The short answer is that Germany figured out that allowing parliamentary reform (Bismarck's "Staatssozialismus" social programs) could sate organized labor enough to prevent a communist revolution, which is exactly what happened when the social democrats betrayed the communists. Russia was too little, too late with reforms. The Duma was obviously a sham, the elites were too out-of-touch and too used to crushing dissidents, and their devastated pre-industrial economy couldn't have offered many decent social programs anyway.
Indeed. It didn't help that the German SDP collaborated with bourgeois state to crush the workers revolt, whereas in Russia the Bolsheviks road that revolt into power. I think the key difference was the differing legal status of the workers parties. In Germany the SDP had been legalized. It's leadership was professionalized, and it as an institution had as much to lose as any other institution of the old order. The Russian socialists, meanwhile, saw their movement criminalized. Therefore, the party's leaders and membership had nothing to lose my going over the ledge into revolutionary chaos.
