A Marxist Critique of Laurence Rees’s Hitler’s Charisma
Laurence Rees’s Hitler’s Charisma joins many works that try to explain the rise of National Socialism by focusing on Adolf Hitler's personal magnetism. Rees depicts Hitler as an exceptionally skilled manipulator whose “charisma” enchanted millions and drove him to power. However, this view is not only insufficient but also deeply misleading. It exemplifies the bourgeois “great man” approach to history, which replaces broader social analysis and political context with individual personality traits and psychology.
Rees’s argument is seen as "fundamentally flawed from a Marxist perspective" because it reverses cause and effect. Hitler’s charisma did not drive fascism; instead, it emerged from specific historical and class contexts. As Trotsky stated: “The leader is always a relation between people; the individual supplies to meet the collective demand.” Rees views charisma as an independent force beyond society, whereas Marxism considers it a social relationship—an ideological distortion reflecting class conflicts in crisis.
Rees’s framework is inherently political because it depoliticizes fascism by concentrating only on Hitler’s personality as its origin. This approach neglects the contributions of the German bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie, and betrayals from the workers' party in the historical analysis. As a result, fascism is viewed more as a mass psychological phenomenon rather than a political movement rooted in class conflict. The 'charisma framework' deliberately distorts causal links—a common technique in bourgeois historiography—to conceal fascism's class roots and preserve capitalist legitimacy.
The Class Basis of Fascism
Rees’s perspective misses the social context of Weimar Germany, while Trotsky’s approach begins with class structure. Fascism arose from the fear and despair of the petty bourgeoisie—shopkeepers, artisans, clerks, and ruined peasants—caught between monopoly capital and the organized working class. Trotsky highlights: "Not every exasperated petty bourgeois could have become Hitler, but a particle of Hitler is lodged in every exasperated petty bourgeois.”
Hitler did not originate this movement; rather, the movement influenced him. His “charisma" was a mirror of the collective frustrations of a class teetering on social collapse. Rees’s book overlooks this context, instead portraying Hitler’s appeal as a psychological enigma akin to hypnotic suggestion. This distorts the historical truth.
Rees’s work fundamentally overlooks the influence of the German ruling class. Hitler's rise wasn't solely due to charisma; it was orchestrated by the bourgeoisie—including Papen, Hugenberg, Thyssen, Krupp, and Schacht—who viewed him as a tool to suppress the working class and eliminate democratic rights. As Trotsky stated, “Fascism in power is least of all the rule of the petty bourgeoisie… it is the most ruthless dictatorship of monopoly capital.”
Rees’s book cannot acknowledge this, as doing so would reveal fascism as a product of capitalism rather than Hitler’s personality. Consequently, the charisma thesis is not only incorrect but also politically misleading.
The Frankfurt School Legacy: Psychology Over Class
Rees’s view exemplifies the postwar shift of the Frankfurt School from class analysis toward cultural and psychological explanations. “By attributing the roots of fascism to Hitler’s personal traits, Rees shifts focus away from the class forces that shaped him," illustrating how his book recasts fascism as a cultural disorder, an enlightenment failure, or a mass psychological problem. As a result, key historical figures—the German bourgeoisie, Social Democratic leaders, and Stalinist bureaucracy—are left out of the narrative.
The primary political risk linked to Hitler’s charisma is the false belief that fascism can be prevented by solely monitoring individual personalities rather than transforming society as a whole. When charismatic demagogues are viewed as the main cause of fascism, the usual 'solutions' focus on vigilance against authoritarian figures, psychological education, and media literacy. Nonetheless, fascism is not just a personality trait; it is, in fact, "a political tool of the bourgeoisie used during times when the capitalist system is no longer sustainable through democratic methods." The key lesson from the 20th century isn't simply to "beware of charismatic leaders," but to develop an independent revolutionary movement led by the working class.
Conclusion
Laurence Rees’s Hitler’s Charisma is a well-produced historical narrative designed for a general audience. However, it lacks depth in theory and may be misleading politically. By concentrating only on Hitler's personal appeal, Rees neglects the economic and social forces that facilitated Hitler’s rise and that could support similar leaders again. The key issue isn't ‘how did Hitler control millions?’ but ‘why were so many people susceptible?’ An in-depth fascism analysis should consider the crisis of capitalism, the decline of the middle class, betrayals by workers’ parties, and actions by the bourgeoisie. Rees’s work, however, avoids these crucial causes, offering merely comfort rather than insight—something society doesn't need now, as the roots of fascism are re-emerging.
Laurence Rees and the Sanitisation of Fascism: A Marxist Critique of The Holocaust: A New History
Laurence Rees has carved a niche by transforming the darkest moments of the 20th century into engaging television history. His book, The Holocaust: A New History, follows this trend with refined language, compelling anecdotes, and a narrative flow that guides readers through one of humanity’s gravest crimes. However, behind this accessible storytelling is a significant political dodge. Rees’s “new history" isn’t actually new; it repeats the classic bourgeois approach—psychologizing fascism, blaming individuals, and disconnecting genocide from the capitalist crisis that caused it.
Rees’s main argument is that the Holocaust resulted from a dangerous blend of Hitler’s ideological fixations, increasing bureaucratic extremism, and the moral decay of ordinary Germans. This aligns with the common “cumulative radicalisation” concept: suggesting no single cause or dominant class, but rather a tragic slide into barbarism. This story tends to exculpate the German bourgeoisie, overlook the betrayals within the workers’ movement, and treat fascism as a moral lesson instead of a political tool. This is not genuine history; it is a form of historical neglect.
The Holocaust Without Capitalism
Rees’s book is noteworthy for what it leaves out. The Holocaust was not an isolated event; it stemmed from a political campaign aimed at dismantling the organized working class, eradicating socialism, and reorganizing society under the dominance of monopoly capitalism. Fascism was more than a mere mass psychological upheaval—it was a form of counterrevolution.
Rees’s narrative barely depicts capitalism; the German ruling class is merely in the background. Industrialists funding Hitler, agrarian elites opposing labor, and military leaders viewing fascism as a shield against Bolshevism—all disappear into a mist of “ideology,” “hatred,” and “radicalisation." This omission is deliberate; it stems from an ideological perspective.
Similar to Hitler’s Charisma, Rees is influenced by the “great man" theory, portraying Hitler as the key figure shaping history through his obsessions, resentments, and worldview. He views the Holocaust as stemming from Hitler's disturbed imagination. However, Hitler was not just a malevolent figure; he also represented particular class interests.
His racial ideology was adopted as state policy because it supported German capitalist interests during crises—encouraging expansion, forced labor, destroying socialist and Jewish intellectual hubs, and quelling political opposition. “Fascism in power is… the most ruthless dictatorship of monopoly capital.” Rees is unable to challenge this. Doing so would threaten to unravel his entire argument.
The Petty Bourgeoisie: The Missing Social Actor
Rees’s account of the Holocaust frames German society as a moral terrain—distinguishing between good people, bad people, bystanders, and perpetrators. However, it omits the underlying class structure. The petty bourgeoisie—comprising ruined shopkeepers, clerks, artisans, and farmers who supported fascism—is depicted as psychological types rather than social agents. Trotsky’s insight remains relevant: "A particle of Hitler is lodged in every exasperated petty bourgeois." Understanding the Holocaust requires examining the class panic that propelled millions toward National Socialism. Rees’s neglect of this class dynamic causes his “new history” to appear detached from the actual social and economic realities.
Rees emphasizes the Nazi bureaucracy—its rivalries, radicalization, and slide into genocidal efficiency. However, bureaucracy is not an autonomous force; it is a tool. The key question is: whose tool? The German state did not become radical on its own. The political demands of the ruling class shaped it. The destruction of European Jewry was directly linked to German imperialism's war goals: conquest, labour exploitation, and the eradication of political foes. Rees portrays the Holocaust as a bureaucratic tragedy, but the true Holocaust was a class-based undertaking.
Rees’s narrative is filled with moral terms—evil, hatred, cruelty, complicity—which typify bourgeois Holocaust historiography. It reframes genocide as a moral lesson instead of a political warning, suggesting that the Holocaust occurred because of human wickedness rather than as a consequence of capitalism's severe crisis, leading the bourgeoisie to fascism to maintain power.
This moral framing is politically convenient, as it shifts focus from systemic issues to human nature itself. It proposes that preventing future genocides depends on vigilance and education, rather than revolutionary action by the working class.
Why Rees’s Approach Is Dangerous Today
We live in a time marked by a global capitalist crisis, increasing authoritarianism, and the resurgence of fascist movements. In this context, Rees’s depoliticized Holocaust account is not only inadequate but also dangerous. It encourages readers to fear hatred itself instead of the social conditions that foster fascism. It implies that genocide results from ideology rather than class interests. "The only guarantee against its return is the building of a revolutionary party of the working class." Rees presents a different lesson: emphasizing moral vigilance, psychological awareness, and a naive belief in liberal democracy. This mindset portrays a society obliviously heading toward catastrophe.
Conclusion: A Holocaust Without History
Laurence Rees’s The Holocaust: A New History isn't truly a new history. It presents the traditional bourgeois story in contemporary language: portraying fascism as moral decay, genocide as a form of extreme ideology, Hitler as the main leader, and capitalism as the unseen foundation. This history lacks class analysis, political economy, and the revolutionary insights humanity urgently requires. It depicts a Holocaust devoid of historical context—and, as a result, offers no warning about the tragic consequences.
Bibliography: Works by Laurence Rees on the Holocaust
Books
- Rees, Laurence. The Holocaust: A New History. Viking / Ebury Press, 2017.
- Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: The Nazis and the “Final Solution”. BBC Books, 2005.
- Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: A New History. PublicAffairs, 2005 (US edition).
- Rees, Laurence. The Nazis: A Warning from History. BBC Books, 1997.
- Rees, Laurence. Their Darkest Hour: People Tested to the Limit in WWII. Ebury Press, 2017 (includes Holocaust material).
Documentary Series (Primary Sources for His Interpretive Method)
- Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution (BBC, 2005).
- The Holocaust: A New History (BBC Radio 4 series, 2017).
- The Nazis: A Warning from History (BBC, 1997).
Critical Marxist and Historical Sources
- Trotsky, Leon. The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany. Pathfinder Press, 1971.
- North, David. The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism and the Politics of the Pseudo‑Left. Mehring Books, 2015.
- Broszat, Martin. The Hitler State. Longman, 1981.
- Friedländer, Saul. Nazi Germany and the Jews. HarperCollins, 1997–2007.
- Aly, Götz. Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State. Metropolitan Books, 2007.
Natalie Livingstone describes The Nuremberg Women as a “fresh” and “humanising” depiction of the Nuremberg Trials, highlighting eight women—including journalists, interpreters, witnesses, artists, and administrators—whose efforts, she claims, made the proceedings “more democratic” and contributed to the perception that “justice was served." Nonetheless, the book aligns with contemporary liberal historiography, emphasising personal stories, moral judgments, and depoliticisation. It masks the underlying class conflicts of fascism and neglects the political limitations inherent in the trials.
Livingstone’s book aligns with a recent microhistorical genre that emphasises personal experience rather than broad historical causality, prioritising emotional immediacy over political clarity. This creates a narrative filled with anecdotes but potentially misleading regarding its historical and political significance.
The book has been thoroughly reviewed. Notably, Katja Hoyer’s critique in the TLS stands out from a political viewpoint. Her review of The Nuremberg Women exemplifies a refined form of liberal historiography—graceful and compassionate, yet ultimately evasive. It demonstrates a style that appeals to the reader’s moral instincts while subtly lacking the political and structural context of the event. By lauding Natalie Livingstone’s microhistory, Hoyer reflects a broader ideological pattern: replacing detailed analysis with narrative empathy and transforming structural violence into emotional spectacle. As a result, the review appears to enhance our understanding of Nuremberg but in fact limits it by depicting the women in the trials as moral witnesses rather than active participants in the postwar justice system.
Hoyer aims to humanise the Nuremberg Trials by highlighting women who typed transcripts, translated interrogations, and experienced the surreal environment of occupied Germany. While recognising the importance of reclaiming women’s labour, she does not view these women as part of a gendered labour system. Instead, she portrays them as emotional mediators—conscience bearers, moral stabilisers, and psychological interpreters. This approach is more sentimental than historical, disguising insight with emotion. The women were not merely moral spectators; they were integral to the bureaucratic machinery that facilitated the Allies' legal theatre. Their work was organised, exploited, and instrumentalised, and reducing them to psychological witnesses ignores the conditions that made their roles necessary.
Nuremberg Without Politics
Hoyer’s review is most revealing in its omissions. The Nuremberg Trials were not simply a moral reckoning with fascism; they were also a geopolitical performance that legitimised the postwar order, a selective prosecution that spared the economic foundations of German imperialism, a mechanism for reintegrating former Nazis into the emerging Cold War state, and a legal spectacle that concealed the class forces behind fascism. Hoyer acknowledges none of this. Instead, she presents the trials as a psychological drama in ruined Germany, witnessed by women whose moral clarity offsets the defendants’ brutality.
This is the liberal fantasy: fascism appears as a moral aberration rather than a structural product of capitalist crisis. Hoyer’s praise for Livingstone’s narrative craft is revealing. She commends the book’s vivid scenes, reconstructed conversations, and psychological atmosphere, but narrative is never neutral. It organises meaning ideologically, privileging the exceptional over the typical, the visible over the structural, and the personal over the political. In Hoyer’s hands, microhistory becomes a way to avoid the larger question: what social forces produced fascism, and what political economy shaped its juridical aftermath? By centering individual women, Hoyer displaces the trials’ structural contradictions, replacing analysis with empathy and empathy with moral reassurance.
The Depoliticisation of Fascism
What is most troubling in Hoyer’s review is its understated depoliticisation of fascism. She presents the Nazi defendants as psychological monsters, the women as moral witnesses, and the trials as a cathartic encounter with evil. The framing is comforting, but historically misleading. Fascism was not a mental pathology; it was a class project, a violent defense of property relations amid capitalist crisis. The Nuremberg Trials did not dismantle that order; they purified its image, punishing the most visible criminals while leaving intact the structures that made their crimes possible. Hoyer cannot confront this because her method forecloses it: liberal humanism can describe the emotional aftermath of structural violence, but not explain its foundations.
Empathy cannot replace analysis. It is not enough to sympathise with the women of Nuremberg; we must examine the conditions that shaped their labour, the political forces that defined their roles, and the ideological purposes their presence served. Hoyer’s review offers emotional satisfaction while withholding historical understanding. It is an elegant evasion.
Katja Hoyer’s review exposes a broader weakness in contemporary historiography: the dominance of liberal sentiment over structural analysis. It presents history as moral reassurance rather than explanation, humanising power instead of scrutinising it. The women of Nuremberg deserve more than the role of emotional witnesses in a liberal morality play. They should be understood as workers, agents, and participants in one of the twentieth century’s most politically charged legal proceedings. To recover that reality, we must move beyond Hoyer’s humanist framing and confront the structural conditions her review leaves untouched.
The Personalisation of History
Livingstone presents the trials through the lives of eight women, including Erika Mann, Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, Tatiana Stupnikova, Laura Knight, Ursula von Kardoff, Ingeborg Kálnoky, and two others whose roles are framed as morally or emotionally decisive. Their stories are rendered with sympathy and detail. Yet the book’s central claim—that these women’s “human” and “intimate” experiences disclose Nuremberg’s “true” meaning—rests on a false and politically reactionary premise.
Contrary to Livingstone’s account, the Nuremberg Trials were not a moral drama in which personal courage and emotional labour delivered justice. They were a legal response to a crisis of world capitalism, shaped by Allied geopolitical interests and the emerging Cold War. Politically selective and tightly constrained, they could not confront fascism’s social roots. By centering individual experience, Livingstone sidesteps the essential question: what social forces produced fascism, and why did Nuremberg fail to hold them accountable?
The Erasure of Capitalism’s Responsibility for Fascism
Livingstone’s narrative accepts the juridical fiction that fascism was the work of a handful of political criminals. Her focus on the Nazi defendants’ physical and psychological decline, as Erika Mann observed at Camp Ashcan, reinforces this myth. Descriptions of Göring, Streicher, and others as “gaunt,” “broken,” or “like wild beasts in a zoo” are treated as evidence of moral collapse, but this is trivia presented as historical insight. The condition of Nazi leaders in 1945 tells us nothing about the class forces that brought them to power. Fascism arose not from individual pathology, but from the crisis of German capitalism, the destruction of the workers’ movement, and the support of monopoly capital. The industrialists who financed and sustained Hitler—Krupp, Thyssen, and IG Farben—largely avoided serious punishment. Livingstone does not confront this because her framework obscures it. Nuremberg’s failure to indict capitalism was not incidental; it was the trials’ central political limitation, a reality her human-interest narrative conceals.
The Liberal Myth of “Democratic Justice”
Livingstone repeatedly argues that women’s participation made the trials “more democratic” and “more humane.” The claim is sentimental but politically hollow. Women interpreters, journalists, and artists did not alter the trials’ fundamental character, which was determined by the geopolitical aims of the United States and Britain as they moved toward confrontation with the Soviet Union.
Tatiana Stupnikova, the Russian interpreter, exemplifies this problem. Livingstone presents her labour as evidence of international cooperation and moral seriousness. Yet the emerging Cold War shaped every aspect of the trial, as the Allies disputed charges, evidence, and the scope of prosecution. Nuremberg was not a harmonious exercise in global justice, but a site of political conflict. By turning these tensions into background for personal drama, Livingstone reinforces the liberal myth of Nuremberg as a triumph of Western democratic values.
Laura Knight, the British war artist, allows Livingstone to aestheticise the trial. Knight’s paintings are presented as capturing the proceedings’ “humanity,” but this framing has an ideological function: it turns a legally constrained, politically shaped process into a cultural scene of moral reckoning. Art at Nuremberg did not uncover deeper truths; it helped construct the trial’s image as civilised, rational, and humane. Livingstone accepts that image without criticism.
Livingstone presents Ursula von Kardoff, the German journalist, as a symbol of the “new Germany”: a nation prepared to confront its past and embrace democracy. This distorts history. The German bourgeoisie was not remade after 1945; it was preserved. The class forces that supported Hitler were absorbed into the postwar order and realigned with the Western powers against the Soviet Union. Livingstone’s portrayal of Kardoff therefore aids the rehabilitation of the German ruling class by casting its postwar representatives as enlightened democrats.
Gender as Moral Category
Livingstone treats gender in liberal-essentialist terms, casting women as moral anchors, emotional mediators, and guardians of humanity. Their labour—as interpreters, witnesses, reporters, and carers—is presented as inherently humane and democratising. A Marxist analysis, by contrast, understands gender as a social relation rather than a moral category. The gendered labour at Nuremberg shaped the trial’s ideological presentation but did not overcome its political limits. Livingstone’s sentimental feminism humanises the proceedings while obscuring their structural constraints.The Nuremberg Women is polished and readable, but politically reactionary. By personalising history, moralising justice, aestheticising suffering, and erasing fascism’s class roots, Livingstone ultimately reinforces the dominant liberal narrative of the postwar order.
The book’s central claim—that the emotional labour and personal courage of eight women reveal Nuremberg’s “true” meaning—is untenable. Nuremberg can be understood only through a materialist analysis of the social forces that produced fascism and the political limits that shaped the trials.
The Sullivan Affair and the Ideological Degradation of Holocaust Historiography
“Why do governments give millions each day for war, when they spend nothing on medicine or poor people?
Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl, entry of 3 May 1944.
"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."
— Elie Wiesel
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist... Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me." — Martin Niemöller.
"It is possible to imagine without difficulty what awaits the Jews at the mere outbreak of the future world war. But even without war, the next development of world reaction signifies with certainty the physical extermination of the Jews.
Leon Trotsky
In 2022, Rosemary Sullivan’s The Betrayal of Anne Frank was withdrawn by its Dutch publisher after its main claim was proven unfounded. This wasn’t just a correction of an academic error but also a revealing sign of how Holocaust historiography is progressively degrading under modern capitalism. The book falsely claimed there was a “Jewish betrayer” responsible for the Frank family’s arrest—an allegation based on guesswork, misinterpretation, and pseudo-forensic showmanship. Despite its flaws, major media outlets endorsed and heavily promoted the book, only retracting it after experts showed its claims fell apart under minimal examination.
The Sullivan affair exemplifies a wider trend: the shift of the Holocaust from a historical event tied to capitalism, imperialism, and class conflict into a depoliticised morality story, a detective mystery, and ultimately a tool used by the ruling class for ideological purposes.
The Individualisation of Fascist Crime
Sullivan’s core argument in “Who betrayed Anne Frank?” is flawed. It suggests that the moral failure of a single person is the key to understanding Anne Frank’s death, which resembles crime fiction more than historical analysis. Anne Frank was not betrayed by an informant; she was murdered by the Nazi regime—an instrument of German financial capital in its most brutal form. The relentless search for a single betrayer serves an ideological purpose: it simplifies a complex historical atrocity into a moral failure, shifting focus from social forces to finding a villain.
This pattern is now widespread. Popular Holocaust stories—memoirs, films, museum exhibits, and “cold case” investigations—mainly highlight personal accounts, moral conflicts, and psychological profiles. The Holocaust is seen as a platform for individual heroism or guilt, while the broader social, economic, and political factors that led to fascism are overlooked. This focus on individualisation is deliberate, aligned with modern bourgeois ideology, which struggles to recognise the link between fascism and capitalism without condemning itself.
From Historical Event to Cultural Commodity
The public perception of the Holocaust has significantly evolved over time. In the years right after World War II, its memory was influenced by survivors, scholars, and political groups who saw fascism as stemming from a crisis within capitalism. The genocide was closely linked to the fall of bourgeois democracy, the betrayal of the working class by Social Democracy and Stalinist regimes, and Germany's imperialist ambitions for dominance.
By the late 20th century, the way Holocaust memory was presented changed significantly. Museums, films, memoirs, and educational programs multiplied, but their focus shifted mainly to personal stories, moral lessons, and emotional engagement. As a result, the Holocaust evolved into a universal symbol of “evil,” losing touch with its specific historical context.
This commodification fulfils a specific ideological role by turning the Holocaust from a political incident into a commercial commodity. It replaces critical analysis with emotional appeal, factual history with storytelling, and class conflict with individual tragedy. As a result, the Holocaust is transformed into a brand—one that is referenced, consumed, and marketed—rather than a cautionary tale about risks associated with capitalist crises.
The Reactionary Function of the “Jewish Betrayer” Narrative
Sullivan’s book specifically aimed to identify a Jewish betrayer, not just any traitor. This choice is deliberate and significant. The image of the Jewish collaborator—such as a Judenrat official, kapo, or informant—has historically been employed to blur the moral distinctions of the Holocaust and suggest a false “shared responsibility” between victims and perpetrators. In reality, these individuals operated under extreme coercion and degradation, and their actions, though morally complex, were driven by the totalitarian system of extermination. However, the political implications of emphasising these figures depend entirely on the surrounding context.
Currently, promoting a “Jewish betrayer” narrative serves reactionary goals: it downplays fascist crimes by implying Jews were partly responsible for their own fate. It fuels far-right ideas that aim to diminish accountability for German imperialism. Additionally, it supports the German state’s cynical use of Holocaust remembrance to justify its backing of Israel’s actions in Gaza and its wider militarist goals. Institutions like the Buchenwald memorial have prohibited criticising Israel under the pretence of fighting antisemitism, thus exploiting Holocaust memory for modern imperialist aims. In this environment, seeking a Jewish betrayer is not just misguided but also politically perilous.
The Pseudo‑Science of the Cold Case Method
Historians like Johannes Houwink ten Cate, Bart van der Boom, and others challenged Sullivan’s claims by showing that the book’s main accusation was based on speculation, misinterpretation, and a lack of understanding of historical context. The so-called "smoking gun,” an anonymous note from after the war, lacked any real evidence. The supposed betrayer, Arnold van den Bergh, was already in hiding by 1944. When examined critically by scholars, the entire case fell apart immediately.
The core problem is methodological. The cold-case approach views history as a solvable puzzle using forensic clues, rather than recognising it as a complex social process influenced by class forces. This pseudo-scientific method, borrowed from criminal investigation and the true-crime genre, appeals to the desire for narrative closure and a definitive villain.
This method is fundamentally anti-historical. It fails to recognise the Holocaust as a result of capitalism in crisis, imperialism, and the collapse of the working-class movement. Instead of providing analysis, it resorts to speculation; instead of offering context, it leans on conjecture; and rather than presenting history, it seeks entertainment. The appeal of these approaches mirrors the ideological demands of bourgeois culture, which favours soothing stories over confronting uncomfortable realities.
The Real Betrayal: The Collapse of Working‑Class Leadership
From a Marxist perspective, the key betrayal enabling Anne Frank’s death was not carried out by any single informant, but rather by the organisations professing to represent the working class, which ultimately betrayed them.
The Social Democratic parties surrendered to their national bourgeoisies well before Hitler rose to power. Meanwhile, the Stalinist bureaucracy placed the fight against fascism behind its diplomatic tactics, resulting in the 1939 Hitler–Stalin Pact. The Communist Party of the Netherlands, which had organised the brave February 1941 strike—the first large-scale protest against the Nazis in Europe—was politically rendered powerless by Stalinism and unable to lead a revolutionary movement. Without a revolutionary socialist movement, the working class was left vulnerable to fascism.
This is the true historical lesson of the Holocaust. It is also the lesson that bourgeois historiography tries to hide by focusing on individual morality and betrayal stories.
The Contemporary Stakes: Memory as Ideology
The Sullivan affair must be seen within a larger crisis in our understanding of history today. As capitalism encounters new difficulties—such as war, authoritarian states, and economic recessions—the ruling class often manipulates historical memory for its
Three key trends are apparent: firstly, the commercialisation of Holocaust remembrance, turning it into a product disconnected from its political significance and aimed at consumerism; secondly, the depoliticisation of fascism, viewed as a moral flaw or anomaly rather than a result of capitalist crises; and thirdly, the exploitation of Holocaust memory to justify modern militarism, nationalism, and imperialism. Within this context, the Sullivan affair exemplifies how Holocaust history is being ideologically compromised in a capitalist system.
Anne Frank’s words from May 3, 1944—“Why do governments give millions each day for war, when they spend nothing on medicine or poor people?”—challenge decades of ideological distortion. Her question isn’t a moral dilemma; it’s a political critique of a capitalist system that fosters war, poverty, and genocide.
Her death teaches us that the real lesson isn't to pursue informants after eighty years, but that the working class must create its own revolutionary party—free from capitalist, nationalist, Stalinist, and social-democratic influences—to stop the barbarism that took her life from returning. This barbarism isn't just history; it's an active threat, nurtured by the same capitalist system that is pushing the world toward a third world war.
Katja Hoyer’s Cultural Dreams, Political Nightmares: Liberal Historiography and the Erasure of Class in the Interpretation of Weimar Germany
Abstract
This essay presents a Marxist critique of Katja Hoyer’s recent interpretation of the Weimar Republic, placing her account within the broader context of liberal historiography that prevails in modern British media and cultural circles. Using primary sources, Marxist theory, and the historiography of the German Revolution and the rise of Nazism, it argues that Hoyer’s perspective systematically obscures the class dynamics that shaped the Weimar Republic from its start. By omitting the counterrevolutionary role of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the damaging effects of Stalinisation on the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), Hoyer promotes a politically convenient myth: that fascism results from “polarisation” and economic hardship rather than the deliberate actions of political entities within a capitalist crisis. The essay ends by analysing the ideological significance of this liberal narrative today and reaffirming the revolutionary lessons of Weimar for today’s working class.[1]
Liberal Historiography and the Sanitisation of Weimar
Katja Hoyer’s depiction of the Weimar Republic reflects a prevalent liberal interpretive style, framing it as a meditation on how "democratic dreams can die in the face of economic ills and polarising politics" (Hoyer, 2024). This style features a moralising narrative, a culturalist view of political conflict, and a systematic neglect of class analysis. Hoyer’s framing is “seductive and utterly misleading,” turning the German catastrophe into a morality tale rather than a concrete historical process shaped by specific class forces: "This is not history; it is a morality play designed to inoculate readers against the real lessons of the German catastrophe.”
The liberal view presents Weimar as a delicate democratic venture tragically disrupted by bad luck. However, this perspective hides the reality that the Weimar Republic resulted from a counterrevolutionary agreement enforced by the SPD alongside military and industrial elites, rather than democratic ideals. This essay revises that history and explains why overlooking it is politically important now.
The SPD as Gravedigger of the German Revolution
The German Revolution of 1918–1919 marked the most important proletarian uprising in Europe after Russia's, with workers' and soldiers’ councils forming nationwide to challenge the imperial authority and propose a socialist shift (Broué, 2005, pp. 3–45). However, the revolution was swiftly suppressed and ultimately defeated by the SPD leadership, Friedrich Ebert and Gustav Noske.
Hoyer’s account largely omits the SPD’s counterrevolutionary role: “There is no mention that the SPD leadership under Friedrich Ebert and Gustav Noske formed a secret pact with the Supreme Army Command to drown the revolutionary workers’ movement in blood.” This refers to the Ebert–Groener Pact of 10 November 1918, in which the SPD agreed to preserve the authority of the military command in exchange for its support against the revolutionary councils (Groener, 1925, pp. 457–460). The pact ensured that the old officer corps, the Prussian Junkers, and the industrial magnates retained their power.
The Freikorps and the Murder of Luxemburg and Liebknecht
The SPD’s alliance with reaction was not just institutional but also violently repressive. Noske, who became Minister of Defence, notably stated: “Someone must be the bloodhound; I am not afraid of responsibility” (Noske, 1920, p. 68). Under his leadership, the government armed and sent the Freikorps—far-right paramilitary groups mainly made up of demobilised officers and soldiers—to suppress revolutionary uprisings in Berlin, Bremen, Munich, and the Ruhr.
On 15 January 1919, the Freikorps killed Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. Their killers operated with impunity, protected by the judiciary and the SPD-led government (Frölich, 1940, pp. 312–330). As the critique highlights: “The Freikorps—the direct precursors of Hitler’s stormtroopers—were recruited and armed by a Social Democratic government to murder Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.” This fact alone challenges the liberal view of the SPD as champions of democracy.
The Counterrevolutionary Settlement of Weimar
The suppression of the revolution shaped the Weimar Republic’s institutional architecture. The judiciary remained staffed by imperial judges; the army retained its monarchist officer corps; the industrial barons kept their property; and the Junkers preserved their estates (Peukert, 1991, pp. 45–67). As the attached critique states: “The Weimar Republic was not a democracy tragically undone. It was a counterrevolutionary settlement from its inception.”
This is consistent with Trotsky’s assessment: “The German Revolution was a proletarian revolution beheaded by social democracy; more correctly, it is a bourgeois counterrevolution forced to preserve pseudo-democratic forms after the victory over the proletariat.” (Trotsky 1932, p. 112)Hoyer’s narrative omits this foundational reality.
The Rise of Nazism: Political Betrayal, Not Economic Fate
Liberal accounts often attribute the rise of Nazism to economic crisis and political polarisation. Hoyer follows this pattern, emphasising “economic ills” and “polarising politics” (Hoyer, 2024). However, the electoral data contradict the notion that the Nazis were an unstoppable force. In the November 1932 elections, the SPD and KPD together won 221 seats, while the Nazis won only 196 (Mommsen, 1996, p. 312). The workers’ parties were still far stronger than Hitler’s movement.” The decisive factor was not economic distress but political paralysis within the workers’ movement.
The SPD leadership repeatedly failed to rally its mass base against the fascist threat. It approved the Brüning government’s emergency decrees, supported Hindenburg’s presidential bid, and responded to the 1932 Prussian coup with a legal challenge rather than mass mobilisation (Winkler, 1993, pp. 421–450). “When Hindenburg and von Papen forcibly removed the SPD-led Prussian state government in 1932—a direct coup against the republic—the SPD did nothing.” This inaction demoralised SPD workers and encouraged reactionary forces.
Under Stalin’s orders, the KPD embraced the “social fascism” thesis, asserting that the SPD and Nazis were essentially identical, not opposites (Comintern, 1930, p. 12). This extreme-left stance hindered the formation of a united front against fascism and at times even led the KPD to tactically collaborate with the Nazis, such as during the 1931 Prussian referendum (Broué, 2005, pp. 789–795). The attached critique encapsulates Trotsky’s harsh judgment: "The Social Democratic workers remained with their leaders; the Communist workers lost faith in themselves and in the leadership" This division within the working class proved disastrous.
The Bauhaus/Buchenwald Fallacy: Culturalism vs Class Analysis
Hoyer frames Weimar as a space of “uncomfortable proximity of idealism and barbarism,” juxtaposing the Bauhaus and Buchenwald (Hoyer, 2024). This culturalist framing is aesthetically appealing but analytically empty. This transforms a class question into a cultural juxtaposition, as though Nazism were simply the dark flipside of modernist creativity.
In 1925, reactionary forces ousted the Bauhaus from Weimar, forces that later backed the Nazis (Droste, 2002, pp. 112–130). Buchenwald was constructed by the same state apparatus that the SPD maintained after 1918. These two events are not cultural opposites but both reflect the same class-based dynamics.
Liberal narratives about Weimar serve a modern ideological purpose. They suggest fascism arose from ‘polarisation” and economic hardship, hiding the influence of political leadership and class conflict. The lesson for today is to be cautious of extremism, have faith in moderate institutions, and avoid economic crises pushing people toward radical politics. This aligns with the interests of current elites, aiming to weaken the working class amidst growing far-right movements, militarism, and authoritarian tendencies.
The core lesson of Weimar is the opposite: Fascism does not stem from cultural pathology but from capitalist crises. When threatened, the ruling class resorts to authoritarian measures, while the working class needs independent revolutionary leadership. These key lessons are often systematically omitted in liberal historiography.
The Revolutionary Lessons of Weimar
The Weimar Republic was not merely a failed democratic attempt but a regime formed through the repression of the German working class. Nazism's emergence was not unavoidable; it stemmed from the betrayal of workers by the SPD and the damaging sectarianism enforced on the KPD by Stalin. Hoyer’s account, similar to many liberal histories, tends to hide these factors, replacing them with cultural metaphors and moralistic cautions about.
It is crucial to conclude with a clear warning: “Without revolutionary leadership, the unresolved capitalist crisis will lead society back to barbarism.”
This statement is supported by history, not mere rhetoric. The lessons from Weimar are still relevant today, as the capitalist crisis worsens and far-right groups grow stronger across Europe and elsewhere. The only way to avoid repeating the catastrophe of 1933 is through a deliberate, organised revolutionary movement of the working class.
References
Broué, P. (2005). The German Revolution 1917–1923. Chicago: Haymarket.
Comintern (1930). Resolution on the Struggle Against Social Democracy. Moscow: Executive Committee.
Droste, M. (2002). Bauhaus 1919–1933. Cologne: Taschen.
Frölich, P. (1940). Rosa Luxemburg: Her Life and Work. London: Victor Gollancz.
Groener, W. (1925). Erinnerungen eines Soldaten. Leipzig: Köhler.
Hoyer, K. (2024). Cultural Dreams, Political Nightmares. BBC.
Mommsen, H. (1996). The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Noske, G. (1920). Von Kiel bis Kapp. Berlin: Verlag für Politik und Wirtschaft.
Peukert, D. (1991). The Weimar Republic: The Crisis of Classical Modernity. New York: Hill and Wang.
Trotsky, L. (1932). The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany. New York: Pathfinder.
Winkler, H.A. (1993). Weimar 1918–1933: Die Geschichte der ersten deutschen Demokratie. Munich: Beck.
Anne Frank, Fascism, and the Dialectic of History
Anne Frank’s diary stands as one of the most widely read human records of the twentieth century, yet its historical importance has often been misrepresented. It is frequently depicted as a universal moral symbol—symbolising innocence lost to “evil” and serving as a beacon of hope during dark times. This sentimental view is intentionally crafted to align with the ideological interests of the postwar capitalist system, transforming the Holocaust into an abstract moral lesson that disconnects from the social and political factors behind it. As a result, this leads to a significant distortion of history.
A Marxist analysis starts from a different perspective. Anne Frank’s fate is not separable from the crisis of global capitalism from 1914 to 1945. The First World War broke down the old European order and sparked a period of revolutionary upheaval. The German working class, Europe's most potent and politically advanced, entered history with remarkable revolutionary potential. However, the betrayal by the Social Democratic Party—especially its support for the Kaiser’s war in 1914 and its suppression of the Spartacist uprising in 1919—left the working class disoriented and demoralised. The later decline of the Communist Party under Stalinism, marked by the disastrous “social fascist” line of the late 1920s, further deepened political paralysis. During this time, the working class was divided precisely when unity was most needed.
Trotsky examined this disaster with exceptional clarity. In his writings about Germany from 1930 to 1933, he argued that fascism was more than just a reaction; it was a counter-revolution—the mobilisation of the furious petty bourgeoisie as a battering ram against the proletariat. He described fascism as “the most savage expression of the decay of capitalism,” a movement that emerged when the bourgeoisie could no longer uphold its rule via parliamentary methods. Trotsky explained that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was closely linked to his hatred of the working class. The Jew was used as a symbol representing Marxists, Bolsheviks, and revolutionaries. Anti-Semitism was called “the socialism of fools”—a fake explanation for social crises that misdirected anger away from capitalists and toward a vulnerable minority.
Trotsky’s insights into the Jewish question are crucial for grasping Anne Frank’s story. He dismissed both Zionism and assimilationism as ineffective solutions. According to him, Jews are a “people-class" dispersed by capitalism and made vulnerable during its crises. In a 1938 appeal to American Jews, Trotsky forewarned: “It is possible to imagine without difficulty what awaits the Jews at the mere outbreak of the future world war.” He stressed that only a victory for the international working class could avert disaster. The tragedy of Anne Frank’s life is that Trotsky’s warnings went unheeded—not for lack of clarity, but because the working-class organisations that claimed allegiance to them refused to act.
Fascism did not originate from metaphysical ideas, cultural illnesses, or the longstanding German anti-Semitic tradition. Instead, it was a deliberate counter-revolutionary tool used by the bourgeoisie to suppress the working class and uphold capitalist property systems. The Holocaust represents the extreme manifestation of this logic, involving the mass extermination of millions during a war of colonization against the Soviet Union and a social counter-revolution aimed at erasing the impact of 1917. Anne Frank’s diary, written inside the cramped Secret Annex, is a human record created amid this tumult of historical forces. Her thoughts on war, inequality, and societal irrationality—such as “Why do governments give millions each day for war, when they spend nothing on medicine or poor people?”—are not accidental. They reflect, in raw form, the awareness of a young person living at the heart of capitalism’s slide into barbarism.
After World War II, the way Anne Frank’s legacy was managed was influenced by Cold War ideology. The same nations that denied Jewish refugees in the 1930s later celebrated Anne Frank as a moral figure—since icons like her do not threaten capitalist interests. Her diary was decontextualized, serving as a symbol of broad “tolerance,” while ex-Nazis found roles within West Germany's government agencies, including the CIA-controlled Gehlen Organisation and the BND. Karl Josef Silberbauer, the Gestapo officer who arrested the Franks, was never convicted and lived out his days unpunished. In this way, memory was sanitized and historical truth was distorted.
Trotsky foresaw this distortion. He cautioned that the bourgeoisie would attempt to turn the crimes of fascism into abstract metaphysical concepts, disconnected from the class struggle. He emphasised that truly honouring fascism’s victims requires understanding the social forces behind it and developing a revolutionary movement to prevent its future rise.
Ignoring Trotsky’s analysis has clear consequences today. Across Europe and the U.S., far-right groups are resurging. These fascist movements are actively supported by parts of the ruling class, with funding, weapons, and political backing. The rise of fascism isn't due to “extremism” or "populism," but reflects capitalism’s failure to resolve its internal conflicts through democratic processes. The diary’s importance now is strategic, not just commemorative. Anne Frank’s story is not just history; it’s a warning for the future.
Honouring Anne Frank means facing the reality of the world that led to her death. It involves recognizing, as Trotsky argued, that fascism arises when capitalism fails to sustain its dominance through parliamentary systems. It also requires understanding that the Holocaust was not an accident but a direct consequence of imperialism and counter-revolution. Furthermore, it demands acknowledging that preventing such tragedies again calls for the deliberate, coordinated action of the global working class against capitalism.
Anne Frank once said, “I want to go on living after my death.” She has achieved this, but the significance of her survival hinges on current political struggles. Her diary endures not merely as a symbol of despair but as a powerful call for historical awareness and revolutionary effort. The ongoing struggle for human emancipation—halted by fascism, compromised by reformist approaches, and distorted by Stalinism—continues to be the most critical challenge of our era.
This article situates The Diary of a Young Girl within the historical context that produced it. Anne Frank’s voice endures because it is inseparable from the crisis of capitalism. To honour that voice is to confront the system that silenced it—and to build the socialist movement capable of ensuring that such crimes never recur.
Anne Frank’s voice persists because it is fundamentally linked to the crisis of capitalism. Honouring her voice means confronting the system that silenced her and creating a socialist movement that prevents such crimes from happening again.
Katja Hoyer’s Narrative: Nazi Files, Family Secrets, and the Liberal Falsification of History
Hoyer’s approach relies on a straightforward but powerful shift: instead of asking, “What class forces enabled fascism?” the subject is prompted to ask, “Was my grandfather a Nazi?” This transforms the historical disaster into a personal story. Political issues become psychological concerns, and social problems are viewed through a personal lens.
This example illustrates modern attitudes toward remembering German history. As the WSWS highlighted during the controversy over the Wehrmacht exhibition, even important documentation of Nazi atrocities tends to be presented without linking it to the broader class struggles in Germany and Europe, as if there was no opposition to the Nazis’ rise and their military ambitions. Hoyer’s article exemplifies this issue on a smaller scale, creating a story in which the grandfather becomes the central figure of history, the family serves as a space for reflection, and the working class is entirely overlooked. This approach does not depict true history but promotes a liberal myth.
The erasure of the working class and its betrayal
Any thorough analysis of fascism must start with the betrayal of the German working class by the SPD, KPD, and trade unions in 1933. These groups represented millions of workers. Their surrender enabled Hitler’s rise to power. The SPD clung to bourgeois legality as the state fell apart. The KPD, following Stalin, called the SPD "social fascists,” undermining a united front. The trade unions encouraged workers to take part in Nazi May Day celebrations.
Hoyer’s narrative cannot admit this, as it would mean confronting the ongoing class interests that connect the capitalist systems of 1933, 1945, and today. Instead, she shifts focus to family history, asking whether ‘my grandfather was good or bad,’ rather than examining what political forces weakened the working class and facilitated fascism. This amounts to a form of historical falsification.
Goldhagen in miniature: national character disguised as family psychology
At first glance, Katja Hoyer and Daniel Goldhagen seem to embody different facets of modern German memory culture. However, they may actually reflect two sides of the same ideological spectrum. Goldhagen's tone is polemical, broad, and accusatory, while Hoyer adopts a therapeutic, intimate, and psychologically nuanced approach. Goldhagen criticises the German nation as a whole, whereas Hoyer focuses on examining the German family. Goldhagen discusses "eliminationist anti-Semitism," whereas Hoyer explores “family myths” and the process of "reckoning.”
However, despite these stylistic variations, they serve a common ideological purpose: to depoliticise fascism, eliminate class conflict, and reframe the atrocities of the Third Reich as issues of psychology, culture, and personal identity. Both authors function within the same liberal perspective that downplays “the greatest crimes in human history to a matter of individual family shame and personal conscience. Goldhagen nationalises guilt. Hoyer privatises guilt. Both protect capitalism.
Goldhagen: National character as historical explanation
Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners (1996) argued that the Holocaust was the product of a uniquely German, centuries-old “eliminationist anti-Semitism.” The book was a publishing sensation precisely because it offered a morally satisfying yet historically bankrupt explanation: Germans killed Jews because they wanted to.
Goldhagen’s thesis has three key flaws: it deletes class relations by ignoring the bourgeoisie, the working class, and capitalism; it reduces the Holocaust to a cultural issue; and it dismisses political struggle, especially neglecting figures like Marx, Engels, Bebel, and Liebknecht, thus turning history into nationalist rhetoric. Moreover, it overlooks the betrayal of the working class, as Goldhagen cannot explain the surrender of the SPD, KPD, and trade unions in 1933, or why the working class— the only group capable of resisting fascism—was politically disarmed. His thesis is a dead end because it views fascism as a moral failing rather than a class-based phenomenon.
Hoyer: The privatisation of guilt
Katja Hoyer’s “family secrets” narrative mirrors Goldhagen’s approach on a smaller scale. While Goldhagen criticises the entire nation, Hoyer focuses on the household. Goldhagen discusses “German culture,” whereas Hoyer examines “family mythology.” Goldhagen universalises guilt, but Hoyer personalises it. The core argument is similar: fascism is explained through psychology rather than politics, history is viewed through identity instead of class, and the working class is completely omitted. The question becomes ‘was my grandfather a good or bad person?’ rather than ‘what class forces and political betrayals made fascism possible?
Hoyer’s narrative is more than just incomplete; it is essential on ideological grounds. It guarantees that the digitised Nazi Party files serve for therapeutic self-reflection rather than for historical study.
The shared erasure of the working class
Both Hoyer and Goldhagen consistently overlook a critical historical fact: fascism's rise was facilitated by the betrayal of their own base by German working-class organisations. As the state disintegrated, the SPD maintained bourgeois legality, while the KPD, following Stalin's directives, sabotaged the unity front. The Trade union leaders collaborated with the Nazi propaganda event on May 1, 1933. This orchestrated spectacle was intended to lull German trade unions into complacency just a day before their complete suppression on May 2, 1933, when SA, SS, and NSBO units raided union offices, detained leaders, and seized assets. All these organisations... passively capitulated to Hitler.”
Goldhagen cannot acknowledge this because it would weaken his claim about national pathology. Likewise, Hoyer cannot accept it as it would contradict her narrative of personal self-reflection. Consequently, both authors depict a version of history that omits class struggle, suggesting fascism emerges from cultural, identity, or family factors rather than from the crisis of capitalism.
Trotsky’s method: The Marxist demolition of both narratives
Leon Trotsky’s critique of fascism reveals flaws in Hoyer's and Goldhagen's perspectives. Trotsky argued that fascism is not merely a cultural issue but a tool used by a class: "Fascism is a particular method of rallying and organising the petty bourgeoisie to serve finance capital.”
This single sentence challenges the entire ideological foundation of Hoyer and Goldhagen. Trotsky’s perspective shows that Fascism stems from the capitalist crisis, not from national character. It is propelled by the political betrayal of workers rather than family myths. Additionally, Fascism is fundamentally a class issue, not a psychological one. Goldhagen’s argument falters because it ignores why the bourgeoisie supported Hitler. Similarly, Hoyer’s argument is incomplete because it overlooks why the working class was disarmed. Trotsky reestablishes the comprehensive social relations that both authors overlook.
The political function of Hoyer and Goldhagen
The ideological significance of both writers becomes evident when viewed in the context of modern German politics. Germany is rearming, the Bundeswehr is active internationally, and historical revisionism is on the rise. The political leaders openly discuss “normalising” Germany's military strength. In this environment, Hoyer and Goldhagen serve crucial ideological functions: They shift fascism from a class-based issue to a psychological one, promote guilt without fostering political awareness, hide the role of German capitalism in funding Hitler, and prevent the working class from developing revolutionary insights. “One can feel personal shame about one’s grandfather while supporting the deployment of German troops. The class question is never posed.”⁷ Both writers use their political role to prevent past crimes from endangering current interests.
The political utility of individualised guilt
The German elite prefers to shift historical accountability onto individual and psychological levels. As the WSWS observed in their review of the 2011 “Hitler and the Germans” exhibition, the official narrative usually attributes blame to the German populace while hiding the role of German capitalism in the rise of Hitler.”
Hoyer’s article aligns well with this pattern. It prompts Germans to feel shame about their grandparents while ignoring the banks that funded Hitler, the companies that benefited from slave labour, and the state institutions that remained unchanged after 1945. This is why the “family secrets” genre is so politically effective: it fosters guilt without involving politics, memory without addressing class, and reckoning without calling for revolution.
The Marxist view contrasts with Hoyer’s liberal-psychological explanation, which holds that fascism emerges from capitalism in crisis. Its rise is due to the working class's betrayal. Fascism’s crimes are best understood by examining its class roots, not genealogy or psychology. The digitised Nazi files are useful primarily for revealing fascism’s class nature.
The working class needs to reject the entire ideology of individual guilt. Fascism's crimes were not caused by flawed personalities or national traits but stemmed from a social system—capitalism—driven into barbarism by crises and betrayal. The only force that can stop another descent into disaster is an organised, conscious working class, equipped with a revolutionary socialist agenda.
Katja Hoyer’s Liberal Mythology of Weimar: A Marxist Refutation
Katja Hoyer’s essay on the Weimar Republic exemplifies contemporary liberal ideology: it is humane in tone, superficially balanced, yet fundamentally inaccurate. It echoes the bourgeois historiographical claim that Weimar was a fragile but genuine democracy that tragically failed to rally its citizens. However, this narrative is not only incomplete but also a political distortion that conceals the key lessons of the German Revolution, the counterrevolutionary nature of the Weimar state, and the significant influence of Social Democracy and Stalinism in paving the way for fascism.[1]
A Marxist perspective suggests a different explanation. Weimar's fall wasn't due to a lack of “optimism,” “credible leadership,” or “real change on the ballot paper.” Instead, it failed because it was founded on oppressing the working class and upheld by parties that repeatedly betrayed it. Hoyer’s liberal moralism—her claim that democracies must “offer hope”—acts today as a political sedative, dulling the working class's awareness amid capitalism's renewed crisis and the far right's resurgence.
This article clarifies the historical facts that Hoyer’s account conceals. It argues that Weimar was not a failed democratic experiment but a short-lived counterrevolutionary regime that temporarily maintained bourgeois dominance. Its collapse was driven not by voter disillusionment but by political betrayals from the SPD, the Stalinist-led KPD, and the trade union bureaucracy. The key lesson for today is not about the importance of charismatic centrists, but about the urgent need to develop an independent revolutionary leadership within the working class.
Weimar Was Born as a Counterrevolution
Liberal interpretations of Weimar typically start with the November volution as a sign of democratic awakening. Hoyer lso describes the 1919 elections as a moment of civic renewal. However, this story falls apart under even basic historical examination.
The German Revolution of 1918–19 was not an unplanned democratic reform effort. Instead, it was a proletarian uprising that toppled the Kaiser, created workers’ and soldiers’ councils nationwide, and raised issues of state power. The SPD leadersEbert, Scheidemann, Noske—quickly moved to suppress this revolution. Their goal was not to expand the revolution but to control, steer, and eventually suppress it.
Ebert’s covert agreement with General Groener on 10 November 1918 marked the birth of the Weimar Republic. In return for military backing, Ebert committed to protecting the existing officer class and capitalist system from revolutionary workers. This was not a democratic compromise but a counrevolutionary alliance.
The January 1919 Elections: Democracy at Gunpoint
Hoyer’s sentimental reference to Kate Lehmann’s diary—her “celebratory mood” on election day—ignores a crucial reality. The elections occurred right after the SPD-ordered crackdown on the Berlin uprising, during which the Freikorps, authorised by Noske, brutally suppressed the revolution. On 15 January 1919, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered by officers with the silent approval of the SPD government. Therefore, the Weimar Republic was not founded on democratic victory but on political murders. The electorate’s "joy” was ultimately based on the deaths of revolutionary leaders.
The new republic maintained much of the Kaiserreich's structure: the judiciary was still staffed by monarchist judges who gave lenient sentences to right-wing killers while harshly persecuting leftists. The Reichswehr stayed unreformed, operating as a “state within a state” with leadership that despised democracy and plotted against it openly. The civil service remained a stronghold of reaction, loyal to the old order. Although it appeared democratic, the regime's rule was actually sustained by the old elites. Weimar was not a true break from the past; rather, it was the political framework that allowed the bourgeoisie to survive the revolutionary upheaval.
Hoyer’s main argument—that Weimar fell because voters grew “disenchanted” with democracy—oversimplifies a significant class struggle into a psychological issue. It presents a liberal morality story suggesting democracy collapses when citizens lose faith, rather than due to actions by the ruling class. A Marxist perspective shows a different picture: the working class was not defeated by fascism; instead, it was betrayed by its own leaders.In the November 1932 free elections, the SPD secured 121 seats, the KPD 100, and the Nazis 196. Together, the workers’ parties still held a majority in Parliament. The proletariat remained Germany’s most influential social force, yet it was politically immobilised.
The SPD’s actions in the early 1930s can be seen as a continuation of its betrayal in 1918–19. It supported Brüning’s presidential dictatorship by voting for emergency decrees that undermined parliamentary democracy. The party also endorsed Hindenburg’s re-election, endorsing the man who would later appoint Hitler. Additionally, it failed to mobilise its millions of members when von Papen staged the coup against the Prussian SPD government in July 1932. Trotsky’s assessment remains clear: the SPD leadership acted as if Germany’s fate depended not on the strength of the working class, but on “the pure spirit of the Weimar Constitution.”
Under Stalin’s guidance, the KPD labelled the SPD and fascism as "twins.” This extreme-left stance rejected forming a united front against the Nazis, focused its criticism mainly on the SPD, and even caused the KPD to collaborate with the Nazis during the 1931 Prussian referendum. Consequently, this approach created political confusion among the working class and undermined unity when it was most needed. Before Hitler’s ascent to power, the ADGB leadership handed over control. On 1 May 1933, unions marched under the swastika. The next day, Nazi forces raided their offices. Because the union bureaucracy failed to rally the working class, it disbanded and integrated into the new regime.
Weimar's fall was not due to democracy's failure, but to parties that professed to represent the working class, subordinating it to the bourgeois order. Reformism and Stalinism—both forms of opportunism—eliminated the chance for a revolutionary alternative. Hoyer’s core lesson—that democracies need to present “optimism,” “hope,” and tangible change—encapsulates liberal ideology. It presumes that the crisis in bourgeois democracy can be addressed internally, simply by improving messaging and personalities. This, however, is a form of political mystification.
Hoyer points out that 83 per cent support parliament “in principle,” yet only 31 per cent approve of its actual functioning. This isn’t a communication failure but an acknowledgement that parliament primarily serves the capitalist class. The core contradiction isn’t between voters and politicians but between the state's democratic appearance and its capitalist substance. The liberal use of “hope" serves as a replacement for actual political analysis. It encourages passivity and trust in institutions that have consistently let down the working class.
When the ruling class cannot maintain democratic rule, it will readily forsake democracy. The working class is the only force capable of safeguarding democratic rights, and it must be independently organised outside all bourgeois parties and equipped with a socialist agenda. Hoyer’s argument is not merely historically wrong. It is politically disorienting in a moment of acute crisis. The German ruling class is rebuilding its military on a scale not seen since the Nazi era. Democratic rights are under ongoing attack. The far-right AfD is becoming normalised and cultivated by parts of the establishment. Across Europe, the political centre is disintegrating.In this environment, calls for “credible leadership” and "genuine change on the ballot" essentially urge the working class to entrust its future once more to the bourgeoisie.
The modern SPD and Greens, similar to their Weimar counterparts, act as tools for stabilising capitalism. Their backing of militarism, austerity measures, and the suppression of dissent shows they are not capable of driving democratic renewal.The lesson from Weimar is not about improving how democracy is promoted. Instead, it emphasises that the working class must decisively separate itself from all bourgeois parties and form an international revolutionary movement against capitalism. Such a movement is essential for defending and expanding democratic rights.
Katja Hoyer’s liberal interpretation of Weimar offers a reassuring myth for today’s ruling elites. It reimagines a counterrevolutionary regime as a democratic experiment, attributes the failure of bourgeois democracy to issues of optimism, and obscures the crucial roles played by Social Democracy and Stalinism in enabling fascism.
A Marxist perspective uncovers the reality: Weimar was inherently counterrevolutionary from the start, sustained through betrayal, and ultimately brought down by the working class’s political indecision. Its true lesson isn’t about needing better leaders or more inspiring speeches, but about forming a revolutionary leadership that can unite workers against both fascism and the bourgeois “democrats” who facilitate its rise. This lesson remains vital today, as capitalism’s crisis worsens and the far right gains ground across Europe. The working class must resist liberal illusions and prepare for struggle.
[1] Was Weimar an Unloved Democracy? www.katjahoyer.uk/p/was-weimar-an-unloved-democracy?hide_intro_popup=true
The Liberal Media’s “Trump as Hitler” Narrative: A Political Diversion Aimed at Disarming the Working Class
The American political system is showing signs of deep decay. The incident where Donald Trump circulated a post calling him “more dangerous than Hitler” is not just an isolated event but a reflection of the broader corruption affecting the entire capitalist system. The document emphasises that Trump’s authoritarian tendencies are fundamental, not accidental: as David North pointed out, Trump’s movement exhibits signs of fascism, with a distinct, troubling odour. Trump operates without regard for constitutional or legal constraints. These comments are serious assessments of a political trend that is emerging from the ongoing crisis of American capitalism.[1]
The Roman Circus on the South Lawn
Nothing highlights the brutality of the current administration more clearly than the grotesque cage match on the White House lawn—fighters fighting fiercely while Trump observed like a Roman emperor. Marketed cynically as part of the “semiquincentennial” of the Declaration of Independence, this event was a deliberate rejection of democratic values. It celebrated violence, hierarchy, and dominance—precisely the social relations the ruling class aims to enforce on the working class amidst preparations for increased repression domestically and war. This isn't just Trump’s personal issue. It exemplifies a broader political culture among the ruling class that has exhausted all democratic means of managing social conflict. The shift to outright brutality indicates an oligarchy that can no longer govern through consent.
The Liberal Establishment’s Counterfeit Anti‑Fascism
However, the primary political threat isn't just Trump’s theatrics. It stems from how the Democratic Party and its media allies are using the “Trump is worse than Hitler' narrative as a weapon. As the document accurately notes, this portrayal “is not a genuine anti-fascist analysis.” Instead, it’s a strategic ideological tactic aimed at directing widespread opposition to Trump into the secure confines of a capitalist party that itself undermines democratic rights.
The Democrats’ reaction to the White House spectacle—a $330 celebrity concert with Jane Fonda, Julia Roberts, and Bette Midler—exposes the class basis of their politics. It exemplifies “the politics of affluent identity, not the mobilisation of the working class.” This approach is characterised by moral posturing, symbolic actions, and commodified dissent—in stark contrast to the mass, organised, internationalist movement needed to oppose fascism.
The liberal media’s comparisons to Hitler serve two main purposes. They first diminish the unique historical nature of fascism, turning it into a moralistic stereotype instead of recognising it as a specific outcome of capitalist crises. Second, these analogies turn the struggle against authoritarianism into a branding strategy for the Democratic Party, which aims to portray itself as the final defender of "democracy” even while backing mass surveillance, militarism, and social suppression.
The Historical Lessons the Democrats Seek to Bury
Referring to Hitler's aims to obscure rather than clarify. The text stresses that “Fascism was not halted by liberals or by voting for the 'lesser evil.' It was halted—where it was—by the organised force of the working class, guided by a revolutionary Marxist plan." This crucial historical fact is what the Democratic Party and its media outlets are eager to hide.
In Germany, the Social Democratic Party disarmed the working class politically, clearing the way for Hitler’s rise. Similarly, in Italy, the liberal bourgeoisie handed power to Mussolini to suppress the workers’ movement. In Spain, the Popular Front suppressed the revolution, allowing Franco to win. In all these instances, the liberal bourgeoisie was unable to oppose fascism because it feared the working class far more than it feared the fascists.
The current situation remains similar. Democrats’ main goal is not to combat authoritarianism but to stop the rise of a working-class movement that could challenge capitalism itself.
The Real Target of the Hitler Comparisons: The Working Class
Contemporary comparisons to Hitler are used to redirect genuine anger towards backing the Democratic Party and NATO’s growing militarism. The ruling elite aim to merge anti-Trump feelings with endorsement of imperialist conflicts, portraying them as parts of a unified “defence of democracy.” This is misleading. The working class has no stake in siding with any segment of the capitalist oligarchy, whether under MAGA nationalism or liberal humanitarianism.
“The working class must have its own party, program, and independent struggle.” This is essential. Combating fascism is inherently linked to opposing capitalism. It demands the formation of a revolutionary socialist movement connected to the global working class, informed by 20th-century lessons, and unwavering in its resistance to all aspects of the ruling elite.
Conclusion: The Path Forward
The threat of authoritarianism is real, but it cannot be tackled solely through the Democratic Party, mainstream media, or superficial liberal rituals. Instead, it requires a deliberate and organised global effort by the working class to oppose the capitalist system, which fosters fascism, war, and dictatorship. The goal is not to pick between different factions of the oligarchy but to create a political force strong enough to overthrow the oligarchic system entirely. This is the only way to achieve true democracy, social equality, and human liberation.
[1] Donald Trump proudly shares a post which says he is more dangerous than Hitler-www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/donald-trump-proudly-shares-post-37314895
Against Mysticism and Historical Falsification: The Rise of Hitler and the Bankruptcy of Bourgeois Irrationalism
Today’s interest in Nostradamus, astrology, and mystical prophecies isn’t just innocent fascination. It reflects a deep intellectual decline in bourgeois society. Trying to explain Hitler’s rise with 16th-century cryptic verses isn’t just foolish; it’s a reactionary act. “The framing of this question… is itself an expression of the irrationalism that pervades bourgeois culture in decay.” This irrationalism isn’t marginal; it acts as an ideological shield for capitalism during its final crisis.
The ruling elite, troubled by the disastrous consequences of their system, seeks comfort through mystification. The petty-bourgeois classes, bewildered by social upheaval, rely on supernatural explanations. Meanwhile, the academic community, having moved away from the Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason, now promotes the idea that history is driven by fate, myth, or “dark forces," rather than by class struggle. Hitler's rise was not predicted by Nostradamus nor written in the stars; it resulted from specific, identifiable, and preventable political betrayals by the leaders of the German workers’ movement.
The Material Foundations of Fascism
The rise of Nazism can only be understood through the Marxist lens of historical materialism. In the early 1930s, Germany was Europe's most developed industrial economy, yet it was constrained by the Treaty of Versailles and the global capitalist crisis. The productive forces had surpassed the limits of the nation-state. German imperialism aimed for expansion, but before fighting abroad, it needed to suppress the working class domestically.
The Nazis were not a supernatural anomaly. As Trotsky described, they were “a party of national despair,” gaining backing from the devastated petty bourgeoisie—“the small artisans and shopkeepers of the cities, petty officials, employees, technical staff, the intelligentsia, and impoverished peasants.” These groups, shattered by the crisis, were whipped into a rage of hatred toward the proletariat, whom they blamed for their social downfall.
However, fascism in power was not merely the rule of these devastated classes. As Trotsky aptly states, “fascism in power is least of all the rule of the petty bourgeoisie. On the contrary, it is the most ruthless dictatorship of monopoly capital.” German industrialists, bankers, and military leaders saw Hitler as the tool they needed to break down workers’ organisations and gear up for imperialist conflict. The Düsseldorf meeting of January 1932, where leading industrialists pledged their support to Hitler, was not a mystical convergence of destiny. It was a class decision.
The Working Class Wanted No Part of Fascism
Contrary to the myth—propagated by both fascists and liberals—that Hitler rose to power on widespread popular support, the German working class largely opposed him. “The working class did not want fascism.” In the November 1932 elections, the combined votes for the Social Democrats and Communists exceeded those for the Nazis. Furthermore, in the factories, the Nazis were held in contempt.The decisive factor was not the will of the masses but the treachery of their leaders.
The Stalinist and Social Democratic Betrayals
The Stalinist leadership of the Communist Party, following Moscow's orders, embraced the harmful theory of “social fascism,” labelling the Social Democrats as the primary enemy. This strategy—one of the worst crimes in workers’ movement history—blocked the creation of a united front for the working class when such unity could have defeated the Nazis. Meanwhile, Social Democratic leaders failed to mobilise their workers, fearing revolution. They surrendered to the bourgeois state, disarming the working class and enabling Hitler to become chancellor in January 1933.
Trotsky’s warnings proved to be prophetic in the true sense: they were based on scientific analysis. He stated that a Nazi victory would lead to "the extermination of the best of the German proletariat, the destruction of its organisations, and the eradication of its self-belief and hope for the future.” He also predicted that Italian fascism would seem “pale” in comparison. Every prediction was confirmed.
Mysticism as a Weapon Against the Working Class
The shift towards Nostradamus and astrology is not impartial. It fulfils specific ideological roles: depicting fascism as unavoidable rather than stoppable; excusing the responsibilities of the ruling class and leaderships, such as reformist and Stalinist; replacing class analysis with fatalism; and discouraging the working class by implying that supernatural forces shape history. The pursuit of prophecies and astrological justifications for Hitler is not only unserious but also politically reactionary. This type of irrationalism echoes the postwar pessimism of the Frankfurt School, which blamed “the Enlightenment" for fascism, thus diverting attention from capitalism and the failures of the workers’ movement.
The Lessons for Today
The worldwide rise of fascist movements, increasing irrationalism, and the decline of bourgeois democracy are not just predictions but stem from capitalism's fundamental contradictions. These include economic crises, imperialist competition, and the ruling class's failure to resolve these issues democratically. The focus shouldn't be on deciphering old astrological texts, but on cultivating the revolutionary leadership that Germany lacked in 1933.
The Washington Post’s Katja Hoyer and the Liberal Effort to Bury the Real Lessons of Weimar
Katja Hoyer’s column in The Washington Post, warning that comparing Trump to Hitler is "bad politics,” is not just a neutral academic opinion. It is a deliberate political act by a main ideological tool of the American ruling class. The core message—calm down, stop panicking, trust the institutions—aims to serve a specific class interest: to lull the population into complacency during escalating political unrest and to steer mass opposition away from independent working-class political action.
The Post falsely presents itself as a strict guardian of historical accuracy. However, it is “a central organ of the Democratic Party and the intelligence agencies,” whose role is to redirect public anger into the controlled space of the Democratic Party. The true purpose of the column isn’t to correct misconceptions about history but to pacify the public. The Post is telling its readers: “calm down, things aren’t that bad, stop making hysterical comparisons.” This isn’t scholarship; it’s political soothing.
A desire for historical accuracy doesn't drive the liberal establishment’s quick rejection of Weimar comparisons. For years, these same groups frequently used Hitler and fascism as references whenever it benefited their foreign policy aims. However, when such an analogy highlights the deep problems within American capitalism—specifically, by pointing to the corruption of the American ruling class rather than a foreign dictator—it is dismissed as “hysterical,” “irresponsible,” and a poor political strategy.
The question isn't whether crude analogies exist; they do. However, the Post’s intervention aims to hide the true lessons of Weimar: the class struggles that led to fascism and the political betrayals that facilitated it. The liberal narrative claims that fascism arises from 'institutional failure,' 'fragile democracy,' or 'eroding norms.' This viewpoint is a middle-class fairy tale. In reality, fascism stems from a ruling class facing an insoluble capitalist crisis, which pushes them to authoritarian measures to protect their wealth and power.
The German edition of David North’s Where Is America Going? makes this point with clarity: Trump is not an invader of a healthy democracy but “the political embodiment of a degenerated, bestial ruling class that expresses the historical crisis of the capitalist system.” This is the truth the Post cannot allow to surface.
The Marxist Analysis: What Is and Is Not Fascism Today
As David North pointed out in a key interview on fascism and history, Trump’s movement “smells of fascism”—it has “that particular odour, or, I might say, stink”—but it isn't yet a widespread fascist movement in the traditional sense. The petty-bourgeois mobs of 1933 are not present in the United States in a similar form.[1]
However, the lack of a perfect analogy does not imply that the danger is imaginary. Studying Weimar aims not for an exact comparison but to grasp the patterns of capitalist crises: the ruling class’s shift toward authoritarianism, the promotion of far-right groups, the intensification of nationalism, and the buildup to war.
These trends are clearly evident. The US faces rising international conflicts, its political systems are breaking down, and the ruling class depends more on the military, intelligence, and courts to stay in power. Meanwhile, the working class is shifting left, as North observed—exactly the kind of change that historically pushes the bourgeoisie toward fascist measures. The Post’s advice—“don’t panic”—is not about avoiding fear but about cautioning against rushing into action.
The Lesson Liberals Fear Most: The Betrayal of the Working Class
The key lesson from Weimar, which the liberal establishment desperately tries to conceal, is not about the weakness of democratic institutions but about how the working class was betrayed by its own organisations. “Hitler gained power not due to flaws in Weimar’s constitution, but because the Social Democratic Party and the Stalinist Communist Party failed to unite against fascism.”
The SPD defended the bourgeois state, suppressed workers’ uprisings, and collaborated with the military and police. During Stalin’s harmful “Third Period” policy, the KPD labelled the SPD as “social fascists,” equating them with the Nazis and splitting the working class at a crucial time. This serves as a lesson the Post refuses to learn, exposing the failure of the Democratic Party’s current approach. Today, the Democrats and their pseudo-left allies—such as DSA and Jacobin—urge the working class to submit to the Democratic Party, the CIA, and the national security forces in a “popular front” against Trump. This is not a tactic to defeat fascism; it is the very strategy that enabled fascism.
Trotsky’s writings from 1931–33—' For a Workers’ United Front Against Fascism' and 'The United Front for Defence'—continue to serve as essential guides. Trotsky emphasised that workers should unite in action against fascist violence while remaining politically independent from reformist leaders. The Stalinist rejection of this approach led to disastrous consequences. Today's refusal by the Democrats is equally perilous.
The Political Function of “Don’t Panic” History
Hoyers column clearly plays an ideological role. It reassures readers that their concerns are exaggerated, claiming that institutions will stay stable. The Weimar comparison is dismissed as “bad politics." It promotes trust in the courts, upcoming elections, and the Democratic Party. Most importantly, it recommends doing nothing.
This mirrors the Democrats’ real political strategy: a passive dependence on state institutions, legal tactics, and electoral processes, combined with strong opposition to any independent working-class mobilisation. The true ‘bad politics’ isn’t the historical analogy. Still, the systematic effort… to disarm the population, persuade them their eyes deceive them, and redirect legitimate fear and anger into the dead-end of the Democratic Party. The working class does not need reassurance. It needs revolutionary leadership.
The United States faces a crisis not of “norms” or "institutions," but of capitalism itself. The question posed by the title "Where is America Going? Fascism or Socialism" is genuine and not rhetorical. Its answer isn't found within the Democratic Party, the courts, or the mythologised “guardrails” of American democracy. The sole force that can prevent the slide toward authoritarianism and conflict is the independent, international mobilisation of the working class, guided by a socialist program.
The Liberal Misuse of Weimar: A Historiographical Critique
Liberal scholarship on the Weimar Republic has long served as an ideological mirror reflecting the anxieties of the contemporary bourgeoisie. Unsurprisingly, during times of crisis, liberal historians tend to isolate Weimar not to shed light on the present but to obscure it. The latest wave of commentary—like Katja Hoyer’s column in The Washington Post—represents just the most recent phase in a longstanding historiographical effort: turning Weimar into a morality tale about “fragile democracy,” “institutional failure,” and the risks of “polarisation,” while actively ignoring the class struggles and political betrayals that paved the way for fascism.
This critique examines the dominant liberal interpretations of Weimar, their political function, and how they distort the historical record to serve the needs of the contemporary ruling class.
The common liberal view of Weimar simplifies the republic's fall to a series of institutional issues: a flawed constitution, too much presidential power, proportional representation, fragile parties, and a lack of a truly “democratic' political culture. This explanation has been repeated so often that it has become the accepted orthodoxy. Its main points are: the Weimar Republic failed due to weak institutions; the German populace lacked a democratic spirit; and extremism from both ends contributed to its collapse. The takeaway is to protect the current liberal system at all costs.
This framework is politically convenient because it absolves the ruling class from responsibility for the capitalist crisis that led to fascism. It portrays Hitler's rise as a technical failure rather than a result of class-driven resistance. Additionally, it enables modern liberals to see themselves as heroes defending "democracy” from irrational threats. However, this perspective is historically inaccurate.
The core fact of Weimar history is that fascism arose in response to a deep crisis in German capitalism. The ruling class, frightened by the revolutionary rise of the working class, used Hitler as a tool for counterrevolution. This is not just an interpretation; it is a documented fact.
Liberal scholars frequently overlook this reality. They depoliticise the crisis, viewing it as a vague “loss of faith in democracy,” a “breakdown of consensus,” or a “failure of moderation.” The class struggle is often neglected, portraying the working class as passive and the bourgeoisie as an abstract entity. Political parties such as the SPD and KPD are labelled as polarising forces rather than recognised as actors with defined class strategies.
This deliberate avoidance aligns with current political priorities. To understand Weimar's class dynamics, one must also recognise similar class struggles in today's capitalism and see that the crisis of liberal democracy—marked by rising inequality, militarism, and authoritarianism—is rooted in the inherent contradictions of the capitalist system, not just polarisation. Liberal historiography, however, cannot acknowledge this, which prevents it from telling the full truth about Weimar.
The most politically provocative lesson of Weimar history is the part played by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Stalinized Communist Party (KPD) in disarming the working class. “Hitler came to power not because Weimar’s constitution was flawed, but because the Social Democratic Party and the Stalinist Communist Party refused to unite against fascism.” This is the historical truth that liberal scholarship is most eager to conceal.
The SPD: defended the bourgeois state, suppressed revolutionary workers, collaborated with the military and police, and ultimately supported Hitler's appointment. However, in liberal historiography, the SPD is portrayed as a tragic defender of democracy—an honourable but doomed force overwhelmed by irrational extremism. This portrayal is a gross misrepresentation.
The Stalin-era KPD’s labelling of the SPD as 'social fascism'—equating it with the Nazis—was a harmful betrayal. Yet liberal historians rarely analyse this from a class perspective. Instead, they tend to see it as "extremism on both sides,” which maintains the misleading idea of equivalence that reinforces their broader narrative.Acknowledging the SPD’s betrayal would reveal the failure of current liberal strategies, which urge the working class to submit to the Democratic Party, intelligence agencies, and the national security state in a “popular front” against the far right. Liberal historians try to prevent this comparison and, as a result, suppress the truth.
A key feature of liberal Weimar scholarship is its focus on the psychology of authoritarian leaders. Hitler is portrayed as a charismatic demagogue who deceived a naive populace. The dictator's personality overshadows the broader economic crisis of capitalism. This perspective has two main aims: it personalises fascism, framing it as a pathology in one individual; and it reassures liberals that authoritarianism can be overcome through “better leadership,” “civic education,” or “restoring norms.”
Contemporary liberal commentators often focus on Trump’s personality, rhetoric, and “authoritarian style,” while overlooking the social forces that support him. This psychological reductionism, similar to Weimar historiography, transforms into a political strategy: it depoliticises the crisis, personalises the threat, and sidesteps any challenge to the capitalist system.
The Weaponisation of Weimar: Liberalism’s Present‑Day Agenda
Liberal invocations of Weimar are not academic exercises. They serve a political function.By depicting Weimar as a delicate experiment shattered by extremism, liberals portray the current capitalist system as the sole defence against authoritarianism. The underlying message is straightforward: any opposition to the system—particularly from the left—is considered a threat. Strikes, protests, and socialist movements are depicted as indicators of “polarisation” and “instability.” The working class is viewed as a threat to democracy rather than its supporter.The SPD justified working with the military and police by claiming it was protecting democracy, while liberals now defend alliances with the CIA, FBI, and Pentagon as essential to curb the far right.The core lesson of Weimar—that the working class needs to stay politically independent and struggle for socialism—is exactly what liberal historiography tries to erase.
A Marxist analysis unveils what liberal scholarship often overlooks: the importance of class struggle, the capitalist crisis as the root of fascism, the roles of the SPD and KPD leaders in disarming workers, the need for an independent socialist movement, and the global nature of the crisis. This approach is not outdated; it is the only framework that truly comprehends the present. The working class requires revolutionary leadership, not reassurance. That is the essential lesson of Weimar. This forms the basis of a genuinely historical, political, and emancipatory understanding of the past.
A Literary Monument to Historical Evasion: Antonio Scurati’s M: Il figlio del secolo and the Cultural Rehabilitation of Italian Fascism
Antonio Scurati’s M: Il figlio del secolo (2018) has been celebrated by Italy's cultural elite as a major achievement: winning the Premio Strega, becoming a publishing sensation, and inspiring a lavish Sky TV adaptation. Its success is closely linked to the political context of its release. The novel appeared in 2018, a year when the Five Star–Lega coalition brought far-right politics into government, and just four years before Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia—descendants of Mussolini’s movement—came to power.
The celebration of Scurati’s Mussolini novel isn’t just a cultural event; it reflects a broader ideological trend. It contributes to normalising, trivialising, and aesthetically sanitising fascism within bourgeois society. As Peter Schwarz noted during the centenary of the March on Rome, the anniversary was “not only of historical interest but of urgent political relevance. Just a week prior, his political successors had taken control of the Italian government.” The support for M by the Italian intellectuals should be understood within this framework.
The Novel’s Method: Biography as Historical Obfuscation
Scurati’s main idea—that Mussolini is the “son of the century' and embodies the spirit of his time—exposes a key ideological flaw in the novel. The text rightly points out that this is a methodological mistake: “Fascism is explained not as a product of the crisis of capitalism… but rather as the expression of a historical Zeitgeist incarnated in a single personality.” This is more than just an artistic decision; it constitutes a political misrepresentation.
By focusing on Mussolini’s psychology, charisma, sexual appetites, and opportunism, Scurati echoes typical bourgeois historical narratives. The underlying issues, such as the crisis of Italian capitalism, betrayals by the PSI reformist leadership, the trade-union bureaucracy’s cowardice, and Stalinist sabotage of revolutionary potential, are overshadowed by the novelist’s obsession with the dictator’s personality.
Trotsky’s analysis, referenced in the document, begins with a different assumption: “When the ‘normal’ police and military forces of the bourgeois dictatorship… fail to uphold social stability, the fascist regime seizes power.” Fascism is not a result of a “century spirit,’ but a tool of the ruling class created by finance capital to oppose the revolutionary working class. Scurati’s biographical approach consistently conceals this reality.
The Disappearance of the Working Class
M’s most revealing aspect is how it systematically removes the working class’s presence. The Biennio Rosso—the period marked by factory occupations, workers’ councils, and a near-revolutionary upheaval in 1919–1920—acts only as a faint backdrop to Mussolini’s actions. As the document states: “The true tragedy of Italian fascism is not Mussolini’s charisma or monstrosity; it is that a significant revolutionary working-class movement was crushed for lack of a truly Marxist leadership.”
This is the history Scurati cannot disclose. His narrative, focused on the dictator as the central figure, makes it impossible. The working class appears as a faceless crowd, serving only as a backdrop for Mussolini's actions. The revolutionary potential of the Italian proletariat—once a source of concern for the bourgeoisie and an inspiration for workers across Europe—is now reduced to mere atmospheric detail. This issue goes beyond literature and has political implications. Omitting the working class from the history of fascism becomes a necessary step toward its political rehabilitation.
Aestheticisation and the Seductions of Reaction
The novel’s use of documentary elements—such as archival excerpts, letters, and newspaper clippings—has been widely recognised as a mark of seriousness. However, this approach does not prevent fascism from being aestheticised; in fact, it sometimes promotes it. The document itself warns that “the line between critical representation and aesthetic complicity is thin,” and Scurati often crosses this boundary. By centring Mussolini in a sweeping narrative, the novel makes him inherently compelling. Readers are encouraged to view things from his perspective, follow his rise, and see the consolidation of fascist power as a compelling story arc. This reflects the long-standing danger in bourgeois portrayals of fascism: the tendency to turn political tragedy into a visual or artistic spectacle.
David Walsh’s critique of The March on Rome is relevant here too: the work “includes much intriguing imagery… but is confused and, in the end, quite wrong-headed.” Scurati compiles a comprehensive documentary record, but the framework—Mussolini as the “son of the century”—fails to accurately portray fascism.
The Political Function of M: Fascism as Cultural Spectacle
M's widespread popularity serves a clear ideological purpose in modern Italy. As noted earlier, the novel lets middle-class readers explore fascism as a historical event, while those connected to fascism strengthen their political influence today. The novel’s political significance lies in its transformation of fascism from a present threat into a literary relic. It allows intellectuals to feel morally superior without confronting the rise of the far right today. It aestheticises the bourgeoisie’s historical crimes, making them seem safe for consumption. Additionally, it conceals the class forces that gave rise to fascism and are behind its recent revival. This is no coincidence; it reflects a cultural shift parallel to the far right's political reintegration.
Conclusion: What the Working Class Requires
The working class does not require another grand novel about Mussolini. Instead, it needs a scientific Marxist analysis of fascism as a particular form of bourgeois dominance, rooted in the capitalist crisis and only preventable through the autonomous political mobilisation of the working class. The document ends with justified sternness: “On that score, Scurati’s novel offers nothing.” This is the core judgment. M: Il figlio del secolo is not a valuable contribution to understanding fascism. Rather, it stands as a monument to the ideological evasions of today's bourgeois intellectuals—a literary expression of the very crisis that is once again elevating the far right to power.
Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe by Katja Hoyer is published by Allen Lane (£30).
"The pauperisation of the petty bourgeoisie, barely concealed by their ties and socks of artificial silk, eroded all official creeds and, above all, the doctrine of democratic parliamentarism... In the highly fevered atmosphere brought about by war, defeat, reparations, inflation, occupation of the Ruhr, crisis, need, and despair, the petty bourgeoisie rose against all the old parties that had cheated it."
Leon Trotsky- What is National Socialism? (1933)
"The class struggle is a law of social development. For ages, that struggle has been between the poor and the rich, the exploited and the exploiters."
Jack London: The Iron Heel
“The 'ordinary German' who populates Daniel Goldhagen’s book is a vacuous generalisation from which all internal social antagonisms and conflicts have been extracted.”
David North
"They can only maintain their position while they honestly believe that civilisation depends on themselves alone..."
Jack London, On Oligarchy
To grasp Katja Hoyer's role in recent historiography, it's important to place her work within the larger academic context. Her latest book's introduction highlights the significance of the 'Ordinary Germans' historiography, a field shaped since the postwar period by tensions between Marxist class analysis and idealist, culturalist, and nationalist viewpoints. The issue of 'ordinary Germans' goes beyond academic debate, as it is crucial for understanding fascism and the working class's capacity to oppose it. Since the 1990s, debates about 'ordinary Germans' have been led by three main perspectives, none of which fully embrace Marxism. Hoyer’s work synthesises and, in some ways, combines elements from all three positions.
The main view associated with Daniel Goldhagen's 1996 bestseller, 'Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust,' suggests that the Holocaust was perpetrated by "ordinary Germans" influenced by deeply rooted, centuries-old "eliminationist antisemitism" unique to German culture. Goldhagen claimed this belief was so deeply embedded that it could be activated without coercion or specific circumstances; Germans killed Jews simply because they were Germans. However, David North's 1997 critique, "The Myth of 'Ordinary Germans'," highlights a significant methodological flaw: the concept of "ordinary Germans" is an overly broad, abstract category lacking internal differentiation, rendering it scientifically meaningless.
North points out that questioning whether "ordinary Germans" refers to a factory worker, shopkeeper, lumpenproletarian, Junker landowner, or industrialist shows how this broad category overlooks class differences within German society. This oversight unintentionally strengthens the Nazi idea of a unified Volk in a distorted manner. Goldhagen's concept of ewige Deutsche (eternal Germans) as enemies of Jews mirrors the Nazi idea of ewige Jude as enemies of Germans. Both are racial-nationalist constructs that ignore the complexities of history and social class distinctions.
Moreover, as North highlights, the Goldhagen thesis effectively overlooks the German socialist movement. In a 622-page book on Germans and the Holocaust, there is not a single reference to Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, August Bebel, or the Social Democratic Party, which by 1912 was the most populous party in the Reichstag, mainly supported by the German working class. This omission is deliberate and structurally necessary because acknowledging a large socialist workers' movement with millions of Germans would directly challenge the premise that all Germans shared a uniform antisemitic worldview.
Götz Aly's 'Hitler's Beneficiaries' (2005) presents a view that ordinary Germans supported Hitler mainly for economic reasons, specifically from the profits gained through the confiscation of Jewish property, a Nazi welfare system financed by expropriation and war spoils. Although this perspective is more materialistic than Goldhagen's, it remains problematic: it depicts the working class as passive recipients of stolen wealth, overlooks acts of resistance, and broadly categorises "Germans" as beneficiaries, oversimplifying the clear class differences in who benefited from the Nazi economy.
The third key perspective to Hoyer is Volksgemeinschaft historiography. Since the 2000s, it has been the dominant view in German academic history, associated with scholars like Michael Wildt, Frank Bajohr, and the 'Nazi society' social history movement. This approach examines how the Nazi concept of the national community was actively constructed, practised, and embraced by major segments of German society, rather than imposed from above. It emphasises participation, consent, the social joys of belonging, and how the Mittelstand (middle classes) and parts of the working class were integrated into a racially defined national identity.
Hoyer and the Volksgemeinschaft Turn
Hoyer's 'Weimar' intentionally challenges the so-called "Weimar syndrome"—the common view that interprets the republic as only a stepping stone to Nazism. She assesses the republic on its own terms, focusing on the everyday lives of ordinary people who did not foresee the impending disaster. She underscores Weimar's cultural vibrancy, authentic social reforms, the extension of women's rights and sexual freedoms, and the democratic activism of the working class through unions and political parties. A key point is that dismissive retrospective determinism, which claims fascism was an unavoidable result of Weimar's developments, is poor history. Yet, Hoyer's corrective swings too far in the opposite direction—an error linked directly to the Volksgemeinschaft historiography.
The main issue goes beyond emphasis and points to what is essentially missing. When Hoyer and other Volksgemeinschaft historians examine the daily lives of "ordinary people" during the Weimar Republic or Nazism, they often conflate class, national identity, and the populace. The German working class, which nearly seized socialist power during the November Revolution of 1918, consistently backed the SPD and KPD throughout Weimar and maintained underground resistance networks in Berlin, Hamburg, and the Ruhr even after Hitler's rise to power.
Workers are often depicted as a homogeneous group of "Germans" experiencing the republic, depression, and Nazi ascent in largely the same way. Hoyer’s historiographical approach, despite differing in some details from Goldhagen's, arrives at a similar conclusion but through a different method: it downplays "the relationship between capitalism and fascism" and portrays "all workers, the petty bourgeoisie, industrialists, and bankers as 'the Germans.'"
The contradicting evidence to the main narrative is substantial but frequently ignored in this historiography. Hans-Rainer Sandvoss's thorough archival investigation into Berlin workers' opposition to the Nazi regime, using Gestapo files that only became available after 1989, showed that the working class in Berlin and other labour centres mostly stayed resistant to Nazi propaganda for years after Hitler's rise to power.
A Gestapo report from March 1936 observed that in Berlin, the Führer salute was rarely heard outside officials, uniformed personnel, or visitors from provincial areas. The Nazi Party often faced difficulties in industrial regions like mining areas, Hamburg's docks, and factories. This isn't romanticising; it reflects the historical record. However, this resistance disappears entirely in histories that portray all Germans as uniformly "ordinary."
Why does this historiography continue to hold influence? Its roots are in the political and intellectual climate formed after the Soviet Union's fall and the so-called "triumph of capitalism." Since the 1990s, many historians have justified moving away from objective analysis, citing the collapse of the Soviet Union and East Germany and capitalism's apparent victory. They have substituted authentic scientific methods with subjective, postmodern ideologies.
Abandoning class as the main focus of analysis reflects a politically motivated decision rather than neutrality. As David North points out in his critique of Goldhagen, during the postwar era, examining fascism's class aspects through psychological, cultural, or national-identity perspectives was tied to the Cold War agenda of discrediting Marxism. This also obscured the fact that fascism was fundamentally the capitalist ruling class's response to revolutionary threats from organised workers. Goldhagen treats this as a matter of German national psychology, whereas Volksgemeinschaft scholars approach it more subtly by emphasising consent, participation, and social integration in daily life. This suggests that "the Germans" collectively created fascism, instead of recognising that a specific class imposed it upon a divided society—one in which millions were coerced, terrorised, and ultimately exterminated.
Regarding Hoyer, another aspect is worth noting. Her earlier publication, Beyond the Wall (2023), portrays the GDR as a society with notable social achievements and widespread support. This aligns with the approach typically used for Stalinism: emphasising the daily lives of "ordinary people" to soften, contextualise, and justify a regime defined mainly by bureaucratic dictatorship over the working class. In both Weimar/Nazi Germany and East Germany, focusing on "ordinary experience" seeks to reduce political and class divisions and encourage sociological empathy.
Leon Trotsky analysed Weimar Germany and German fascism in his own contemporary writings, which remain unmatched in their insight. He viewed fascism not as a product of German national character or broad social trends, but as a strategy used by the capitalist elite to rally the impoverished petty bourgeoisie—such as shopkeepers, artisans, clerks, and disillusioned farmers—against the organised working class. This tactic became especially prominent when bourgeois democracy failed to address the social crisis.
In his 1933 book, 'What is National Socialism?', he expands on this view by explaining how the impoverishment of the petty bourgeoisie—barely concealed behind their synthetic silk ties and socks—undermined all official beliefs, particularly democratic parliamentary principles. During the tense period marked by war, defeat, reparations, inflation, the Ruhr occupation, crises, and despair, the petty bourgeoisie turned away from the old parties that had betrayed them. This analysis centres not on the cultural attitudes of "ordinary Germans" but on class struggles amid a deep capitalist crisis. A key question was revolutionary leadership: would the organised working class seize power, or would the petty bourgeoisie, lacking a viable working-class alternative, be drawn into a movement backed by large capital interests? The outcome was influenced more by betrayals from the SPD and the Comintern than by any inherent psychological traits of a monolithic "German people."
Mainstream German historiography consistently dismisses this framework, from Goldhagen to Götz Aly, the Volksgemeinschaft school, and Katja Hoyer. This rejection is intentional, as it directly highlights the real factors influencing the outcome: class struggle, the crisis of revolutionary leadership, and the counterrevolutionary roles played by Social Democracy and Stalinism. These insights remain highly pertinent today, given the rise of the AfD and the pseudo-left, which divert working-class opposition into bourgeois safe zones. Recognising these truths does not require a gentler or more sympathetic history.
Katja Hoyer, a historian with German and British roots, authored "Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire" (2021) and, more recently, "Weimar Germany: Democracy on the Brink" (2024). She also wrote "Beyond the Wall" (2023), offering an alternative view of the GDR. Her book on Weimar aims to depict the republic not merely as a precursor to Nazi catastrophe—a "Weimar syndrome" she explicitly seeks to move beyond—but as a vibrant, genuine democratic experiment with significant cultural, social, and political achievements. From a Marxist perspective, this type of liberal rehabilitation faces serious methodological and political challenges.
Like many liberal histories, Hoyer highlights Weimar's vibrant cultural scene—covering the Bauhaus, Expressionism, Brecht, Grosz, cabaret, and sexual liberalism. While these are important, emphasising them as the city's main achievement shifts attention away from the vital connection between culture and politics. Weimar's cultural advancements emerged from a revolutionary crisis in a world undergoing drastic change. Many influential figures, including Brecht, recognised that this culture was deeply intertwined with the revolutionary struggle. Overemphasising aesthetics risks overlooking Weimar's political importance.
The Weimar Republic arose from the German Revolution of November 1918, but Social Democracy rapidly undermined it. Under Ebert and Noske, the SPD violently suppressed the revolutionary movement, murdered Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, and maintained the capitalist systems and Junker military hierarchy. Any account of Weimar overlooking this fundamental betrayal—the counterrevolutionary role of Social Democracy—misses the true causes of later events.
The so-called cultural boom during Weimar's Goldene Zwanziger era was financed by repeated betrayals of the working class. Under pressure from the Comintern, the KPD canceled a planned insurrection at a crucial time—resulting in a disastrous failure that temporarily stabilized German capitalism. These "golden" Weimar years were just a fleeting, circumstantial pause rather than true democratic success.
The Weimar Republic's fall was mainly due to the Stalinist "social fascism" theory, which wrongly equated the SPD with the Nazis and hindered a united working-class front against Hitler. This was worsened by the SPD's support for Hindenburg and its cooperation with emergency measures under Brüning and von Papen. Trotsky's writings from that period, including 'What Next? Vital Questions for the German Proletariat' and 'The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany,' provide crucial analysis, predicting the disaster. Yet, there was still an opportunity to prevent it.
The Social Democratic Party (SPD) entered not to lead the revolution but to suppress and ultimately quash it violently. Under Friedrich Ebert and Gustav Noske, the SPD partnered with former imperial military officers to crush the revolutionary movement. They formed the Freikorps, paramilitary groups with fascist characteristics, to target and eliminate the revolution's leaders. Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, founders of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), were hunted down and murdered in January 1919 by orders from the SPD government. The reactionary forces—the Junker military aristocracy, judiciary, civil service, major banks, and industrialists—remained untouched amid the appearance of a new democratic system. This was the initial sin. As the Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party (Germany) clearly states: "In 1918, the SPD had strangled the proletarian revolution to save the bourgeois order. The result was the Weimar Republic, in which the old reactionary forces continued to exist behind a democratic façade."
The republic faced ongoing crises during its brief fourteen-year existence. In 1923, it encountered two major challenges: the French occupation of the Ruhr and severe hyperinflation that wiped out the savings of the middle and working classes, leading to widespread despair. That same year, the KPD, under the guidance of the Comintern, planned a revolutionary uprising but ultimately cancelled it, which Trotsky later described as "a classic demonstration of how it is possible to miss a perfectly exceptional revolutionary situation of world-historic importance." German capitalism was temporarily stabilized by American loans through the Dawes Plan, and the mid-1920s are often called the "golden years" of Weimar—remarkable in culture, fragile politically, and economically dependent on foreign capital.
In 1929, the Wall Street Crash ended American credit, leading to a collapse of the German economy and a surge in unemployment, which rose to over six million—about a third of the workforce. This caused a severe social crisis. The middle classes—small shopkeepers, artisans, farmers, and white-collar workers—already weakened by inflation and further devastated by the depression, desperately searched for solutions. During this period, Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP emerged, offering an alluring mix of nationalist rhetoric, antisemitism, and violent scapegoating targeted at the most vulnerable and confused petty-bourgeois groups.
As the crisis intensified, the SPD responded by withdrawing, surrendering, and appealing to the bourgeois state's institutions for help. In 1930, President Hindenburg appointed Catholic conservative Heinrich Brüning as chancellor and began ruling via emergency decrees, bypassing parliament. The SPD tolerated this, fearing revolution from below more than dictatorship from above. In 1932, they supported the re-election of the reactionary Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg as president. Hindenburg would soon appoint Hitler as the "lesser evil" against the Nazis. When von Papen illegally removed the SPD-led Prussian government in July 1932, the SPD filed a court complaint rather than mobilize its millions to resist. According to the SGP historical document, citing Trotsky, the SPD believed that Germany's fate depended "not on the fighting strength of the German proletariat... but on whether the pure spirit of the Weimar Constitution... shall be installed in the presidential palace."
The trade unions' conduct was even more disturbing. The ADGB, the primary trade union federation, publicly distanced itself from the SPD three and a half months before Hitler came to power, aiming to show its loyalty to the new regime. They participated in a May 1, 1933 march under the swastika. In response, the Nazis punished this act of compliance on May 2 by raiding union offices, arresting and killing union leaders, and completely dissolving the ADGB.
The Communist Party of Germany was formed as a direct reaction to the SPD's betrayal. It boasted millions of members, supporters, its own armed Red Front defense groups, and a willing working class. However, under Stalin's influence over the Communist International, the KPD adopted a suicidal ultra-left stance, promoting the theory of "social fascism." This theory claimed that Social Democracy and fascism were essentially the same, labeling the SPD as "social fascist" and arguing that the true enemy was not Hitler but the SPD. Consequently, the KPD refused to unite with SPD workers against the Nazis, sometimes even supporting them, such as in 1931 when they backed a Nazi-led referendum to overthrow the SPD-controlled Prussian government. Meanwhile, the party reassured its disheartened members with the slogan: "Nach Hitler, kommen wir" — "After Hitler, it's our turn," a misguided belief that Hitler's rule would soon end, allowing the Communist revolution to erupt.
The Weimar Republic and the pseudo-lefts: Then and Now
To understand the pseudo-left's view of the Weimar Republic, we must first recognize what actually caused its collapse. The Weimar Republic didn't fall because of internal contradictions or the rise of fascism alone. Instead, it was dismantled by the organized workers' movement, especially its leadership. This is the key lesson the pseudo-left today often tries to hide. The SPD, representing the German working class, revealed its true nature in November 1918 by betraying the revolutionary effort aimed at taking state power and expropriating capital. Instead, it chose to defend the bourgeois order. The party was responsible for the murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, suppressed workers' councils, and upheld the Junker officers and state structures that, fifteen years later, helped enable Hitler's rise. As noted, "the Social Democratic Party... sided with the bourgeois order in 1914 and became the main supporter of the bourgeois state in the Weimar Republic." In the final years, the SPD supported Brüning's emergency decrees, which gradually eroded democratic rights and weakened the working class, paving the way for Hitler instead of fighting against him.
The devastating role of Stalinism followed. The KPD, controlled by Stalin through the Comintern, dismissed Trotsky's urgent plea for a united front of Communist and Social Democratic workers against the Nazis. Instead, it adopted the destructive "social fascism" thesis, claiming that the SPD was equivalent to fascism and that there was no real difference between bourgeois democracy and fascist dictatorship. This was not just a tactical error but a politically damaging disorientation that froze the German working class, separated Communist workers from Social Democratic workers, and at times even led the KPD to collaborate with the Nazis against the SPD, such as in the 1931 Prussian referendum. Hitler rose to power in January 1933 without organised resistance from the German working class, despite the SPD and KPD each having millions of members and their own armed units. This catastrophe proved Trotsky's view that the Communist International was no longer a revolutionary force and that the Fourth International needed to be established.
The Frankfurt School
This reveals the connection to the modern pseudo-left. The Frankfurt School—comprising Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, and Benjamin—originated directly from the confusion following Germany's defeat. Notably, "Horkheimer and Adorno do not mention [the role of Social Democracy and Stalinism] once and avoid discussing Stalinism in all their other works." This silence was intentional. The Frankfurt School crafted a comprehensive theoretical framework—covering Critical Theory, the Dialectic of Enlightenment, and the theory of the "authoritarian personality"—which attributed fascism to mass psychology, the irrationality of the masses, and the failures of the "Enlightenment," largely ignoring the political betrayals by the SPD and the Comintern.
Why is this important? By framing the crisis of revolutionary leadership as the main explanation, the Frankfurt School adopted a different political stance: moving away from building a revolutionary Marxist party rooted in the working class, and instead emphasising cultural criticism, identity politics, and pressure on bourgeois institutions. This shift lies at the heart of the modern pseudo-left, as David North details in 'The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism, and the Politics of the Pseudo-Left.' The Frankfurt School's move away from viewing the working class as the revolutionary agent—to focusing on the "critical intellectual" and later prioritising racial, gender, and cultural issues—set the stage for all that now claims to be 'left,' but fails to challenge capitalism.
The Contemporary Pseudo-Left
The contrast between the 1930s and today is more than superficial; it’s structural. With the neo-fascist Alternative for Germany (AfD) now Germany’s second-largest party, pseudo-left groups like Marx 21, the SAV, and RIO are, in a modified form, repeating the political crimes that facilitated Hitler’s rise. Marx 21, influenced by Tony Cliff's International Socialist Tendency, cynically invokes Trotsky's "revolver-poison" analogy to justify demanding that the bourgeois state ban the AfD, directly contradicting Trotsky's actual stance. Trotsky opposed the SPD's reliance on the Weimar state and police to fight fascism, understanding that the state was not neutral but filled with reactionary elements. History confirmed this: Hindenburg, the Reichswehr, big business, and the judiciary—all institutions the SPD appealed to for protection—implemented Hitler's appointment. Germany's domestic intelligence agency (the Office for the Protection of the Constitution) was, until recently, led by fascist Hans-Georg Maassen, who secretly met with AfD representatives. Calling on this agency to defend democracy from fascism is the twenty-first-century equivalent of the SPD crying "Help! Intervene!" to the Weimar state.
The SAV, descended from the British Militant Tendency, tends to praise the trade union bureaucracy as a defender against the right and envisions a Left Party–SPD–Green coalition as a "democratic alternative" to the AfD. Yet, as Germany's ruling coalition, the SPD and Greens have carried out the AfD's refugee deportation policies, approved the largest war budget since WWII, and frequently collaborated with the AfD to normalise its presence in parliament. At the same time, trade unions have agreed to austerity measures with the government and corporations. The SAV's approach isn't aimed at "pushing them left" but at aligning working-class frustration with the very forces responsible for it.
RIO, associated with the Morenoite Trotskyist Fraction-Fourth International, claims to support a "united front" and "anti-capitalism from below." In reality, it partners with the SPD, Greens, trade unions, and Fridays for Future. This strategy conflicts with Trotsky's original concept of the united front, which was meant to awaken workers from Social Democratic stagnation and rally them around a revolutionary program. Conversely, RIO's "front" seems designed to align workers with bourgeois parties, often employing radical rhetoric.
What unites these trends, both historically and socially, is their class origin. The Frankfurt School consisted of segments of the bourgeois intelligentsia that had forsaken the working class. Currently, the pseudo-left champions privileged middle-class groups—such as academics, NGO workers, and trade union bureaucrats—who benefit from the current system enough to be wary of a genuine socialist revolution. Their emphasis on identity politics, state intervention, and parliamentary tactics reflects their social standing. Just as the KPD's "social fascism" idea was driven more by the needs of Moscow's bureaucracy than the interests of German workers, today's pseudo-left ideology mirrors the interests of a social class with a very different relationship to capital than that of the working class.
The fall of the Weimar Republic was not due to democracy being fragile, mass irrationality, or fascism being an inevitable historical force. Instead, it collapsed because the organised workers' movement was led by parties — one reformist, one Stalinist — that, for their own class-based reasons, refused to unite the working class in a revolutionary fight against capitalism. The key takeaway is not "defend liberal democracy" or "vote for the lesser evil," but that capitalism's crises lead to fascism.
Only revolutionary working-class mobilisation under genuine Marxist leadership can prevent this. This is the core task of the Fourth International — both then and now. In short, Hoyer's attempt to portray Weimar as a democratic success is ultimately a liberal ideological exercise. It aims to extract lessons about defending "liberal democracy" against modern populism, rather than the true historical lesson that, without a revolutionary Marxist party leading the working class to power, capitalism's crises breed fascism. Trotsky's lesson remains highly relevant today.
