MIA > Archive > Wilhelm Liebknecht > Voices of Revolt
It is now more than a quarter of a century since the death of Wilhelm Liebknecht, the great leader of the German workers.
The name of Liebknecht is so closely associated with the German workers’ movement, and with the revolutionary movement in Germany in general, that no other name can be compared with it. For the history of revolution in Germany has its tradition, has its forebears, as well as the history of revolution in other countries. Throughout the history of the last century of the revolutionary movement, we find the name “Liebknecht” emblazoned on all its pinnacles. Young Wilhelm Liebknecht was not only closely associated in his mental makeup with the unhappy leader of the Hessian movement for freedom — Weidig,[a] who was driven to insanity and death by a demented police magistrate — but we find the young Liebknecht fighting in the years following after 1848, on the barricades in Southern Germany; restlessness, illegality, police chicanery, numerous arrests, trials, sentences to fortress detention, regular imprisonment, flight and tribulations are the constant accompaniment of Liebknecht’s life; they recur in a rapid series and give evidence of the blessed path of thorns pursued by every true revolutionary. For a great portion of his life, Wilhelm Liebknecht spent periods in the same prisons into which Social-Democratic Ministers and Police Presidents are now incarcerating the revolutionary workers.
It was Ferdinand Lassalle[b] who awakened the German workers; it was Wilhelm Liebknecht who gathered and organized them and led them in two great crises: in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, he guarded them against nationalism; in the period of the Socialist Law,[c] he saved the very existence of the German workers’ movement — it was at that time that the energy inherent in a firmly built class-conscious party for the first time became apparent.
Wilhelm Liebknecht, the creator of the German Workers’ Party, a champion of the proletariat, never consented to be misled into the aberrations — not to mention the outright treasons — in which his successors have now been distinguishing themselves for decades in their attacks on the German workers’ movement. There are many points in which we can no longer agree with Liebknecht; times have changed, other methods are being used, we have new tactics. Even Liebknecht himself had occasion to note that one must sometimes change one’s tactics. No doubt Liebknecht’s writings and speeches already contain certain germs which were destined later to receive disastrous development. But who will undertake to prove that Liebknecht would not himself later have extinguished these germs?
Liebknecht’s struggle against parliamentarism, Liebknecht’s conviction that the great struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat must be fought out outside the Reichstag, in what will ultimately be open civil war, Liebknecht’s attitude toward imperialism and militarism, toward taxation and toward the class justice of the bourgeoisie, Liebknecht’s assertion of the necessity of a proletarian state, and his unconditional determination to have the proletariat conquer power, overthrow the bourgeoisie, and create an entirely new world — these are points of contact between us and Liebknecht. And while the bourgeoisie of to-day is once more fleeing back to the “glories” of January 18, 1871, because it no longer feels any creative power in its veins, we shall also return to the revolutionary Liebknecht of those years, the Liebknecht who at that early day outlined the forms of the bourgeois state. The speeches we offer in this selection were delivered in the heyday — as it were — of the German movement; they coincided with the turning points of Liebknecht’s life and reveal the entire essence of this revolutionary: his vigor and clarity, his critical acumen and dazzling eloquence, his boldness and irony, his readiness ever to take the offensive, his fearlessness, his faith in victory, and his unconditional determination to fight to the utmost. He never permitted himself to be intimidated; his was an indestructible nature; his words flowed smoothly from his lips; his sentences were sharply turned and flashed like rapiers; yet he was always perfectly easy to understand, without ever descending to vulgarity. Any sentence produced by Liebknecht can be recognized at once, and his speeches remain to this day as living, as fluent, as vehement and as rich in topic interest, as if the speaker’s voice could still be heard in our ears. The spirit of this dead man is so close to us, the truth of most of his words is still so unimpeachable, that there seems to be a secret point of contact somewhere between him and those who still live, a point that does not touch, however, those who call themselves his heirs, but are no longer interested in his work, and in whose ears each one of his words must sound like bitter irony. One of the last few pages of this small collection contains the words: Shouts of “bravo” from the Social Democrats; I regret to say that at the present time no Social Democrat would join in this shout, for the times have changed. But old Wilhelm Liebknecht still shouts to us from his grave: “Be ever brave soldiers of the revolution.”
Kurt Kersten.
[a.] Weidig, Friedrich Ludwig (1791-1837): One of the associates of Georg Büchner (1813-1837), in the organization of a revolutionary movement in Hessia in 1835. After his imprisonment, it was announced that he had committed suicide by cutting open his veins with pieces of glass, but a later investigation made it seem probable that he had died of physical maltreatment at the hands of persons in the jail.
[b.] Lassalle, Ferdinand (1825-1864): One of the founders and leaders of the organized German labor movement; a volume of this series is devoted to selections from his speeches and writings.
[c.] Socialist Law: A series of measures adopted by the German Government in 1878 to put down the Socialists, and continued in force until 1890. Sponsored by Bismarck, these measures resulted in much hardship to the workers, but strengthened the movement in general. See Franz Mehring: Social Forces in German History, 1928.
Last updated on 30 July 2023