The legacy of the 1918 Revolution was scarcely less ominous on the right. Extreme violence against the left had been legitimized, if not encouraged, by the moderate Social Democrats; but this in no way exempted them from being a target themselves, as the Free Corps now turned on their masters. Many of the Free Corps leaders were former army officers whose belief in the 'stab-in-the-back' myth was unshakeable. The depth of the Free Corps' hatred of the Revolution and its supporters was almost without limit. The language of their propaganda, their memoirs, their fictional representations of the military actions they took part in, breathed a rabid spirit of aggression and revenge, often bordering on the pathological. The 'reds', they believed, were an inhuman pack of rats, a poisonous flood pouring over Germany, requiring measures of extreme violence if it were to be held in check.
Their feelings were shared to a greater or lesser extent by large numbers of regular officers, and by the vast majority of right-wing politicians. Scores of young students and others who had missed the war now flocked to their banner. For these people, socialists and democrats of any hue were no better than traitors - the 'November criminals' or 'November traitors' as they were soon dubbed...
-The Coming of the Third Reich, by Richard Evans
My thoughts on Biden had been that his presidency would have the appearance of halting the march toward fascism, while not addressing material conditions in any way, and acting as a sedative for half the country, leading to a runaway effect when the republicans take back the presidency. Being reminded of this, I'm now kinda worried that he (or Harris) would end up playing a more active role on the path to fascism. Does anyone with a better understanding of the history or theory have input on how applicable this might be under Biden?
He's not going to engage in active suppression of the right wing paramilitaries. At most, there will be some "both sides" laws passed that will 'strangely' only be applied to the left. Harris would be the same, although given her history her laws might be more effective (in a bad way).
Basically, what would need to happen to actually tamp down the impending civil war is a complete purge of the federal domestic law enforcement apparatus under Biden, and that's just not going to happen. Biden is a caretaker president, who just doesn't have the understanding of what the rising tide of fascism means (he spent the primaries talking about working across the aisle).
So, they'll indirectly enable the rise of fascism through fecklessness and an inability to envision actually doing what's needed.
closest I'd say is that a biden presidency would be analogous to the Hindenberg presidency, a paternal autocratic figure that's seen as a compromise between the liberals, social-fascists (socdems), and the more moderate reactionaries and conservatives of society who in turn hastened the collapse of the country into fascism by forming a popular front with the fascists themselves against the Reds.
Biden isn't really comparable to Hindenburg and the current US situation isn't comparable to 30s Weimar Germany. My point here is that this is how conservatives view "the left" - incapable of making distinctions, pathological bloodthirsty violent hatred, viewing even incredibly mild and timid reform as existenrially threatening and imperative to stop by any means.
Biden is a Pierce or Buchanan figure - conscious of the hyper-polarization of the country and completely unwilling and unable to do anything about it.
I roll my eyes every time someone talks about the Social Democrats from 100 years ago. Get over it. It's not 1918 anymore. Go outside. Conditions have changed. We've become just like evangelical religious zealots where the interpretation is only what's in front of us.
The betrayal of Rosa has literally no impact or interpretation to hold true today other life is absurd.
Edit : And before you call me a lib or a sucdem, understand, I want a better world for everyone, but I don't think circlejerking here incessantly about Rosa killers is good for anything or anyone. It's all just screaming into the void, no solutions but no catharsis either.
Edit: I'm just as lost as you are
Relitigating the SPD-KPD split is not my fucking point here. The Democrats aren't even remotely allegorical to SPD.
I get that Americans are faced with different conditions - there's still parallels, though and they're interesting to observe.
Besides that, the SPD is still around, it's actually part of my country's government and while they aren't sending the Freikorps after leftists anymore, a lot of the other flaws they had a hundred years ago still fully apply to them because they've learned absolutely nothing from their party's history and blame everything on communists and nebulous, idealist bs like "Weimar democracy not being stable enough". The SPD is still the party of the war bonds, not only in history, but in their present-day actions, having led Germany into the first wars since 1945 and being responsible for the German involvement in Afghanistan. They are still a party of class traitors, too. They not only suffer from the usual SocDem problem of stabilizing capitalism instead of overcoming it, they've transformed into neoliberal proponents of austerity policy who've dismantled large parts of the welfare state, have created the biggest low-wage sector in Europe and have drastically increased income inequality under the mantra of "social is what creates jobs". Olaf Scholz, their candidate for the next federal elections, is a corporate shill who not only prepared and covered up widespread police violence during the G20 summit in Hamburg, but also protects the banks behind the biggest tax fraud scheme in recent German history.
SPD hate is cool and good. Fuck Sozialdemokraten.
