Working-Class Politics in the German Revolution

Reviews / Votes

"[Ralf Hoffrogge's] biography of Richard Mueller is [...] far removed from the old fashioned "great-men-make-history" interpretation of high-political notoriety; instead, the political life of the protagonist is firmly located within the dynamics of a mass-based social movement "from below." As the author points out, the failures of the man derives from the failures of the movement. But we also learn a great deal about Richard Mueller as a "forgotten revolutionary" and the Revolutionary Shop Stewards (RSS) as a "forgotten movement," as well as why he was forgotten".
- Norman LaPorte, "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed and Something Blue": Recent Literature in Communist Studies, in Moving the Social: Journal of Social History and the History of Social Movements, Vol 55 (2016): pp. 120-123.

"Hoffrogge's biography differs from those written about revolutionary icons like Liebknecht or Luxemburg for very practical reasons. The latter were from middle-class backgrounds and used to writing letters and articles offering biographers insights into their political but also private lives. An ordinary worker like Mueller did not leave comparable records. [...] For a book that is not about Mueller the great individual but about one worker as first among equals, this absence of detailed private records is actually quite apt. It reflects workers' subordinate position in capitalist societies. What made these equals, the Revolutionary Shop Stewards, so interesting is that they had a capacity to mobilize rank-and-file workers in large numbers because, unlike many of the Spartacists, they worked alongside them and knew when they were ready for action, but also when they were hesitant, anxious, or subdued. Hoffrogge's book is a first-rate invitation to think about a link between Richard Mueller and the Revolutionary Shop Stewards and today's still unfocused struggles against imperialist wars and capitalist exploitation."
Ingo Schmidt, Coordinator of the Labour Studies Program at Athabasca University, in: WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society, September 2015, Volume 18.3: 525-528.

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(Ma Jiahong, Issues of Contemporary World Socialism, Sept 2016, issue 3, pp.119-122)

"Ralf Hoffrogge is especially successfully in describing how a group of ordinary working men, who in no way began as revolutionaries but rather as trade unionists fighting to defend workers' living standards, nonetheless built up the only network which was able to bring workers on and off the streets [...] during the revolutionary upheavals. He explores the complicated relationship between the Stewards and the various socialist political parties with great skill and discusses the emergence of a new kind of socialism amongst Mueller and his colleagues, which did not focus on state power and centralisation but rather on grassroots democracy and workers' control, sometimes known as council communism."
Dick Geary, Emeritus Professor of Modern History, University of Nottingham, UK

"The merit of Hoffrogge's contribution is a capacity to translate his extensive research into a wide-ranging historical analysis and narrative of the role of the Revolutionary Shop Stewards and Richard Mueller. [...] In addition to the great historical importance of Hoffrogge's work, the study of the subject will also play an important role for contemporary debates about the road to socialism."
Dario Azzellini, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Linz, Austria

"Ralf Hoffrogge has authored an invaluable addition to the literature of German radicalism by detailing the life of one of the key leaders of the Revolutionary Shop Stewards. Mueller and his comrades provide an interesting contrast to more well known supporters of Social Democracy and Communism within the German workers' movement."
William A. Pelz, Director of the Institute of Working Class History, Chicago, USA