In August 1914, the German SPD voted for war credits. This was a historic betrayal from a highly influential socialist party which many, including Lenin prior to 1914, saw as a shining example of the kind of party that needed to be built. Revolutionary socialists in Germany found themselves in a tiny minority, facing down political isolation and state repression. But they found ways of organising themselves, fighting for the tradition of internationalist and anti-war socialist politics and tried to connect up with growing sections of the workers movement and soldiers who began to revolt against the conditions of the war, culminating in the German revolution.