International Communists of Germany (1918)

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International Communists of Germany (IKD) was the name of a short-lived organization that, together with the Spartakusbund Rosa Luxemburgs and Karl Liebknechts , founded the Communist Party of Germany on December 31, 1918 .

history

The name IKD was adopted by the group of the so-called Bremen Left Radicals and other independent revolutionary groups in Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden and a few other places.

When the USPD was formed in 1917 , these groups did not follow the policy of the Spartakusbund to participate in the new party and instead sought to form an independent communist organization at the national level. Police repression prevented this until on December 15, 1918, the IKD was formally founded as a loose federation of local groups - only to merge into the newly founded KPD only half a month later.

Politically, the IKD were determined by ultra-left tendencies; so advocated z. B. parts of the Bremen left-wing radicals to replace the trade unions with a unitary organization that should fulfill the functions of party and trade union in one.

Many members of the IKD were skeptical about the association with the Spartakusbund, including Johann Knief from the Bremen group. Karl Radek , who arrived in Berlin from Moscow at the end of December 1918 (presumably on the 20th) and who had worked closely with the Bremen left-wing radicals and Johann Knief in earlier years , played a decisive role in changing the minds of the IKD people and for the unification to win.

Originally, as International Socialists of Germany (ISD) , the IKD was part of the faction within the SPD that had opposed the civil peace policy of the Social Democrats during the First World War . The current, also known as the radical left , was organized locally independently. Individual groups published various magazines, such as Lichtstrahl in Berlin (editor Julian Borchardt , ISD), Bremer Bürger-Zeitung , later Arbeiterpolitik Bremen (editor Johann Knief, Karl Radek, Paul Frölich , ISD, then IKD), the communist (Johann Knief, Friedrich Wilhelm Eildermann ) and the fight in Hamburg (editors Heinrich Laufenberg and Fritz Wolffheim ).

Subsequently, parts of the Bremen group advocated the thesis that one had to finally break away from the SPD and, under the influence of Johann Knief, founded the first declared communist party in Germany on November 23, 1918, the International Communists of Germany . A few local groups emerged within Germany, the largest were in Bremen, Hamburg and Dresden under the direction of Otto Rühle . On December 24, 1918 , the first Reich Congress of the IKD took place in Berlin following the 1st Reich Congress of Workers 'and Soldiers' Councils , which had met between December 16 and December 20, 1918. A merger with the Spartacus group was discussed there.

During the founding party congress of the Communist Party, the IKD groups joined forces with the Spartakusbund to form the KPD. Large parts of the former IKD members, however , were expelled from the KPD again at the Heidelberg party congress of the KPD , which took place from October 20 to 23, 1919, because they opposed the centralism of the Spartacus group in the party . They were then accused of syndicalism by Paul Levi . Leading former IKD members such as Otto Rühle and Heinrich Laufenberg then founded the Communist Workers' Party of Germany on April 3, 1920 , a minority around Paul Frölich remained in the KPD.

See also

literature

  • Gerhard Engel : The International Communists of Germany 1916-1919. In: Ralf Hoffrogge / Norman LaPorte: Weimar Communism as Mass Movement 1918-1933. Lawrence & Wishart, London 2017, pp. 25–45.
  • Gerhard Engel: Johann Knief - an unfinished life. Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2011.
  • Olaf Ihlau : The red fighters. A contribution to the history of the labor movement in the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich (= Marburg treatises on political science , Volume 14, ISSN  0542-6480 ). Hain, Meisenheim am Glan 1969, (reprint. (= Politladen-Reprint. No. 8). Verlag Politladen, Erlangen 1971, ISBN 3-920531-07-8 ; also: Marburg, Universität, dissertation, 1968).

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