Karl Liebknecht

“ The murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg is an event of world-historical significance not only because the best leaders of the true proletariat Communist International came to tragic deaths, but also because the class-character of the first State in Europe—without exaggeration, the first State in the world—has defnitely revealed itself. ”

“ The philosophy of Karl Liebknecht as revealed in these pages leaves but a narrow ledge for heroes to stand on. To him the significant thing in history is, and has always been, the stirring of the masses of men at the bottom, their unconscious writhings, their awakenings, their conscious struggles and finally their gigantic, fearsome upthrust, which overturns all the little groups of clever men who have lived by holding these masses down. In these conflicts, kings, priests, leaders, heroes count for no more than flags or flying pennants. ”

“ At this safe distance no one could be more "profitable company" than Karl Liebknecht as he stands up boldly against all that is powerful, respectable and [Pg 11] formidable in Germany and challenges it at the utter risk of life and reputation. Such courage as his is almost inconceivable; for us poor conforming or at best feebly protesting little people it is quite impossible. ”

“ In those days of disillusion, I remember well a conversation among a few of us concerning the plight of the Social Democracy. "The German government knew their Socialists well, and knew how best to reach them," declared one of our group. "There is one man in Germany, however, whom we shouldn't despair of, even now. If he is still alive, I cannot but believe that he will soon raise his voice against the course pursued by the German government and by his own party, and show the world that even in the land of utter darkness there still shines one light."
Liebknecht's record was open. ”

“ Look at what is happening in Germany to-day and test, as best we may, these two confronting theories concerning the influence of great men upon history. As I write Germany is in the throes of revolution. The immensely powerful Hohenzollern monarchy has fallen, the brave, stubborn, modern-witted, money-bolstered aristocracy is shattered, and a proscribed poor man, Karl Liebknecht, is loudly acclaimed. ”

“ Masses of men are [Pg 12] moved to vital historic decisions in part by economic motives, but these motives must first be converted into emotion, and the hero, however his own actions are motived, is one of the vital factors producing that emotion. We shall perhaps never know to what extent the present rising of the German people against their once invincible rulers was occasioned, though not caused, by their vision of Karl Liebknecht, standing there alone against all the judges, rulers, legislators and respectables of Germany, and even against his fellow socialists. ”

“ A marcher was killed in Leipzig; in Hamburg a number of demonstrators were wounded, and a policeman and a worker killed. At one of the largest meetings in the history of the Weimar Republic, Ernst Thälmann compared the murder of Sacco and Vanzetti to that of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. The playboy mayor of New York, Jimmy Walker, in Berlin on a visit, was booed as he entered the City Hall. Die Rote Fahne advised him to spend his vacation on Governor Fuller’s farm. ”

“ But it is painful for me to write these lines at a time when our radiant hope of previous days—the Socialist International—lies destroyed on the ground with a thousand expectations, when even many Socialists in the belligerent countries—for Germany is not an exception—have in this most rapacious of all wars of robbery willingly put on the yoke of the chariot of Imperialism, just when the evils of capitalism were becoming more apparent than ever. ”

“ SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE WAR MEETING OF THE PRUSSIAN ASSEMBLY, TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 1915
The Censor forbade the printing of the following speech in Germany. It is a clear analysis of the franchise question. Dr. Liebknecht also blames the personal régime and rule of Bureaucracy for the War. According to the Vorwärts reports, when Liebknecht began to speak the Free Conservatives, most of the National Liberals and the Centrum left the chamber in a demonstrative manner. ”

“ In 1912, during the Balkan crisis, the German Socialists had attended in force the great gathering of the International Socialist Conference at Basle, protesting in vigorous tones against the war, and many there were on that occasion who declared that even if danger of world war had not been entirely eliminated, the Social Democrats of Germany, the strongest of the International movement, were prepared to meet any emergency that might arise. ”

“ In general, the Lassalleans had their say in the programme of the new organization, much to the chagrin of Karl Marx in distant London, and the Eisenachers contented themselves with democratizing the form of party administration. The comparative ease with which agreement was reached is proof positive of the fact that the mere "moderation" of Lassalle's fundamental principles had never been the real reason for the revolt of Liebknecht and Bebel. ”

“ The high taxes which the German people have so far paid are insignificant compared to the great burdens which they must carry after the war, and for which their masters are daily preparing them with such touching delicacy of patriotic sentiment through the medium of the official press.
"The new Germany has the unquestionable right [Pg 132] to hold its tongue between its teeth. Recently our official press has been flooded by authoritative and pharisaic exhortations to soldiers' wives that they must, for God's sake, not complain so much about the scarcity of food. ”

“ In the Reichstag elections, these Social Democrats had cast four and a quarter millions of votes, while the labor unions, which in Germany worked hand and hand with the Social-Democratic Party, numbered no less than two and a half millions. ”

“ The cries of distress from the prisons and penitentiaries and places of misery which cannot reach the public will sound one fine day more clearly in the ears of those who now stop their ears and will help to wake up humanity to the only holy struggle known by us Social-Democrats,—for peace against war, against the capitalistic order of society, for Socialism! ”

“ The class struggle alone is the salvation of the proletariat and we hope that we will carry on very soon the class struggle in open international intercourse with the proletariat of all countries, even with those with whom we are at war. In this international class struggle rests not only hope for the democratization, for the political and economic emancipation, of the working class, but also the one hope for the mass of the people concerned even during the war. ”

“ Each Socialist Party has its enemy, the common enemy of the International, in its own country. There it has to fight it. The liberation of each nation must be its own work.
Only blindness can order the continuation of the slaughter until the "enemy" is crushed. The well-being of all nations is inseparably connected; the struggle of the organized working class can only be carried out internationally. ”

“ Thus shall the working classes of all the belligerent countries become conscious of the necessity to fight for a peace consistent with the principles of Socialism, a peace without conquest and without humiliation, a peace based not on hatred but on fraternity, not on force but on freedom, a peace which, because of its justice, may be everlasting. ”

“ Keep your mouth shut tight when your children are hungry, keep your mouth shut when your children want milk, keep your mouth shut when your children cry for bread, keep your mouth shut and write no letters to the front. ”

“ The nation which speaks first will not show weakness but strength. It will win the glory and gratitude of posterity. It is the duty of every Socialist at the present time to be a prophet of international brotherhood, realizing that every word he speaks in favor of socialism and peace, every action he performs for these ideals enflame similar words and actions in other countries, until the flames of the desire for peace shall flare high over all Europe. ”

“ From that follows the right and duty, especially now when Europe is buried in blood and murder, and sets on fire its culture and the flower of its humanity, to raise the demand for democratization of external politics, which can come only from democratic internal politics which can be nourished in the soil of a state democratic from head to foot. ”

“ In this discussion Liebknecht exposes the method and system of teaching in the higher schools of Germany and gives full play to his great courage. "The ideal classical education lies in the spirit of independence and humanity," he exclaimed. ”

“ To the proletariat, for the unsaved souls, this word cannot be applied. No miracle and no blessing from above can bring the proletariat into the wonderland, in which all the treasures and magnificence of the human soul are to be found. And when Dante's world-epic speaks about those unsaved souls who live without hope and longing, that is also not true of the proletariat. It does not live without hopes, but full of confidence. But the liberation of the working class cannot come from such motions as put by you to-day. ”

“ What could Liebknecht alone have done with all his ringing eloquence and all his superb, I almost said, sublime heroism? Clearly we must rule Carlyle out of the controversy and agree with Liebknecht, the Socialist, that Liebknecht, the hero, had little to do with this vast subversion.
Yet, as Carlyle says, "One comfort is, that Great Men, taken up in any way, are profitable company. We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon any great man, without gaining something by him." ”

“ Is it known to the Imperial Chancellor that during the present war in the United Turkish Empire the Armenian people were driven from their homes and slaughtered by the hundred thousands? What negotiations has the Imperial Chancellor undertaken with the United Turkish Government in order to bring about the necessary punishment, to alleviate the situation of the rest of the Armenian population in Turkey and to make the repetition of such horrors impossible? ”

“ To all this the working-class of all countries can give but one answer: a harder struggle, the international class struggle against the capitalist Governments and the ruling classes of all countries for the abolition of all oppression and exploitation by the institution of a peace conceived in the Socialist spirit. In this class struggle the Socialist, whose Fatherland is the International, finds included the defense of everything that he, as a Socialist, is bound to defend. ”

“ In Austria there is no possibility of discussing those things from the tribune of a Parliament. (Continued noise and shouts from the majority parties to finish the debate.)
Assemblyman Ströbel (Soc.-Dem.) : You make yourselves accomplices of those bloody sentences. (Again continued noise.)
Dr. Liebknecht, continuing: In a few months hundreds of years of hard labor were decreed and also the death sentence which I mentioned before, and which was pronounced by a military court on account of the poem I spoke of before. (Lively "Hear, hear!" from the Soc.-Dem. Commotion among the majority.) ”

“ We see all other classes in the war, and especially through the war, pursue unrestrained and without any compunction their class interests. We know that this war serves or will serve, if it will go according to the desire of the ruling class—the great capitalistic interests—the interest of the ruling classes in a particular way. Shall only the masses of the people wait until after the war? ”

“ By these Amendments you try to give an impression of wishing to throw open the road to education to the people also, but that is because Capitalism requires educated soldiers. You similarly replace the human losses in the war by giving commissions to non-commissioned officers because the dregs of the proletariat are required for service. ”

“ Never did the class character of the present society of the Prussian state reveal itself so rude and unmasked as right now. Nor do we have any occasion to postpone our demands for democratization at a time when the dangerous reaction of the inner autocracy upon the external policy shows itself so awful and dangerous, at a time which is really clamoring for the democratization of exterior politics. ”

“ I. The German Government is in its social and historical character an instrument for the crushing down and exploitation of the laboring classes; at home and abroad it serves the interests of junkerism, of capitalism, and of imperialism.
The German Government is a reckless champion of expansion in world politics, the most ardent promoter in the competition of armaments, and [Pg 138] accordingly one of the most powerful influences in developing the causes of the present war. ”

“ In spite of my wish to see what is going on behind me I am being carried away further and further. Several hundred thousand panic-stricken souls are rushing towards the streets and avenues that lead to the grounds. The scene is frightful. Every one is shouting. ”

“ Those who are seven times wise and whose weak souls are easily carried away by the whirls of diplomatic winds and lost in the gulfs of jingoism, say that the labor movement will no longer be international. ”

“ Liebknecht interjected, "Hypocrisy!" "We desire to have neighbors who will not again unite against us in order to throttle us, but with whom we can work to our mutual advantage," said the Chancellor. "Whereupon you suddenly fall upon them and strangle them—the invasion of Belgium," said Liebknecht coolly. This [Pg 117] sally caused another uproar, Liebknecht shouting out "Invasion" whenever he got the chance.
Towards the close of his speech the Imperial Chancellor declared that the peace which ends this war must be a lasting peace. ”