Max Weber and the November Revolution of 1918 in Germany; or, Why Bolshevism Had No Chance in the West

Abstract

Among the canonic genres of the modern social-philosophical and social-scientific thought, in German sociology and social theory of the 20th century, there is a special type of research called “the diagnosis of the era” (Zeitdiagnose), i.e. the analysis of a specific historical situation. Max Weber’s articles, publications and speeches in the last years of the war and first post-war years are an excellent example of such an application of the social-theoretical knowledge for the diagnosis of the modernity. The article considers Weber’s political and social diagnosis of the time in his articles of 1917-1919 on the post-war reorganization of Germany on democratic principles. The author focuses on Weber’s assessment of the ways of the political and social development of Germany after the defeat in the World War I and the November Revolution of 1918. The article also analyzes Weber’s proposals on the reform of the political and electoral system of the German Empire and considers Weber’s views on the prospects for a socialist revolution in Central Europe after the end of World War I on the model of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia. The final part of the article provides a generalized assessment of the theoretical scheme that Weber applied in the analysis of the events and processes of the November Revolution of 1918 in Germany, and identifies its significance for understanding the historical fate of the modern world.