Rosa Luxemburg (“Red Rosa”), the Social Democratic Party, and the Spartacist League

Rosa Luxemburg (“Red Rosa”), the Social Democratic Party, and the Spartacist League

•Agitation for workers rights

•Support labor unions to help workers

• Campaigns to get socialist candidates elected

•Strikes to demand betterwork conditions

•Organized May Day (May 1) (general/mass strike)

Socialist Political Activities

The Second International

– Founded 1880 to support working people’s parties

– Made up of representatives of the socialist parties from all over the world, especially Europe.

– Anti-War: oppose capitalism to oppose war

German Social Democratic Party

Founded 1891

August Bebel

(1840-1913)

Wihelm Liebknecht

(1826-1900)

Highlights of The 2nd International

• August 1907 -- 25 nations met to create the 2nd International of Worker’s Parties

• August 1910 -- International Women's Day for March 8

• July 29, 1914 -- resolved that workers of all nations should demonstrate against the coming war.

World　War　 IAugust 1914 war broke out & patriotism surged and

crowds celebrated, cheering and laughing

Viennese crowd carries pictures of Emperor and Kaiser

Happy French girls send off their “hero” soldiers

Crowd in St. Petersburg, Russia

Crowd cheering in front of Buckingham Palace after hearing of the outbreak of World War I

British soldiers in the trenches

Poison Gas Attack

German soldiers and dogs wearing gas masks

British Soldiers Blinded by Gas

Artillery barrage before an attack

Legless body in a French trench

After the battle

The End of the 2nd International

German Social-Democratic Party decided to be “patriotic” and support the war.

popular and ”electable” in their own countries was more important than international cooperation for peace.

Spartacists split from the party and organized an anti-war peace movement.

1917-the Russian Revolution

The end of the 2nd International

Three FriendsSocial Democrats and Spartacist League leaders

Rosa Luxemburg(1871-1919)

Leo Jogiches(1867-1919)

Karl Liebknecht(1871-1919)

Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919) German Anti-war Activist

• founded Socialist Youth International in 1907.

• with Rosa Luxemburg, founded the Spartacist League

• the only Reichstag Deputy to oppose war credits in the Reichstag in 1914.

• imprisoned in May 1916 for anti-war activity.

• released in November 1918• leader of the failed Berlin uprising in Januar

y 1919.• Murdered on January 15th 1919, along wi

th his life-long comrade Rosa Luxemburg.

Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919)Polish Militant Pacifist

•18 years of age escaped from Poland to Zurich

•helped create the Polish Social Democratic Party.

•electrifying speaker

•advocate of the mass strike

•opposed armed insurrection.

•spent the War inside prison

•arrested by her former Social-Democratic comrades

• murdered on January 15, 1919, at age 47

•1890 he escaped to Switzerland

•long political and personal relationship with Rosa Luxemburg.

•helped Luxemburg founded the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland

•murdered while trying to investigate the assassination of Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht during the Spartacist uprising.

Leo Jogiches (1867-1919) Polish Revolutionary Pacifist

Who murdered them?Mounted Rifle Korps, a Freikorps unit under Captain Waldemar Papst.

•court proceedings gave low sentences to the killers•those who had actually instituted the murders went unpunished.

Freikorps -- personal armies (“free army group”)• returned disgruntled soldiers without jobs• acted as personal armies• often battled in the streets and carried out assassinations• greatly contributed to lawlessness & instability• Adolf Hitler later had his own frei korps

Freikorps of 1919 calling on men to” Guard the Homeland!”

Freikorps soldiers in Berlin 1919

German RAC (Rock Against Communism) group called “Freikorps”

Samples of American RAC music

Blue Eyed Devils: Total War

Bound for Glory: Hear Our War Cry

Day of the Sword: White Supremacy

Sources of Information

Rosa Luxemburg: A Revolutionary for Our Times, by Stephen Eric Bronner. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997

History of Berlin website:http://bdaugherty.tripod.com/berlin/weimar.html

Rosa Luxemburg website: http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/LuxemburgRosa/

Marxist website: http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/

Rosa Luxemburg, film by Margarethe von Trotta, 1986