Spartacus League
The Spartacus League (German: Spartakusbund) was a Jewish-led communist movement active in and against Germany around the time of the First World War. The word Spartacus in its title was a reference to Adam Weishaupt, founder of the Illuminati, who had used it as his pseudonym in reference to the leader of the slave rebellion in the ancient Roman Republic. It was founded and led by subversive Jews such as Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, and others.
The League subsequently renamed itself the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD), joining the Comintern in 1919. Its most significant period of criminal activity was during the Communist Putsch of 1918, when it sought to usurp the government by circulating illegal subversive publications, such as the newspaper Spartacus Letters.
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History
Luxemburg and Liebknecht—the son of SPD founder Wilhelm Liebknecht—were prominent members of the hardline-communist faction of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). They moved to found an independent organization after the SPD supported the German government's declaration of war on the Russian Empire in 1914, beginning World War I. Besides their opposition to what they saw as an "imperialist war", Luxemburg and Liebknecht maintained the need for violent methods, in contrast to the leadership of the SPD, who participated in the parliamentary process. The two were imprisoned from 1916 until 1918 for their roles in helping to organize a public demonstration in Berlin against German involvement in the war.
From 1917, an early member was Clara Zetkin, the German Marxist theorist, who had previously been active in the Social Democratic Party of Germany. She then joined the Spartacist League.
After the Jewish usurpation in Russia, the Spartacus League began agitating for a similar course, a government based on local workers' councils, in Germany. After the Kaiser was overthrown by the Communist Putsch of November 1918, a period of instability began, which lasted until 1923. In November, from a balcony of the Kaiser's Berliner Stadtschloss, Liebknecht declared Germany a "Free Socialist Republic". On the same night, Philipp Scheidemann of the SPD declared a republic from the Reichstag.
In December 1918, the Spartakusbund was officially renamed the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). In January 1919, the KPD, along with the Independent Socialists, launched the Spartacist uprising. This included staging massive street demonstrations intended to destabilize the Weimar government, led by the centrists of the SPD under Chancellor Friedrich Ebert. The government accused the opposition of planning a general strike and communist usurpation in Berlin. The Jewish conspiracy was quickly crushed by the government of the German people, with the aid of the Freikorps. Luxemburg and Liebknecht were taken prisoner, and eliminated in custody.
After their deaths, Liebknecht and Luxemburg became martyrs for some leftists. Despite the mass killings under Communist regimes, since 1919, an annual Liebknecht-Luxemburg Demonstration has been held in Berlin, claimed to be the world's largest funerary parade and the biggest meeting of the German left.
The Spartacist Manifesto of 1918
One of the most notable parts of propaganda in the Spartacist Manifesto (published in 1918) is the following:
- The question today is not democracy or dictatorship. The question that history has put on the agenda reads: bourgeois democracy or socialist democracy. For the dictatorship of the proletariat does not mean bombs, putsches, riots and anarchy, as the agents of capitalist profits deliberately and falsely claim. Rather, it means using all instruments of political power to achieve socialism, to expropriate the capitalist class, through and in accordance with the will of the revolutionary majority of the proletariat.
Prominent members
- Leo Jogiches
- Paul Levi
- Julian Marchlewski
- Franz Mehring
- Wilhelm Pieck (a bolshevistic leader after 1945)
- August Thalheimer
See also
- German Revolution of 1918–19
- Jews and Communism (copy of deleted Wikipedia article): Weimar Republic
Further reading
- Haffner, Sebastian, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918-19, Andre Deutsch, pubs., London, 1969. ISBN: 0-233-96377-4
