People

Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) Non-Bolshevik socialists 1850–1932 ○ Natural causes

Founder of Marxist revisionism and evolutionary socialism, author of The Preconditions of Socialism

"I have extraordinarily little interest in what is called the 'final goal of Socialism.' This aim, whatever it be, is nothing to me, the movement everything." — Response to critics (1899)

German SPD theorist and politician. Engels's literary executor and editor of Der Sozialdemokrat, Bernstein began as an orthodox Marxist before his 1899 The Preconditions of Socialism challenged Marx's predictions of capitalist collapse, class polarization, and revolutionary necessity. His dictum "the goal is nothing, the movement everything" laid the foundation for social democracy's reformist, parliamentary turn, creating the schism between revolutionary socialism and evolutionary social democracy. He broke with the SPD's pro-war majority to co-found the anti-war USPD during World War I, and spent his final years defending Weimar parliamentary democracy, dying six weeks before Hitler took power.

Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) Non-Bolshevik socialists 1863–1919 ✕ Assassinated

Lawyer who founded the USPD against the war and co-chaired the Council of People’s Deputies with Ebert in 1918

After Ebert’s government bloodily suppressed the revolutionary Volksmarinedivision in December 1918, Haase and fellow USPD delegates resigned from the Council of the People’s Deputies in protest.

Born to a Jewish family in East Prussia, he made his name as a lawyer defending socialists and in 1911 became SPD co-chairman alongside Bebel. In August 1914 he opposed war credits but had to read the party’s statement in their favour in the Reichstag. In 1917 he founded the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) with the war’s opponents. In November 1918 he co-chaired the Council of People’s Deputies with Ebert, leaving the government after the Christmas crisis. Shot outside the Reichstag in October 1919, he died in November.

Germany state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists 1867–1919 ✕ Assassinated

Journalist who overthrew the Bavarian monarchy in Munich in November 1918, proclaimed the People’s State and was assassinated the next year

He organized the November 1918 Bavarian Revolution, overthrew the monarchy and proclaimed the People’s State; he was assassinated in February 1919 while on his way to resign.

Born to a Jewish merchant family in Berlin, he was a theatre critic and editor of the SPD’s Vorwärts before moving to Munich. He joined the USPD against the war and was jailed for leading the munitions strike of January 1918. On 7 November he led demonstrators from a rally on the Theresienwiese round the barracks, and the next day proclaimed the People’s State of Bavaria and became premier. His publication of documents on German war guilt earned him the right’s hatred. Heavily defeated in the January 1919 election, he was assassinated by Count Arco-Valley on 21 February on his way to resign.

Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) Non-Bolshevik socialists 1875–1946 ○ Natural causes

German social-democratic politician and co-chair of the Independent Social Democratic Party.

A painter and journalist, Crispien opposed the Social Democratic Party's support for the war and helped found the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) in 1917. He served as interior minister in Württemberg's provisional government in 1918–19 and became a USPD co-chair in 1919. He attended the Communist International's Second Congress in 1920 as a USPD delegate but opposed its admission conditions and merger with the Communist Party of Germany. After most of the USPD reunited with the Social Democratic Party in 1922, he joined its leadership; he went into exile after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933.

Germany state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists 1889–1953 ○ Natural causes

The social democrat who became the voice of divided Berlin

“People of the world, look upon this city! You cannot, you must not, forsake us!”

Ernst Reuter was a German politician whose path from social democracy through communism and back reflected the upheavals of twentieth-century Europe. After Nazi persecution and exile in Turkey, he returned to Berlin and joined municipal administration to a practical social-democratic politics. During the Berlin Blockade, he gave West Berliners’ resolve an international voice and helped make the divided city a symbol of freedom and self-government. His career also reveals the tensions of a generation that moved from revolutionary radicalism toward democratic local government.

Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) Non-Bolshevik socialists 1893–1939 ✕ Suicide

German Jewish Expressionist playwright who took part in the Bavarian revolution

After volunteering for the German army in World War I and being wounded at Verdun, Toller was discharged in 1917; his wartime experience turned him toward pacifism, and he joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany. In April 1919 he served six days as president of the Bavarian Soviet Republic and took part in its armed resistance; sentenced to five years for high treason, he wrote several major plays in prison. Exiled after the Nazis came to power, he continued warning against Nazism and died by suicide in New York in 1939.