Ben Fowkes taught history at the universities of Sheffield and North London. He carried out archival research in Vienna, Bonn, Prague and Moscow, and wrote a number of books, including Communism in Germany under the Weimar Republic. He also did a number of translations, such as Karl Marx: The Economic Manuscript of 1863-1865 (Capital, Book Three) and Henryk Grossman: Selected Works (edited by Professor Rick Kuhn).

“Socialist historian Ben Fowkes has given us a unique and vivid text documentary of the German workers’ movement during the tumultuous years of its greatest influence… For socialists, this unique resource breaks through veils of historical interpretation and ideology and permits us to hear the protagonists of our movement’s past in their own words.” —John Riddell, editor Toward the United Front

• PrefaceAcknowledgementsAbbreviationsGeneral IntroductionChapter 1 Social Democracy in Government: Measures of Reform in Theory and PracticeChapter 2 The Council Idea: Workers’ Councils and Factory CouncilsChapter 3 Communism and InsurrectionChapter 4 In Defence of DemocracyChapter 5 The Weimar Left Between Opposition and Coalition: Varied StrategiesChapter 6 The Moscow Connection: The KPD and the CominternChapter 7 Socialism and Foreign PolicyChapter 8 The Search for Democracy in the Armed ForcesChapter 9 Questions of Gender and Sexual PoliticsChapter 10 Long-term Political Objectives: Similarities and DifferencesChapter 11 The Parties, their Supporters and the Proletarian MilieuChapter 12 Parties and Groups of the Dissident LeftBibliographyIndex