<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[the commune]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://thecommune.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[ilyajurenkov]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://thecommune.wordpress.com/author/ilyajurenkov/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[the origins of the movement for workers&#8217; councils in&nbsp;germany]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p>Ninety years ago the German working class unseated the Kaiser and the military establishment with a series of strikes and mutinies which brought World War I to a close.</p>
<p>Conscripted sailors and soldiers created strike committees, and then joined with industrial workers to create workers&#8217; councils akin to the soviets which existed during the Russian revolution. These enjoyed extensive working class participation and in some cities held power: but over the subsequent five year revolutionary wave the working class was time and again crushed by the Social Democrats and the right-wing troops it could call upon to defend capital.</p>
<p>For our latest pamphlet we have reprinted a seventy-year old pamphlet on the workers&#8217; council movement produced by the Dutch GIK (Group of International Communists) accompanied by the autobiography of leading GIK member Jan Appel (a participant in the revolution and the commandeering of a ship) along with a chronology of the German revolution.</p>
<p><strong>Printed copies cost £1 each &#8211; email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com or write to The Commune, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London EC1V 4PY.</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://thecommune.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/germany1918.pdf">click here for pdf</a></p>
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