Words: 939
The three main reasons why the evolution did not occur were because of the attitude of the people, he failure of the left to further the revolution and the success of the Whimper Republic in defending itself. In 1918 Germany was In chaos. The war was a disaster and so many people were suffering In Germany. In 1919, real Income was only 2,’as of what It was In 1913, war financed by printing money and borrowing led to massive inflation and between 1913 and 1918 the mark lost 75% of its value.
Major food and fuel shortages were occurring, costs out stripped wage increases, disease was rife, and thousands were dying from major flu epidemic, plus starvation for many thousands of people. Deaths from starvation and hypothermia were at 121,000 In 191 6 and an astonishing 293,000 wounded. People in Germany were furious with the situation they were in and many were discontented. But surprisingly the revolution came from above and it was Ultrasound who led the revolution. He also cleverly distanced the military from the armistice so that the ‘stab-in-the-back myth could be manufactured.
A constitutional monarchy was then created. Morale was incredibly low and on 28th October 1918 the Kiel Mutiny occurred In which the German Navy mutinied, 8 were shot dead and this dead to a general mutiny. This started the revolution from below. The US also sent a letter to Germany stating they would be more lenient if the Kaiser was to abdicate and under all of this pressure the Kaiser was finally forced to abdicate. An interim government was the set up but this was only to fill the gap between the time that the elections had be held to elect the parties into a constitutional democracy.
It was at this point In which the revolution could have continued further and evolved but it didn’t. One reason is the attitude of the people. The Stenciling agreement eve workers added benefits such as the 8 hour working day, full legal recognition and workers’ committees. This pleased the main majority of the workers. Also at the time many people were not prepared to go even further and many work content with having a constitutional democracy. Many thought that revolting further would cause havoc and many Just wanted to settle Into a new era In Germany.
This Is one reason as to winy ten evolution 010 not napped Ana ten country SE I tea Into a constitutional democracy. Another reason was the failure of the left to further the revolution and take the entry into the constitutional democracy that they wanted. There was a lack of co- ordination and poor leadership from the left. For example in spring 1919 a wave of strikes occurred in the Our mines, Central Germany and Berlin. However, these protests were uncoordinated, with radical ‘leaders’ desperately following rather than leading the protests.
The KIP had neither strong leadership with a clear strategy nor a tightly organized party structure, as communists did in Russia. This meant that they could never strike effectively enough. Another reason the left failed was because of a jack of support. During the wave of strikes in 1919 there was a lack of support from the workers and this coupled with the poor organization and poor leadership of the KIP led to many strikes failing. Without support it is difficult to overthrow a government so another reason why the left failed was because of lack of support.
So a key reason why the evolution didn’t happen was because of the failings of the left wing parties. Another reason why the country didn’t evolve into a constitutional democracy was because of the success of the Whimper Republic in defending itself. The Bert- Greener pact meant that the government would be supported by the armed forces and in return the government would support steps taken by the Armed Forces to preserve discipline and it would oppose any attempts at revolutionary uprising.
The Whimper Republic successfully used this deal to crush the Separatist Uprising, an attack from the left. Also in 1919 in Bavaria the workers managed to break away from the control of the Reich Government and they set up an independent socialist republic but this was also crushed by the Fireworks. Also the civil war in the Our in 1920 was crushed by the Fireworks. In this incident a ‘Red Army had been created in protest of the Kappa Putsch and about 50,000 socialist workers protested.
They controlled the region so the Government sent in the Fireworks and a war between the two begun. But the Fireworks were ruthless and the uprising was easily suppressed. The Government successfully used the Bert-Greener deal to defend itself and this is another key factor as to why the country didn’t evolve into a constitutional democracy because this factor coupled with the left’s ineptitude made it very difficult for any attack from the left to be successful. Overall I would say that the most important factor would be the failings of the left.
This is because if they had co-ordinate and planned properly and got support behind them by rallying all the workers and supporters of the left wing then it would have been very difficult for the government to stop being overthrown and overrun. If this had occurred the left wing parties would have set up a constitutional democracy and the evolution would have occurred. But the left did not organism effectively enough and they failed in all their attempts and this is why I believe this is the most important reason.