General introduction -- Social democracy in government : measures of reform in theory and practice -- The council idea : workers' councils and factory councils -- Communism and insurrection -- In defence of democracy -- The Weimar left between opposition and coalition : varied strategies -- The Moscow connection : the KPD and the Comintern -- Socialism and foreign policy -- The search for democracy in the armed forces -- Questions of gender and sexual politics -- Long-term political objectives : similarities and differences -- The parties, their supporters and the proletarian milieu -- The parties and groups of the dissident left
Summary
"The German Left and the Weimar Republic illuminates the history of the political left by presenting a wide range of documents on various aspects of socialist and communist activity in Germany. Separate chapters deal with the policy of Social Democracy in and out of government, the attempts of the Communist Party to overthrow the Weimar Republic, and then later to oppose it. Later chapters move away from the political scene to treat the attitudes of the parties to key social issues, in particular questions of gender and sexuality. The book concludes with a presentation of documents on various groups of socialist and communist dissidents. Many of the documents are made accessible for the first time, and each chapter begins with an original introduction indicating the current state of research"-- Provided by publisher
