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?
in Daumig's
gress. Not even the new Party Executive was revolutionary
for
some
ofthe
radical
to
be
conventional
sense,
majority proved
party
advanced. Ultimately,
the USPD was undermen, even if ideologically
stood
by much
of its rank and file and most
of its middle leadership,

and newspaper editors not as an agent of
of the old Social
but as the continuator
representatives,
parliamentary
immediate
social revolution,
Democratic
in a somewhat
orthodoxy
more radical form. True, another

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

after
a
at
bloodbath
a big public demonstration
in Berlin, blamed
1920
socialists
on
the
demonstration's
many
by
partly
sponsors, the council
movement.
who was in detention from January 19 to March

Daumig,
was
to
resist
as a counteroffensive
4,
powerless
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 nominated?"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 SocialistLeft, pp. 311-20.
Davii
W. Morgan
323
by new legislation
decayed, being undermined
ary council movement
was
and then slowly emasculated
by the jealous trade unions. Daumig
in time to join in
at liberty again (though ill from his imprisonment)
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
front against the putsch was the
positive role.85 A united working-class
of
all
while
socialists; however,
Daumig aimed to unite the workers
goal
councils
with
workers'
by reviving
political powers, many of his fellow
incorReich government
instead sought an all-socialist
Independents
The
and
the
unions.
USPD
the
the
SPD,
USPD,
leadership
porating
was so miserably divided that it fell into agonizing,
embittering
paral?
ysis. Daumig himself twice threatened to resign when coalition with the
near.86 Many people saw Daumig's
position as essentially
far
his intention),
and
was
from
and obstructive
(which
his reputation
suffered.87
with its failure in March, the USPD's
great success
By comparison
SPD
seemed
abstentionist
of June 6 meant little, at least to a revolu?

in the Reichstag
elections
who
won his first parliamentary
and
seat, showed his
Daumig,
tionary,
of
indifference
election
as
chairman
the
by refusing
party's Reichstag
delegation.88
tary action,
not for parliamen?

and his friends were looking,
Daumig
but for ways to get the revolution
moving
again. In this
turned toward the Communist
International
and the suc?
spirit they
cessful revolutionaries
Until
circumstances
behind
it, the Bolsheviks.

the role on him in the summer, Daumig
in the drive for affiliation with Moscow;
his
forced
was not publicly a leader

are therefore not known
views
in detail. Those
as Stoecker
led the drive, such

that the International
could help them
finally
as well
and Geyer, believed

to transform
their party
who
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 Verhandlungendes ausserordentlichen
Parteitages in
Halle vom 12. bis 17. Oktober1920, p. 64; Wilhelm Koenen, "Zur Frage der Moglichkeit
einer Arbeiterregierung nach dem Kapp-Putsch," Beitrage zur Geschichteder deutschen
Arbeiterbewegung,4 (1962): 348.
87. See Arthur Rosenberg, Geschichteder deutschenRepublik (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; Verhandlungendes Reichstags,
vol. 345, p. 918. In two years in the Reichstag he made only three speeches, the last in
March 1921.
Ernst
324
Daumig
ani
the Revolution
0/1918
was
spirit in Germany. Moreover, joining the Comintern
a clear majority ofthe party's rank and file, which offered
an advantage in its intraparty power struggle. The more
were suspicious of the
party leaders and their following
popular with
the left wing
conventional
Comintern's
tendency to dictate to member parties, but did not dare to oppose affiliBoth sides understood
that control of the USPD's
ation outright.89
at stake when Daumig and three others departed
future was potentially
for admission to the Interon July 13 to take the USPD's application
national's Second World Congress in Moscow.
doings of the congress, the story of the USPD's
to the
represents a small personal drama of fatal importance
delegation
of joining
two supporters
the
party.90 It was a balanced delegation,
International
and
and
two
and
Stoecker)
(Daumig
sceptics (Crispien
Within
the larger
and the members made an honest effort to preserve

Dittmann),
front. The front held for a while; even Daumig's
their common
speech
a defense of the USPD's
and
to the congress represented
autonomy,
Wilhelm
gave nothing away.91 But Daumig and Stoecker finally could not main?
In important
tain the reserve of their colleagues.
ways this was their
from
source
of
which
a
milieu,
they could not
revolutionary
strength
cut themselves off.92 They were openly distressed at some ofthe InterConditions
for admission,
and Daumig,
new Twenty-One
intention to reform the USPD
at least, strongly opposed the Bolshevik
both men found they could accept
by splitting it. In the end, however,
and Russian pressure brought them to
the Twenty-One
Conditions;
national's
declare their views before leaving
Moscow.
A split in the USPD
became
inevi table.
the main
Before leaving Moscow
and Stoecker concerted
Daumig
in
USPD
Comintern's
lines of their coming
the
with
the
campaign
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 Kongressder Kommunist.Internationale:Protokollder Verhandlungenvom
I9.fuli in Petrogradund 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.
325
Morgan
was
his voice was oddly muted. His basic position
however,
its
conditions
of
and
of
the
International
with
the
entry,
plain:
help
will finally be what it
"the USPD in theory, practice, and organization
has so far only claimed to be: a genuinely
organizationally
purposeful,
debate,
unified
front
and combative
ranks
of the
revolutionary
revolutionary
party, a battle-ready
world
proletariat."94
army in the
Details were
unimportant:
object to this or that in the superficial confusion ofthe
can change the fact that people were working there
create a firm fighting unity for the international pro?
will have to be a good deal of polishing and rebuilding
institution. But I for one have no doubt that the Communist
Petty formalism may

congress, but nothing
with honest effort to
letariat. In detail there
in this young
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
for adherence
to the International
under the
unwaveringly
until
in
but
he
did
late
the
Conditions;
so,
Twenty-One
campaign,
without
the conditions
in detail.96
endorsing
Daumig
Communist
regarded
at any rate had no serious inhibitions

about merger with the
and
ofthe
Communist
name; he had always
Party
adoption
the Communists
less as party rivals than as allies in the councils
ones). And affiliation with Russia was natu?

(though often exasperating
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 understand, he said, how anyone could claim to support the defense of Soviet
Russia
munist
claimed
(a slogan used by all Independents)

International.97
He even declared
leadership
had clearly earned
This
never
over
would-be
new
that,
revolutionary
this right.98
had been
Daumig
was new;
Other
a disciple.
while
elements
an admirer
crept
into
the Com?
opposing
when the Bolsheviks
parties
abroad,
they
of the Russians, but

his discourse in the
94- Daumig's preface to Fiir die dritteInternationale!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 dritteInternationale!pp. 5-8.
97. USPD Reichskonferenz,Sept. 1920, pp. 40 and 42.
98. KommunistischeRundschau,Oct. 1,1920, pp. 9-10, and Oct. 14, 1920, p. 3; USPD
Parteitag, Oct. 1920, pp. 104-5.
Ernst
326
Daumig
ani
the Revolution
0/1918
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?
of
his
choice.
In
with
line
his
new
the
sequences
allegiances, throughout
campaign he hardly ever spoke ofthe councils, and when he did, he no
to the
them primacy
over the party?a
concession
longer accorded
extreme party-centered
outlook of the Communists
which must have
for him.99 The idea of a vanguard or elite, which he had
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?
been difficult
earlier used for the council
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
for immediate
culture to the workers and educate them exclusively
tasks.102 All this was couched at times in a new, harsh
revolutionary
language, routine in Leninist circles but not heard from Daumig before.
His first piece for the new Kommunistische Rundschau, which he edited
brutal and sarcastic
with Geyer and Stoecker, featured unprecedentedly
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
show. But there were also revealing
as the Halle party congress
where
only superficially, as time would

flashes of his old self, even as late
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 Rdtebildungim Klassenkampfder Gegenwart (Berlin, 1920), p. 6; KommunistischeRundschau,Dec. 6, 1920, p. 2; Berichtiiberdie
der U.S.P.D. (Linke) und der K.P.D. (SpartaVerhandlungendes Vereinigungsparteitages
kusbund),abgehaltenin Berlin vom 4. bis 7. Dezember 1920, p. 46.
Rundschau,Oct. 1,1920, pp. 6-11, esp. p. 9; these imputations were
103. Kommunistische
rather graciously withdrawn in the second issue (Oct. 14, 1920, pp. 5-6). But see other
uncharacteristically personal aspersions in Fiir die dritteInternationale!pp. 6 and 8.
104. USPD Parteitag,Oct. 1920, p. 108.
Davii
he remained
the most
W. Morgan
respected ofthe
and he became
USPD's
327
advocates
ofthe
Com?
International;
(with Paul Levi) of
formed
the new United Communist
by merger of the left-wing
Party
with the Communists
1920. He was to
early in December
Independents
munist
cochairman
eleven weeks. His role in the intraparty dis?

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

greatly reducing these parties' mass following,
them to impotence.
Levi's (and Daumig's)
Levi's
eyes?condemning
Moscow
mind
into
of
an
provoked
mounting
intrigue
independence
anti-Levi
sentiment
that was already present
against him, reinforcing
on
among many militants. These conflicts had their dramatic outcome
when several prominent
members resigned from the
February 23,1921,
them
both
VKPD Central Committee,
among
party chairmen.
did not resign in order to start a faction fight; they
Levi and Daumig
of disastrous
only wanted to escape from presiding over the execution
was
still
to
act
as
Comintern
official
policies.106 Daumig
prepared
spokesman for the party in the Reichstag on March 18.107 But within days of
disaster struck in the form of the notorious
this speech the predicted
a semi-insurrectionary
movement
launched without any
on
the
instance
of
of the International
particular goals
representatives
from Moscow.
This was the old "putsch tactics" with a vengeance,
and
much blood flowed to no purpose. Daumig
was affected most directly
March
Action,
when
the party attempted

methods
to force a strike in
by strong-arm
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;
Richard Miiller,
and other former
others,
many
Daumig,
including
105- See Richard Lowenthal, "The Bolshevisation of the Spartacist League," in St.
Antony's PapersNumber 9: InternationalCommunism,ed. David Footman (London, 1960),
pp. 23-71; Werner Angress, Stillborn Revolution: The CommunistBidfor 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. Verhandlungendes 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 Lebenfiir die Freiheit
(Munich, 1957), pp. 151-59. On the Berlin factories see Brandt and Lowenthal, p. 158,
and Fischer, p. 176.
Ernst
328
Daumig
and the Revolution
of 1918
shop stewards, and even Clara Zetkin, also spoke out.109 But the party
was
Levi, too loud to be ignored,
leadership remained intransigent.
with
a
still
few
like
lost
their
others;
others,
Miiller,
expelled,
party
jobs. The dissidents clustered around Levi, and waited for improvement.
But when
a Comintern
mer brought
nine months
and then a party congress in the sum?

no relief, resignations
began.110 On September 26, 1921,
after beginning
his new life as a Communist,
Daumig too
congress
left the party.111

The failure of his hopes for Communism
seems to have wounded
in
him
a
mortal
of
the
sustaining belief that he
Daumig
spot, robbing
in the historic transition to socialism.112 He was not
was participating
be?
among the more vocal members ofthe disaffected group?perhaps
cause he deplored polemic, perhaps because he no longer had a positive
program to put forward. But he soldiered on. When Levi's associates
a new parliamentary
group,
at the time of Daumig's
resignation
founded
the Communist
Alliance
(KAG),
the KPD, Daumig
(with
and
took
on
the
of
its
bulletin,
weekly
Adolph Hoffman)
editorship
March. At the
filled this post until the paper shut down the following
he was elected to its na?
in November
KAG's first formal conference
from
But the group's only raison d'etre was to regenerate

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
tional directorate.113
Communism
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
for
The return to the USPD must have been profoundly
humiliating
So far as we know, he played no role in the party during the
Daumig.
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 Mitteilungsblattder Kommuni?
Oct. 1, 1921.
stischenArbeitsgemeinschaft,
112. The obituaries in Freiheitand Leipziger Volkszeitung,July 6,1922, stresshow 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.
Nov. 25, 1921.
113. Mitteilungsblattder Kommunistischen
Arbeitsgemeinschaft,
114. See Morgan, The SocialistLeft, pp. 412-14.
David
and even
there he was absent
W.
329
Morgan
for several
weeks
because
of illness.
On
June 13, in the middle ofa Reichstag session, he collapsed in his seat. At
at the age of 55, he died.115
on the night of July 4,1922,
about midnight
a
emblematic
at
one
time
dominant,
figure, no longer
Daumig,
in
at
the
few
mattered
end;
long to
high places stopped
politically
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,
mourn
him.
Yet
for others, his readiness to listen to the views of those

of any enterprise to which
who differed with him. He was a wheelhorse
even painful sense of responsibility.
he lent himself, with a pronounced,
his consideration
a deeply divided personality.116

But he was ultimately
On the one hand,
he was an organizer and manager, with a clear eye for what needed to
solutions to
be done and the will to do it. The taste for organizational
never entirely left him, even during his passionate
involveproblems
ment in the council movement,
and people still remarked on his sober,
realistic awarestyle. Along with this went an unusually
the movement
needed to overcome?including
ness of the weaknesses
But at the same time he had a deep inner need for
his own weaknesses.
bureaucratic
faith in higher things. The central mission of his life from around 1900
was to help
to the middle of the war, and in a sense even afterwards,
of the workers,
to help them raise the level
elevate the consciousness
This was Daumig
of their humanity.
the evening teacher and Sunday
of 1917 and 1918,
lecturer, and it led, under the peculiar circumstances
the prophet. Here his sustaining beliefs became directly mil?
to Daumig
much he might apply his formidable
lenarian, and however
practical
to
his
he was caught in a dangerous
tension
vision,
realizing
gifts
between
commitment
and reality that ultimately
left him vulnerable.
As a revolutionary
had many valuable
leader, Daumig
qualities:
of
commitment,
conviction,
energy,
high intelligence,
independence
a
of
a
measure
sense
toward
his
and
mind,
followers,
good
responsibility
of charisma.
effectiveness.
set limits to his

formation
psychological
fervor was bought at the price of chiliHe
not sustain repeated shocks of frustration.
But his peculiar

His revolutionary
astic urgency that could

the balance needed
lacked
tionary.
And the narrow
for a long career as a professional

revolu?
commitments?the
focus of his revolutionary
115- Verhandlungendes 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.
Ernst
330
Daumig
ani
the Revolution
0/1918
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
but
when
forced
into
harness
with
during 1919;
in the Berlin Executive
Council,
persons of different perspectives?as
or later in the USPD Party Executive?he
could become dour, withHe was prey to the impulse to retire onto the
drawn, and ineffective.
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.
there
was
he put so much of himself into his politics,

Though
remote
about him as a leader, and something
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?
of his previous life. His entry
sion of self-repudiations,
renunciations
have
into the Foreign Legion may
been the first of these, though we
to know. A clearer case is his transformation
have too little information
to antimilitarist
and socialist, which moreover
ap?
a
with
his
relatives.117
His later metamorphosis
rupture
parently
radical to revolutionary
from conventional
was a genuine conversion
which
entailed
Social
Democratic
repudiating
perspectives
experience,
from
career soldier
meant
himself to something
new. The final reand committing
substantially
nunciation
was his turning from a belief in the spontaneous
revolu?
tionary potential ofthe German workers through their own institutions,
on the principle of a tight revolutionary
vanguard largely
from abroad. This last, willed conversion remained incomplete
in that it is particularly revealing.
and psychologically
unsuccessful;
to reliance
directed
the most creative phase of his life Daumig held that the
Throughout
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?
was at
lution, surely the masses would respond. In this way Daumig
and one of its most illuminating
once a leader ofthe German revolution
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
of the conventionally
He recognized
the distortions
radical so?
far
than
most
better
and
movement
contemporaries,
separated
But like his fellow revolutionaries,
himself from them more completely.
to reaching his socialist
in their great majority, he remained committed
critics.
cialist
end by essentially
revo?
means, by evoking the spontaneous
he saw lying latent in the German workers.
democratic
lutionary
energies which
Like his friends he was caught
a working
socialist revolution
in the dilemma
class which
of trying to mobilize for

in its mass would not tran-
democratic
its deep-rooted
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.
scend

Ernst Daumig: A Key Leader of the German Revolution of 1918

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Ernst Daumig: A Key Leader of the German Revolution of 1918

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Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical

in his last, almost

and on the downward

l. See Ursula Ratz, GeorgLedebour1850-1947 (Berlin, 1969); Helmuth Stoecker, Walter

rise and decline

and the Revolution

of Ernst Daumig, in fact, is coextensive

in military studies in spite of his subse?

(SPD). Whatever jobs he may have held after leaving the

pieces. Early the following

rise for Daumig.

speaker in party assemblies. He excelled in workers' education, lecturing

its first chairman at the

6. On Daumig as sleeping-car conductor see Philipp Scheidemann, Memoiren eines

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

party's existing methods and purposes.11 But his methodical,

The change in him was not immediate.

li. See [Daumig,] "Organisationskritik," Mitteilungs-Blatt,June 10, 1914, pp. 1-3,

Institute, on new topics: the history

and the Revolution

finally putting into practice what socialists had

the same evolution,

and painfully of how "the most frightful

socialism, and he always spoke implicitly of Germany

his subject was

22. Ibid., Nov. 18, 1917.

secretary.27 Hardly anyin this post, save that he had to operate

for the party's

from the Berlin

8, with a briefcase full of insurrectionary

and the Revolution

he left the Mitteilungs-Blatt,

for the council

but as a potential altercouncils, not just as a revolutionary

The place ofthe

in this new order, as Daumig

saw it, was to

render men truly self-governing?to

in political and economic

issue was not, as for

how to find a place

he saw not as a party dictatorship

and tears, a new

epoch of capitalism, which had brought a catastrophe on

to the war, "the psyches ofthe peoples are in constant stormy

was on the march in the world, in spite of all difficulties and

toric task. He declared

40. Freiheit, Nov. 27, 1919 (e.=evening ed.).

The problem was "to break finally with all the

and trade unions

tradition and training,

and is made for

rhapsodic. There is at the same time an element of pathos in

moment ended in chaos. An elegiac tone creeps into the

in his career from the revolution

above, the manner of Daumig's

they nearly all

cause, while reserved or sceptical about particular institutions that were

48. Ibid., Nov. 27, 1919 (e.).

With some, like Richard

to aspire to goals beyond its limited sphere of effective

enced the council