ABSTRACT
On 19 January 1919, four days after the suppression of the Spartacist uprising, voting took place across Germany for the election of a new constituent National Assembly. A total of 76.1 per cent of German voters opted to support the pro-republican parties (MSPD 37.9 per cent, Catholic Centre Party 19.7 per cent and the left-liberal DDP 18.5 per cent). The outcome was a defeat for the right-wing, anti-republican DNVP (10.3 per cent) but also for the socialist USPD (7.6 per cent), and for socialism more generally. The victors, and in particular the leaders of the MSPD, were moderates who were more interested in building bridges with representatives of the old order than in changing the course of world history. Certainly they were no admirers of Lenin and balked at any radical break with the past. Yet on the surface at least, the revolution had achieved some important progressive goals, for instance the granting of female suffrage, the abolition of the unfair three-class franchise in Prussia and other federal states, legal recognition of the right to strike, and above all an end to the war. Law and order had meanwhile been upheld, and famine averted. The work of government-backed demobilisation committees at state, regional and local level also allowed for a relatively smooth reintegration of veterans into the post-war economy. Male unemployment at first remained at surprisingly low levels, not least because large numbers of women (and ex-POWs and foreign civilian labourers) were forced out of temporary wartime jobs to make way for the returning soldiers. 1
