ABSTRACT
The most obvious consequence of the revolution was the advent of democracy in Germany. The revolutionary governments rejected not only the soviet model, but the Anglo-American one as well. Villages, cities, counties and districts did not become politically autonomous units within a federal Prussia. The revolution left unaltered the basic features of Germany’s rural economy. Although the revolutionaries promised far-reaching land reform, changes in the district’s agriculture were modest. The revolution promoted the secularization of German society by severing some of the institutional ties between church and state. The new Prussian government took steps toward eliminating the organic unity of the posts of village schoolteacher and sexton-organist. The revolution of 1918 introduced a political democratization that would have appeared wildly radical not only to most nineteenth century German liberals, but to their counterparts in England and, indeed, to many contemporary democrats in the United States as well.
