Richard Müller (socialist)

Born in a small village called Weira in the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, in what today is the German state of Thuringia, Müller left home and started working in the metal-industry after his father died in 1896.

The lathe-operators, however maintained a left wing viewpoint and criticized this nationalist turn of the socialist and trade union movement and started wildcat strikes.

Müller and the shop-stewards started secret conferences that involved Karl Liebknecht and his spartacist league but also some representatives of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) who had split from SPD because they opposed the war.

[4] Although the Berlin Coalition of Müller's revolutionary stewards, the spartacists and the USPD was the best-prepared group, the Revolution itself started spontaneously as a mutiny within the German war-fleet.

The shop-stewards, who were the only leftist group with a widespread network in the factories, called for a general strike and armed demonstrations formed to enter the city center.

But in fact power concentrated within the "Council of People's Representatives" (Rat der Volksbeauftragten), a revolutionary government dominated by Friedrich Ebert, leader of the Social Democrats.

They had to hand over executive powers to the Council of People's Representatives only two weeks after the revolution, and in the summer of 1919 Vollzugsrat was shut down by force after several strikes calling for socialization of core-industries were turned down as well.

During the strike Movement in March 1919 Richard Müller was strike-leader for the larger Berlin area and tried to build a united front of all working class parties, but failed.

[5] When the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was founded by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg on New Year's Eve of 1918, they tried to integrate Müller and the revolutionary stewards because of their credibility among workers and their widespread network within the factories.

Due to an Intervention of Lenin and Trotsky on the Third World-Congress of the Communist International they had to accept the re-integration of Müller and other critics into the KPD.

Prominent examples are the works of Arthur Rosenberg and Sebastian Haffner, two German historians who not only used Müller as a source but also discussed his conclusions.

[7] By the end of the 1920s Müller was an active member of the "Deutscher Industrieverband" (DIV), a small communist but anti-Stalinist union without party affiliation.

Phoebus built state-subsidized homes for working-class families and Richard Müller acted very successfully as director of the enterprise.