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A translation of a speech by Wilhelm Liebknecht a prominent Socialist leader in 19th century Germany. The contents of the speech are an attack on nationalism, militarism and capitalist morality and an appeal for international brotherhood and social revolution. It covers and criticizes early industrial capitalism and Bourgeois society for its failures to solve social issues and argues coherently that on the contrary they are often the root causes of these problems, from poverty to political violence.
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On Offence and Defence
A Speech by Wilhelm Liebknecht
(1871)
Introduction
Wilhelm Liebknecht was an important figure in the history of German socialism, he was amongst the first generation of socialist politicians who founded the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). And it was partially thanks to his activity that the SPD grew from a small sect into a large political party with a mass following. Despite this he’s often been overshadowed throughout much of his life. The early period of his political activity is dominated by the personalities of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Ferdinand Lassalle all of whom he had met while moving through the German labour movement that spanned much of Europe.
And his legacy has been overshadowed by the life and death of his son Karl Liebknecht, who followed in his fathers footsteps to be a leading figure in the SPD before its Imperial turn to support the conflict that became the First World War shattered his faith in the party. Karl would be a prominent figure in the 1918 German revolution alongside Rosa Luxemburg, both where murdered by right wing military officers in January 1919, with the support of a government dominated by SPD politicians.
This speech was given during what might be called the height of German Social Democracy, its membership and affiliated associations continued to grow despite repressive legislation by the Bismarck cabinet and its speeches and pamphlets openly talked about revolutionary change. It was translated into Esperanto in 1913 by W.C. Nutters, and this translation that I have used to create this English version. The speech was dated 1871, but I believe this to be a mistake passed on some remarks Liebknecht makes within, though the best I can do to place it is in middle 1870s. Since I’ve not been able to conclusively prove when this speech was given I’ve kept the 1871 date, if nothing else I know for certain that this speech couldn’t have been given before 1871.
The speech covers many topics and is an appeal to the workers of Germany to get behind the program of the SPD and support social revolution. It touches on the Prussian wars to unite Germany and defends the record of several workers uprising that had broken out before, especially that of the Paris Commune.
Wilhelm Liebknecht was himself a participant of the wave of revolutions that rocked Europe throughout 1848-9. Though in a minor capacity, he went to Paris after hearing about the uprising in February but arrived to find a lull, the July Monarchy of the House of Orleans had fallen, and the new Republic was at the time stable and enjoyed the support of many of France’s socialist politicians. Shortly after he joined a column of exiled Germans who were marching into the German states (this was before the unification of Germany in 1871) to spread revolution there. Liebknecht was arrested and charged with treason in Baden, fortunately the revolution did arrive in Baden just after Liebknecht, the prison was stormed and the prisoners were released.
After the revolutions of 1848 had been defeated Liebknecht lived in the German exile community in Switzerland, before being expelled for trying to build a mass socialist movement in that country. He ended up in London, becoming acquainted with Karl Marx and would remain a close colleague and drinking companion of Marx for many years. He returned to German territory in 1862 after an amnesty for 1848 revolutionaries was passed.
Having returned to German territory Liebknecht joined or founded over a dozen socialistic organisations and wrote for a number of socialist newspapers including Der Social-Demokrat (The Social Democrat), Der Volksstaat (The People’s State) which he also edited and Vorwärts (Forwards) which he also published in 1876. His journalism got him into trouble with the authorities on several occasions. Most relevant to this speech was the 1872 treason trial of Wilhelm Liebknecht and his party colleague August Bebel, the trial was prompted by their opposition to the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and demand for the working classes to launch revolutionary warfare against their own governments instead of supporting a blood letting for land, plunder and supposed “glory”.
This speech does touch on some of that material which Liebknecht made in speeches and in newspapers articles during that conflict. I suppose its worth noting that Liebknecht and Bebel’s position on war is the opposite of what would become the SPD’s policy in the beginning of the 20th century, where the SPD was both the largest party in Germany and an increasingly active collaborator in German Imperialism. There were still SPD members willing to take a Wilhelm Liebknecht line in 1914-18, one of which was his own son Karl, but when they aired their views the party itself acted like the German Imperial courts, accused them of treason and forced them out into the margins.
With that and the two year sentences to imprisonment in a fortress both men received in mind, I would speculate that the earliest this speech could’ve appeared was 1873. Beyond the war commentary the speech expands to include fighting on the social plan and covers many topics about contemporary industrialised capitalist society, usually Liebknecht uses the rhetorical device of turning hostile arguments on their head. The remarks on sex work and women in general wouldn’t earn him any awards from the 19th century feminist movement and certainly not from our current movement. But beyond that I would say the speech has aged fairly well. Its arguments against the morals of capitalist society and the priorities of the State remain current for the most part. The main weakness of the speech reading after the fact is that Liebknecht is clearly a true believer in the politics he promotes and he was certain that the socialist transformation would be close at hand. Which unfortunately hasn’t happened yet, I hope that this pamphlet will give us some incite into why that was the case, and how we might go about changing that.
Reddebrek
ON OFFENCE AND DEFENCE
Friends!
The great leader of Democratic Germany, Johann Jacoby, said in his famous speech concerning the goal of the labour movement that “The founding of the smallest workers society will be of more importance to the future historian than the battle of Sadowa1”.
If he were speaking at the present moment then he could’ve added: “And more important than all the Triumphs and Cavalry manoeuvres of the Master’s Bonaparte and Bismarck”. Yes, the founding of the most insignificant societies of workers is more important to working civilisation than all heroes, which the militarists and monarchs of Europe have named on the field of honour or will name in the future. Among the leagues of workers ideas about a New Time are born and grow – and it is here that solution are being prepared to the urgent questions that trouble our epoch – while the hands of soldiers hold only killers to defend the creations of the past. Every Labour Union is a school for human liberty – a piece of the world to come, penetrating like a crack into the world of now, to blow apart this one.
Today two worlds stand hostilely against the each other. The world of the possessors against the world of the dispossessed – the world of Capital and the world of Labour – the world of the suppressors and the world of the suppressed – the world of the Bourgeoisie and the world of Socialism – two worlds with opposing goals, ideals and perspectives – two worlds which cannot exist at the same time, one must cede ground to the other.
During this last war2, under the light of burning villages and cities, these two worlds contrasted with sharp contours – here, the defenders of the old world, spitting hatred and contempt at the neighbouring people; praising wholesale slaughter of the people as the highest goal; inciting by all means the passions; pouring a sea of blood upon an altar of a senseless fatherland. - There, on the other hand, stands the fighters for the new world, calm against the savage flow, quiet amidst the national delirium, immovable in the face of reproaches and persecutions, and proudly responding to the feverish adversaries.
What seems to you to be the most sacred duty, is to us completely senseless. What you praise is to us against reason and against justice. The person who lives on the other side of the border is as human as us. The peoples are a brotherhood and will one day love each other, instead of tearing themselves apart. Death is death, even if the killed speak another language or wear multicoloured clothes. Death is a crime, and a crime does not cease to be a crime if it is done wholesale. What you call glory! Is what we think is wrong; what you call honour is for us dishonour; victory, which you celebrate is for us the triumph of barbarism. The war is a sin to the sacred spirit of humanity, and misfortune for victor and vanquished alike.
The word “Fatherland” which flies so abundantly from your mouth has for us no charm. “Fatherland” in your sense is to us a reactionary and countercultural idea. Our fatherland is the whole Earth: “ubi bene ibi patria [Where it is well with me, there is my country] what you call a homeland is for us only a place of misery – a prison – a hunting ground on which we are the game being hunted. You despise us as “homeless” but you yourself made us homeless. Isn’t it strange that you who boast of your Christianity, rebuke us for not being “Nationalistic”? Is it not the greatest merit of Christian religion that it transforms the national God of the Hebrews into a God for all peoples; so- in modern times – overturned the principle of nationality, and replaced any national thought with international thought? You only defend prejudices and egoism – the interests of humanity demand the break down of what you honour. Your triumphs only hasten your ruin – in the celebration of your triumph we heard the death longing of your narrowness.
Silent in astonishment, the opponents saw the unexpected scene, and heard the strangely sounding speech of the new world. Certainly the number of those who protested in the name of humanity was insignificantly small, and that small number consisted almost exclusively of workers – pariahs of the present society. But could it be any other way? Is it not always the downtrodden who take care of the sacred fire of the liberty and humanity? Misery is the best, no it is the sole teacher of humanity: to the weak ones it becomes a prayer; the strong character learns by it to us his strength and dream of liberty, and to act for his liberation. Yes it is in our time the workers who, forced by misery have given themselves to working for liberation, just as in the Middle Ages it was the peasants who preached the gospel of freedom and equality; and, just as in the beginning of our age from the midst of the poor and their suffering that the Christian movement was born.
***
Because: it is not the first time that two worlds have stood against each other. In the 18th century when the Bourgeoisie was still politically subordinated, that same bourgeoisie constructed its own morality in opposition to the morality of the existing morals; - the new conquers the old. This moral triumph was followed soon after by the material victory – the French Revolution.
But history has still yet a more striking example. Here is the Roman Imperium at the height of its power. Nothing can be subjugated any more, all the countries of the world then known are under the yoke. Powerful people revel in unparalleled luxury; - People perish in darkened slavery … Then suddenly the consciousness of the oppressed mass rises; a movement is born; in the beginning the powerful underestimated and mocked it; but little-by-little, they became worried, and started to fear, and then began the most abominable and cruel persecution. But that only created martyrs, and they only strengthened the movement, which they wanted to suffocate. The feared are forbidden “enemies of State and Society” – they were called the Christians – meeting … and here they meet in catacombs. The most horrible tortures are discovered, they are handed over to martyrdom; vainly, they cannot frighten them, and in the most terrible pains sympathetically at the foolish barbarians, who think that they can stifle a just idea! - “If our cause is sacred, than you cannot kill it, but if it is not sacred than it will perish without you!” they shouted to their tormentors, and with joy, and sure of their coming victory they went to the dungeon.
“If our cause is sacred” this means in modern words, if our cause is in the true interests of humanity, than it cannot be destroyed by violence. But if it is against those interests, then it will perish from its own flaws, without the need of a suppressing force.
Well, what was the use of the Lion’s claw, the cross, or the crematorium and the other martyrs? The Evolution of the Human Conscience marshes ever onward: Christianity vanquished every kind of paganism, the new world ruined the old!
We point out here that we do not at all believe in the customary traditions of so-called original Christianity; nor do we regard our present civilisation as being the result of Christianity. It is easy to prove that from the moment Christianity became the religion of the State, all material and spiritual progress of Mankind has found Christianity against itself.
The downfall of Ancient Paganism was followed by a long dark night for humanity. Christianity became the religion of the State, and drew further and further away from the principles that guaranteed its triumph. It turned itself into a tool of oppression. But humanity does not allow itself to be halted. The ideas of liberty, equality, fraternity have not died, but are always growing underneath the surface of society. Vainly did the church try to chain the free spirit; in vain it established the Inquisition. It could burn bodies, but from the cinders these eternal ideas arose Phoenix like upon undamaged wings.
Hundreds of thousands of heretics were slain or crippled, the tyrants seemed victorious, but in the end it was the heretics who defeated their judges. Reformation broke the power of Papism, and today social evolution no longer concerns itself with the powerless “infallible” Pope.
Certainly, one who is able to understand can conclude from the history of religious persecution that it is madness to try to turn the wheel of human progress. Just as the judges of heretics in the Middle Ages are judged by the tribunal of Mankind, so are some of the present judges, - who believe that they can smother with police power the new thought of Socialism. And just like how the heretics of the Middle Ages defeated their tormentors, so shall the modern heretics of today triumph over their Judges and accusers of today. Or is it believed that our ideas have less vitality than martyred Christianity? Vain nonsense!
***
The Bourgeois world against socialism today plays a similar role as the descending Roman world against rising Christianity. Once again human consciousness rebels against a crude materialism, which treats people as cattle or merchandise. And just as before it is the poor and damned of the earth where the seeds of a new world first sprout.
However, there is also an important difference, Socialism is not opposed to science, on the contrary it finds an irreversible backing in it, although the present proponents of science are for the most part loyal servants of the God Mammon! Socialism is not just a matter of feeling, but also of knowledge; it supports itself with a clear understanding of social relations. It has a concrete program for the recreation of society. The Socialist feeling has the same as the that of the first Christians. The mere feeling has already made Christianity irresistible – so how hopeless is the battle against Socialism? Which has the emotional strength of Christianity and above that the knowledge base of Science! If the word religion can be misunderstood then we should say: “Socialism is religious and scientific at the same time”. Evolving in the head and the heart of the workers, socialism cannot be destroyed by cunning, nor violence, nor even by argument. The seed of Socialism lives in every worker, whether consciously or unconsciously, strongly or weakly. And this seed, the seed of the next world, is immortal. Against it denial will be useless, as will closing eyes, persecution and slaughter! The movement fulfils itself with the inevitability of the Law of Nature! Opposition can only strengthen it, just as opposition strengthens Christianity.
Socialism has its martyrs, just like Christianity. And should thousands or hundreds of thousands more be killed than Socialism would not be hampered on its way to its final triumph, just as everything done to oppose Christianity failed pitifully. From the blood of every martyr arise a hundred more fighters; the growing danger will steel their courage: whoever made a treaty with Death is certain of victory!
***
Let us turn for a moment to France, that great political and social test, where a few years ago the great drama of the Commune was played3. The socialist proletariat of Paris, for one moment the masters of the situation, after a gigantic fight were defeated by the combined French and Prussian armies. 40,000 workers were killed during the fighting and afterwards, an equal number were arrested and sent to perish in unsanitary prisons, dungeon ships and the poisonous vapours of the Cayenne swamps, the dry Guillotine. What a cry of joy by the defenders of the Old World! The social problem was driven out of the world! Socialism in the bodies of 80,000 workers, was killed!
Socialism murdered? One must have a weak memory. Just 23 years before Paris was the scene of a similar drama, no less grandiose, though a little less comprehensive. After the February revolution4 the re-triumphant Bourgeoisie killed 12,000 workers and sent another 12,000 to Cayenne…. Ceaselessly did the Bourgeoisie crow with joy about the defeat of Socialism. Society was saved, with all of its dependencies: family, property, and heaven knows what else the Bourgeoisie likes to honour with words, but in practice kicks and covers in shame.
Socialism was dead! 22,000 people, - whom the educated brains of the journalists have discovered many beautiful names for, bandits, arsonists, modern Barbarians etc. - 22,000 socialists were killed, 22,000 were on their way to the dry guillotine – who could still believe in the future danger? Socialism was lifeless and interred, above the cadavers the earth hardened. How could Socialism revive itself?
Time passed. The Republic was soon put in a tomb next to Socialism, atop the two tombs Napoleon built his throne – so how could lifeless Socialism reawaken? “Blood and killers” reigned; the printing press was closely guarded or simply bribed; at the same time nothing remained untried to bind the working people to the Empire. In short, all types of reactionary policy were used to prevent a new explosion. Doing more than Napoleon did is not feasible, and we do not believe there is another landlord who could do more. It is understandable that Bonaparte became the idol of the Bourgeois of every nation. It is well known how much stupid admiration the whole liberal and conservative press have poured on the head of the man of the 2nd of December5. He was the human avatar of wise foresight, endowed with supernatural qualities of all wisdom and all power…
And the end? After 22 years of slumber the believed dead giant stretched out its limbs, on the fourth of September 1870 it left the tomb – Napoleon’s throne was toppled – Socialism lived!!
Half a year later the Commune was founded! Socialism, which in 1848 only endured for four days, now stood up to the combined French and Prussian military force for two months, and it was only subjugated after an 8 day street battle. The butchery was greater than in 1848; the number of deportations was tripled. The whole European bourgeoisie enthusiastically celebrated and express their approval in every way. However just two months later the Bourgeois world could ascertain that it was celebrating only a Pyrrhic victory, and that it had cut its own flesh. France had lost its intelligent workers, and Socialism was not dead! It lived in Paris, in France, in Germany, everywhere in the world. It lives in the breast of every worker who has a heart that can feel, and a head which can think.
The bourgeoisie cannot kill every worker, and if it could, then what would be the result? It would only doom itself. The Bourgeoisie exists because of the workers, and it will cease to exist because of the workers – it cannot escape from this fatal dilemma. Now society is producing a proletariat constantly growing in number, the economic circumstances propel to proletariat towards Socialism. The more powerful the Bourgeoisie become, the more gigantic the proletariat, and thus the socialist movement becomes stronger, and the more powerful the opposition to the Bourgeoisie. If the Bourgeoisies wishes to become more powerful it must strengthen the proletariat and the socialist movement its mortal enemy. If it could nullify the proletariat and Socialism it would destroy those who sustain it. In this fatal cycle it must perish.
By “blood and killers” they cannot expel Socialism from the world. In June 1848 they tried in vain to do that; and the Paris blood letting in May 1871 did not have a better result. Just as the June rebels revived the Commune, so to will the Commune be celebrated by inspiring repeated eruptions always more quickly and with more force, until the old world has exhausted all its remedies and fallen into ruin, unless a peaceful way can be found, which we will speak of later.
***
That crude force is not enough to defeat Socialism, our opponents more or less understand. That’s why they have started to fight us with moral weapons. They’ve founded Workers Association’s that teach harmony between Labour and Capital; that the true interests of the working class is that it works hand-in-hand with the capitalists; and that the disputes on the social question is only thrown up by a few, glorious men, the unconscious, and the instigators… Now, they continue to claim: that they founded these associations for US. The untruth of this harmony will be conclusively proved most convincingly by everyday experience. The workers will learn by their own experience that workers and capitalists have nothing in common.
Facts mock this harmony. How many times have we seen the most intense action, the most comprehensive strikes taking place by workers trained in this sacred harmony of labour and capital, but in their heads and hearts the milk of this harmony-wisdom has been turned by the influence of experience into dead snake venom.
Could a handful of people be the cause behind a movement that has appeared in every country at the same time and has been directly dominating Europe for almost a century? What an insult to the working class in such an assumption! Hundreds of thousands, millions of workers would have to have been guided like sheep by a handful of rebel leaders. Oh, gentlemen bourgeoisie and other reactionaries, if workers were such easily duped sheep as you suppose, then surely they would be in your nets, for you certainly do your best to capture them, and you have a hundred times as many resources to tie them to you than the Socialists do. But such an assumption is, firstly, and insult to the workers, secondly, completely incorrect, and thirdly absolutely foolish – and can only be the result of deep ignorance of the whole history of social evolution.
The child, with his naive fantasies populates the world with princes, giants and dwarfs. It only sees extraordinary miracles and conjectures secret powers everywhere. On similar ground to the child stands everyone who believes that human history is the result of a handful of extraordinary individuals – good and bad – and who see in every event, and every movement nothing more than the capricious whim or desire of this or that person. On this framework, until very recently stood the whole of historiography, which was nothing more than an unbroken chain of the names of famous princes, generals and heroes, mixed with a great quantity of knowledge about battles, conspiracies, deaths etc. in short, just a novel of the worst kind, partly a rogue novel, partly a children's story.
For scientific historiography historical evolution is the struggle between Man and Nature. It knows no arbitrariness, it sees only necessity, nothing miraculous nor extraordinary; everything develops according to nature, the general laws of Nature. The miracles of the grey legged legends disappear before the torch of the critic, just as the monstrous nebulae dissolve before the coming dawn. The cult of heroes is thrown down and draped in the rags of superstition, the “great men” are humiliated, humanity is raised!
The path of History is a constant struggle of man against nature – an uninterrupted battle for existence; firstly; a battle to not be subject to Nature; later, a battle to subject Nature. Our culture is the result of this many thousands of years long battle.
***
Friends, without a doubt you all know that the biblical creation story is scientifically inverted. Man did not spring perfectly from the hands of a creator; humanity did not degenerate later either, so that God had to send prophets and saviours and other miraculous enlightenments, to make their fellow men better. The original man was not the straight, crooked creature, looking proudly at the sky and wearing upon his forehead the sign of nobility as chief of all creation – as the fable of the Old Testament tells the story. Our ancient ancestors were in all ways similar to the animals, and it is only through hazardous coincidence and favourable circumstances, that they could raise themselves above the level of their parents.
Historical time began only when humanity became capable of living in solidarity with other people. At that time Man became a social animal, and its history begins. The Man-alone could not raise himself above the other animals, and has neither history nor evolution. Only through society did humanity become humans. All progress, all culture is the result of social collaboration. And the more advanced are social matters, than the faster culture develops and the higher the level culture obtains. Coming from the first individuals to a people, then later onto nations and then the whole world – that is the course of human evolution. The ideal of universal human solidarity is the highest principle of culture and morality. To fully implement it is the task of Socialism.
It Follows: that civilisation is the result of collective labour. Every man during his life has to struggle for existence. Every individual plays a part in the combined total of cultural riches. The “Great Men” whose stories are told by official histories also played a part, and it is possible due to favourable circumstances that they played more of a part than their contemporaries who remain unknown, but by themselves they were not capable of doing that much more, unless helped along by the circumstances created by society. Before the critic’s sharp eye the social idols suffer the same fate as the religious idols. Just as the Christians through out idols and taught the mute and the fearful that the God they feared was only a piece of rotten wood, so science topples the “great people” from their pedestals and revels to the people that they admired mere Chimeras.
Scientific history makes heroes and miracles disappear and esteems every person. Not thanks to the miracles of a select few has mankind reached the stage on which it stands, no, humanity has risen like the Coral Islands of the Pacific: through the common work of billions of individuals.
Friends, forgive me this excursion from my subject. I wanted only to show how incorrect is the supposition that human evolution is fulfilled by the actions of a few great people, some bad, some good. And also that the present social movement is not created by a handful of men, - such a claim is most unscientific, and can only be believed by children, the ignorant and the lowly, enslaved souls.
***
But our Goal is Revolution!
Revolution! A terrifying phantom for old women of both sexes. Yes, we are revolutionaries! We desire the revolutionary change of the present system. But, let us look that phantom moment in the eyes, and it’ll immediately lose its terrifying qualities.
We live today in the middle of a revolution, and we live through a revolution. The whole of human history is a ceaseless revolution, a revolution is born, it grows, progresses, and finally changes life. For the whole of human existence Man is a revolutionary. That it is discontented with what is and what it has, always desiring something different and new – this is the very essence of human nature. If a human or humanity ceased to be revolutionary, then at the same time it would cease to exist! Revolution is life – non-revolution, non-movement is death.
Its true that the word Revolution has another meaning; change by force the existing forms of state or society. Well, who causes this forceful change? Who is responsible for all the revolutions that have erupted so far in this sense? Not those, who according to the law of human evolution seek to create new forms and new contents for the new expression of new thoughts; the guilty are those who through egoism or need try to disrupt the natural and necessary course of human evolution. Just like how water flows calmly and vigorously if there are no barriers, but becomes violent when meeting obstacles, so too is the advancing of humanity. Rebels and subversives are only born when obstacles to progress are put in place. All revolutions in this sense were caused, not be so called revolutionaries, but by those who barred the natural course of evolution.
All revolutions have a defensive not offensive character. The Peasant Rebellions of Germany6 were defensive because it tried to defend sacred human rights against obstinate feudalism. The attack on the Bastille was an act of defence because it was prompted by the menacing manoeuvres of soldiers by the court. The occupation of the Tuileries palace on the 10th of August 1792 and the Reign of Terror were necessary to protect France from internal plots and outside attack; The July Revolution7 was the defence of civil liberty from attacks by the Bourbon dynasty; the February Revolution was an act of defence against the corrupt Bourgeois-regime; The March Revolution of 1848 in Germany was a defence against the hostile actions of the Kings and Princes; the June Days were a defensive revolt by the people against the impositions of the Bourgeoisie who wished to stifle Socialism at all costs; defence was the September revolution, needed to protect France from the consequences of a shameful attack by the State; and finally the Commune which was the manifestation of defence because it aimed to be the salvation of the Republic after being twice betrayed by the government.
And so in the future no revolution will break out that does not have a defensive character. We are revolutionary people, but the revolutionary movement that we work for, will only develop violence and bloodshed our opponents want it; regents or the Bourgeoisie.
***
Friends! To prove to you that our movement is not artificial or intentionally made, but grows naturally from social conditions, which sustain it and will allow it to triumph – I will no speak on the main reproaches that are used to calumny our goals and methods.
First and foremost, there is the attempt to slander the so-called “Leaders” to shake the faith of the masses in them. “The leaders” it is said “live off of the sweat of the workers, and our only interested in filling their own pockets” etc. Well, it is true that there are people who live off of the sweat of the workers; people who live in luxury at the expense of workers; and those people are the gentlemen bourgeoisie, factory owners and other exploiters; who get rich by not paying workers the full value of their labour. Live by the sweat of the workers! Really, the bourgeoisie already accomplishes this so thoroughly that a subsequent harvest has little promise! If the so-called leaders were men not acting out of conviction but for profitability, well, they would turn to the right people: where there is something to gain, so to the gentleman bourgeois, to the rulers, who have so much money. He who wants to sell himself, sells himself to whoever can pay the most. That’s what a bunch of journalists do, wait for an order from their masters to start throwing insults at our heads.
Well then, what profits can these “leaders” hope for? By standing above the others they earn the first and most energetic attacks from the opposition! Furthermore: It is an uncertain existence full of misfortune that they lead. The fight itself – made against us with weapons most dishonest- rewards the fighters with special emotions, in return it requires full self-denial of normal family life, abandonment of assured existence, he often has to suffer actual misery, is this luck so enviable?
Those who sell themselves, sell themselves for a life of comfort luxury, not for a life of hunger and want. Among the so-called “leaders” of our party I know of none who has not through his work in the party suffered material loss!
Certainly for our opponents – whose sole leader is naked selfishness- such self-denial is an unsolvable mystery; they are not capable of understanding, that ideas and principles exist, that for dangers and misery, can make the people they touch insensitive. If they could understand that, then they would not be our opponents!
***
We want to abolish property….
Well, friends, the crudest lie is never told.
What is property? According to rationality and science there is only one method for creating economic value. That sole method is: Labour.
Capital, which economists regard as the second or even the main means, is itself only a creation of Labour.
Well, if Labour creates value, then it has a right to that value which it has created, this is the foundation of Socialism.
Every worker must enjoy the fruits of their work; in other words: every worker has a property right to the whole result of their own labour. My property is the product of my own work. From this result, it follows that no one has the right to the results of the work of another person. The end point of all this is therefore that socialism will make owner every man who works, and will leave hungry everyone who can work but does not want to.
So, I think that, far from being the abolishers of property, we are in fact the most ardent defenders of property!
Today the do-nothing is more esteemed than the man who works. Today the material state of man is disproportional to the value of his work. According to our views on property the vast majority of should be owners, but because that vast majority does work, it is not so. On the contrary: property is the monopoly of one class; so the vast majority have to give up property and work to create property for others. That is precisely why we are fighting today's society, because it denies the right of possession to the vast majority and steals from it its rightful property.
You must understand me clearly: I do not wish to say that every individual bourgeois or capitalist is a thief. We do not fight against persons, but against the system, unlike our opponents, who avoid attacking our ideas, but earnestly endeavor to cover with impurities our personalities – a sure sign that they do not believe in the correctness of their own cause.
No, I’m not talking about a separate Bourgeoisie, and blaming them for the evils of today’s society. Our understanding of history precludes this thinking. The bourgeois world was born from natural necessity out of the feudal world, just as feudalism in its own way was born out of the Ancient world. For us History is an organism, not a mechanism. We know that everything has its own cause, its own foundation. Only the most lamentable know nothing could attribute the phenomena in the world to arbitrary intention. We do not proudly state “Humanity, until now, has gone along paths that are bad, we will show it the right way; and those who do not think like us are ignoramuses or rogues!” That would be the chatter of immature boys or charlatans. The present system of production has evolved organically from the previous systems of production; it is a higher form than those before it, that is why it has the right to exist. But now it is in opposition to a new system of production – the socialist system – to which it will, in its own way have to cede its place, just as the petite-bourgeois production of the Middle Ages yielded.
Suffice to say, we do not attack property generally, but only this current form of property, that property which more accurately is a tool for exploiting other people, who are condemned to be dispossessed.
***
Let’s take a quick luck at how property is born today.
Labour is the source of all wealth – so the economists unanimously admit. From this it follows, that no one has the right to value that is not the result of his own work. Well, the productive potential of every human is nearly equal – one creates a little more, another, a little less; but not that much more or less beyond the average amount. So: the value of everyone’s work, under similar conditions, is approximately equal; therefore, if everyone received the full value of their labour, than property would be shared out approximately equally.
However, instead of equality, the greatest inequality reigns. What is the cause of this?
Well, if you live in a region with factories, then you have a good opportunity to investigate the foundations of this inequality. Each of you knows some manufacturer and seen him get rich.
Let us take as an example, Mr Zimmermann of Chemnitz. This gentleman arrived 20 or 30 years ago in Chemnitz, as poor as the poorest among us. He successfully raised a little capital for a factory (back then a small amount of capital was enough). Fortune favoured him, that is: he got a lot of orders. These orders were given to the workers he hired, while he himself did his part of the work, though a part no greater than that of any of his workers – because everyone knows that the capabilities of Mr Zimmermann were no better than average. In the beginning Mr Zimmermann hired only a dozen workers, then later a hundred, and then more than a thousand. Mr Zimmermann is now a millionaire, while his workers remain dispossessed proletarians.
But what is the difference? Neither the quantity nor the quality of the Mr Zimmermann’s work explains this difference. He didn’t work better nor harder than his employees. And, although he became a millionaire, they remained poor devils. Zimmermann did not become a millionaire through his own work; for then even the workers who did at least as much work as Mr. Zimmermann did would all become millionaires. This did not happen – only Zimmermann got rich, and his workers are still poor.
Here, friends, is the solution to the riddle. From the fruits of the common labour Mr Zimmermann receives more than he is entitled to, and the workers received less than their entitlement.
The current methods of mass production make it impossible for one person to work productively on an individual scale; it requires the collaboration of many; it needs machines and complicated tools, whose cost is beyond the strength of everyone, who only have at hand the fruits of one’s own labour. It follows then, that everyone who does not have capital – and who through their own labour capital is not acquirable – must then sell his labour, to another, who possesses the necessary capital.
The price, paid to the labourer is his salary. If that wage were the total value of the labor delivered, then the entrepreneur, even if he employed a thousand workers, would not get rich. But the wage is only a part of the value created by the wage earner. The entrepreneur pays less salary than the labour value. In other words: the salary paid is not equal to the value of the labour – the worker creates, in addition to the value paid to him, an additional value which is not paid to him. This greater value (value surplus) is the building blocks of the current bourgeois capital.
From this, everyone can clearly see that: the so-called employer is not the benefactor of the employee, but that the employee is the benefactor of the employer! Of course not a voluntary benefactor! Because his charity makes him a proletarian, the slave of the one he enriches. Is that an order? A right? Only those who personally profit from this system can approve of it.
The wage system is the foundation of the current ruling class, and of the bad things that accompany this rule. It is for this reason that the abolition of the wages system is the main task of the socialist movement. To the worker the total value of his work – that is our goal. We do not attack property – on the contrary we wish to make enable everyone to have property. The worker – instead of working on account of another, who exploits and enslaves him – will work on his own account, and as a free person will receive the total value of their work.
This we want to achieve we organisation. For we do not at all deny the benefits of concentrated production. We know, that common work improves the results of labour. We wish to preserve the profits of the current mass production methods; we want them to be even greater; but we want to divide those profits equally amongst all, and not remain the monopoly of a few.
***
We want to destroy harmony!
Stupid lie. We want to establish harmony. We want to transform present society, which causes discord, and pits one against another: suppressors and suppressed, exploiters and exploited. Our harmony is the community. There will no longer be Masters and servants, only colleagues, people, with the same rights and duties.
Only on the basis of equality is harmony possible. Currently, the capitalist has different interests to those of the worker. These interests are in direct conflict. This creates the sharpest discord, instead of peace. The “harmony” of today, between workers and capitalists is nothing but an invention for children and for workers who have still not learned to think.
***
We want to “Share everything!”
We want to take, and to share among ourselves, the property of the owning class! Well, it has happened repeatedly that the possessing class was in the power of the proletariat, that the proletariat therefore had a good opportunity of "partitioning," or, frankly, of plundering its owners. I return to the February Revolution, of the March rebellion in Vienna, Berlin etc. and the Paris Commune etc.
Despite the many lies deliberately scattered about us, however, it is a fact that one never respects the property of others more than during such crises. Firstly: The proletariat knows how to distinguish between people and States; it knows that States do not change by a simple change in possession. Secondly: Revolutionary times noble the heart; they spark the sacred fires of the highest idealism, even within the worst characters. During these times there are fewer crimes compared to those that occur in ordinary times.
In Paris, the workers respected property to the extent that they shot thieves. I myself in the end of February 1848 saw chalked on the wall of the Tuileries the words “Thieves will be punished with death”.
That reminds me of an interesting statement by Heinrich Heine the famous German poet: “The bourgeoisie saw the overthrow of the June throne with quiet resignation; but when they learned that thieves had been shot, then suddenly a wave of terror fell upon them — and Mr. and Mrs. Rothschild. and other capitalists ran away from Paris, where they were no longer felt themselves in danger ”.
Certainly it is the case that the true looters, the true thieves are not the workers but the gentlemen and capitalists.
We also reject this reproach from our enemies.
How employers "share" with their workers, we have already explained this above.
In short - we don't want to share; we are, on the contrary, the most ardent opponents of this "partition." We want to eliminate the partisans, all of whom deprive the workers of part of the value of their work; also those who drain the people by taxes. We want to protect society, work and property from the swarms of locusts that in society, in the stock market, in industry, in trade, swallow the fruits of the labor of others.
So how do our opponents imagine the partition they have attribute to us? Do they believe that the workers are so naive that they believe that their situation would improve if the money and all the goods were divided equally between them? Every worker knows that such a division would in no way change the essence of society; only the consequences would be removed for a time, but the causes would exist, and soon bear the same results.
Such nonsense does not come to the head of any socialist. Socialism views society as a living organism, not as a constructed mechanism. Like every animal and plant organism, society is constantly changing, evolving from the bottom up, from one step to the next - only with the difference that the collective organism we call society is immortal and indestructible, and from all crises will rise with rejuvenated forces. For this reason we reject mechanistic changes and promote organic changes. The system of wage labour on which the current methods of work are built will be abolished, and replaced with the system of common labour, which guarantees to everyone the fruits of their own labour. We will end the exploitation of Labour by Capital.
It will not even be necessary to expropriate private property; for, circumstances will compel the capitalists, of their own accord, will present to the community what they have in order to live and take part in the new system.
Because, keep in mind, the workers do not need the capitalists. It is labour that produces value, and capital is nothing without labour.
For example: if there were a huge submersion in which all workers would perish, while all capitalists could save themselves with its capitals, factories, machines, shining palaces and every luxury. What would happen then? The capitalists would have to work themselves, and would immediately become workers, or they would perish amidst all their treasures. But, if the opposite happened, if all capitalists would perish, with all their capital, whilst the workers could only save themselves, without factories, without machines, without any capital, just sufficient nutrients until the next harvest, what would happen? The workers would simply forge tools, they would build houses, dig through the earth, dig mines, and after a few years the destroyed capital would be fully recreated, then later, the signs of disaster would have disappeared; but the workers would live happier than before, they would have the capital, but without a capitalist class. Because I'm sure that no one would restore vanished capitalism.
The above example shows quite clearly that the worker does not need the capitalist, while the capitalist without the worker cannot exist, not as a capitalist at least. Instead of wanting to divide, we want to deny to the capitalists, their "share" with their workers.
***
We are the Barbarians of the present age.
We want to destroy civilisation – the triumph of socialism will be the death of civilisation. Well. The party, whose program demands Education without cost and generally demands all institutions of education be made free of charge is not affected by such a rebuke.
Certainly, we wish to destroy what our enemies call “civilisation”. We want to destroy; slavery and exploitation; we want to kill the seed of hate and discord between the peoples; we want to get rid of ignorance, that spiritual night in which the majority of humanity is pushed. Your civilization, gentlemen, is the opposite of civilization; it can indeed only exist, by holding the people in ignorance, closing for it the temple of the true civilization. Opening that temple for the people, that is our goal. A science you monopolized for a few chosen ones who in return must blindly submit to you, that science we want to do for the common good of all mankind.
And that will happen with the system of real public schools — which will no longer be schools, not schools where the minimum knowledge is taught – but public schools in the broadest sense of the word, schools for the people, which will give all children the maximum of knowledge; who will wake up in every child every talent or ability.
Socialism is the danger and menace of civilisation! It will give to everyone a talent and the possibility of improving themselves… Is this a danger, or a threat? Current society only allows a few to improve and better themselves and develop their talents. The vast majority of talents are suffocated today. It is often surprising that at such times so many extraordinary people rise up. Well, that happens in times when hidden talents are given an opportunity to develop. These mainly occurs in revolutionary times, for when people need new strengths to develop new ideas. During these times though, it is not that there are more talents than in ordinary times, but that the need for talents is greater. The occasion not only makes thieves, it also makes great people. A great man is an ordinary man who has found favorable circumstances to grow up.
So, the greatest quantity of civilisation for all, - free science, freedom for everyone. Of course, we want to destroy your civilization, because it forces science to sell itself to the rich and to the powerful; for it is based on injustice; for it is utterly immoral; because it means the prostitution of science, of the whole spiritual life.
***
The defenders of today’s society of impurities and dirt, also throws us this reproach: that we want to annihilate the family and introduce the common ownership of women and free love.
Well, we certainly do want free love: we really want to free love from the shackles that today's society has attached to it. But if our opponents wish to talk about the ownership of women and the annihilation of the family, then they have only to look in a mirror. For they blame us for their own sins. Instead of imposing the common ownership of women, we want to abolish the already existing ownership of women. Instead of destroying the family – which it is today humiliated and for the great multitude is an inaccessible ideal – we want to ennoble the family, and make family happiness open to all.
Where today is the “sanctity of the family”? About which our enemies make so much noise? Is it to be found in those hundreds of thousands of prostitutes wandering the streets of the cities, who rent their bodies to every man who presents money?
In every country where class differences exist: everywhere where there is an abyss between rich and poor; everywhere where exploitation of man by man is the rule and custom – there is the torment of prostitution. It is indeed the inevitable consequence of the present state, the natural complement of bourgeois marriage and a necessary institution of today's society. Our society puts before hundreds of thousands of young women this choice: to get into trouble or sell oneself; and so as long as that lasts, so to will prostitution last. Prostitution will only disappear when all people are given the possibility to live honestly. And to achieve this, a revolutionary change to the present system is necessary.
The most beastly fallen woman still merit our pity, our sympathy. Her story is a social drama, affectionate to anyone who has a human heart in their chest, and who can read in the human heart. Poor education, bad examples, misfortune, homelessness – these are the roots. Who would proudly throw stones at this fallen woman, the truest victim of our shameful society? Prostitution is nothing more than the common ownership of women – in its most crude and impure form. And they accuse us of wanted to the common ownership of women! If we desired that, then we not have declared war on present society!
Look at the institution of marriage. Isn’t marriage reduced to prostitution by capitalism? Is it really based on true love, and free inclination? Is it not merely a spectacle, a matter of negotiation instead of the linking of hearts? Doesn’t the woman sell herself in marriage most of the time? Is she not bought like merchandise? Is it not the case that among the upper classes marriages for love are prohibited? That their mutual property is precisely weighted?
Is it not considered foolish to marry “under one's own state”? Do you not praise the “skill” and “practicality” of poor parents who encourage their daughters to give themselves in some way to rich lustful men? Wouldn’t a manufacturer who would allow his own daughter, to be the wife of a laborer, if they would love one another one another be declared foolish? Well, isn’t all this prostitution? With the a woman of today just another commodity?
Here is an example: Two peasants sit together. The son of one wants to marry the daughter of the other. “My son will get so much land, so many oxen, horses, pigs ---- how much will you give your daughter?” - “I could not give more than that.” “That is too little; you must give more oxen and horses.” “I cannot.” “Well, in that case, let’s drop the matter.”
This is a scene from life, which even Juvenal8 could not think up a more accurate satire. We are proud of our civilization, we claim to stand much higher than the savages, and yet we, like the savages, trade girls for cattle and pigs!
Our whole society is based on the degradation of humanity, which it turns into commodities. That a woman must sell her body, is only part of the system that forces the worker to sell his labour i.e. his body, his spirit, himself. There is however a difference. Labour itself is necessary, but it is only circumstances that attach shame and hardships to it for the workers. But what the prostitute does is the last defilement of human nature. Love – she can give but must not sell. Selling love, whether with marriage or without is prostitution!
Every marriage, instituted by Mammon, is all the same even if the priest blessed it, it is prostitution. Every man's connection with a woman, based on love, no even without a priests blessing, is a true marriage.
And capitalism has also made women wage slaves; it also locks her to the factories. Didn’t capitalism destroy the family in this way? And that is not all. Insatiable capitalism drags even the children to its alter of human commodities. Husband, wife, children – all are wage slaves. Capitalism kidnaps the home and the family and everything else. And yet, in hypocritical indignation, the pious capital strikes its chest and shouts to sky for the protection of society from the bad socialists who want to eliminate the family. O, you vile hypocrites! The worker does not have a family, you have forbade him from having one, and it is the desire for a family, so that he can be a human, that he has become a socialist.
Precisely because of the annihilation of the family, precisely because of the humiliation of women, today's society has lost the right to existence, and condemned itself to death.
The woman, with her more delicate feeling, is more acutely aware of her humiliation than the man. Hence the boundless enthusiasm of many women for socialism; hence the ardent participation of women in all revolutions. During the heroic battle of the Commune, young mothers, with children on their breasts, resisted the bullets, and encouraged the men to persevere; young women grabbed the banner, which fell from their hands of a dying warrior, and carried it, in contempt of death, against the enemy, until they fell, pierced by the bullets of the Order bandits9. Hundreds of captured women and girls, though mortally wounded, repeated endlessly the cry: Long live the Commune! and through bleeding eyes still showed contempt for the savage triumphs.
“Filthy Pétroleuses10, dirty prostitutes! Abominable sickness!” the reactionary Bourgeois press roars in chorus.
Filthy Pétroleuses? A despicable offense, a bourgeois lie, invented by rogues, believed only by fools, refuted even by honest opponents! Dirty prostitutes? Undoubtedly, among those heroines there were a few though very few prostitutes11. But was it the Commune that pushed them to prostitution? No gentlemen Bourgeoisie, that was your society, it is your best of all possible worlds, which pushes women into dishonour. The commune, on the contrary, enabled them to rise from the mud, to cleanse themselves of the filth of your society. And you marvel at that fiery enthusiasm for the Commune, and a savage demonic hatred of the old society – the society of prostitution – that pushes them to the battle? And you are surprised that women – half angels and half furies- tried to settle their lives of shame by death for a holy thing?
Ah, the “eternal womanhood” has sprung up in those profaned women, like a foot-snake, and it has whilst dying sunk its teeth into your society. You call yourselves Christians, but you forget that Jesus shamed those who wanted to stone an adulterous woman to death? And you bravely cursed them to the tomb, those victims of your society, those martyrs for a new ideal, who showed the slave the end of slavery, to the woman the end of prostitution!
You, friends, understood that the woman problem is not a separate problem, but is a part of the general social problem. A woman is the necessary completion of man. Without the woman the man cannot be a man; without the help of woman the man cannot realize human ideal. Women, they feel the misery of the current society the most, and so they will also feel the happiness of social liberation the most. It is therefore the duty of every woman, of every young lady to encourage the husband, the fiancé to take part in our movement; and of every mother, to proclaim to her children the gospel of liberty and of equality, that a new generation may rise up, awareness of their human worthiness, who will not tolerate that there are still lords and servants on earth.
***
So I have proved that all the reproaches can be thrown back at our enemies. Not against, but for property, we fight; not against, but for the family; not against, but for civilization; not against, but for order; not against, but for harmony.
The labor movement is a civilized movement, not created by some chance or by someone's whim, but born of natural causes. I proved that only ignorance and folly may doubt the justice of the socialist movement; and that any attempt to stop that movement is so senseless, and desperate as any attempt by an ox would be to try to stop a racing locomotive. Just as the locomotive would thunder through the senseless opponent, so too will the labor movement go across all barriers, straight to the target.
We can classify our enemies into two parties – enemies due to ignorance, and enemies due to ill will. To the first I say: Get to know our movement; you will cease to fear it immediately after learning about it. The red phantom that frightens you, is just like all phantoms merely a creation of ignorance; it will vanish with the under the searching gaze of the intellect.
And you who fight against us because of ill will; you who know that we are right; you who oppose us only out of selfishness – consider that myopic selfishness is you leader. The present society gives you great profits, but there does not exist any power that will save your privileges. Your reign will soon be at an end. You must fall. But you can mitigate your fall; you can avoid catastrophe. To fight against us can have but one result: It will increase the birthing pains and quite possible hasten the birth.
You can only lose if by violent obstacles you impose a violent character on the crisis. To avoid catastrophes will be in the interests of all, both you and us. It is in the interests of all, to build a bridge to travel from the old world to the new. Only through a series of compromises can the social movement be resolved peacefully. You bourgeoisie, which has an army, at the capital, in the press, in all material and all spiritual powerhouses – it's up to you to put the solution of the social problem on the path of compromises and reforms. All that is necessary is your will. For the will, you must first understand that the present situation is based on injustice, and is absolutely intolerable. That is why I repeat to our honest opponents: Study the social problem! To understand the social problem is to solve it. If it is misunderstood, then it will cause the most terrible political and social earthquakes.
The social problem is the Sphinx, who kills those who do not know how to solve its riddle: but will kill itself immediately, once its riddle is solved. The answer to the riddle of the Sphinx was man. The answer to the riddle of the social problem is also man. And the world will not calm down until that riddle, Man is solved. Until that solution, the sphinx of the social problem will continue to show society its threatening face; it will continue to throw society from one terror to another, from one bloodshed to another.
Two worlds stand one against the other: the old world and the new, the dead world of the present society, and the ideal world of the future. Between the two worlds is a deep and wide abyss. Current society is running blindly toward that abyss; savage terror will start to catch it; it looks like a bunch of buffaloes that, running away from a burning meadow, gallop forward with their eyes closed, mad with terror, not paying attention to the wide abyss that opens before them. To jump across it is impossible- a few more steps, and they will not even be able to return; the former have disappeared – only after filling the abyss with corpses the latter will be able to reach the opposite side.
Will the abyss between the new and old worlds be filled with corpses? Won't a bridge be built over which we can enter the new world? Our adversaries can do that, and if they do, then they will do immense service to all of humanity.
I will end. What we must do, we see clearly before us. We see the way, we see our duty. They will try to seduce us from that path, or push us away from it. But in Paris, and many other places, socialism proved that it knows how to die for its principles. Our cause is the cause of humanity. It will depend on our opponents whether we rich our goal peacefully or through violent struggle. Whatever the decision, we will accept it, without personal hate. For we also fight for our enemies; it is also for them that we do our liberating work, for they need freedom too.
And you, friends, I advise the following: Work in your societies, calmly, without interruption. Don't let your actions get in the way, spread our ideas - and if discouragement or despair ever fall on you, then follow the example of the noble Jacoby who never wavered, not even when all around him staggered, and always remember his word: “The founding of the smallest workers society will be of more importance to the future historian than the battle of Sadowa”
1The decisive battle of the war between Prussia and Austria in 1866
2The Franco Prussian war of 1870-71
3This is a bit confusing, the date of this speech on the pamphlet was given as 1871, but that was the year of the Paris Commune that Liebknecht is now discussing. I don’t understand why he’s talking about several years passing if that date is correct.
4The French Revolution of 1848 which ended the rule of July Monarchy and returned France to a Republican government for a few years, before being brought down by the Coup of Napoleon III. Initially the Republic had the support of French workers and socialist politicians but by June 1848 tensions between the Bourgeois and socialist movements erupted into open conflict known as the June days.
5The date of Napoleon’s Coup which turned the French Republic into the second French Empire.
6The Great Peasants Revolt of 1524-25.
7French Revolution of 1830
8 Decimus Junius Juvenalis, aka Juvenal, a Roman poet active in the early 2nd century CE. Author of a collection of poems called the Satires, and was an early pioneer of that genre.
9During the Paris Commune France was governed from Versailles by a coalition of reactionary politicians from many parties and ideologies (monarchists representing both royal houses, Bonapartists, Republican etc.) collectively known as the Party of Order.
10Popular name for semi-mythical female arsonists who were blamed by the French government for starting a series of devastating fires during the street fighting during the death of the Paris Commune. Many women were accused and then executed for the crime of arson, but no evidence was provided to prove any of the cases. Some historians believe the Pétroleuses to be fictional, with the real cause of the fires being the artillery bombardments of the French army.
11In fact the Commune received a petition by some sex workers offering to form a fighting unit, though it was rejected. See The Commune a Revolution by Donny Gluckstein.
On Offence and Defence
A Speech by Wilhelm Liebknecht
(1871)
Introduction
Wilhelm Liebknecht was an important figure in the history of German socialism, he was amongst the first generation of socialist politicians who founded the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). And it was partially thanks to his activity that the SPD grew from a small sect into a large political party with a mass following. Despite this he’s often been overshadowed throughout much of his life. The early period of his political activity is dominated by the personalities of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Ferdinand Lassalle all of whom he had met while moving through the German labour movement that spanned much of Europe.
And his legacy has been overshadowed by the life and death of his son Karl Liebknecht, who followed in his fathers footsteps to be a leading figure in the SPD before its Imperial turn to support the conflict that became the First World War shattered his faith in the party. Karl would be a prominent figure in the 1918 German revolution alongside Rosa Luxemburg, both where murdered by right wing military officers in January 1919, with the support of a government dominated by SPD politicians.
This speech was given during what might be called the height of German Social Democracy, its membership and affiliated associations continued to grow despite repressive legislation by the Bismarck cabinet and its speeches and pamphlets openly talked about revolutionary change. It was translated into Esperanto in 1913 by W.C. Nutters, and this translation that I have used to create this English version. The speech was dated 1871, but I believe this to be a mistake passed on some remarks Liebknecht makes within, though the best I can do to place it is in middle 1870s. Since I’ve not been able to conclusively prove when this speech was given I’ve kept the 1871 date, if nothing else I know for certain that this speech couldn’t have been given before 1871.
The speech covers many topics and is an appeal to the workers of Germany to get behind the program of the SPD and support social revolution. It touches on the Prussian wars to unite Germany and defends the record of several workers uprising that had broken out before, especially that of the Paris Commune.
Wilhelm Liebknecht was himself a participant of the wave of revolutions that rocked Europe throughout 1848-9. Though in a minor capacity, he went to Paris after hearing about the uprising in February but arrived to find a lull, the July Monarchy of the House of Orleans had fallen, and the new Republic was at the time stable and enjoyed the support of many of France’s socialist politicians. Shortly after he joined a column of exiled Germans who were marching into the German states (this was before the unification of Germany in 1871) to spread revolution there. Liebknecht was arrested and charged with treason in Baden, fortunately the revolution did arrive in Baden just after Liebknecht, the prison was stormed and the prisoners were released.
After the revolutions of 1848 had been defeated Liebknecht lived in the German exile community in Switzerland, before being expelled for trying to build a mass socialist movement in that country. He ended up in London, becoming acquainted with Karl Marx and would remain a close colleague and drinking companion of Marx for many years. He returned to German territory in 1862 after an amnesty for 1848 revolutionaries was passed.
Having returned to German territory Liebknecht joined or founded over a dozen socialistic organisations and wrote for a number of socialist newspapers including Der Social-Demokrat (The Social Democrat), Der Volksstaat (The People’s State) which he also edited and Vorwärts (Forwards) which he also published in 1876. His journalism got him into trouble with the authorities on several occasions. Most relevant to this speech was the 1872 treason trial of Wilhelm Liebknecht and his party colleague August Bebel, the trial was prompted by their opposition to the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and demand for the working classes to launch revolutionary warfare against their own governments instead of supporting a blood letting for land, plunder and supposed “glory”.
This speech does touch on some of that material which Liebknecht made in speeches and in newspapers articles during that conflict. I suppose its worth noting that Liebknecht and Bebel’s position on war is the opposite of what would become the SPD’s policy in the beginning of the 20th century, where the SPD was both the largest party in Germany and an increasingly active collaborator in German Imperialism. There were still SPD members willing to take a Wilhelm Liebknecht line in 1914-18, one of which was his own son Karl, but when they aired their views the party itself acted like the German Imperial courts, accused them of treason and forced them out into the margins.
With that and the two year sentences to imprisonment in a fortress both men received in mind, I would speculate that the earliest this speech could’ve appeared was 1873. Beyond the war commentary the speech expands to include fighting on the social plan and covers many topics about contemporary industrialised capitalist society, usually Liebknecht uses the rhetorical device of turning hostile arguments on their head. The remarks on sex work and women in general wouldn’t earn him any awards from the 19th century feminist movement and certainly not from our current movement. But beyond that I would say the speech has aged fairly well. Its arguments against the morals of capitalist society and the priorities of the State remain current for the most part. The main weakness of the speech reading after the fact is that Liebknecht is clearly a true believer in the politics he promotes and he was certain that the socialist transformation would be close at hand. Which unfortunately hasn’t happened yet, I hope that this pamphlet will give us some incite into why that was the case, and how we might go about changing that.
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