German Revolution: A History from Beginning to End by Hourly History

Author:Hourly History [History, Hourly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Rosa Luxemburg and the Spartacist Uprising

“Tomorrow the revolution will ‘rise up again, clashing its weapons,’ and to your horror it will proclaim with trumpets blazing: I was, I am, I shall be!”

—Rosa Luxemburg

The results of December 1918 convinced the Spartacists that their political objectives could not be achieved through interaction with the SPD or the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD). They joined with other socialist groups in Germany to form the KPD, the Communist Party of Germany.

Rosa Luxemburg addressed the party on December 31. Luxemburg, who had been born in Poland in 1871, had become a naturalized citizen of Germany when she was 28 years old. At a time when women were fortunate to get any education at all, she had a doctorate. She had grown up in the household of a Jewish family at a time when Poland was controlled by Russia, and it wasn’t long before she, like numerous others at that time, was caught up in underground political activism. Realizing that the political climate of Russia was not safe for an outspoken radical, Luxemburg emigrated to Switzerland in 1889 and studied law and political economy. That same year, she married a German and became a German citizen. She also returned to her passion, politics. Imprisoned for her actions and words, Luxemburg remained steadfast in her belief that the workers of the world needed to unite and overthrow the fetters of capitalism which held them down.

By January 1919, Luxemburg was a well-known socialist whose convictions were on a collision course with the establishment, although she was convinced that the time was ripe for revolution in Germany. “Today we can seriously set about destroying capitalism once and for all. Nay, more; not merely are we today in a position to perform this task, nor merely is its performance a duty toward the proletariat, but our solution offers the only means of saving human society from destruction.”

On January 5, the Spartacists attempted to take over Berlin. Industrial workers and unionists were armed and given instructions to seize specific points in the capital city. Protesters occupied SPD headquarters, government buildings, police stations, and telegraph offices; checkpoints on important roads and intersections were barricaded. Luxemburg and Liebknecht called for a general strike in the hopes that a workers’ revolution would rise against the Ebert government.

Early on, the revolution seemed to be succeeding because both the government and the police were caught off guard. The Spartacists were winning, but Liebknecht lacked a defined plan of action. At the very point in which he could have implemented his political intentions, he chose to write articles for the newspaper rather than seize the moment for which the movement had been waiting.

The government called upon the military. Defense Minister Gustav Noske was recalled and sent to Berlin, where he mobilized 3,000 of the Freikorps militias, which were volunteers who had formerly served in the army. Nationalistic and anti-Bolshevik, the troops had not surrendered their weapons after the war. On January 11, they moved into Berlin and engaged in battle with the revolutionaries, who lacked the expertise of the army veterans.

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