Spartacist uprising

This article is about the 1919 uprising in Germany. For the slave revolt in the Roman Republic led by Spartacus, see Third Servile War.
Spartacist uprising
Part of the German Revolution of 1918–1919

Soldiers on the Brandenburg Gate during the Spartacist uprising
Date5–12 January 1919
Location
Berlin, Germany
Result Government victory
Belligerents

Weimar Republic Council of the People's Deputies

Communist Party of Germany

Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany
Commanders and leaders
Weimar Republic Friedrich Ebert
Weimar Republic Gustav Noske		 Karl Liebknecht Executed
Rosa Luxemburg Executed
Strength
3,000 Freikorps
Casualties and losses
17 killed
20 wounded		 130–180 killed[1]
150–197 total deaths, including an uncertain number of civilians[2]

The Spartacist uprising (German: Spartakusaufstand), also known as the January uprising (Januaraufstand) or, more rarely, Bloody Week,[3] was an armed uprising that took place in Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919. It occurred in connection with the German revolution that broke out just before the end of World War I. The uprising was primarily a power struggle between the supporters of the provisional government led by Friedrich Ebert of the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), which favored a social democracy, and those who backed the position of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, which wanted to set up a council republic similar to the one established by the Bolsheviks in Russia. The government's forces were victorious in the fighting.

The Spartcus League in a show of force on Berlin's main thoroughfare

The uprising began with mass demonstrations and strikes called by the parties of the radical left to protest the dismissal of Berlin's chief of police. Taken by surprise at the size of the turnout and the protestors' spontaneous occupation of newspaper buildings and printing companies, the leaders of the left were unable to agree on how to proceed. As a result, the uprising remained largely without direction. The government responded with military force, including several paramilitary Freikorps units, retook the buildings that had been occupied and violently suppressed the uprising.

The death toll was roughly 150–200, mostly among the insurgents. The most prominent deaths were those of Liebknecht and Luxemburg, who were executed extrajudicially on 15 January, almost certainly with the at least tacit approval of the MSPD-led government.[4][5] The party's involvement hampered its position throughout the life of the Weimar Republic, although quashing the uprising allowed elections for the National Assembly to take place as scheduled on 19 January 1919. The Assembly went on to write the Weimar Constitution that created the first national German democracy.

The uprising took its popular name from the Marxist Spartacus League (Spartakusbund), which Luxemburg and Liebknecht founded in 1914. When the KPD was established on 1 January 1919, the Spartacus League became part of it. Some historians, such as Heinrich August Winkler and Sebastian Haffner, consider the name to be misleading because the Spartacists (KPD) had not wanted, planned or led the revolt.[6][7]

  1. ^ Jones 2016, p. 197.
  2. ^ Jones 2016, p. 196–199.
  3. ^ *Schwartzwald, Jack L. (2022). Europe on the Path to Self-Destruction: Nationalism and the Struggle for Hegemony, 1815-1945. McFarland. p. 288. ISBN 978-1-4766-4685-5.
  4. ^ Gietinger 1995, p. 111.
  5. ^ Haffner, Sebastian (1991). Die deutsche Revolution 1918/1919 (in German). Munich: Knaur. pp. 153–154. ISBN 978-3-426-03813-0.
  6. ^ Winkler, Heinrich August (1993). Weimar 1918–1933. Die Geschichte der ersten deutschen Demokratie [Weimar 1918–1933 The History of the first German Democracy] (in German). Munich: C.H. Beck. p. 56. ISBN 3-406-37646-0.
  7. ^ Haffner 1991, p. 144.