Last year marked the hundredth anniversary of Germany’s 1918 November Revolution, which gave rise to the Weimar Republic. Though hopes of socialist revolution in these years were dashed, the centenary offers an opportunity to recall the radical tendencies present in the German workers’ movement and especially the Communist Party (KPD) at the time. It is particularly worth paying attention to otherwise forgotten militants, especially when their work can help us respond to current strategic dilemmas on the Left. Ernst Meyer (1887-1930), KPD chairman during its early years, is one of those figures.

Meyer was part of a revolutionary Marxist current strongly present in KPD during its early years. After the failed, isolated attempts at insurrection that had marked the post-1918 period, this current believed in the necessity of a Communist Realpolitik — a hard-nosed, practical approach to realizing Communist aims under unfavorable circumstances. They saw themselves as German Leninists in the tradition of Rosa Luxemburg, and tried to combine struggles for reforms within capitalism with the goal of overcoming it through revolution. They advocated for a united-front policy towards the Social Democrats (SPD) and trade unions, a truly democratic centralism in the KPD, and a degree of independence from Moscow.

Ernst Meyer’s memory has faded even more than other personalities associated with this heterogeneous group such as Paul Levi, Clara Zetkin, Heinrich Brandler, and August Thalheimer. Yet in the 1920s he was an outstanding exponent of this current — and a key theorist of revolutionary Realpolitik.