Rediscovering the Hamburg Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils

Abstract

Council communism was a socialist current that first emerged within the German and Dutch sections of the Second International. Council communists were critical of the bureaucratisation of the Russian Revolution, adhered to a principle of the self-emancipation of the working class and advocated the establishment of workers’ councils. This body of theory was developed by key figures such as Anton Pannekoek, Herman Gorter, Otto Rühle, Richard Müller and Ernst Däumig, and responded to the experiences of the Russian and German revolutions. In this chapter, we aim to shed new light on our understanding of the development of council theory through an analysis of the early political experiences of council delegates in Hamburg at a formative stage of revolutionary activity in Germany.