LIEBKNECHT, KARL (1871–1919)

Socialist agitator and a founder of the German Communist Party.

Karl Liebknecht was the son of Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900), a prominent leader of the socialist movement from its beginnings in the 1860s. Karl Liebknecht studied jurisprudence at the universities of Leipzig and Berlin and completed his doctoral degree in 1897 (Würzburg). After qualifying as an attorney in private practice, Karl and his brother, Theodor, established their own law firm, and Karl earned renown as an able defender of political radicals in high-profile trials. His public role as a socialist politician began when he won a seat on the Berlin city council (November 1901), and subsequently he was elected to the Prussian state parliament (1908), a victory notable for the fact that it occurred while he was serving a prison sentence for high treason. In 1903 and 1907 he campaigned unsuccessfully for a Reichstag seat in the extremely conservative district of Potsdam-Spandau-Osthavelland but emerged victorious there in the election of January 1912.

Liebknecht sought to advance the cause of socialism by emphasizing particular issues—antimilitarism, the youth movement, anti-tsarism, and Prussian suffrage reform—and routinely promoted radical policies unacceptable to the Social Democratic leadership. In vain he urged Social Democrats to launch a vigorous fight against militarism, including the dissemination of propaganda in the army and navy. He addressed his antimilitarism directly to youth, especially as one of the founders of the Socialist Youth International (1907), and presented a comprehensive exposition of his arguments in Militarism and Antimilitarism (Militarismus und Antimilitarismus, 1907). Legal authorities used this publication as the basis for charging Liebknecht with high treason, for which he was tried (October 1907), convicted, and sentenced to eighteen months' fortress detention. Despite incarceration, Liebknecht continued his attacks on tsarism and his demands for Prussian suffrage reform, advocating the use of a general strike to effect changes in the electoral system. Regardless of Liebknecht's public prominence, his radical positions tended to isolate him from the other Social Democratic leaders.

The outbreak of World War I (1 August 1914) confronted international socialism with a major crisis. For years Liebknecht had demanded that socialists do everything possible to prevent and oppose war. However, when the German government immediately requested additional funds, the vast majority of the socialist deputies supported the credits. Liebknecht and thirteen other deputies argued unsuccessfully that the party should reject any action that implied support of the war. In the end, however, the radical minority also submitted to party discipline and the whole delegation voted for the war credits (4 August 1914). Nonetheless, as annexationists voiced their expansionist aims, Liebknecht and like-minded opponents of the war formed the International Group, which later evolved into the Spartacist League (Spartakusbund). Even then Liebknecht still stood alone, as he cast the only vote against the second war credits bill (2 December 1914), an act that, along with his inflammatory speeches, made him anathema to the great majority of Social Democratic deputies. Party leaders prohibited him from speaking in the name of Social Democracy and in effect expelled him from the delegation (February 1915). A few days later the government, wishing to silence him, drafted Liebknecht into the army, but he would not be silent and during the same year published The Class Struggle in War (1915; Klassenkampf gegen den Krieg), a telling exposure of militarism, capitalism, and the war. In February 1916 Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring, and others in the International Group founded the Spartacus Letters (Spartakusbriefe) to disseminate their critique of the war. At a huge antiwar demonstration in Potsdam Square in Berlin on the evening of 1 May 1916, Liebknecht, wearing his military uniform, spoke passionately against the war. Within hours he was arrested, tried for high treason, and sentenced to prison for a total of four years, six months. He did not serve the full term but was released from prison on 23 October 1918.

Liebknecht immediately threw himself into the revolutionary turmoil, and on 9 November 1918, impulsively but ineffectively, declared the birth of a German socialist republic. He refused in any way to collaborate with the provisional government led by the majority Social Democrats and turned his back on all parliamentary institutions. Instead he called for a government based on workers' and soldiers' councils—influenced by the Bolsheviks—and then played a leading role in transforming the Spartacist League into the German Communist Party (30 December 1918–1 January 1919). Consistent with his impetuous nature, he joined fully in the ill-advised call on 5 January 1919 for an insurrection to overthrow the government. Within days the infamous right-wing Freikorps brutally suppressed the uprising, and on 15 January Liebknecht and Luxemburg were captured, severely beaten, and murdered.

Liebknecht left essentially a one-dimensional legacy. The manner of his death raised him, along with Luxemburg, to the pantheon of Communist martyrs. Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and the Russian communists embraced Liebknecht's heritage because it contained nothing, in contrast to that of Rosa Luxemburg, that in any way challenged their actions or ideology. The former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) celebrated Liebknecht's work as a foundation on which that state was built. Although Liebknecht wrote extensively, theory was not his strength. His chief contribution to the history of socialism lay in his unquestioned courage as an agitator and man of action, whether in the courtroom, in speaking fervently to crowds and demonstrators, or addressing parliament with provocative proposals.

See alsoLuxemburg, Rosa; Spartacists; Zetkin, Clara .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Liebknecht, Karl. Gesammelte Reden und Schriften. 9 vols. Berlin, 1958–1971.

Secondary Sources

Meyer, Karl. Karl Liebknecht: Man without a Country. Washington, D.C., 1957.

Trotnow, Helmut. Karl Liebknecht: A Political Biography. Hamden, Conn., 1984. Makes an argument, not entirely persuasive, that Liebknecht was motivated far more by ideals of humanity and justice than by Marxism.

Wohlgemuth, Heinz. Karl Liebknecht: Eine Biographie. Berlin, 1973. A work that reflects much of the official view of Liebknecht in the former German Democratic Republic and stresses his significance for that state.

Vernon L. Lidtke