Socialization Commission

A socialization commission is a group of experts set up in November 1918 by the Council of People's Representatives to examine ways of socializing parts of the German economy. The official name was the Commission for the Preparation of the Socialization of Industry .

prehistory

Within the Council of People's Representatives, the USPD urged the rapid socialization of important branches of the economy immediately after the November Revolution. The MSPD found itself in a dilemma. On the one hand, she saw the change in ownership as an additional threat to the already difficult economic situation. On the other hand, the majority Social Democrats did not want to be accused of betraying socialist principles. On November 18, 1918, the council decided in principle that all branches of industry that were mature for this purpose should be socialized immediately. The majority Social Democrats had, however, pushed through that a commission of “well-known economists” was to be appointed beforehand in order to “ involve practitioners from among the workers and employers” to determine the details. "

First socialization commission

The first socialization commission included leading Marxist theorists from both labor parties and the trade unions, representatives of bourgeois social reform and science. From academia, for example, Joseph Schumpeter , Emil Lederer , Carl Ballod and Robert Wilbrandt were members of the commission. It was led by Karl Kautsky , the leading theoretician of social democracy, and Ernst Francke from the Society for Social Reform . Although already planned for the first commission, the appointment of the industrialist Walther Rathenau initially failed due to the resistance of the USPD. Theodor Vogelstein was a representative of the economy . Otto Hue , among others, was represented by the unions . Heinrich Cunow and Rudolf Hilferding came from the socialist parties . The secretary general of the commission was the social and economic scientist Eduard Heimann .

Among other things, the commission drew up reports and draft laws on the socialization of coal mining, the municipalization of certain facilities and the nationalization of the fishing and insurance sectors. The first results on the principles of socialization work were published on January 7, 1919. The most significant paper was a preliminary report on the socialization of coal mining. It was published on February 15, 1919 and contained a majority and a minority opinion.

The work of the commission suffered heavily from attempts to influence the bureaucracy taken over from the time of the empire. Undersecretary of State August Müller in particular , although a Social Democrat is an avowed opponent of all socialization, severely obstructed the commission. In early April 1919, the commission stopped working in protest. Although the law on the socialization of coal mining was passed in March 1919 , it was not implemented.

Second socialization commission

After the Kapp Putsch , the re-establishment of the Socialization Commission was part of the agreement between the Reich government, trade unions and parties of March 20, 1920. It subsequently met in a slightly different composition than in the first phase. On September 3, 1920, the commission published its report on the socialization of coal mining. This included two different proposals. The first of Walter Rathenau and Rudolf Wissell spoke out in favor of gradual socialization, but without affecting private working capital. The second proposal from Emil Lederer , Rudolf Hilferding and Karl Kautsky was for immediate socialization. Compensation for the owners was provided for in both concepts. No consensus could be reached within the Commission on the proposals. Hugo Stinnes ' proposal to give employees a share in the company's success by issuing employee shares was rejected by the unions , because this would have contradicted the intention of socialization.

The commission existed until 1923. The work had no direct impact on political developments.

swell

• Hirsch: Excerpt from the comments made by Undersecretary Hirsch at the preliminary meeting of the Socialization Commission on April 15, 1920. Stalling, Oldenburg i. O. ca 1920.
• Negotiations by the Socialization Commission on coal mining. , Berlin 1920–1921. Vol. 1
• Negotiations of the socialization commission on the reparation questions. Engelmann, Berlin 1921, 1922. Vol. 3
• Negotiations of the socialization commission on the potash industry. Engelmann, Berlin 1921.
• Negotiations of the socialization commission about the organization of the Reichseisenbahnen. Engelmann, Berlin 1922.
• Negotiations of the socialization commission on communalization. 1921.
• Negotiations by the Socialization Commission on the new housing regulations. Engelmann, Berlin 1921.
• Walther Lotz: The German Socialization Commission and the Reparation Questions. [Discussion of] negotiations by the Socialization Commission on reparation issues; Bd 1; Berlin 1921. In: World Economic Archive. 1922, pp. 424-430.

literature

• Manfred Behrend: The screen, behind which nothing happens. Education, activity and end of the first German socialization commission. In: Contributions to the history of the labor movement 4/1998
• Ludwig Preller : Social Policy in the Weimar Republic . Kronberg, 1978. ISBN 3-7610-7210-4 , pp. 238 f.
• Michael Schneider : Highs, crises and lows. The unions in the Weimar Republic from 1918 to 1933 . In: Klaus Tenfelde u. a .: History of the German trade unions from the beginning until 1945. Cologne, 1987. ISBN 3-7663-0861-0 , p. 298.
• Heinrich August Winkler : Weimar. The history of the first German democracy 1918-1933 . Munich 1993, p. 46 f.
• Franz Osterroth , Dieter Schuster : Chronicle of the German social democracy. Vol. 2: From the beginning of the Weimar Republic to the end of the Second World War , Verlag JH Dietz Nachf., Hanover 1963, ISBN 3-8012-1084-7 , p. 72.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Quoted from Winkler: Weimar , p. 46.