The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 19, 1924, Page 7

ee ee SS ee ne ete, hee a Ra = psa z PETS 25 Bs =a KARL LIEBKNECHT, AFTER FIVE YEARS BY MAX SCHACHTMAN HE celebration of International Liebknecht Day on January 2%¢h' of this year brings again to the fore- | front the martyr of the revolution-! ary movement in Germany and one! of the foremost representatives of} the spirit of revolt and struggle that} is now leading the German working | class to the overthrow of capita!ism | and the inauguration of a soviet re=} public, } Of the five leading spirits in the early communist movement in Ger-| many, Luxemburg, Jog: hes, Mehr-: ing, Zatkin, and Liebknecht, the last was not the best equipped theore- tician. But Liebknecht was endowed with an unflagging devotion and a fearless passion for the fight of the workers against the capitalist mas- ters. When cowards flinched and traitors sneered, Liebknecht kept the red flag of revolution waving aloft. He was born in Leipzig m Au- gust, 1871; the same year in which his famous father, Wilhelm Lieb- knecht, was arrested cn the charge of high treason against the gov- ernmert. Karl studied first in Leip- . Zig, then in the university of Berlin, degree in political economy and law. In Berlin, after a period of organ- izing literary societies for the study of social problems, he became ac- quainted with the socialist move- ment. By his untiring efforts, he beeame one of the leading spirts in the party. He stoed strongly against any attempts of the revision- ists led by Bernstein to emasculate the class program of the socialists. Fights Militarism. It was thru his anti-militarist ac- tivities that Liebknecht became known all over the nation. In Sep- tember, 1906, he delivered a lecture on Militarism to a -conference of young people in Germany. The lee- ture was enlarged upon and printed as a After some time, the authorities confiscated the book, charged the author with high treason and after a farcical trial of three days found him guilty and had him sentenced to a year and a half im- prisonment. It was afterwards dis- covered that the Kaiser -had kept constantly im touch with the pro- ceedings of the trial by a special wire. Liebknecht declined to plead guilty and took the entire respon- sibility upon himself. Upon _hear- ing the sentence pronounced he said boldly: “The aim of my life is the over- throw of monarchy as well as the emancipation of the exploited work- ing class from political and economic bondage. As my father, who ap- peared before this court exactly 35 years ago to defend himself against the charge of treason, was ultimate- ly pronounced victor, so I believe the day not far distant when. the principles which I represent will be recognized as patriotic, as honor- able, ag true.” Elected to Landtag. Tn answer to the reactionary meas- ure of the government, the workers of Berlin elected him to the Prus- sian Landtag. There it was that from which he received his : floor of the chamber. Liebknecht_ represented the work. ers of Germany in other bodies. He | ‘wag their spokesman in the common council of Berlin. In 1912 the work- ers of Potsdam-Spandau selected him | to represent them in the i Reichstag. The joy of the workers all over the country was great, for Leibknecht had ined a reputation | of integrity, fearlessness and of be- | ing an uncompromi fighter. He been elected in machinations of In the Reichstag his voice rang out against the war intrigues of the militarists. He sed the arm- abolition of the monarchy and the substitution of a republic, at a time when merely entertaining of such an idea was considered heresy, and as a result he brought upon himself the most invectives of the supporters of the status quo. ‘ Against the War The story of Liebknecht’s part in the, war is too well known to detaii it here. When the Social Democratic faction in the Reichstag met to de- cide if they were to vote for war credits, Liebknecht’s was the single strong voice in the desert of vacilia- tion and treason. Where Haase councelled voting for them, and Kautsky advised fom abstemtion from voting, Liebknecht presented the is- sue clearly and demanded a straight vote against the war credits. “This war ig an imperialist war for domi- nation of world markets, and for the benefit of bankers and manufac- turers. It is also a war tending to destroy the growing labor movemen%. It is not a war for defense. , It is therefore our plain duty to vote against the war budget.” But the position of the social traitors carried in the caucus. So strong were the bonds of discipline that even Liebknecht voted for war crisis in the Social Democracy, wrote national at the conferences at Kien- letters from prison on the political thal and Zimmerwald. The “Junius” situation, signed Spartacus. When pamphlet, for example, is considered she, together with Liebknecht, was one of. the fundamental works of the released from prison, they organized Communist. International, along with the Spartacus Bund, which later be- Lenin’s Collapse of the Second Inter- eame the Communist Party. The national. Spartacists began an_ intensified! The international movement has campaign for the organization of grown more powerful. Its sections the workers for the struggle. | grow in power from day to day. The On the fifth of January, 1919, the great, powerful Communist Party of Rote Fahne, organ of the com- Germany stands now as the inheritor | munists, called for demonstrations. of the spirit of Liebknecht, ready to The masseg poured into the streets. carry on his work to a successful con- Liebknecht is seen everywhere. At clusion. first in the Sieges Allee, then in the| Today, in the face of the Hittlers, Alexander Platz, always surrounded the Ludendorffs, the Von Seeckts and by a bodyguard of red sailors from! the lesser lights of counter-revolu- Kiel with rifles and sabres in hand,| tion, the communists are gathering Liebknecht speaks to the masses with ' their forces, preparatory to flinging his clear incision. From the bal-| the decadent bourgeois order over cony in Alexander Platz, he speaks; the brink. The workers of Ger- to thousands, so do Ledebour, Dau-| many, who have met with so many mig and Eichhorn, who is deposed disappointments at the hands of the from police’ presidency of Berlin be-!| capitalists and the Social-Democrats, cause of his revolutionary stand.| are now turning to the leadership Arms are distributed to the workers, of the communists. nevertheless, just as he promised.| In the achievement of this great The revolutionary workers entrench task, the winning of the majority themselves in the Vorwaerts build-! of the working class which is the ing, the Boetzow brewery and be-' preliminary to a proletarian reyo- hind other barricades. But Ebert} lution, Karl Liebknecht must be set and Noske, the social-democrats are| down as one of the pioneers. The KARL LIEBKNECHT The Struggle for Power. The revolution which overthrew the Kaiser, effected the freedom Liebknecht. The compromises made by Ebert and Noske with the capi- the real revolution- aries that it Was necessary to have a revolutionary political ‘organiza- bon ig ig ¥, pen Cv Shag burg, who had written the foundation of the Communist Inter- of | 1919; Leo Jogiches was murdered in —- establishment of his splendid work and a final assurance that the mar- tyrdom of Liebknecht and the in- numerable fighters in the ranks was not futile, THE PENINSULA OF SOMALI- (Translated from Russian by Leonid Chatsky.) I remember that night and the dreary sand And the moon in the sky just above that land. I remember that I could not turn my eye | From > golden way in the glittering y. And that evening 2s soon as_ the Shadows grew long In my ears crept the sound of Som- ali’s war gong. Their leopard-like chief with a crown of red hair Was the bringer of death to the white and the fair. I knew well that at dawn would the arrows rain . And I and my slaves would have fought in vain. But I leoked at the moon and thought all the night, That there I would have no men to fight. When the morning came near and the moon sank low— Not more as a friend, but a scarlet CC foe— | it was clear to me that it was a shield Shining for the heroes who fell in the field. Then I ordered my slaves to with- draw and to run, And I bound my soul to my Win- ‘chester gun, —NICHOLAS SCUMILEV. famous’ “Junius” pamphlet on the massing monarchist troops on the outskirts of the city. In a move, the incipient revolution is erushed, Liebknecht and Luxem- berg are arrested. In a short while, the two brave leaders of the Ger- man working class are brutally mur- dered by sotted officers of the Horse Guards. These brave gentlemen shot the half-unconscious Liebknecht in the back in the darkest spot of the Charlottenburger Chaussee and bludgeoned and shot Rosa Luxem- ber, disposing of her body by throw- ing it into the Landwehr Canal. And ail this with the assent of the so- cial-democrats, whose official organ, the Vorwaerts, carried pretty little verses on vile deed. The mur- derers went scot free. Liebknecht and Luxemberg were murdered in Berlin on January 15, prison during the same _ year. Klara Zetkin remained the only outstanding leader of the revolution from the advent of the Spartacists to the present day. These revolutionists were mur- dered or died. They helped to lay the