Publisher Description:
div>Hoffrogge has done historians of the German Revolution and the Weimar Republic a valuable service by reconstructing the trajectory of a key figure in the revolution (and one of its most important early historians), and by enabling us to see these events through the different focus afforded by a leading protagonist of the workers' councils
--Andrew G. Bonnell, Labour History, Australia
"In this study of Richard M ller's role in the German Revolution, Ralf Hoffrogge sheds light on one of the most important, and yet understudied, aspects of the upheaval: the role of revolutionary shop stewards and workers' councils in the overthrow of the old order and the establishment of the new one... T]his work provides a much-needed perspective on the German upheaval from the bottom up. It places Richard M ller's long neglected role in the revolution at center stage, and reminds us of the revolutionary promise that was the German Revolution.
--William Smalldone, Against the Current
"Hoffrogge's biography differs from those written about revolutionary icons like Liebknecht or Luxemburg for very practical reasons. The latter were from middle-class backgrounds and used to writing letters and articles offering biographers insights into their political but also private lives. An ordinary worker like M ller did not leave comparable records...Hoffrogge's book is a first-rate invitation to think about a link between Richard M ller and the Revolutionary Shop Stewards and today's still unfocused struggles against imperialist wars and capitalist exploitation"
--Ingo Schmidt, WorkingUSA
The merit of Hoffrogge's contribution is a capacity to translate his extensive research into a wide-ranging historical analysis and narrative of the role of the Revolutionary Shop Stewards and Richard M ller.
--Dario Azzellini
Ralf Hoffrogge has authored an invaluable addition to the literature of German radicalism by detailing the life of one of the key leaders of the Revolutionary Shop Stewards.
--William A. Pelz
Ralf Hoffrogge ... explores the complicated relationship between the Stewards and the various socialist political parties with great skill and discusses the emergence of a new kind of socialism amongst M ller and his colleagues, which did not focus on state power and centralization but rather on grassroots democracy and workers' control, sometimes known as council communism.
--Dick Geary
This study deserves special consideration because it addresses two of the main puzzles of modern German history: how did a supposedly strong state collapse in 1917 and 1918, and how did the SPD subsequently assume power? Already in the 1920s, Arthur Rosenberg pointed out that the Social Democrats followed a dual tactic of propagating but also preventing revolution. By clarifying the roles played in all this by M ller and the shop stewards, Hoffrogge has moved the discussion forward, showing the way in which revolutionary unrest spread and forced the Social Democrats into a much more active role than they had previously adopted.
-Central European History |
