Internationalism No. 81, November 2025 Page 10 From the series Pages from the history of the workers’ movement In the Publisher’s Introduction to the writings by Paul Frölich, Rudolf Lindau, Albert Schreiner, and Jakob Walcher collected in Rivoluzione e controrivoluzione in Germania ( Revolution and counter-revolution in Germany ) [Pantarei, 2001], three fundamental themes characterising the German revolution are identified. The first theme focuses on the counterrevolutionary role of Social Democracy , and the counterrevolutionary awareness of men such as Ebert, Scheidemann, Noske, and other members of the government , who initially acted to appease the revolutionary attempt and then, when that proved insufficient, to crush it in bloodshed. The second theme is that of the generous energies expressed by the German proletariat . Here, the emphasis is on the spontaneous nature of the revolutionary wave, which er...