Why were the communists able to come to power in Russia, but they failed completely in Germany?

[Anarcho Nihilist]

Both countries were in similar conditions - the defeat in the war, the fall of the centuries-old monarchy and the bourgeois democratic revolution, after which there were attempts by communists to rise up to seize power.
In both countries there were anti-communist forces (Freikorps or the white army), but in Germany the Communists were brutally cornered, after which they forever forgot about their attempts to take power by armed means using only parliamentary elections, and in Russia the Communists won and physically destroyed all other political forces.
Were the Russian people culturally and genetically predisposed to communism from the very beginning?
Why were the Germans able to defeat the Communists in battle, and then chose a vividly anti-communist ideology in the form of National Socialism?

 

[Anarcho Nihilist]

@Castaway @DarkStar

 

[blackpillednigga]

because them coming to power in russia made germans fear communism as a russian imperialist threat

 

[Castaway]

Both countries were in similar conditions - the defeat in the war, the fall of the centuries-old monarchy and the bourgeois democratic revolution, after which there were attempts by communists to rise up to seize power.
In both countries there were anti-communist forces (Freikorps or the white army), but in Germany the Communists were brutally cornered, after which they forever forgot about their attempts to take power by armed means using only parliamentary elections, and in Russia the Communists won and physically destroyed all other political forces.
Were the Russian people culturally and genetically predisposed to communism from the very beginning?
Why were the Germans able to defeat the Communists in battle, and then chose a vividly anti-communist ideology in the form of National Socialism?

There are probably more nuances, but I think the reason the KPD failed in Weimar Germany was because they were seen as puppets of Moscow. Especially with Stalin's socialism in one country policy, communism in Germany was seen as a foreign ideology that reflected Russia's conditions rather than Germany's. Basically, most Germans feared soviet communism and saw it as un-German, so those who had socialist beliefs followed National Socialism instead as they believed it was an organic and genuine form of socialism that reflected German values.

 

[Castaway]

There are probably more nuances, but I think the reason the KPD failed in Weimar Germany was because they were seen as puppets of Moscow. Especially with Stalin's socialism in one country policy, communism in Germany was seen as a foreign ideology that reflected Russia's conditions rather than Germany's. Basically, most Germans feared soviet communism and saw it as un-German, so those who had socialist beliefs followed National Socialism instead as they believed it was an organic and genuine form of socialism that reflected German values.

I think this also applies to the rise of fascism in Central and Western Europe in general. Many former national-minded socialists, like Mussolini, became disillusioned with the Bolshevik Revolution. They saw the blind, almost slavish, loyalty that communists in their countries had to the Kremlin and, as a result, began to view communism as a threat to the sovereignty of their nations. To distance themselves from the Bolsheviks, they founded their own fascist movements to oppose not only liberalism and social democracy but also international communism.

@Anarcho Nihilist

 

[TheGrayWolf]

Well the Soviet Union and its economy were so "used" to communism, it was always there, while Germany's was not. It's harder to knock down a brick house, compared to one made of cards. The USSR's system of common ownership wasn't easy to break, and anyway, people wouldn't have dared.

 

[AsakangaHalo]

communism doesn't work

 

[Castaway]

Well the Soviet Union and its economy were so "used" to communism, it was always there, while Germany's was not. It's harder to knock down a brick house, compared to one made of cards. The USSR's system of common ownership wasn't easy to break, and anyway, people wouldn't have dared.

Yes, Germany had a developed urban middle class, unlike Russia. Most Russians were poor peasants and already used to living simply and not owning much, which is why the introduction of communism wasn’t met with much hostility from the masses.

 

[Castaway]

@ConservativeCel Probably has a good answer to this question

 

[justuseless]

Maybe because russians were already used to communal type of living under serfdom

 

[Uninvited]

Russia was a back water country where most people were serfs under the nobility.

Germany had become a industrialised nation state which had a more developed national consciousness.

 

[Castaway]

Commuism was a thread for western nation and they invited national socialism as a weapon against the soviets.
national socialism was a invention from western nations

Lmao remind me who were the allies of WW2 again? The capitalist western powers and the Soviet Union literally had to ally with each other to destroy National Socialism. Also, don’t even get me started on the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and Stalin’s attempt to join the axis.

 

[Castaway]

it was just for show. westerns sold weapons nazis

Germany had its own highly developed domestic arms industry, so I doubt that. However, there were extensive economic ties between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, where the Germans traded industrial and military technology in exchange for Soviet raw materials.

German–Soviet economic relations (1934–1941) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[universallyabhorres]

Well the Soviet Union and its economy were so "used" to communism, it was always there, while Germany's was not. It's harder to knock down a brick house, compared to one made of cards. The USSR's system of common ownership wasn't easy to break, and anyway, people wouldn't have dared.

Is it because Germany was wealthier and more industrialized than Russia before the Soviet Union? Then, people owned more and saw themselves as wealthier Tham the poor Russian peasants.

 

[Emba]

There was no German royal family for the jews to murder

 

[TheGrayWolf]

Is it because Germany was wealthier and more industrialized than Russia before the Soviet Union? Then, people owned more and saw themselves as wealthier Tham the poor Russian peasants.

Yes

 

[Atavistic Autist]

Whereas the Russian Army almost totally disintegrated following its defeat in WWI, enabling a small but cohesive group of putschists like the Bolsheviks to seize power, many German veterans of the war enlisted into Freikorps which were staunchly anti-Communist and fought capably against leftist revolutionaries as far away as Latvia

 

[Ahnfeltia]

I can recommend the following video series on the topic

View: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7y0zyKXzhwzrZ0raG4HpT8ZdXx9USoW3

 

[Atavistic Autist]

Is it because Germany was wealthier and more industrialized than Russia before the Soviet Union? Then, people owned more and saw themselves as wealthier Tham the poor Russian peasants.

Wealth is definitely a factor, but you attribute the rise of communism in Russia to the peasantry which is not quite true

Communism is a philosophy of industry and the proletariat, and in Russia its core centers of support/power were in the cities

Keep in mind that millions of peasants would soon starve under the Bolsheviks (both under Lenin and Stalin) as they requisitioned grain from the countryside to feed workers in the cities

Granted, millions of peasants would also starve in Maoist China, which was supposed to be guided by a peasant-oriented view of communism

But in Russia, the peasant role was simply to be deceived by the Bolsheviks, who encouraged peasants to seize the landholdings of their lords to erode the powerbase of Tsarism -- land (and grain) which they wouldn't even be able to keep for themselves under the proceeding collectivization of agriculture!

 

[Atavistic Autist]

In both countries there were anti-communist forces (Freikorps or the white army), but in Germany the Communists were brutally cornered, after which they forever forgot about their attempts to take power by armed means using only parliamentary elections, and in Russia the Communists won and physically destroyed all other political forces.

Saying "white army" implies a united front, which was not the case.

There were at least two separate "white armies," one in the south and the other in the east, and they never effectively joined forces

Considering also that they failed to make common cause with Poland and Finland, recently independent from the Russian Empire -- the former which actively fought a war against the Soviets during the Civil War period! -- they were defeated at the game of geopolitics. Leaders of the Russian nationalist opposition to the Bolsheviks literally did not want to recognize the sovereignty of Poland and Finland!

Another key point is that the Bolsheviks seized control over the most industrialized regions of Russia with the greatest railroad infrastructure. So the situation was a bit similar to the US civil war, where the north was simply economically more powerful.

 

[Atavistic Autist]

Also, the soldiers of the "white army" (as well as red army) in the Russian Civil War were mainly peasant conscripts

Whereas the German Freikorps (and presumably its leftist enemies) were willing enlistees fighting for the cause

So these were different situations on the ground

In the case of Russia, you had a revolutionary government which had acquired control over the two most industrialized cities in the country (Moscow and St. Petersburg/Petrograd), which were at the very center of all the railroad lines

This was not analogues to the situation in Germany

 

[universallyabhorres]

Wealth is definitely a factor, but you attribute the rise of communism in Russia to the peasantry which is not quite true

Communism is a philosophy of industry and the proletariat, and in Russia its core centers of support/power were in the cities

Keep in mind that millions of peasants would soon starve under the Bolsheviks (both under Lenin and Stalin) as they requisitioned grain from the countryside to feed workers in the cities

Granted, millions of peasants would also starve in Maoist China, which was supposed to be guided by a peasant-oriented view of communism

But in Russia, the peasant role was simply to be deceived by the Bolsheviks, who encouraged peasants to seize the landholdings of their lords to erode the powerbase of Tsarism -- land (and grain) which they wouldn't even be able to keep for themselves under the proceeding collectivization of agriculture!

You are right. The peasants were just useful idiots to strike at the landowners and they didn't even get to keep the land and ended up with famine. Did the people in the cities at least benefit from communism? Did anyone other than the ruling party or dictator himself benefit?

 

[Castaway]

I can recommend the following video series on the topic

View: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7y0zyKXzhwzrZ0raG4HpT8ZdXx9USoW3

Communist cope. Especially the part where he moralfags and gets emotional over the Freikorps (socdem soldiers) being le evil far-right fascists who massacred the wholesome Spartacists

 

[Roastie Crusher]

Jewish anthropologists like Jared Diamond claim it was geography that made the Russian more susceptible to feudalism and communism. Anarchism really took off in Russia and Tolstoy was a big fan of Schopenhauer.

After Kant, Utilitarians, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Mainlander, and Nietzsche there was a wide political/philosophical chasm on how to implement modern reforms.

The Nazis accepted communists that rejected the neutered jewish SDP. Nazi-ism believed in relativism. As long as you didn't defy them they didn't care about ideology. The Nazi ideology is based on occult theosophy.

 

[La Grande *Infamie*]

The Communists of the Spartacist uprising were beaten back by Anti-Communist Freikorps units, which were essentially really hardcore Veteran's associations who very often skewed to the far right.

 

[slavcel11]

russian peasantry was gullible and didn't know any better

 

[Ahnfeltia]

Communist cope. Especially the part where he moralfags and gets emotional over the Freikorps (socdem soldiers) being le evil far-right fascists who massacred the wholesome Spartacists

I wouldn't know. I generally like his takes and I'm not otherwise familiar with the topic.